We stopped studying at 5:30. Then we went downstairs to the hotel restaurant and ate chicken caesar salads for dinner. We walked to the exam site, to see how long it takes, so if someone slashes our tires during the night, we’ll know what to do. It’s 25 minutes from our hotel room to the registration area for the exam. Then we had a drink at the hotel bar and came back up to the room.
The San Mateo Expo Center is kind of dumpy. It’s not a convention center, but more like a fairground. The two “rooms” where the exam will be administered are just bare, cavernous, barn-like halls. There are folding tables lined up in rows, with two chairs at each table. For every thirty seats—three rows of five tables—there is a chair for a proctor. In front of the tables, they have thick, black electrical cables with outlet boxes every couple feet, for plugging in laptops. It does not look remotely pleasant. We did manage to find a rack of chairs around back that had not been set up yet. We pulled one off the rack and tested it, to see how it “sat.” Fairly comfortable. They’re pretty sturdy, too, for folding chairs.
All around the hotel we see people who will be taking the bar exam. They’re easy to spot. Some of them are lugging around green BAR/BRI books. Others of them are studying outlines. Some of them, you just know that single people dressed so casually, with backpacks and such, checking into a hotel like this on a Monday afternoon, surely are only here for the bar exam.
The ones who are still studying, well, they need to stop. There’s nothing they’re going to learn the night before the bar exam that they didn’t already know. Since a large part of the bar exam is just not freaking out, taking some time to relax seems the most sensible thing to do.
At any rate, it’s time for bed. Tomorrow, the bar exam.
Eleanore and I saw the CFA show at the San Mateo exhibit area. I’ll bet it was the same exact rooms you’ll be taking the test in. The cat show was definitely in “bare, cavernous, barn-like halls.”