thinking things
“I’m sorry, I did not read the case”
As I sit in one of the back rows and listen to one student after another repeat the phrase when called to recite one of the first cases in the assignment, I wonder if I was ever that bad back when I was Latak Queen. But to the best of my recollection I never stood up and told a professor that I didn’t read something I was supposed to read.
And while there have been many times in the years that I have been in law school that I have failed to read everything, I can say with reasonable confidence that I have never not read anything. And I have been lucky that while I am a bit late in appreciating being in this place and the luck I have had, I get this chance to prove that my luck is deserved, and I get to work harder than I ever have in part to be a better person when I leave and in part to atone for the time when I didn’t work as hard as I should’ve.
For the most part while listening to them –in addition to hoping I don’t get called because being bitch-slapped first thing in the morning has never been my favorite thing – I have been thinking about the past year and the unbelievably real events that led to a friend of mine not being able to stay, and me working harder than ever before so that I could stay.
And I have been thinking that if my friend were the one in their place, he would not have stood up the way they did, and he would not have said in an almost shame-less tone what they said.
And I have been thinking that he would have been able to recite, more than competently, and had he been unable to know everything, he at least would have known enough to not insult a professor- who wakes up as early as we do and no doubt prepares more than we do and most certainly doesn’t need to do those things but does so because he wants us to learn- by telling him that he didn’t care enough to study even a bit.
And I would be remembering how he had fought to the very last round, and was defeated, and now calls another school his college. He had worked hard and been a friend and a good blockmate. He had done nothing but the right thing at the wrong time and just, quite simply, got fucked over. He would most certainly not have said what I heard at least three people in a row say today.
And maybe I have been thinking of people who flunked civ pro and got to take OLA and should’ve flunked civ pro again but passed and people who get by with a little brown-nosing and a little yosi bonding time and people who were too busy being on tv and whatever else to help fellow students and those people who should have been number one but weren’t and those people who did nothing but be kind and generous and not ordinary but were called arrogant and Machiavellian just because and how this place is so unforgivingly painfully harshly unfair to those who want to stay here and learn the most.
Maybe I’ve been thinking of all that in the time it takes for them to stand up and say, one by one,
“I’m sorry I didn’t read the case”
But mostly I have been thinking that my friend would never have said that. Ever.
As I sit in one of the back rows and listen to one student after another repeat the phrase when called to recite one of the first cases in the assignment, I wonder if I was ever that bad back when I was Latak Queen. But to the best of my recollection I never stood up and told a professor that I didn’t read something I was supposed to read.
And while there have been many times in the years that I have been in law school that I have failed to read everything, I can say with reasonable confidence that I have never not read anything. And I have been lucky that while I am a bit late in appreciating being in this place and the luck I have had, I get this chance to prove that my luck is deserved, and I get to work harder than I ever have in part to be a better person when I leave and in part to atone for the time when I didn’t work as hard as I should’ve.
For the most part while listening to them –in addition to hoping I don’t get called because being bitch-slapped first thing in the morning has never been my favorite thing – I have been thinking about the past year and the unbelievably real events that led to a friend of mine not being able to stay, and me working harder than ever before so that I could stay.
And I have been thinking that if my friend were the one in their place, he would not have stood up the way they did, and he would not have said in an almost shame-less tone what they said.
And I have been thinking that he would have been able to recite, more than competently, and had he been unable to know everything, he at least would have known enough to not insult a professor- who wakes up as early as we do and no doubt prepares more than we do and most certainly doesn’t need to do those things but does so because he wants us to learn- by telling him that he didn’t care enough to study even a bit.
And I would be remembering how he had fought to the very last round, and was defeated, and now calls another school his college. He had worked hard and been a friend and a good blockmate. He had done nothing but the right thing at the wrong time and just, quite simply, got fucked over. He would most certainly not have said what I heard at least three people in a row say today.
And maybe I have been thinking of people who flunked civ pro and got to take OLA and should’ve flunked civ pro again but passed and people who get by with a little brown-nosing and a little yosi bonding time and people who were too busy being on tv and whatever else to help fellow students and those people who should have been number one but weren’t and those people who did nothing but be kind and generous and not ordinary but were called arrogant and Machiavellian just because and how this place is so unforgivingly painfully harshly unfair to those who want to stay here and learn the most.
Maybe I’ve been thinking of all that in the time it takes for them to stand up and say, one by one,
“I’m sorry I didn’t read the case”
But mostly I have been thinking that my friend would never have said that. Ever.
posted by peach at 12:38 AM
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