Stream of Last-Week-Before-The-Bar Consciousness
My shoulders are so tense. And about 3 weeks ago, I realized that my jaw was constantly aching because I had taken up the habit of clenching it nonstop. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop. I catch myself with my jaw clenched, I relax it, and 20 minutes later, it is aching and clenched again. I try to hold my jaw open purposefully to relieve the tension, but as I fall into focus on my studying, my attention to my jaw wanes and my stress takes over.
I have always been a great test taker. I took standardized tests in school and became used to scoring in the 90something percentile without trying. I was so ill prepared for the ACT that when I showed up and the administrator said to turn to the science section, I was dumbfounded because I had not had any inkling that there would be a science section. I still scored a 32 on it. The LSAT was a slightly different animal. In order to bump my initial score from the 80something percentile to the top 5%, I had to study and practice regularly. Yet, I still wasn’t as buried in my books or as stressed out about the whole process as many of the other takers by whom I was surrounded. There are some things in life that make me nervous, but taking a test had never been one of them.
This bar exam–this is not just the major leagues–it’s the fucking last game of the series.
This is it.
Nothing else.
Gatekeeper test.
Make or break.
If I don’t pass this test, it will not be the end of the world.But it will be the end of the world in which I look at myself with the natural confidence that has propelled me through many situations. I can take the test again, but…..
It’s just a tortuous process. Whoever designed the whole thing ought to be flogged. I feel especially tortured. I have stillbeen social during my study time. I have put in an inordinate number of study hours (based on the way that I usually study), and even taken whole *days* (gasp) on the weekend off. Other people whoare studying with me have deleted their social media accounts and dedicated themselves wholly to the bar. And I oscillate between reminding myself that I typically don’t need to study as much as the next person, so don’t let that frenzy infect me, but then wondering how stupid and imbecillic I will feel if they pass and I fail and everyone is just like…humph, should have studied more.
Then you have the people around you who are so fucking useless. Person Type A does not understand what the big fuss is about and why you can’t come out to do XYZ on the weekends. Person Type B thinks you are a genius because you went to Harvard and always excelled and did everything so effortlessly so of course you will pass, I mean, camman, don’t get so worked up, you’ll kill it. Both types are impossible to have a discussion with. Both types do nothing but heighten your already-palpable anxiety. Both types are everywhere in my goddamn life. Everytime someone says “don’t worry, I know you will do fine,” I feel like an additional burden has been thrown onto my incredibly tense shoulders. How do they know? Because I have always done well? Well, this is different. What if I fail? Then everyone will think I’m so dumb. THey will be in disbelief. They will lose confidence in me and I will lose confidence in myself because that is part of my identity–being so intelligent. How could i lose the bar?
Yea, yea, tell me again how Michelle Obama failed once and all these other smart people to. Fuck that. That is not comforting. Nothing is comforting. Except Chinese food and pizza. But now I’m fat. And I’m going to look terrible in my bikini once I take my bar trip. Everything is a lose-lose. Gawd.
Not to mention the entire stress of bar-study-while-black. I wake up every morning to a new dead body, a new injustice, a new onslaught of racism, and my soul, my mind, they are adrift in helplessness and anger. That is an entirely different post…..
That’s the Last-Week-Before-The-Bar. Nothing is right, everything is wrong and I better pass that goddamn test because the thought of this mental stress again?
