Home stretch...

Finals are concluding, and the stress levels are dropping. Luckily, Cleveland temperatures are rising as well. I'm really looking forward to that two week break before my summer classes begin again.

To those of you who like to imagine the strenuous experience that is law school: on Friday night, I took a three-and-a-half hour open-book final with about 20 other exhausted classmates.

You'd think open book is a generous kind of exam, and you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. Open book simply means that on top of having complete mastery of the concepts, you must also cite with complete accuracy, because you have no excuse not to--after all, you had the book in front of you.

This particular exam is infamous: the professor is completely considerate, highly professional, and gives you fair warning for any discomfort that his class must necessarily cause to still be considered educational. His tests are ruthless: they inexorably glean from you every piece of knowledge you have about the subject. They expect from you in three-and-a-half hours exactly what he delivers all semester: easy clarity, relevance, and complete accuracy. Most students struggle mightily to finish within the already generous time constraints.

All the same, I did well the first semester of his course, and I'd hoped to repeat my success this semester. But at 9:45 p.m., when I wearily schlepped my two three-ring binders and practitioner's handbook back to my lawyer-mobile, I pretty much just hoped I'd pass--so I wouldn't have to take the exam again.