i have a theory

it's final exam week at law school and i finally admitted to myself this morning that i am stressed out. i have too many things going on right now and its finally getting to me. i normally muit-task and cope pretty well, but this morning i had a mini break down. my intestines are against me, i had a small panic attack, and i even closed the door to my classroom (yep, i was/am at work) and put my head on my desk and cried. i grabbed some Muslim prayer beads off my desk and said the Lord's prayer in my head a few times which calmed me down. then i thought maybe blogging would help too. it's not usually like me to get all worked up like this....i'm attributing it to a hormone imbalance (and anyone who watched me alternate between salt and vinegar fries and sweet coca-cola last night will probably agree).

so here's my theory - you know how "they" say that the suicide rate goes up around the holidays, well, maybe its not the holidays that causes it...maybe its exams and report cards. Think about it. as i recall, the age group most at risk for suicide is in the late teen - early twenty range and those are the people who are finishing up finals and getting their grades over these next few weeks. this is a stressful time of year for that age group. if i'm right, there should be another "suicide bubble" around May/June. Somebody should check that out. (and by the way, i propose this in all seriousness and mean no disrespect to those affected by depression/suicide)

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i finished my negotiable instruments (a.k.a. the law of checks and promissory notes) in about an hour last night. It was a 50 question true/false exam. On the one hand it was comforting to know that i had at least a 50% chance on every question, on the other hand its stressful to have your grade for 4 months worth of class and studying to hinge on 50 questions. There was one section of the exam that i was particularly intrigued by...for psychological purposes though, not legal ones. The professor gave a fact pattern (story problem) and then followed up with twelve questions that were paired off so that one would be true and the other false. Example:

1. Mr. Smith will prevail over Mr. Baker on indorser's obligation

2. Mr. Smith will lose against Mr. Baker on indorser's obligation.

Interesting don't you think. obviously one is true and the other is false so i would either get both of them right or both of them wrong...unless, i put "true" for both questions which guarantees that i'll get one right and one wrong. Tricky, eh? This is where you separate those who know they know what they're talking about and those who think they know what they're talking about (that sounded pretty "rumsfeldian" of me didn't it?) So what does one do in that situation? Go for broke or cut your losses? I agonized, trying to figure out the correct answer and finally decided that if I was more than 70% sure, I would go all out and answer true and false. If I was really undecided, I would cut my losses and answer true for both questions. Because of that section, I know I didn't get a 100% on the test, but overall I felt pretty good about it. On most of the questions I actually had a rationale for my answer and was 80-90% confident. Hey, at least its over....and it was better than last years civil procedure exam on which you, reader, could have done better than I.

well, i suppose i ought to do some 'real' work. thanks for listening to my therapeutic blogging.