They Ruined Deadspin

Last Week in Review:

Mon: Nationals game. Copious amounts of expensive beers
Tues: Softball game. This other kid on the team and myself went to a bar before the game and proceeded to split a pitcher and then drank another beer each. In an hour. That is four beers kids. We then went to the ol' ballpark and I drank much more alcohol. After the game (it was our first win of the season) I went to a bar and drank more. Got home, and had another two beers. It was a good night.
Wed: [cannot remember, something happened that involved more drinking. Probably bad that I forget.]
Thurs: Went to the Holocaust Museum. Shit. It is pretty intense. Not as intense as I thought it would be (it is a family museum), but from the get-go, when they over-crowd an elevator to take you to the beginning of the permanent exhibit (you can imagine where your thoughts are). On the whole, the pre-war and post-war focus lessens the impact of the actual atrocities (not by much though), but bigotry takes on an entirely new meaning. Additionally, quietest museum I have ever been too. Adds to the intensity. Regardless of my qualms with the museum, I highly recommend everyone who comes to DC to visit it.
Fri: Happy Hour with some folks from work, which degenerated into me and another intern trying to figure out where the hell to go to have some fun. Once we found a place to go, my hatred of the majority of law school students was fully realized.

See, on Friday I ended up hanging out with a bunch of University of Michigan Law students. I am not sure exactly where that school ranks on the US News list, but it is at least top 20, if not top ten. Anyway, I was blessed with the opportunity to spend about an hour and half with these future pillars of the legal community. It took about ten minutes before they 1) annoyed the crap out of me; and 2) realized they were "better" than me.

To be fair, I was hanging out with 1L's (or what the registrar calls "rising 2L's). I engaged in a law related philosophical discussion with a couple of them, but once they found out I did not have instant recall of Carroll Towing, they decided not to talk to me anymore. First off, I hate torts. Why would i bother to remember anything from that class. Second of all, it is 11:30 on a friday at a bar. Sure I will engage in all sorts of crazy legal analysis, but I cannot be expected to cite sources. Fuck that shit. See, I go to a bar so I don't have to cite sources (unless it is, "that was in Thomas' dissent).

Granted, I am pretty discriminating about the folks I am friends with (the kid from U of M that I intern with is cool, the others are just schlubs). But these folks just annoyed me. I left within an hour. I'd rather sit in my room alone and watch the Buffy episode "The Body" while drinking beer. It wasn't arrogance so much that turned me off (after all, I acknowledge that I am an arrogant SOB), it was the sense of entitlement. Shit, the 1L class at UM had 25 people at this bar in DC. I could gather all the people from my school at a bar in DC and I would be pretty lonely (because the other person from there out here doesn't really like me).

The kid from UM that I intern with knows that he is lucky to be where he is. After his 1L year, he is in a great spot. He is very self-aware. Not only that, he understands the system but does not give into its arbitrary manipulations. Its not like I am fellating him, he just lacks the thing that annoys me most about law school students.

Anyways, back to the point of this post referenced in the title. Deadspin changed its layout. It changed its layout for one reason. More page views = more dollars. I cannot argue with that logic, but the sad fact remains, I will not be visting deadspin 32 times a day anymore. I will just check it out through google reader. Their loss.

I Love Morning Exams

Have you ever had everything you ever believed in taken away from you in mere moments? Had your whole world, your entire structure of faith, demolished like the Kingdome?

If you have seen Firefly (yes I am obsessed), after the first five minutes of the [real] pilot, you see Mal's entire world come crashing down. And if you have seen Serenity (the movie based on that failed TV Show)* you remember the last five minutes of the movie, where the villain has everything he ever believed in torn asunder:

Mal: If I ever see you again, I'll kill you
Villain: You won't. There is nothing left to see.**

Like them, I have been rocked to my core. Yes indeed, everything has changed. Those morning exams, which I dreaded, and force me into 3-4 hours a sleep before each one, garnered me the best cumulative semester's worth of grades I have gotten, ever (and it is not like I just had more time to study, I had five exams, just like first year). I am not trying to be arrogant, ok maybe a little, but this is striking as completely strange.

But after reflecting on this for a while, I have come up with a few reasons how this occurred:

1. I had one class that was absolutely worthless. Really, it was worthless. I am not a better nor worse person for having taken it and my knowledge based did not even increase negligibly. I described this class as such to several people, and had this class described as such by several people. In fact, for the first time in my life, I actually spent time on the class evaluation describing everything that was wrong with it and how to improve it. The fifteen minutes I spent on that were more valuable than the 20+ hours spent in class. Hopefully this helps the future students. But anyway, no one cared about this class. Either did I, but I still studied for it (albeit half-heartedly) as if it was my favorite class ever. That was probably my worst performance on an exam ever, but I did pretty well because apparently no one else cared either. God bless the apathetic law student.***
2. Paranoia. The sheer fear of morning exams prompted me study smrt-ly. Usually my study time is spent surfing for porn, playing stupid online games, reading boring websites I would never otherwise read (like mine!), watching TV, and studying. Granted, not in that order or a proportion that would dictate that order (though my porn viewing does increase quite a bit during finals time). However, during this exam weeks I pretty much cut out the stupid games, the TV, and general internet surfing. This created at least two extra hours a day to study, during which time I actually studied. So the fear of morning exams, added to my usual fear of failure and overall insecurities about my abilities played a big role in my achievement of greatness.
3. The fact that everyone else was a second semester 2L or 3L. The second semester 2Ls have been through the rigors, and everyone pretty much knows where they stand. Plus, they are sick of this shit and looking forward to starting their summer job. Yeah, you all know how it is. I am the aberration. Finals still scare me. Furthermore, the 3Ls just do not care anymore, so that helps. Three cheers for my classmates!
4. I am actually at my most productive and focused when I am tired. I cannot explain it, that is just the way it works. When the time comes for intense focus and total recall, I would rather be dog tired than working with my full (potentially) mentally faculties. In the words of the Who, "I cant explain"

So that's it. Thats the list. Regardless, it is not like my grades were overwhelmingly better than any previous semester, they just turned out to be slightly better. Which still came as a shock, you know, because of the paranoia.

And if you made it this far, let me just apologize for the lack of updates recently. It is not that there is a shortage of things to write, it is just that I do not have a whole lot of time, which is shocking considering there is $30 in my account. So I will be getting a lot busier once I have money and, you know, can do stuff. But fear not, good stuff on the way (I hope).


*if that doesn't convince you to rent the series through Netflix, I do not know what will, come on, they made a freaking movie about a failed TV Show

**nice way to bookend the Firefly/Serenity universe, eh?

***apathetic at least to one exam. I understand they have bigger fish to fry.