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Final Stretch

The weekend that seemed like an eternity away 2 months ago at law school graduation is now upon us: the final weekend before the bar exam. Before I started this summer I had heard from many people who had already taken this exam that the final weekend before you really need to slow down with the studying and definitely take the Monday before the exam totally off to charge up for the 2 days of exam day hell. But another thing those same people were saying is that by the time you reach the bar exam you've had at least 7 years of post high school education and that by now you've figured out what works and what doesn't work when it comes to studying for exams.

And herein lies my dilemma for the final 3.5 days before judgment day. My entire life I have been a procrastinator. I'm the queen of cranking out 15 page papers in the wee hours of the morning the day it's due. I'm practically a professional at cramming for exams of all kinds and it is literally impossible for me to do tons of studying and preparation too far in advance of the drop dead date. I used to try and figure out why I'm such a procrastinator, is it an avoidance tactic because I'm unhappy? Is it mere laziness because I'm actually bored and not being challenged enough? Is it my way of rebelling against the "establishment" and breaking the rules? I finally hit a point where I stopped trying to figure it out and instead just embraced it. I am who I am and I've been doing my thing for many years now. I have usually found success in the end, so why try to change something just for the sake of appeasing others?

So far this summer I have studied more on a regular basis over an extended period for this one exam more than I have ever done so at any previous point in life. But I haven't put in too many long days before this week, I still have tons to memorize and I have barely done any practice essays. The exam is now finely close enough to breathing down my neck that I'm starting to feel the way I normally feel when I shift from being an epic procrastinator to a productive machine that churns out whatever work needs to get done. I'm starting to think that I'm going to throw all the advice to the wind and study my ass off this weekend and study some on Monday as well because that is what I have pretty much done for every major test since I started college. I'm not really worried about burning out before Tuesday because I've never had a problem with exhaustion during any kind of exam before, adrenaline is a pretty powerful thing, and I'm more worried that if I take the day off I'm actually going to forget a ton of stuff or lose whatever tiny ounce of motivation may be creeping up on me and actually do worse on the exam come game time.

Thoughts on this? Anyone think I'm nuts? What are you other barzamers doing this Monday?

Final side note: I've been busy making ridiculously colorful nerdy charts for MBE subjects, check out my Twitter feed for the links.

Full post as published by [ Useless Dicta ] on July 24, 2009 (boomark / email).