And now it's over. The fact that a whole weekend has passed without me chattering about he bar exam probably says something about my reaction to the disaster. Denial remains a great coping mechanism. After I've cooled down a bit, I've summoned some guarded optimism, but the happy thoughts get no further than this: "OK, Tony, you felt that was a train wreck, but no one else has seemed much happier. Thank God for scaled exams."

I concur with the general concensus among bar exam bloggers. I found the New York day to be far less difficult than I had feared, and then was pummelled by an MBE that bore only a passing resemblance to anything I'd been given by BarBri. (Indeed, that course was almost entirely useless, but more on that later.) When my face finally felt the harsh sunlight outside the Javits Center that awful Wednesday afternoon, it did nothing to alleviate my twofold self-doubt. On the one hand, I had guessed on at least half of the multiple choice. On the other, I felt no confidence in the answers I'd chosen outright.

I did get a free pencil courtesy of Anonymous Lawyer. It's a great marketing gimmick, although I think it suffered a bit from mixed branding. The marketing staffers passing out pencils to nervous bar takers were cheerful, personable and altogether worthwhile human beings, easily identified by their Anonymous Lawyer t-shirts. Surely they should have been besuited middle-aged men handing out not only pencils but the admonishment that this test was the ultimate test of our self worth, no?

On second thought, the headline "JAVITS CENTER LAWYERS TO BE 'GO POSTAL'; 10 DEAD" is probably not the best publicity the book could get, and there were a lot of tense folks last Tuesday.

In any event, it's over. Before I leave the topic of the exam, though, I'd like to thank my family, my friends (and in particular my ever-patient girlfriend), and my fellow exam-takers. It's a lot easier to charge blindly into this ridiculous exam process knowing that such great folks are behind me.

NOTE: I am moblogging at the moment, and linking outside content consumes a lot of time. (There is no easy cut and paste function.) A lot of links to other bar exam bloggers will be added this afternoon. UPDATE: Now added.