arguendo

i learned a new word this week: arguendo. what’s more, i know that it means “for the sake of argument.” here’s what happened: i saw this word a couple times in our readings recently, and decided to look it up. then i memorized the definition. so, it turns out that this week has been a productive one so far.

a big shout-out goes out to my civ pro classmate who cracked hunter up in class this morning with the line about how that poor slob schlagenhauf “doesn’t have to be picking his ear and mumbling to be crazy.” it was a pleasure to see hunter’s smiles and laughs in reaction to that gem. in fact, we pretty much had her in stitches this morning (by that i mean that she laughed more than once) as she had quite a chuckle as well while discussing the inconsistencies and foibles of our health care system, ER doctors performing back surgery, and what have you.

i guess it’s just nice to see her loosen up a little bit. usually she’s just about the most straight-laced person you’ll meet. notice how she hardly ever leaves her spot behind the podium? hellerstein comes out in front from time to time. pitler usually makes a trip to the edge of his area. sebok, of course, is like an electron buzzing around the room. but nan pretty much stays put.

clearly this is a woman who values rules, order, and above all, procedure. i would imagine that she lives an extremely regimented existence... every sunday night, she slices a lemon into ten wedges to be added to the ice water she’ll drink in that week’s classes. then she goes to the closet, where each of her twenty suits hangs neatly in the dry cleaner’s plastic, arranged in the order she’ll wear them that week, each one spaced exactly 1.5 inches from the next, etc.

anyway, this is the stuff i think about while everyone else learns about discovery.

in closing, here are three random quotes from this week’s installment of Tuesdays With Hella...

first, he hit us with this little nugget: “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” (anyone know what this one means?)

next, he recounted a tender moment with his (ex?)wife: “don’t give me none of that oliomargarine, bitch!” (or something to that effect)

finally, he took it back to the streets: “in the bronx, that’s known as tough noogies!”

that's our hellerstein.