Playing The Game - September 25, 2007

It is definitely a very good thing when a professor complains to you about other students.

At 9:30 in the morning my conference was scheduled to take place to discuss the paper writing assignment that is due next week. It is a rewrite of the corrected, but not graded, first assignment we handed in two weeks prior. This paper is the first grade I will receive in Law School, so I am going all out.

I stayed up last night, very late, making sure I did a quality rewrite of my first paper, highlighting the elements, and making corrections so that when I walked into my professor's office, the paper was quality. I figured that, were she to make comments and corrections, they would be the ones that draw me to the top of the class.

She looked at my paper, at was pleased to see this effort. After going over my paper, she began to chat with me, thanking me again for my giving of the card and bear for her daughter. After relating how pleased she was with my work, she described her dismay pertaining to other students' effort, or lack thereof. I sat back, nodded my head, and agreed as she ripped my classmates to pieces.

This is a very good sign. Well, at least for me.

Signs from professors is something I am adept at manipulating, that is, without the negative meaning that being manipulative carries. When I was in middle school, I caught a ride home with a friend's carpool - rhyme unintentional, though we did have a discussion in legal writing today about judges who write their opinion in Seussian rhyme, very amusing, but as usual, I digress - wherein my friend Stephen began to complain about the fact that students were "sucking-up" to teachers. After outlining his thesis on the ills of the educational system and the annoyances caused by students who contribute to the ego of teachers in general, his mother made a statement that I have not only remembered, but put to use to win the game I like to call "Undergraduate Education." She said that, soon enough, we will begin to notice that it is those same students who are getting better grades, and that if the teacher has a choice about whether to give them a higher or lower grade if they are "borderline", they will definitely get the higher of the two.

Sheer life-changing brilliance.

As discussed in previous days of lament, I have grasped the art of brown-nosing and perfected the practice. My education was a game. It was complete with four-quarters and, in my case, penalty time (let's hear it for the five-year plan) referees, teammates and opponents. The most important person in the game, in my opinion, are the referees. They can change the outcome of the game if they so choose. Being competitive, I sought to perfect the playing of the game, and would like to think that I was the Tiger Woods of it as a result.

Though there is much more to it than sucking-up, taking the skill of brown-nosing and coupling it with a keen ability to judge people and their abilities, I won the game in Undergrad. I wish that this game would transfer over, but I am not that lucky. Going from undergrad to law school is like going from Pee-Wees to the Majors, in that this is a whole new levels where the rules have changed. One could even liken the difference to that of mastering soccer, and subsequently competing in hockey. Point taken.

I am learning this new game, though the curve is sharp. Hopefully I will master the play quickly and diligently, but I suspect it will take some time.

Here is a select list of 20 things I have learned thus far:
1- Raise your hand when you know something so that you will not get called on when you do not.
2- There are no rules to the game play, anything goes, the more creative the better (read:
giving the professor's daughter a stuffed animal)
3- The curve creates enemies. Make sure you have none. This is a sneaky task.
4- Appearance is everything. There is no difference between knowing something and appearing to know something. Making others think you are ahead is the key to law school life. The same goes for befriending people.
5- Find a very close group of friends quickly. Inasmuch as one should shut out others so as not to create stress, drama or a lecherous relationship, there is always room for more.
6- Law school time is all the time.
7- Brush the bad things off. Embrace the positives. The professor will not remember that you got a question wrong months from now. Learn from it and move on.
8- (a) Try not to piss off a professor. If you are like me, see 8(b).
(b) If you piss off a professor you instantly understand why there is blind grading in law school.
9- Microsoft One-Note is evidence of a higher being. Amazing. In addition, law school is the only time you will ever praise Microsoft. Enjoy it while you can.
10- Do not regret making fun of the kid who used different color highlighters in high school and college. It was lame then, but in Law School, it is cool. At least, that is what you should tell yourself.
11- Your life has become so sad that you choose favorites. For example, I really dislike my green highlighter, but love orange. I wish I had blue.
12- LEXISNEXIS and Westlaw are like crack cocaine, only, more expensive.
13- A good day is one in which you do not get called on.
14- You are stressed because homework, for lack of a better term, is due two weeks after it is assigned.
15- The name of a professor alone produces sheer terror.
16- The atmosphere is so intense that you sweat in class even though your feet are showing signs of frostbite.
17- Using the hot air expelled from your laptop fan is a viable hand-warming device for your neighbor.
18- (a)You do not know the names of, nor have you ever spoken to, more than 10 people in a class of 130, but you all always have something in common to talk about: how much the idiots annoy you.
(b) You will never know nor understand how or why some of these people were admitted to study law. Perhaps the medical schooling system knows what it is doing. Send them to Botswana or Guatemala. Regardless, learn to embrace the idiocy, these are the people who you hope will be at the ground floor of the curve.
(c) Every time your name moves up on the sign-in sheet, you know somebody dropped out. Be sad for the same reason as that in 18(b)
19- You rarely talk to people between class because you always have somewhere to go or something to do. Savor lunch, if you have time. In fact, you see somebody new in class each day, even though you have spent a decent amount of time in the same cell.
20- The smallest bits of humor are the most endearing. Whether it is the use of Yiddish in lecture, allusions to "our friend Sen. Craig.", or youthful enthusiasm, if you latch on to that which you enjoy in your professors, class can be transformed into a different world. Keep your head up, and pay attention, and flash a smile back every once-in-awhile.

Today felt very short, though I had a lot of class.

Still loving my legal writing class. Still grasping the concepts in contracts. Still on top of civil procedure and torts. Still wondering why my criminal law professor is not a little more gentle, as I know she is.

Life goes on. Wish me luck and send your best.