Calling all Rasputina fans...

Rasputina is playing here in Pittsburgh on 4/22. It just struck me that I have no idea whether that is part of exams period or not. Either way, it doesn't matter, I'm going to the show.

Anyone out there a closet Rasputina fan and want to go with me? "There's safety in numbers...my dear." (bonus points for someone who can get this quote, and miranda, you don't count, I just told you where it's from recently)

Bathroom humor

Why is it that guys find a need to spit into the urinal as they're stepping up to them? My female readership obviously wouldn't know about this habit, but it's fairly common to see guys walk up to the urinal, and as they're unzipping or stepping up, they spit into it. Sometimes they spit into it while they're pissing. Either way, what's the purpose? Every time I hear this done, I can't help but think about animals in the while that want to lick up the piss of the other competitors in the area. I guess I'm just not competitive enough to feel the need to spit into the urinal.

In the basement men's room at school, they've removed one of the urinals. It's just wall now. Maintenance actually put one of those "Wet Floor" things in front of it to ensure that no one overlooks the fact that there is no urinal and instead pisses all over the wall. This is in the law school, presumably we're smart enough to figure out that we shouldn't piss where there is no urinal. But I guess not.

The urinal that is missing is the one in the middle. There are three urinals, without dividers in between them. It's nice that the urinal is gone now, because some guys don't realize that you're never actually supposed to use the middle one anyway. Who wants to ensure that they stand next to another guy while they're both taking a leak? Apparently some guys do, but not me.

And why are guys expected to go to the bathroom immediately next to another guy? No one would ever think to make a women's room that just had toilets standing free without stalls. Women get some privacy every time they go to the bathroom, but guys don't even get a shred of it with the urinals without dividers. I'm not saying that the urinals need to have stalls around them, but the dividers make a big difference in the level of privacy that you have in the bathroom. With the dividers, I'd even say that it's ok to use the middle urinal (though some would disagree with that assessment).

It's even worse when you go to a stadium. There, you might just have a trough. A fucking trough. Now you can get splashed by someone else's piss, or have another guy elbow in next to you. Again, another indignity that women would never be expected to have to deal with.

So for any architects out there: Put in dividers!

CMU has a bathroom in the basement of Doherty Hall, one of the academic buildings, that has a men's room. On the door, after "MEN", someone scrawled a "U" in after it, so it's known as the "MENU" bathroom. The reason this bathroom has notoriety (and it's been years since I've been in there, so it might have been corrected) is that the stalls have glory holes in them and the bathroom is thus known as a place to have anonymous gay sex.

But I didn't know that my freshman year at CMU. And I'm not even sure that I knew what a glory hole was. And I happened across the "MENU" bathroom. I happened to use the bathroom without incident, but in looking back, by not fixing the bathroom, it seems like CMU opens themselves up to liability if an incident were to occur there. And of course, after I found out about the bathroom, I don't think I ever used it again.

This is probably far more than you ever wanted to read about men's rooms.

They've got nothing to say to me and still they open their mouths.

Some of the classrooms here at school have internet access, some of them don't. Two of the main lecture halls have internet access in the first two rows, but not in the rest of the room. Our Constitutional Law class is in one of the rooms that has partial access. Our professor is so incredibly bad (as a teacher; she's a nice person) that I've been bringing in a wireless router and hooking it up to a port in the first two rows, since I sit further back than that. So I've been providing an open access point for everyone's wireless all semester.

A while ago, I tried to be studious and decided that the wireless router was bad news for me. I stopped bringing it for two days, and everyone in my classes came out of the woodwork to bitch at me for not bringing in the router. They needed their internet access for this and that. One group of people who didn't say anything are the people who are actually my friends. The only people who bitched about it are the people that wouldn't even say hi to me in the hall (well, a subset of those people, anyway).

This week, while I was away, apparently I was the topic of conversations several times. I've heard it from several people. And of course, the only reason that people were talking about me was the fucking router. Again, the people who were discussing it were the same people who would bitch about it when I am actually there and don't bring it.

Last night, while out I saw one of these people at a bar, and again, the same conversation occured about how they missed me because of my router. I guess people just don't think about how offensive it is to talk to someone about using them for one thing and one thing only. But if you see them, tell them I prefer if they just use me and not talk to me. Or about me.

In a room full of people, still all alone.

I've had this experience many times. It's the same every time, pretty much. Only the location changes. You go somewhere, you're around other people, but their activities or their personalities don't really bring you into the group.

Over time, I've become more extroverted and it hasn't been as bad. The first experience of this that I can really remember was the first week at CMU when they had the "Clippership" cruise up and down the three rivers. That was the worst. I was stuck on a boat, at a party where I didn't really know anyone, and I was still pretty introverted at that point, so I wasn't inclined to socialize too much. I ended up sleeping for part of the cruise.

Last night's experience wasn't the same. I knew people at the party/get-together that I went to, I was socializing, I was drinking, I was not having a Clippership(tm) experience. I went more for the socializing than anything else, which I guess is an excuse, at least the day after. Beer pong was set up, and in viewing the scene, I couldn't help but think that life should have more meaning than beer pong. Obviously it doesn't, but maybe it should. We have been brought up to believe that drinking with your friends is a good time, but I can't help but think that: you're not really enjoying your friends when you're loaded (though they might be enjoying you); and that you can probably have as good a time doing other things with your friends. I guess my generation has passed me by, or maybe I just haven't found the right people yet.

Hi, I'm jdl, and I'm an IM Whore.

It happened gradually. So gradually I didn't notice that I had turned into one until it was too late. Now I constantly check my buddy list to make sure I don't miss a buddy signing on. I find myself having to restrain myself from IMing a person who just signed on. Obviously if someone signed on, it was to talk to me, right?

I need to put a stop to this. My buddy list grows every day. My time is being wholly consumed by IMing people. I can't read. I might miss an IM. I can't watch TV. I might miss an IM. Talk on the phone? Why do that, I can have 10 simultaneous conversations on IM. Pay attention in class? IM is much more interesting. It's interactive, you know. And it doesn't involve the reading that I haven't done.

Drugs? Who needs 'em? I get dopamine hits just hearing the IM chime. Natural drugs are cheaper, safer, and better than manufactured drugs anyway. I get hypnotized seeing the IM blinks at the bottom of my screen.

What the fuck are you doing still sitting there. Send me an IM already.

There's always gotta be one...

Whenever I teach a class, there's always one guy who doesn't shut up. Since I started law school, I've started to call this guy "Chadwick." He's gotta tell me all the details of his life, how his wife's calling him, how he loves some programming construct or computer dork thing, whatever. Prattle is what it is, and I have to smile and pretend like I'm interested. That's the hardest part of my day, dealing with the Chadwick guy.

He never sits in the back, either. Always right up front. Always ready to bother me when I sit down when they're doing an exercise or they're on a break. Never a moment's peace with him around. Even at lunch, I'm eating my fucking lunch, and I can't just sit and enjoy it, I gotta listen to him, talk to him, pretend I want to hear about what he did with his script to make it work. I can't exactly tell him to STFU, though I'd like to.

And it's always a him. Never a hot chick. That's not really surprising; I've only had 3-4 hot chicks in the 50 or so classes I've taught, odds are against me on that one.

I went out to this Afghani restaurant last night. The first time I've ever had Afghani cuisine, and it was one of the best 10 meals I've ever eaten. It was lamb tenderloin, served with this fabulous rice pilaf, along with some weird yet insanely good apple dish, along with some tasty spinach dish. The bread that went with it was excellent as well. I'm thinking that I might eat there again tonight, it was so good.

I had Ethiopian food for the first time on Sunday night. That was an interesting experience, some of it was really good, but I wasn't a fan of some of it. We got a sampler dealie, since I hadn't had it before. I went with my friend's girlfriend, which was interesting. I can't recall having gone out anywhere with a friend's girlfriend. That's probably because most of my friends are from CMU, and CMUers (ex- or otherwise) are, um, not lucky with the ladies.

Oh wait. I went to CMU too.

What the big black man says, the little white guy does.

After eating lunch and talking a bit to people on AIM, I ventured out to peruse the tie collections of local establishments. I wanted a tie that I can wear today and on Thursday, when I will wear a silvery shirt. The problem with teaching in a yuppie area is that there are only yuppie stores around. Banana Republic is here, but their tie selection sucks. And that's about it for the men's stores. Well, except for Jos. A. Bank. So I headed in there.

It took me a minute to get my bearings in the store, but when I did, I went straight for the tie area, where a large black man asked if he could help me. I told him what I was looking for: a tie that would go with my blue shirt that I had on, and the silver shirt. After looking at a few ties, he said, you should get this one. Let's sum up the situation. Me: white guy computer dork, not exactly fashion king. Him: black, works in clothing store, wears nice clothes. Easy choice, I bought the tie.

I didn't look at the price tag, though. Oops. I saw a sign near the ties that said "3 for $162.50" or something like that, and it was only after I checked out that I noticed that it was for the shirts. The tie, of course, wasn't $55. It was $69. Plus tax. So $73 later, I had myself a new tie, I put it on in the dressing room, went back to class.

But I can't help but think that $73 buys a lot of lunches at school.

You know that dream where you go to school in just your underwear?

There's always one thing you forget on a trip. Usually it's something really minor, or something that you wanted to have, just for so. Sometimes it's something major.

I dress up for teaching. My young appearance doesn't give me credibility, so I try to manufacture it. I wear nice clothes. I have a nice pen. I have nice shoes.

None of this is helped when I've forgotten my garment bag. Yes, this happened once. I drove to an event in Rockville, MD, and forgot my garment bag. I could have chosen to drive back to NC from DC, but it was a 4 hour trip, so I just bought new clothes. Not as good as I normally have, but they got me through the week.

I didn't forget my garment bag this week. I have my shoes, my pen, my shirts, my pants, my belt, my ties...no wait. I don't have my ties. I forgot my damn tie bag. It's still hanging up in the closet in Pittsburgh. Way to go me.

So I had to make a trip to Target. It's on the way to work, not a big deal. Everyone looks good in a Target tie, right? Right. Sort of. As it turns out, Target doesn't sell ties. The one here is one of the "mega" Targets, and it doesn't have a single men's tie. So I had to come to work without my tie. I'll fix the situation at lunchtime, but for now, I feel so naked.

Just like that dream.

I have measured out my life with my employer's evaluations.

This week, instead of being at school, like a good student would be, I have taken off. I will be working this week, teaching a programming language class. My students will be government employees and employees of large corporations, primarily. That's who my employer caters to.

Though my employer really only caters to people who pony up the $2500 to attend the class. Nevermind that it's an "advanced" class. If you can come up with the $2500, you must be "advanced," right?

At the end of the week, the students are given an evaluation of all things in the course: the instructor, the course materials, the facilities, etc. Again, since they could come up with the $2500, they must be qualified to fill this out, right? The real winner of the system is the fact that for each of the questions, they get to rate you from 0-4, from "frowny face" to "smiley face". Which means that no one really knows what the evaluations mean. Some people think that 2 is good, 4 is exceptional. My employer, of course, considers everything but a 4 a failure. Our average is supposed to be as close to a 4 as possible.

But they don't tell the students that. The students are supposed to divine what the numbers mean, or guess at what the ever-descriptive "frowny face" and "smiley face" mean.

The possible disparity between what the evaluations mean to the students and my employer has always led me to believe that they aren't really telling me much. How could they be? Students use them one way, my employer uses them a different way.

Now, there is space on the form so that the students can write freeform comments. Most of the time, nothing is written. When there is a comment, usually it's along the lines of "Great job!" or "Best instructor ever!" (no joke) I have even gotten comments about my clothes. One guy in New York said that I should tie my tie so that it's longer, and two women have commented that I have nice clothes. The one's was: "Nice clothes. If you're ever single and in Baltimore...." Too bad she was eating pork rinds. All week. Before 10 A.M. If there had been anything there (there wasn't), that pretty much sealed the deal.

I really like the fact that they have the space on the form for the comments, though, because it gives context for what number a person filled in. If they give me a 2, but say "Great job!", that's a lot better than just getting the 2. At least I know what 2 meant to that person.

And let's face it, that's more feedback than law school.

In summary: bad idea.

My family has a real defeatist, fatalistic streak. "You're gonna lose, you're a <insert last name here>." "<last name here>s don't win." That's the attitude that my family has.

But I'm trying to overcome it. I went to Atlantic City having played some roulette online, having done some charts to figure out how to play to win, and taking enough of a bank that I could win but wouldn't kill myself if I lost it all.

The upshot of the trip is that I'm down $73. That doesn't include parking ($10), buffet for 2 ($46), gas ($13), and maybe a toll or two (my sister paid a lot of those). It also doesn't include the $10 that a neighbor gave me or the $20 my dad gave me (neither of which are getting their money back).

What's more important is that I went, and I played with the attitude that I could win. I was out to play roulette. My friend wanted to get me to play craps, but there's way too much going on in that game. So I stuck with roulette, didn't play a single slot machine either. We started off at the Borgata. This morning started off pretty bad, I think it was the karma of the croupier, who was a sour guy. So before I had played for more than an hour, I was down $200. With my last $100, I sat back down with my friend, he lost all his money and told me to play red 21. The croupier had been getting a lot of those, and it hit. $35 more towards my bank. Then he told me to play black 17, which was what he had been playing, so I put $5 on that. That hit, giving me back $175. I had had a hit or two previous to these, so I was up to $352, and I cashed out. But the croupier shorted me a $25 chip and I didn't notice until after I had walked away. So I was really only up $27.

Then, this evening, we went to the Showboat to have the buffet, and we played some roulette after we ate. My friend lost some more money, and at one point, I think I was up like $80. He left, and my luck turned bad for a while. At one point, I had just about blown my entire bank ($300). Then my number hit, and I was still in the red, but at least I had 7 chips on the number, so it paid out $245, and I was a lot closer to breaking even. I put the $200 away and played the rest of the chips that I had (probably $60 or $70), lost all of those, and went home.

It was quite a thrill, and I can see how people get addicted to it, but I don't think that I have the stomach for it right now. Right now, $300 seems like a lot of money since I'm in school and don't have a job. I was shitting bricks when I had lost almost all of it and I was still putting $20-$30 in chips down on the table (in order to make up for the money that I had lost, I had to put a lot on each number). But it was an interesting experience, though I don't see a repeat performance happening any time soon.

When everything is said and done, I will have spent between $100-120 for my day in Atlantic City. It was my first time gambling (lottery doesn't count), I got to experience some highs and lows, and I think it was worthwhile. I think breaking out of the defeatist/fatalistic philosophy that my family has going is worthwhile, in any area of my life.

Except that the worst part might come tomorrow. The worst part being what I might hear from family members.

"I told you so."

As always, time to leave.

Oh fair and gentle reader! Fear not, for I shall return later this week to fill you in on how my trip to Atlantic City goes. Will lady luck be kind to me? Will I sleep in a car? Will you keep reading this blog?

These and other questions to be answered later this week.

Ah, yes. Sunday mornings at home.

I should have known better than to think that I could sleep in this morning. It's been a while since I was here on a Sunday, apparently I forgot what that entails.

So as I said before, my mom's a religious fanatic. Actually, make that all-caps. FANATIC. Mormon fanatic. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad if it were a different religion. But it's not.

Sunday mornings, in her quest to get the kids out the door, my mom has always resorted to yelling at the kids. What a great way of starting off the day that's supposed to be spent reverently and with your family. So what happens when she yells at the kids? The kids yell back, of course. So the morning of acrimony begins. Once out the door, there will be more skirmishes, both in the car and once they get to church. She must like this, as this game has been going on for almost 20 years..

I'm sure none of this helped my feelings for the religious experience involved. I've known that since before I was 12 that the Mormon church wasn't for me. But that didn't stop my mom from trying. After I told her that I didn't believe the church anymore, she made me go until I graduated from high school. I think a lot of it involves looking like a good Mormon whose children go to church, like they "should." I've never really asked her, and I doubt that she'd give me a straight answer. I don't think she could admit it anyway.

In order to get me to do things with church, my mom resorted to bribery. All mormon kids (the good ones, anyway), go to what is called "seminary." No, this is not where we learned to become ministers. From ninth to twelfth grade, you're supposed to go to church at 6am to read the scriptures in an organized, classroom-like way. Every school day. You can imagine how gung-ho I was about this idea. The church was 20 minutes away, which meant that I had to get up at 515 to make it there. 5:15 am. As a fucking freshman in high school? You gotta be shittin' me. I still can't believe I did it.

Yes, I did it. My entire freshman year. Though it was a waste of my time, it did have its benefits. Well, one anyway. In order to bribe me into going to this bullshit, my mother bought me a CD player. A 5 disc Sony carousel CD changer, in fact. $200 for going to church every day. As Sally Struthers might say, that's only pennies per day. Too bad I lost all interest in going the subsequent years, maybe I could have put together a nice component system by the time I graduated high school.

The bribes didn't end there. And they only got worse. As a kid, we had chores to do. All of them got ignored except for washing dishes. We each got assigned 2 nights a week to wash dishes. And I got the shaft. My night was Sunday night, right after our inevitably large meal. Maybe my mom orchestrated this for her church bribery, or maybe I got assigned that night only because I was the oldest. Either way, it was a bad draw.

In the Mormon church, 16 year old boys bless the sacrament, which in the Mormon church consists of broken up white bread, and little cups of water. It's sad, but I can still remember part of the blessing:

"O God, the eternal father, we ask thee in the name of thy son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this [bread,water] to the souls of all those who [partake,drink] of it."

Can't remember the rest. Anyway, once I was 16, guess what the newest bribe was? If I would bless the sacrament, she would do my Sunday night dishes for me. How fucking unbelievable is that? She knew I didn't believe in the church, and yet she wanted me to bless the fucking sacrament? I still can't believe it.

Just because it was ludicrous doesn't mean I turned it down, though. I had to sit through the sacrament meeting either way, and I figured that I might as well get out of doing my dishes. So that's where you'd see me on Sundays. At the front of the meeting, waiting to give one of the blessings on the sacrament. The amusement didn't end there, though.

The mormon church services, including sunday school, run about 3 hours. Don't get me started on that. After giving the blessing, I frequently had adult mormons coming up to me in church and asking me whether I "prayed to have the spirit with me when I said the blessing." Shit, I didn't pray when I was giving the blessing. I just read the little card that they put in front of me.

When I was 16, I saw something in the Mormon church that was absolutely tragic. It's one of the things that completely broke the Mormon church in my eyes. There was a girl at church who was absolutely beautiful. Not altogether surprisingly, she got pregnant. I think the only reason that I know that is that I knew people who went to school with her. Because I never saw her at church. Ever. Shunned, that's what she was. At a time in her life when she needed people to support her, the church, ostensibly an organization for supporting people, not only wasn't there for her, but disowned her. It still pisses me off when I think about what they did to her. Religion aside, it wasn't right.

So I guess even though I am always awakened by fighting between my mom and someone on a Sunday morning, things could be worse.

I could actually be going to church.

Then again, some things stay the same.

My parents have 4 kids. 3 of us have pretty much moved out, though you can't tell by walking around the place. Every room seems as though it couldn't hold anything more than it does. It's not to the point of my Grandmother's house, but it still seems excessive.

It's the typical caretaker/collector scenario. Collect so much stuff that you could never possibly utilize all of it. Or even half of it. There's a Beta VCR here along with a collection of Beta tapes. My dad is the consummate collector. Books, bugs (dead ones), animals (live ones, mostly reptiles), fossils, and plants. On the second floor of my dad's house, there are 5 bedrooms. Out of the 5 bedrooms, there are exactly 0 that don't have at least 1 bookcase in them, and most have 2. The one room has 8. There are quite a few books here. I'll give my dad some credit on these, he's read a lot of them. But I don't know that he's read half of them.

The bugs, well, there are quite a few of those, too. He has 3 five foot cabinets filled with bugs. Not to mention the stack of bug cases that sit on top of the bug cabinets. This is a collection that has grown out of control over the past few years. Aaron, my youngest brother, is helping to feed that addiction. Every year, they spend around $500 at Christmas on bugs. You can imagine that $500 buys a lot of bugs. They usually put together one or two more of those orders throughout the rest of the year, too.

I could write quite a bit about the reptiles. I grew up in a pet store, that was my parents' business for a long time. And once you're into reptiles, you can't leave. My dad had a friend, George, who was in the pet business, and particularly reptiles. George has this cycle that probably continues to this day. He gets out of having reptiles. And then he starts to acquire them again. And then he gets rid of them again. Etc. Getting bit by a cobra didn't stop him. Getting bit by a rattlesnake didn't stop him. My dad's a lot smarter, or at least a lot less stupid than George. He's never gotten bit by anything, but that's not to say there haven't been some close calls.

This morning wasn't a close call, but it's amusing nonetheless. This story is representative of my dad's reptile life. I go down to the basement today (where the reptiles are kept), and my dad's saying, "What the fuck!? What the fuck happened here!? Where the fuck's the lock!?" The cage that he was looking at was reasonably small, which is usually a bad sign. In this case, it wasn't so bad. I asked him what was in there. "A gila monster." For those of you out there who don't know, there are two venomous lizards in the world. The gila monster, and the beaded lizard. Both look similar (gilas have coloring that is pink/orange, beaded lizards have yellow coloring and get much larger than the gilas). Gilas are usually only about a foot long. And neither the gilas or beaded lizards are aggressive. They're like American children: extremely sedentary, only moving when it's time to eat. So anyway, somehow this one had gotten out. That's typical experience for everyone, right? Venemous lizards on the loose in your house?

It turned out to be no big deal in this case, my dad had found him in 30 minutes, he had crawled into the compressor area of the freezer. But this is typical. Neighbors find lizards or snakes that have no natural reason for being found in Eastern Pennsylvania.

My mom's collections are a lot less intrusive into the lives of the neighbors. She collects three things, primarily. Patterns for making clothes, fabric to make said clothes, and paper. Nevermind the fact that it has been probably 10 years or more since she's made an article of clothing. And believe me, you don't want to wear it anyway. But that doesn't stop her from keeping that stuff. It wouldn't be so bad, except that she just has a fucking mountain of it. But her true collection is scraps of paper. She cuts out articles from magazine and newspapers to give to people. Every time I come home, I have something to read that she saved from Fortune or Newsweek from 2 months ago. But though she actually gets rid of the shit she gives me, you can't tell by looking at her room. It's an unbelievable mess. If you've seen my grandmother's place, you'll get the idea of what her bedroom looks like. That degree of mess hasn't spread to the rest of the house, but it's probably inevitable. My mom and her siblings took 4 8'x'6'x20' dumpsters' worth of junk out of my grandmother's; at least I know what's coming.

When the 3 older kids were growing up, we each had our own room. We had to fit whatever we had into that one room. Since now 3 of us have departed, Aaron has taken it upon himself to make my parents feel that there are still 4 kids in the house. He does this by having junk in every room of the house. There are times when he takes over 3 rooms of the house with his junk. I guess it's the only child syndrome, though I sure wouldn't know.

In other news, one of my major accomplishments of yesterday was learning how to do those Magic Eye things. For years, I've tried to do them; my mom loves them, has a ton of those stupid books laying around. Last night, while waiting for a phone call, I noticed the book on the shelf of one of the bookcases in the room that I'm staying in. Disney Magic Eye, that's where I lost my Magic Eye virginity. It turned out to be much simpler than I thought. Rather than listening to what people have told me about how to do them, I did something novel: I read the instructions. Who would have thought that they'd actually have instructions in those books; I should have done that a long time ago, apparently. :-)

Another law school rant

About a year ago, I decided to go to law school. 22 weeks into law school, I feel fairly convinced that this was a mistake. Others in my class might not be prepared to say that, but I am.

At work, when you're paying me, I'm a damn good worker. I've never gotten anything except stellar reviews at work. Money is my carrot, I've always been able to get things done for it. When I worked for IBM, I took off many, many weeks to teach for another company. I would teach during the day and log in at IBM at night, and I would get all of my work done. I also did work on the weekends if necessary, before and after I went away. My schedules never slipped, I never missed a deadline.

But I could see my results on a daily basis. I could tell how well I was doing, I knew where I stood. If my code was broken, I could try to fix it, run it again, and see where I was then. Law school doesn't have any feedback loop whatsoever. There is no day-to-day validation that you're doing things right. You can't tell a damn thing about how you did until the grades get posted.

Here's the law school game: every day, you have a reading assignment. You're supposed to read it and be ready to talk about it in class the next day. That's it. That's the game. There are no homework assignments, nothing to turn in. (I lie slightly, there is a writing class, but the writing assignments are infrequent, and it's only one class) Now, those of you who know me know how inclined I am to distraction. I'm very willing to do something other than work if you come up with it. So this system doesn't really work all that well for me. I need deadlines, I need homework where I can apply what I'm learning.

Another big problem with this game, for me, is my background. I was a computer science major in college, never had to do reading assignments. So now, even when I do the reading, I don't know what to do with anything I get out of the reading. I've never learned how to learn solely from reading, I was always able to read something and put it into practice. Now it feels like I'm learning in a vacuum, I have no outlet for anything I learn, and I don't even know how to organize what I'm learning into a form that will be useful to me later.

The grades for law school are based on 1 3-hour test at the end of the semester. That's it. You have to write exactly what your professor is looking for, and if you get creative and deviate from that, you're going to get less credit. Even if your argument has merit. I've never thought of myself as a creative person before, but I actively tried to be creative on the exams to get more credit than other people. Didn't work out so well. My grades weren't awful, but they weren't as good as I thought they would be. More importantly, I didn't learn what I did wrong on the exams. Talking to the professors was next to useless (save one), and the comments on the exams were likewise worthless.

Law school professors think that it's still 50 years ago when they went to law school. It used to be that people would be kicked out of law school for doing poorly in classes. The teaching philosophy was one of "sink or swim." Today, no one drops out of law school because they did poorly. Or very few. There have been 2 people to drop in my class this year, and both did so because of health problems. But law school professors haven't caught up with the fact that pretty much every person in the class is going to make it to graduation and become a lawyer. They haven't caught up with the fact that law school has become much more of a vocational institution, rather than a scholarly one. They should be teaching us how to be good lawyers, not how to be good scholars, as very few of us are likely to end up scholars. And the process here doesn't seem to teach us how to be good lawyers.

So, in summary: I quit my relatively safe coding job at IBM, even though they let me take 15 weeks a year off to teach classes for another company (and paid me for the weeks I spent away). In 2002, I work 11 weeks, in 2003, I work 4 weeks, and I somehow decide that law school is a better place for me to be. In 2004, I realize that law school might not be for me. Where to now?

Today I join the ranks of the egotistical. Who am I kidding, I was there before you were. But today I join the ranks of those who believe that other people want to read their bullshit, ranting, and faux-insightful writing.

The best you can hope for is that I'll spell things right and get the grammar right.