At this point, it'd be a mercy killing...

I have ten days before I'm sitting in a Prometric Site well on my way to failing the patent bar exam.

Most people think I'm exaggerating when I say this. Let me be clear: I'm not. And, just to back up this assertion, I'm going to give you a short list of reasons why I'm almost* undoubtedly going to fail the bar exam.

*I say almost because there's the slim possibility the baby Lord Jesus may swoop down from Heaven and grant me the infinite wisdom of the MPEP and I might somehow, with his divine guidance, make the required 70% to pass the test. But....I'm not going to bank on it. 

1) I've not studied enough. I've probably put in about 100 hours of study time. Maybe 80 hours, if I'm being super honest with myself. I have been pulled in all different directions, and allowed myself to be entirely too ADHD with my studying process, which means that these 80-100 hours of studying have been non-linear and a clusterfuck of confusion. Most people study, at minimum, 250 hours for this exam.

OOOH, SHINY THING.

2) This bar exam is different. I've taken and passed two bar exams. And this exam is different because (a) it's open book, (b) it has no essays, and (c) it's not scaled, this just means that bar examining committee has more leeway to ask hypertechnical questions, and that I can't rely on dumbasses who do worse than me to pull my score up. It's either pass or fail. No in-between. And to pass, you have to study a shitton of hours. (See #1)

3) New material has made this bar exam almost impossible to study for. In 2011, Obama signed into law the America Invents Act, which took our patent system from a first to invent to a first to file process. The bar exam started testing this in full effect three months ago. This means that I have to be responsible for all the material before the America Invents Act (AIA) and ALLLLL the information after as well. This means twice the friggin material, and no real guide as to how these questions are going to be framed and no really good way to study for them.

Exactly. 

Now, I can go on and on about exactly how fucked I am, but this blog entry is a testament to EVERYTHING I'M DOING WRONG. I'm sitting here bitching about this exam that I'm going to fail rather than praying to the baby Lord Jesus or lighting a candle in his honor or, you know, actually studying for the motherfucking patent bar exam.

So yeah, maybe YOU can light a candle for me? Or pray that Jesus rides in on his pterodactyl and saves the day. Because otherwise, well, I'm fucked.