At the end of the third day of the California Bar Exam last year, I closed my laptop and walked, as if through a minefield, across the street to the hotel. One of my reoccurring bar exam nightmares had involved getting hit by a car between the convention center and the hotel, resulting in the demise of my laptop and, along with it, the exam answers that had not yet been uploaded.
I finally relaxed after my SofTest beamed my answers through the ether to the Law Examiners. When I walked out of the hotel to my car it was if the sky was bluer, the air cleaner (unlikely, as I was in Ontario of all places), and life was beginning anew. But I didn’t have the energy to head straight to the bar and celebrate. It was a few days before I was back to my senses and well-rested. And it was at least a week until I was back home in Austin and chucking my prep books into the recycling bin.
One of the great things about going through a challenging experience that spans the course of a couple of months, is that it leaves you with a renewed appreciation for even the most mundane or trivial things. I remember, some time after the bar exam, sitting on my couch, sipping a Coke, and marveling at the silence–I wasn’t listening to a bar lecture and I wasn’t reviewing notes, I was just relaxing, without the I-should-be-studying guilt hanging over my head. And that was HUGE because the I-should-be-studying guilt had been around long before I started prepping for the bar (hello, law school!).
The year since the bar exam has been more difficult than I anticipated, but I can still sit on the couch, sipping a Coke, and soak up the silence without guilt. For that, I am grateful.
Read the full article: One Year Since the Bar Exam