a portrait of the artist as a piece of shit

so here it is, nearing midnight at the end of a lazy three day weekend. i've had my con law textbook open in front of me for close to an hour, but for some reason i can't bring myself to actually start reading all of those tiny, confusing little letters.

i think that at this moment, i am at my lowest point all year in terms of motivation and passion for the study of law.

i mean, i just came off of an extremely trying, hectic, and largely unsuccessful semester. sure, it's looking like i won't be failing out, but in some ways (and i'm ashamed to admit this) i'm almost disappointed that i failed to fail out.

what i've learned from last semester is that by working really, really hard every day, by sleeping very few hours per night, by allowing my college friendships to stagnate, by failing to exercise in any way, by upping my smoking habit dramatically, and by ignoring virtually every other hobby / interest / leisure in my life, all i will be able to gain is a spot squarely in the bottom quarter of our class. and this truly is a shitty realization.

last semester, though hampered by my menlovian intellect, i still managed to attack my assignments with some degree of passion. i cared. sure, on some level, my work ethic was fueled by a fear of looking ridiculous vis-a-vis a sebokian socratic skewering; regardless, at least i gave two shits.

now, i sit here and look at this con law reading, and i hardly care about it at all. hell, i really barely even care about my con law or torts grade at this point. (although, i have to admit that i liked how brassy hellerstein was when he announced that he would be blatantly disregarding the school's posted january 15th grade submission deadline. "kiss my tenured ass, baby!") and it's not like it's just tonight's homework. what lies ahead is about four more months of constant frets, sweats and regrets, peppered with a frantic but fruitless job search, failing health, and deteriorating connections to almost everything that else that once mattered in my life.

i've just never felt quite this... shmeh since school started.

anyway, sorry about all my bitching. i'm done now.

on to something more positive...

i've been meaning to respond to much of the mail that some of you guys have been sending to menloveBLS@hotmail.com. unfortunately, as many of you use anonymous email addresses rather than your BLS accounts, it's hard to tell whether several of you or just a few of you have been sending me email. regardless, it's always good to hear from you all.

one theme that's popped up in my inbox a few times is people requesting for me to redo or renew the whole "my wonderful classmates" thing from last semester.

more specifically, some of you seem really to be interested in finding out my thoughts on my least favorite people, the people i think will be most likely to flunk out, or the people who i consider to be the biggest nerds in our section.

obviously, these are topics for private conversation, not for anonymous bloggery; however, what i have decided to do is to reprise last semester's "my wonderful classmates" series.

it makes sense to do this now for a few reasons... first, five out of last semester's six wonderful folks were in section 9. now that our classes have all converged, it would surely be worthwhile to recognize some of the great people in sections 7 and 8 as well. furthermore, the original 6 were posted just a month or two into the school year. obviously, we've all had time now to get to know the people sitting around us in class a bit better, and new fantastic personalities have certainly emerged.

therefore, the time is ripe for "my wonderful classmates II."

however, whereas last time i pretty much picked the six "winners" all by my lonesome self, this time, i'll be enlisting everyone's help.

if you happen to know someone in section 7, 8 or 9 who never fails to impress, nominate them by sending me an email.

in addition to the name of your nominee, be sure to tell me some things about them that make them such hot shit.

also, feel free to nominate yourself! i don't give a crap if you do, and i promise i won't call anyone out for doing so. hell, you yourself might be more wonderful than anyone else can possibly know.

i'll be accepting nominations all this week at menloveBLS@hotmail.com

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one final note: there is still a very real and tangible prize awaiting any brave soul who dares to shout out "slow down!" during property class. offer expires this wednesday after professor jones dismisses our class.