It's a long drive to Fresno, California and it doesn't matter where you're coming from. I made it down to Fresno in time for the climatological equivalent of being dog piled by sumo wrestlers. It was hot and stuffy. Really hot. Just out of curiosity why does anyone live in Redding, California? There's a perfectly good town, Shasta, just 20 miles north on I-5. Why the hell would anyone live in Redding?
I got to see my family. They're great people. Collectively we're a pretty creative and varied group. There are chefs, artists, and musicians. Then there's the couple of us who are hyper analytical but cooky. One cousin is a Hollywood agent and another is a organizational consultant. One's good at math and the rest of us can't add. We all love bourbon. Weird how genetics pan out.
Anyway on the way home my airconditioner crapped out about Stockton. I couldn't get to the cascades fast enough. There was at least a 20 degree difference. I need to go camping at Lake Shasta someday though. The water looked really inviting as I sweated like a Chris Farley on a coke binge. I swear I smelled so bad that the sheets peeled off my bed when I finally got home and went to sleep.

Oh sweet barista

I've been getting my hair cut by a new person. She's really pretty and cool and I think I may be developing a crush on her. When I say she's pretty I mean in the barista sense of pretty. I'd stalk her but I only need a haircut every couple weeks or so. Not like the coffee I need about 10 times a day.
I'm going down to Fresno this week. It's not too exciting but I will get to go through Manteca. I'd like a picture of myself by that sign. Maybe with a look of incredulity, an "I can't believe it's not manteca" look.
So I'm not blogging very much and I thought I would. The thing is, is that Barbri is burning me out. I generally just feel blah. It doesn't make for entertaining reading. It doesn't even make for entertaining thinking. I feel bad when I hang out with my friends because I just kind of sit there and stare ahead. Usually I feel guilty that I'm even there. I wish I knew more but whatever. I'll learn it. I just have to get better at learning it. Maybe after this weekend.

Yesterday the bar review people handed out a letter telling us not to panic. It may not have been totally worthless. There may be some people who are beginning to panic. I can't tell from class. But that wasn't the tenor of the letter. The letter assumed everyone should be in a panic and if they weren't they were going to fail.
It seemed to me that the letter was trying to generate false panic. They want to whip you up into a frenzy. Oh no, you're scared b/c you haven't outlined enough, done enough practice essays or tests, you don't have a comprehensive understanding of the finer points of intergovernmental immunity. Sweet Jesus!
This then puts barbri in the position of selling their product to us. Barbri will help you deal with all this stress. They'll prepare you. Everything will be alright if you just do what they say.
My opinion is that at this point we have realized that a lot of the lectures are crap and that the program we shelled out 2300 bucks for is crap. If they wanted a good program they would focus on drills and practice essays and not on these stupid lectures. We're smart people and can pick that up from reading the mini reviews. But grading and coordinating essays and analyzing why we screw up on the bubble test takes labor. Actually hiring people to look over stuff is much more labor intensive and expensive than having one guy ramble off an outline at us. I know they don't pay the essay people very much. The comments on my essay were limited to "good job". It was obvious they didn't pour over my essay. They didn't bother to make a comment about how to improve my score, which is the entire point of the bar review class.
So we know we were ripped off. Barbri now has to resell us on their crap program. So they circulate a don't panic letter.
I'm not an idiot and I wish they'd stop treating me like one. The barbri fee is far and away the worst $2300 I've ever spent.

"Antonio," you might ask, "What's it like to study for the bar? It's probably pretty chill, like studying for finals right?"
Bizarrely this is not the case. I'm actually touched by the stress. I don't want you to think that I've in any way blown my cool. My cool is unblowable (Except occasionally by women, or almost daily by a woman. Regardless it is not blown by multiple choice tests and essay questions.). My cool is like an immovable glacial monolith in the face of Number 10 Fujita Scale tornado cool blowing winds. Man, I'm cool.
Okay, none of that's really true. I was just looking at Men Without Hats videos on Youtube, but whatever.
Anyway, I'm studying and going to lecture. I tried this during first year and my grades sucked. I went back to my normal educational mode of going to class, blowing off the reading, and asking a lot of questions and my grades went up. Now at bar review they ask me to go back to the original non working method of learning. I don't want to do that but, there's no one to ask questions so my method won't work. I need some kind of hybrid method.
My hybrid method so far involves doing lots a multiple choice tests b/c I like the instant feedback and going to class. The going to class isn't working so well b/c, except for Prof. Whitebread's hilarious Crim lectures, I just end up pissed off.

So I've noticed I can go through my whole day without getting a phone call, an email, or a request to google chat unless I sit down to take a test. I got seven phone calls yesterday in the 50 minute period I spent testing. How does everyone know I'm taking a test? It's spooky.

Magazines and Bubbles

Now that I'm unemployed and out of school I've started spending a lot of time at home. I'm not very good at studying in the library. There's too many people there and I kind of get distracted. So anyway I've been studying at home and I'm finding I'm going through magazines much faster.
Usually it takes me a month to get through an Atlantic Monthly and the various trade magazines I get. Now I'm going through 1 a week. I'm trying to figure out what the good magazines are. I have to recommend against Ready Made. There's only about 20 minutes of reading. I do recommend Juxtapoz but I must say that art criticism is not my favorite writing. I value writing that's clear, concise, and conveys an idea. Art criticism seems to do none of these things, but the pictures are great. So anyway, I'm open to magazine suggestions.
Bar review has improved. One of the instructors pantomimed bestiality the other day. I can now say I've seen the act of bestiality pantomimed twice. It was almost worth 2300 bucks.