Call Me Surprised

Here at No Competition we were recently interviewed by Barbara Wa-wa as part of her latest special: The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2005 (obviously we collectively are one). Since the episode is not likely to be aired anytime soon, here is a sneak preview (note: picture a group sitting around on two couches in a living room-type setting – kind of like the 90210 Reunion):

Barbara: So, now that your first year of law school is done and you are able to reflect – what would you say is the thing that surprised you the most?

Anita: I can’t remember the first year of law school. That happened already??? Hmmm, I guess something that surprised me about law school would be....how sick I am of people asking me if it is hard. Hard doesn’t even come close. I would choose a word more like excruciating, or horrendous. NOT HARD.

Barbara, turning to the bitch on her left: Larceny, what did you think of law school? And if hard is your initial response, then ask yourself, what made it hard?

Larceny Bitch, laughing: Barbara, you make me feel like I’m back in a high school writing class. All you need to do is add “why or why not.”

Lance Ito, cutting in: I agree with Anita – it was more then just hard. It was especially “horrendous” not being able to get by on my shockingly good looks and effervescent personality. But seriously, what surprised me most would probably would be how little midterms (if you get any) really matter. It all comes down to how well can you cram a semester worth of information into an outline or into your head and be able to apply that to the final. Along the same lines, how difficult it was to figure out how and what the professors wanted on the final exams.

Barbara: Lance, did you think it would be easy to decide what the professors wanted?

Lance: Well, not exactly but for most there is some sort of method to their “madness.” Some wanted direct regurgitation of "their" language, some were very "form" oriented (read IRAC) and some I still don't know... Another thing that really surprised me, or at least what I’m having the toughest time reconciling is the very concept of a forced curve – that the class average must be a B- -- just seems asinine.

Barbara, turning to face the distinguished gentleman sitting to the right of her: What about you, Mr. Roberts? What surprised you the most?

John Roberts: I guess I was really surprised how much you could slack off. Everything I had heard about law school before I came was that it was total hell, and in a lot of ways it was. But that never stopped me from chatting during class or slacking on the reading.

Barbara: Inter-resting. Ms. Calculating, how about you?

Calculating Bitch: How often does a new Supreme Court Justice get appointed – much less two Supreme Court Justices in a span of 6 months? Not to mention that one was a Chief Justice. You’d think that at a law school it would be a hot topic of discussion. Or at least mentioned in class, right?

Class Bitch, interrupting: Uh, oh, Barbara. Now you’ve got her wound up. She’ll rant for at least another ten minutes on how she thought that we’d have to cut out clippings from the newspaper and give presentations on them at the beginning of each class.

Calculating: No, no, although I do think that had we been back in a high school Civics class we would have discussed it for days. The fact that current events – especially political and judicial – were so rarely mentioned in our law classes was one of the biggest surprises for me.

Barbara: So it was just the lack of current events for you?

Calculating: Well, that was the biggest surprise. The other thing that threw me was the lack of proctors during exams. I’ve always gone to large schools: my high school class was 800+ and in college I walked with over 12,000 others. Maybe it is because this is such a small school that they just trust everyone on the basis of the honor code, but I have never, ever been given a test at the beginning of a three hour period and then had the professor/proctor leave not to return until five minutes before the end.

Barbara: But don’t you think that suggests something of the character of people that go to law school?

Reasonable Peep: Oh, there is definitely something about the people that go to law school. I was actually surprised at the differences in people here. I expected that the class would encompass a wide variety of people, but I never imagined how wide. The majority of the people have been the most awe inspiring – having experiences, stories, and perspectives I could never imagine. Then of course are the people who are just too smart that they lack all social capability...another big surprise. I had never encountered so many people and professors who were just too smart they cannot react appropriately.

Barbara: Was there anything so surprising that it actually changed your life?

Reasonable: Oh, law school definitely rocked my world upside down, this way, that way, and sideways. Thinking about it logistically – yeah you have to work hard and there is a lot of reading, but then comes the personal aspect. The time you put in that gets taken away from our family, friends, etc. The time it takes away from yourself. How you have this idea of who you are and thought you were confident in it, but then you regress back to almost adolescence, trying to figure out who you are, what you want, what you are willing/not willing to compromise...it is a big, tumultuous storm, but somehow you get through.

Barbara: Do you ever come to realize something that made you look at law school differently – or that made it easier for you?

Reasonable: Well, I learned that, hey, I can do this, and you know what, just because you do not feel as smart as some of your peers does not mean you are not smart or as smart. Everyone is really good at different things, and all those things come together. Which leads to one more, not as much fun part. Out of everything, I was surprised that law students are more like high schoolers than high schoolers.

Barbara: How is that possible?

Calculating and Lance exchange a glance: Oh, its possible.

Reasonable, continuing: Grown adults act worse than twelve year olds and gossip, drink, and get competitive...it is annoying, and part of the reason, I think, is that we revert back and try to figure out ourselves again. Hard to believe paying so much money to relive that experience, which before was free.

How about the rest of you that are or were in law school? What surprised you the most?

3 comments:

the littlest tortfeasor said...

Thanks, Calculating!

josh said...

i was surprised at how dumb people were. not academically, but socially and in terms of common sense. is it really that hard to be well rounded?

Christian said...

I was surprised by how much socializing (aka drinking) HELPED my experience and my grades by relieving stress and keeping me sane. Moral: study less, drink more.