May you be Really Bright. 
Update: today started horribly. I walked the route from the hotel to the convention center yesterday to make sure I could find it again and leave in plenty of time, etc. Well, this hotel has exits on either side of the lobby that look identical, and two banks of elevators… that also look identical. I didn’t know I had taken the “other” bank of elevators and went to the wrong exit. Which means I walked a mile the wrong way. Which means (by the time I figured it out) I was two miles away from the exam site and had five minutes to get there.
So I ran. And I flagged down many random pedestrians to ask which way to the convention center. And got many incorrect answers. I made it there on time, but I was really, really sweaty. And lightheaded. I just started a course of muscle relaxants and the doctor mentioned I might get lightheaded after waking up or exertion. And I did. Nearly passed out in the convention center lobby. My classmates put me on a table and brought me water.
Fortunately, by the time the security checkpoints cleared I was pretty much recovered (still v. sweaty.) It took a long time for the proctors to read the essay instructions (the first section was essays) so I was pretty much back to normal by the time they told us to begin. I did manage to use the wrong fingers for the fingerprint sheet, but apparently that’s not a big deal.
The actual exam portion was… well, not a breeze, but it went better than I’d hoped. They didn’t give us essays on any of my bad subjects. The second half of the day is multiple choice, and they hardly gave us any multiple choice questions on my bad subjects. The questions were also considerably easier than anything I’d seen in my prep course.
I probably didn’t do quite as well on the essays as I think I did (I generally felt much better about all the practice essays than my actual scores indicated). However, I monstered the multiple choice questions. I finished in an hour and ten minutes (you get three hours), and I was confident about at least 80% of my responses. 80% would be a 99th percentile score on the bar exam; it’s not like a high school or undergrad scoring range.
I probably didn’t get all of those answers right, but I feel very, very good about my odds of passing at this point. Today was my problem day, and it couldn’t possibly have gone any better for me.
Based on my practice scores I am supremely confident about the second day (the MBE). So, all is well. Or at least appears to be. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to shower and hit the bar. The hotel kind.
I had a remarkably similar experience on my final actuarial exam. This was a six hour exam, that you studied for for 4-5 months. And I got stuck in massive traffic on the Garden State Parkway. I was dying. I was sitting there making all sorts of calculations as to how fast I was traveling and extrapolating how long it would take me to get there. I thought about driving on the service lane, but figured I would probably get pulled over by a cop which would take even more time. (Every minute is crucial on these exams, and they generally don’t give you enough time as it is - exam takers are advised to not bother writing in complete gramatically correct sentences but rather to just jot down all the relevant code words, in the interests of saving time.)
The exam was in Newark, which is not exactly a hotbed of empty parking spaces, and I decided that unless by some miracle I found a spot right away I would just park the car in the street and let it get towed and worry about tracking it down when I got out. But a miracle did happen and I found a spot around the corner, and charged like mad into the building.
I shot in about 20 minutes late, hot and panting. Fortunately, it takes about 10 minutes or so for reading instructions and filling out names and so on, and plus there’s a 15 minute “read through”, where you get to read through the questions but can’t write any answers - I missed about 10 minutes of that.
But all’s well that ends well - as I said, it was my final exam. 
It’s sometimes helpful when crises like these occur to imagine how much fodder this will be for conversations down the road. And so it is - it’s nearly 10 years since that happened, and every once in while I still trot it out.
You’re halfway home! If you can do well after a bad start, you’ll do even better tomorrow without the drama in getting there. Also bodes well for your future career…a lot of cases start out lopsided one way, but can be turned around in the long run.
Wow. You broke a world record by running a 2 1/2 minute mile. I hope your legal knowledge is better than your estimation of distances or time. 
You’re doing fine, but don’t be too overconfident. The MBE is a huge part of your score so be ready, but I’m guessing you will do just fine.
As far as the hotel bar, you know that special kind of drunk where you feel right with the world and can drift off to sleep without doing something stupid or waking up with a hangover and/or a prostitute? Shoot for that level of drunk.
Remember, the 14th amendment PorI clause is NEVER the correct answer! Good luck…
After two-and-three-quarters gin and tonics I found that level of drunk. I was going to finish the third and probably have a fourth but my wife called and reminded me I have to go Do Things tomorrow. I actually ran about a nine minute mile, but I was in flip-flops with a backpack. I got there 15 minutes late but the security lines were so backed up I could have taken another 20-30 minutes.
Thanks for all the kind words, advice and so on. We’re all trying very hard not to discuss the exam, but the topics were very weird. Perfect for me, but not what anyone expected.
The most important part - do you know how to get there properly for tomorrow?
Maybe. So I booked the hotel shuttle bus.
Side-bar, please, counsellors, for the non-USian lawyers: what is the MBE? I’ve followed everything else in this thread reasonably well (with some personal flashbacks to Bar Ads).
And, glad the first day went well, RNATB.
Multi-state Bar Exam. It’s a series of multiple choice questions in selected subjects…I think torts was one of them, maybe contracts, not sure what else.
Good luck!
Torts, contracts, criminal law/procedure, constitutional law, evidence and property. All federal or the US majority rule for areas where there is no federal decisional law. It’s the second day of the exam in Florida (and I think most states that administer the MBE).
Masstur of Bizniss Edminastrayshun. It’s like an MBA but without the spellcheck.
Ah, thank you. As a non-American lawyer, I was wondering this myself. Thanks for clearing that up.
And good luck tomorrow!
OK, second sidebar. Spoons, does Canada have something like this, or is it administered differently in each province?
Bar admission requirements (exams, courses, etc.) vary by province; and are set by the provincial law societies (i.e. bar associations). Though in the end, all lawyers admitted are equally qualified to practice, no matter which province they were admitted in.*
Of course, federal law is the same across the country, and the provinces have much the same laws as each other, so the substantive law isn’t going to differ greatly from province to province. But there is no cross-Canada bar exam.
- Note that my remarks apply to the nine common-law provinces and the territories–Quebec uses a civil law system, and I cannot comment on that.
Uh, is it over now, Really Not All That Bright? Have you survived (with sufficient functioning neurons remaining) to tell us all about it? You were in a big room with all the others taking the test, right? How many heads exploded?
Perhaps we won’t hear from you until tomorrow (Thursday), as I’m sure you are spending this evening (Wednesday) doing some heavy-duty R&R, right? Do you and all the other applicants all head out for R&R together and have one big massive drunken orgy? 
Or are you each pretty much on your own?
Have fun! Relax! Unwind! Treat yourself to some cinnamon pine cones and egg-nog!
I think that RNATB is incommunicado after last night’s partying. Probably fell off of the boat and woke up this morning with a face full of sand on the beaches of Cuba.
I just want to tell you good luck. We’re all counting on you.
Regards,
Shodan
When I did the Saskatchewan bar ads back when the moon was young, there were three days of exams (mornings only): one exam on general law (some common law issues, like tort and contract, but also a lot of practice questions on court procedure, real estate practice, wills and estates); a provincial statutes exam; and a federal statutes exam.
I think nowadays the four western provinces collaborate more on having some common elements to the bar course program (called CPLED), but Spoons has gone through that particular hell more recently than me, so would have more up-to-date info.