Lowering the standards of “gunner”

As the semester has progressed, I’ve turned into something of a recluse when it comes to my fellow Legal Eagles. It’s not intentional of course — like I mentioned last week, it’s a combination of trying to avoid drama and utilizing an apartment that’s catered to my learning style. Madame Prosecutor and I occasionally talk outside of class to study, and DMoff mentions ASG business every now and then. But since the whole study group thing didn’t really pan out and I’m hardly ever at the law school aside from class, I don’t have many non-class friendships among the 1Ls

I’ve got one exception, a young lady who I haven’t actually come up with a nickname for yet. We’ve got one of those friendships where we’d probably be perfect for each other romantically, but we also both have pre-existing interests so instead you end up with the bona fide respect and admiration of two competitive people going through a common struggle. She basically keeps me in check when my exasperation gets out of line and has occasionally been my conscience vis-à-vis law school.

That backstory is the preface to a conversation over the weekend, where she informed me that several folks (and by “several” I mean 3; any guesses on who?) have started referring to me as one of the class “gunners” because I posted my midterm grades here at law:/dev/null.  Professor Torts inadvertently helped that narrative on Friday when no one volunteered to brief the only case we had (an easy one, Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co. (248 N.Y. 339)), so in the interests of getting out of class I offered — and got referred to as “one of our favorite volunteers” in that not-quite-sarcastic-but-not-quite-not-sarcastic tone that makes someone think they’ve volunteered one time too often

For the sake of brevity, we’ll ignore the general silliness that goes with the secrecy around law school grades. As much as people claim school is all about competition, markets grow over time and everyone is better off collaborating than competing.  Basic economic principles.

The point that really threw me is that my grades were decisively unimpressive. I’m in 5 classes — I did really well in 2 (CivPro and Property), really bad in 2 (Torts and LRA), and I’m firmly in the middle for the 5th (Contracts). And while we all know gunners don’t necessarily have good grades, the logician in me thinks good grades would need to be a prerequisite if posting them is going to be treated as a criteria for gunner-hood.

So my grades are essentially average. I don’t volunteer unless it helps us get out of class sooner. I’ve crashed and burned on numerous occasions when I am called on. I’m rarely at the law school, not involved in school-related activities, and stopped over-dressing after orientation.

If that makes me a gunner, y’all have really lowered the standards. jsyk.

Anyhow, I’m off to bed.  Marine Corps’ birthday is tomorrow, meaning an extra-grueling PT session in the morning. Night everybody!

Tags: 1L, DMoff, Law Grades, Madame Prosecutor, Prof Torts, Torts

The (imaginary) “Big Fish” vs “Small Fish” divide…

Earlier this morning I was talking with a section-mate about yesterday’s entry on my IRS mess, and he brought up my loss in the 1L SBA Rep election to ask why I wasn’t bothered about it — especially given my deep-seated competitiveness streak.

There are a few reasons why I wasn’t surprised or upset:  above all I didn’t earn the victory (my opponents campaigned harder than I did); I think both of the winners are competent and will do a great job; and I have a habit of failing first-time campaigns, losing races at NC State both pre-dropout and post-return.1

But I’m also still at least a marginally well-sized “fish” in the law school aquarium (at least until April 30th ).

People seem to have an almost pathological habit of trying to sort and rank the folks around them.  It’s part of why we have law school rankings in the first place, even though they’re not exactly paragons of logical selection.

The problem is that creating a fictitious pecking order in law school ignores a fundamental reality of human life — everyone’s better at something than someone else.

Take the Gang of Eight as an example.  Without going through everyone in total detail, in our group we’ve got a former Student Body President, a member of the armed services, a musician, and a business owner.  Multiple people have multiple degrees apiece.  Several of them play several sports.  And as far as I know all of them had a higher college GPA than I did.

So who are the “big fish” in the group?  It depends.  If you need to lobby a politician, talk to DMoff for tips.  Write a love song?  Rockstar’s your guy.  Can’t fix your broken Microsoft Windows installation?  My CSC degree and I will be glad to help you (or you could just do us both a favor and buy a Mac ;)).

And remember we’re just 8 people out of a 1L class of nearly 200.  That’s not even getting into the academic über-achievers, and the different subjects where each of them will have their own respective strengths.

I consider myself fortunate that the North Carolina Central University School of Law doesn’t seem to have the “gunner” types you constantly hear about at places like LSD.  But even if we did, those types of folks inevitably lose out to everyone else because they have a fundamentally wrong zero-sum view of the world.  There are a *lot* of different skills and experiences that carry weight out in the “real world,” and no one will ever significantly outperform everyone else on more than a couple of them at most.

And if anyone significantly underperformed everyone else on those same metrics, odds are they’re not in law school.

So instead of stressing about my class rank or fuming over an election loss, I’d much rather support my classmates and enjoy being in the presence of people who do things better than I do.

Besides, I know I’m usually the first one they’ll call when their computers gets hit by the latest virus  Have a great night everybody!

1. In the post-return case, being the 4th place finisher in a 3-seat Student Senate race — losing to a guy who didn’t even campaign.  And who, ironically, had become one of my best friends and biggest supporters when I ran for Student Senate President the next year. [↩]

Tags: 1L, DMoff, Gang of Eight, NC State, NCCU Law, Rockstar, SG

TDot’s Mailbag v2.0

Before diving in, I just want to note I ran out of nails while finally building those bookshelves today. Nails.  Shiny 7/8″ nails.

I didn’t even know that was possible.  Nails are like the pennies of the carpentry business: they’re generally worthless individually, you inadvertently amass hundreds of them in a fairly short amount of time from totally different projects, and if you ever need one but can’t find any in the usual locations all you typically have to do is go poking around the house.  But there I was in the middle of shelf building, about to nail in a base board to a drawer, I reach for another nail, and… nothing.  I go to the toolbox, and… nothing.  I look around the apartment, in the kitchen, in the closet, in the storage unit, and… nothing.

My mind was blown as I had to go on a building hiatus to trek up the street to Lowe’s and buy a 1lb box of new ones.  Should be another few years before I run out again though

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Anyhow, moving on:  for those of you who have been supporting this blog since the beginning, or new folks who happened to trudge through the archives, every now and then I take the questions I’ve gotten via email / Facebook message / text / etc and throw them into a blog entry — usually when I’m either lacking 1) time or 2) content to write something better  I actually got 2 LSAT-related questions in the same day yesterday, so I’m combining it with 2 earlier questions for a second installment of TDot’s Mailbag:

***

Q: Ginger1 asks:

So did you, like, you know, have a bunch of study materials and stuff for the LSAT?  When did you start studying before taking it?

A: The only thing I had for preparation was the TestPrep book or whatever it’s called that you can get from LSAC. I ordered it when I ordered my LSAT admission ticket.

The book still sits unopened on my bookshelf though because I never actually studied for the LSAT.  The lack of studying wasn’t intentional, and I don’t recommend it — at all.  But in my case I had an academic backup plan in place (if I didn’t make it into any law schools I’d stay at N.C. State and start a Ph.D. in Economics), so the urge to prepare tended to evaporate if I was stressed about other stuff.  My plan was to take the test just to experience it, then re-take it this past June and start law school in Fall 2010.

For the folks I worked with at N.C. State who are going the law route, I’d give yourself at least a month or two to prepare — and the best preparation is taking an old test under the same type of rigid time constraints you’ll have during the test itself.  I’m fairly certain my score took a hit since I had to guess on the last half-dozen questions in the logic games section, all because I did a poor job managing my time.  You’ll want to get a feel for the time you’ll have to work with before going in to the test.  And make sure not to stress

***

Q: Michael, a fellow blawger, writes:

How well did you do on the LSAT?

A: Well enough to have options.  I don’t really tell folks my LSAT score because it was an unexpected blessing I owe more to good fortune than to preparation.  That and it’s a bit priggish — it’s kind of like winning the lottery and constantly going around telling your friends “oh, by the way, did I mention to you I won a million dollars yesterday?”

And coincidentally the LSAT has no bearing on the traits that make the best lawyers

***

Q: Jennifer sent an email wanting a political update:

How did you do on your election for 1L SBA representative?

A: I’m 99.9% sure I lost.  None of the classmates I’ve asked have been able to find a listing of all the results, but at least one candidate wrote on her Facebook that she got elected so I’m assuming the SBA folks just emailed the winners.

I was lucky to meet some some cool people during campaigning though, so I’m more than satisfied

***

Q: We’ll close with one of the Legal Eagles of the North Carolina Central University School of Law, Robert, who happened to find the blog on his Facebook wall and asks:

You keep mentioning this Gang of Eight. How’d you come up with this group? And who’s in it?

A: I didn’t really come up with it intentionally, we all just happened to sit in the same vicinity and realized none of us were uptight gunner types.  There were only 7 of us that originally talked during classes, but given the varying political ideologies in the group I was determined to tie in a reference to this Gang of Eight, so we adopted Pimp Daddy.  Their company definitely helps me get through the day

Here are the nicknames and a little background for the group members (listed alphabetically):

1. DMoff:  mountain man who loves baseball, was Student Body President at his alma mater, and the only person I knew well going in as a 1L with me at NCCU after working together in the UNC Association of Student Governments
2. Karl(a):  I had a different nickname originally for this young lady, but in our very first discussion about something other than law the first thing she says to me is “I’m actually a big fan of Karl Marx”… I almost had a heart attack, but enjoyed the ensuing debate
3. Monica:  Love & Basketball reference for the ball players out there; her personality reminds me of the main character
4. MP:  profoundly unoriginal nickname choice on my part — a Military Policeman in one of the Armed Services; big sports fan and graduate of UNC Wilmington (but loves UNC Chapel Hill athletics)
5. Pimp Daddy:  fairly quiet guy, business-like and definitely “old school” (e.g. takes all his notes by hand); picked that particular name because he looks similar to an actual pimp I met once when I worked for the Wake County court system
6. Rico:  reference to the 1991 hit song Rico Suave; a very chill guy who several of my classmates are secretly swooning over
7. Rockstar:  an independent musician (cool) who knows an insane amount of stuff about various topics like sports (also cool)… but is a graduate and admirer of UNC Chapel Hill (fail)
8. TDot:  yours truly of course

—===—

That’s everything I’ve got for tonight.  Have a great evening folks!

1. Remember these are all pseudonyms, picked at random from a website that lists common American names.  Don’t be shy about writing in! [↩]

Tags: 1L, DMoff, Fan Mail, Gang of Eight, LSAT, NCCU Law, Rico, Rockstar, SBA, UNCASG

TDot’s Tips #7: Own your awkwardity

Law school, in many respects, reminds me of kindergarten. Your entire grade is divided up into a few groups. You stay in one room for the entire day and different teachers come to you instead of the other way around. Several professors have you fill out index cards with basic info and facts about yourself (I even had to buy a glue stick for 2 of them — first time I’ve used glue in well over a decade). You have your teacher’s pets in the front of the room (not me), your cool kids in the middle (not me), and your miscreants in the back (me).

And awkwardity seems to be everywhere you look.

My guess is that it’s a result of everyone being in a foreign environment studying foreign material and not knowing what answers to provide to the professor’s foreign questions, but even the suave kids find themselves thrown off their game.  And I, being the incredibly suave guy I am (no snickers please), seem to have already enjoyed my fair share of awkward moments.

The first week of school was kind enough to continue that trend.  On Friday mornings we have a lab section for Legal Reasoning & Analysis, which is the only class where our 60ish students are divided up into groups of 20 or so.  Professor LRA announced the sections we were in on Wednesday and passed around an attendance sheet that included info on it.  I signed it, then dutifully wrote down the room number I was to report to on Friday.  Friday morning arrives, I get to class on time (barely), see DMoff and M.P. (both part of the Gang of Eight) in the back, go to join them… then get quizzical stares from several people.  DMoff asks if I’m in the right section, pulls up the roster on his computer, and sure enough it says I should be in a different one than I am.

The professor, ready to start class, wants to know what we’re talking about.  Now with the light shined firmly on me, feeling like a goober (again), I note that it appears I’m in the wrong section, re-pack my stuff, and walk myself across the hall.  Come in to the new class late, hand the professor in there my homework assignment, and tell her it seems I wrote down the wrong section info yesterday and should have been there instead.  She starts class as the attendance sheet is going around.  The attendance sheet gets to me… and my name isn’t on it.  Turns out I was right the first time, and that the roster which was posted online was an older edition.  So I gently raise my hand, tell the teacher about my  now-2nd screw-up, grab my assignment from her and go back to the class I was at the first time.

Ordinarily I would have been beet red from embarrassment before walking into the other class, but I realized after orientation last week that I was/am destined to end up being “that guy” (not to be confused with That Guy).  So before I left that first class the first time, I cordially announced that knowing my track record I was probably wrong and would be back shortly (which of course I was), and upon my return intentionally waved in an idiotic fashion to the professor and the other students in the room.  Apparently at least a few folks thought it was endearing.

I suspect the overwhelming majority of us are socially awkward creatures, and the reason we laugh at someone else’s faux pas is out of a nervous gratitude that “at least it’s not me!”  So the easiest way to preemptively cope with that reality is to take ownership of your awkwardity. Make a joke out of it.  Self-deprecating humor is a staple of lawyers and politicians alike precisely because it disarms people and builds a bond between you and them.  It conveys to the other person that you know exactly why they’re laughing, and it’s OK because you agree that it was pretty damn funny.

That’s my take on it at least, and it seems to be working well so far

I’m off to read Civil Procedure and Torts cases for the rest of the night.  Have a great evening folks!

Tags: DMoff, LRA, That Guy, Tips

Week 0 Retrospective Part III (or, “You can breathe now.”)

First let me say these OFF! PowerPad lanterns are a big bundle of fail.  I bought one for the deck where I usually type these blog posts and I swear the mosquitos must be hungrier than a hobo with the munchies because I’ve been getting eaten alive.  Moved it so it’s now right next to me, which probably can’t be good since I’m basically breathing in the fumes… but I figure it can’t be worse than dying of West Nile Virus right?

Second note:  these server logs are just plain fun to look at.  I’m still 75% of the site’s traffic, but it looks like I’ve got about a dozen people who aren’t me willing to visit the site on occasion.  And seeing who gets here via a Google search is interesting, with 1 visit apiece from people querying “ncsu” (my alma mater), “tgd 1l blog” (TGD being my nom de guerre), “ave maria law” (noted in this entry), “duquesne university school of law” (ditto), and some poor soul who found me while searching for “mountain dew” (I pity them for ending up here but salute them for our shared caffeinated beverage of choice! ).  There are also quite a few folks getting referred from the Facebook Inbox page, meaning the URL is getting passed around in private messages… which kinda worries me since I know who at least a few of the folks sending it are

Speaking of Facebook, some of you have been harassing me for current details now that both Day 1 and Day 2 of “real class” are over, so this post will finish the look back on orientation so there can be something fresh here for tomorrow.  I’d skip the rest of orientation entirely, but a certain someone has demanded I explain the rocking chair comment so she can stop trying to figure it out.

—===—

After very firmly planting my size 12 white Adidas with Wolfpack red highlights in my mouth and then pretending like I never said a word, I think the Big Guy Upstairs took some pity on me because the rest of orientation wasn’t that bad at all.  There was a lengthy discussion on financial aid that included questions from a few folks that were the same as ones I had (“Do we count as first-year students as 1Ls with respect to the Dept of Education’s 30-day delay on loan disbursements?”), some questions that lacked a bit of common sense (“On this table there are disbursement dates each week, does that mean you pro-rate our refund and give us a portion of it each week throughout the semester?”), and some that were just plain funny (“You have our money on the 7th but refunds aren’t until the 28th.  Do you think we go home to our mamas or something?”).

And although my memory’s a little bit hazy, I think I knew the guy who asked that last question.  The lady from financial aid looked like she was about to jump over the podium and smack the taste out of his mouth.  I don’t live by many personal rules, but one of them is this:  there are 3 types of people in this world you simply do not try to piss off — people who clean up after you, people who cook your food, and people who control your money.  Had it been someone from the Bursar’s Office standing in front of him, I’d wonder if he’d get his refund on the 28th…

Dr. Psych spoke with us briefly about learning styles and gave us a quiz on the topic, prompting the purchase of that aforementioned rocking chair.  Turns out I’m heavily-tilted toward “tactile” learning (“learning by doing”) with a secondary preference for “visual” learning and no interest at all in “aural” learning.  In talking with Dr. Psych afterwards I found out that’s a likely reason for why I’m good at remembering faces but forgetting names, like being outside on rainy days, and tend to fidget when sitting still (my right leg bounces so bad it shakes the desk and makes it damn near impossible to type on the Mac mini). She suggested a possible solution to my lack-of-furniture-in-the-domicile problem would be to get a cheap rocking chair and put it out on the deck, giving me a chance to study in an environment that lets me enjoy the light movement of the trees out back while also employing that “nervous energy” in a non-distracting pursuit since the laptop screen would end up moving in tandem with the chair.

So far I think she was right.  This has probably been the highlight of my day, carnivorous mosquitoes notwithstanding

We also had a presentation by the Police Chief, who happened to be wearing the same NC State polo shirt I have.  One of his memorable comments:  “The odds of you getting a ticket during your 3 years at NCCU are 100%.”  To which I thought “I bought my permit way before school started, I’m good.”  (see the start of yesterday’s entry for the twist).

And then there was the smug joy of watching the IT staff scurry around the room for about 20 minutes trying to coax all the new Lenovo / MS Vista-based laptops the students get to borrow to recognize the wifi network… while my MacBook Pro had been connecting fine since before orientation ever started (yes, I’m one of those sanctimonious Apple-loving bastards you’ve heard about and quite proud of it ;)).

The second day was fun and had me almost convinced law school wouldn’t be that bad at all.  We had an introduction to civil procedure that basically outlined stuff I had picked up during my years as a paralegal and assistant clerk of court, an intro to briefing cases that I probably should have written down in my notes but didn’t when Professor Contracts said he’d post the slides online, and had our pictures taken for what I’m guessing will be a book of the incoming class.  I got my Student ID with a picture that looks like I just got caught doing something illegal.  There was the reception that prompted this exchange on starting law:/dev/null, and a night workshop on ethics and professionalism that prompted my other major realization of the day…

…I am impressively awkward.

If you did a union on a pair of tuples with [large venues, small venues] and [structured format, unstructured format], my natural home is in the [small venues, *] area.  With only comparatively few people to face, folks naturally interact at some point and I have the opportunity to utilize my limited but occasionally witty sense of humor to make friends and win arguments.  I can also handle the [large venues, structured format] as a secondary preference (e.g. speaking in front of a large group of people), a learned skill from spending the past couple years as a student politician at NC State.

But put me in a room with a couple hundred people and no real expectations on what to do or who to talk to, and I tend to gravitate to the edge and talk to people… on my BlackBerry.

The upshot is that I’ve got a few folks now who I can shadow and are far more people-oriented than I am (DMoff) or far better known (Delta the 2L — I’ll talk about this angel of mercy at greater length in a later entry).  So slowly but surely things are coming together

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That’s all I’ve got on the orientation rundown — I ended up skipping the last 2 days due to obligations I had to a non-profit board I work with on higher education issues.  That’s a good thing though: imagine how many more entries I’d have to post if I had more…

Off to brief cases for the rest of the night — Wednesday is my hell day in terms of scheduling, with 4 classes I’m thoroughly unprepared for back-to-back-to-back-to-back.  Good night everybody!

Tags: 1L, Ave Maria Law, CivPro, Delta the 2L, DMoff, Dr Psych, Duquesne Law, I ♥ Apple, Orientation, Prof Ks, Tech Talk

Week 0 Retrospective Part I (or, “Don’t panic. Really.”)

I said I’d let you know:  nope.  First day of class is tomorrow and I’ve successfully done -0- of the readings or case briefings.  I’d offer an explanation, but I’m a believer in that adage “excuses only satisfy those who make them”… and my excuse isn’t even that good.  May be tempting fate here, but I’m gambling that since it’s the first week of class the readings aren’t difficult and I’ll be able to knock them out tomorrow morning after a decent night’s sleep.

One more side note before getting into the rest of the post:  After going through the server logs for law:/dev/null it looks like I have a grand total of 3 regular readers at this point (excluding all of the web crawlers and bots and other inventions of the Information Age that artificially make it look like people actually care what I think).  Considering I only told 2 people about the blog so far, I consider that a 150% return on my investment and consequently an unmitigated success  Thanks to all 3 of you for supporting my random endeavors (and thanks to all the bots and web crawlers for making me feel more important than I really am ;)).

With the first full week of class about to start, I figured it’d be an opportune time to look back on the first week of class lite (aka orientation) and some of the oodles of fun I got to experience last week.

I didn’t think I was the type to ever get nervous about the first day of class or starting at a new school.  I certainly didn’t remember being nervous when I came to NC State for undergrad, although in fairness I skipped the first couple days of classes my freshman year on the advice of upperclassmen who swore it was standard practice (note for freshmen:  ignore upperclassmen who swear you can skip the first couple days of classes).  The intimidation factor of law school never really worried me either, largely because (i) I have a ridiculously huge ego and know I can handle it, and (ii) that ego originated in some crazy life experiences against which law school will simply never seem as threatening (e.g. being the #2 employee working for a former prison warden with a legendary temper back when I was an Assistant Clerk of Superior Court).

So I planned to go to bed around 10pm, wake up at 6am, cook breakfast, watch the news, read the newspaper online, shower, throw on my suit, and generally take my time getting to school at a leisurely pace.

But then for some arbitrary reason I started reading some law student blogs, most of which I noticed hadn’t been updated in 2-3+ years.  Which prompted me to find some more recent content, and before I knew it I had 20+ tabs open after going through everything I found in the first few posts at The Legal Underground.  Then I started going backwards through the posts at Above The Law, My Legal Fiction, Thanks, but No Thanks, and particularly  No634, including this entry on dressing for orientation (which, like a fool, I ignored).

By the time I finished I realized it was 2am.  Normally that wouldn’t be an issue, except that I had developed a bad habit of oversleeping during the summer if I didn’t get to bed at a decent time.  Aaannnddd… I overslept.

My eyes opened around 7:08am, and for reasons I still don’t know my mind was under the impression orientation began at 8am.  I jumped out of the bed, took a quick shower, ironed my shirt, threw on my suit, skipped breakfast and bolted out the door with a Diet Mountain Dew, putting my tie on in the car as I sped down Fayetteville Street cursing every time I hit a stop light (several) or got stuck behind someone doing 5mph under the speed limit (several more).  By the time I got to campus, the street alongside the law school was totally packed with cars and  I just knew I was ridiculously late. So I parked in the first space I could find near the law school (even though I wasn’t actually supposed to park there) and walked as briskly as one can walk in a suit to the closest entrance to the building.

I didn’t create a TDot’s Tips entry for this yet, but let me interject it here:  READ AND FOLLOW DIRECTIONS.  Even when you’re in a hurry.  Even if you can’t find them right away.  Trust me.

Apparently I wasn’t supposed to take that closest entrance, I was supposed to go in the front of the building like every other rational person.  So when I came in the side (essentially the basement, given the topography) one of the 2Ls helping with orientation assumed I was a non-1L and let me wander around.  After looking for a sign or something indicating where I was supposed to be for about 5 minutes, I confessed my 1L-ness to the young lady and asked her where to go.  She pointed up the stairs, and up I went… where a second 2L asked if I was here for orientation (“I am”) and said I was supposed to go downstairs and wait. Back down I went… just for the original 2L to ask me why I was back (“I was told to head down here and wait”), and tell me I needed to go back up the stairs to register first in the Great Hall.  I go back up the stairs, ask the second 2L to point me in the direction of the registration area, and head over there to register.  Along the way I notice (at the main entrance) all the signs I missed directing me where to go.

So I get to the registration desk, and notice there seem to be an awful lot of folders left at the desk for people who are checking in.  “These people can’t be more late than me” was the thought that ran through my mind… only to realize at that moment that orientation wasn’t slated to begin until 9:00am, and I was actually 50ish minutes early.  The night before I actually knew the right start time, since I texted that very information to the only other 1L I happen to know at NCCU Law (we’ll call him DMoff, since he may end up in later entries).  Yet somehow in the midst of oversleeping my brain decided I needed to be at school almost an hour early instead of just being on time.  My stomach grumbled its dissatisfaction.

Me. In a suit. Unlike all but 2 other people.

After panicking to get to school, going up and down the stairs like a hamster, finally checking in and realizing I needlessly skipped breakfast to get to orientation insanely early, I went back downstairs to the student lounge to wait for things to get started.  Just in time to notice I was completely and totally overdressed.

As a preface to explain, I used to be a college dropout.  I spent 2 years at NCSU, couldn’t afford to continue, dropped out at the end of my sophomore year, and spent the next 5 years of my life working in the private sector in various law-related positions (since being a filing clerk or litigation paralegal doesn’t require a formal education if you’re able to learn on the fly).  Because of that experience, “professional attire” to me was a suit and tie; “casual Friday” around those firms meant you wore slacks and a polo shirt instead of a suit.  T-shirts, jeans, flip flops, etc were all verboten.

The letter for orientation indicated that “professional attire” was expected, so I put on a suit and tie (coincidentally in the school’s colors).  It just happened to be an order of magnitude over the top.

Now feeling like one of the priggish “gunner” types I read about on the law blogs the night before, I sat at the back of the lounge, tuned out the rest of the outside world, and started reading the materials we were given thinking there was absolutely no way the day could possibly get any worse.

I was absolutely wrong…

More to come tomorrow.  I’m heading to bed before I oversleep again  Good night everybody!

Tags: 1L, ::headdesk::, About TDot, Awkwardity FTL, DMoff, NC State, Orientation