Cruel and unusual punishment

My study materials for the patent bar arrived yesterday. Joy. You’d think that for the amount of money paid for these materials I’d get some sort of free ride on the exam; a golden ticket that I could just slip to the proctor and then be on my merry way. Apparently that’s not how it works and it’s starting to sink in that I’m actually going to have to study for this damn thing. As I outlined in a previous post, I assumed that the studying was going to be slow and painful. I was wrong. It’s much worse. I slogged through the first two (of 63) modules today and can liken it only to, well, nothing. You’re literally trying to memorize a ~3,000 page manual that is more dense and boring than anything you’ve ever seen. It’s horrible.