Books I’m Reading While Studying for the Bar
I’ve always been a voracious reader. It was an escape from
my scary household when I was a kid. I loved character driven fiction and read
a novel a week starting in late elementary school. I loved disappearing into
the worlds fiction created in my mind.
But then law school sort of broke my imagination. The time
before law school (BLS), I did my best to read books that wouldn’t be turned
into movies or, if they were, before they became movies. I would never even see
the movies. I read plenty of books that hid in dark corners of libraries and
would never be turned into anything other than dust collectors. Bur during law
school I don’t think I even read in bed before lights out during the semester.
However, once the first set of finals came around, I was frozen with panic and
I turned to my old friends – books. Oddly, I found that I could only read books
that had been turned into movies that I had seen. My study schedule for finals:
study for 30 minutes, read made-into-a-movie fiction for 30 minutes, nap for 30
minutes and repeat, while nursing a single sugar-free Red Bull for 18 hour
periods.
I am now studying for the bar exam 7 years after graduation.
I’ve already passed one, but had an urge to take the one in the state where I
now live. Every few years I like to throw my life into upheaval and I think
taking the bar is a manifestation of that. I have no reason to take this bar
and no need to pass. I have a job that pays well. *knock on wood* I have no
hopes of practicing at a firm or really elsewhere. I can’t imagine a scenario
where it would make me more money than I already make. But at least it’s productive
upheaval. It’s requiring me to focus and concentrate and I’m learning really
just for the sake of learning. If I
pass, it’ll be the greatest accomplishment of my life so far. If I fail, it
will be so devastating that it might just break my upheaval/self-sabotage
habit.
Studying now, I find myself back needing to read to calm my
stress. I don’t follow my 30-30-30 cycle or having to read books that have been
turned into movies anymore, but I do read before bed and when I wake. (Reading
in bed in the morning is my favorite time/way to read, but it’s the most
time-consuming and tends to send me into anxiety-dom because I “waste” time
reading when I should be doing something else.)
Books I’ve read/re-read since I started studying for the bar
a month ago:
