woo wooo!!!

Bonjour! Konichiwa! Al salaam a'alaykum! Ni hao! Hello! ¡Hola! Chào! Bon giorno! Guten Tag! Jambo! Zdravstvuite! Shalom! Dobar Dan!

hope you're all enjoying these few final and fleeting days of spring break. it's been a nice little stretch of time off for your old friend menlove; however, i'm realizing that in just a few short days, we'll be back to the normal grind. that totally blows, so i guess all we can really do now is make the most of the time we've got.

anyway, on with the show...

i received a pretty random email a couple of days ago from someone who is thinking about enrolling at good old BLS. they didn't sign the letter, but it appeared in my inbox as being writen by someone named "jes ..." yrbadluck@gmail.com (hopefully you don't mind me posting your email, dude!)

i figured i might as well get everyone's input on it, since you all tend to be quite a bit wiser than i am. check it out:

"when i began researching law schools everyone who knew anything about ny and
brooklyn law sent me to your site. so i have been reading your blog for a while. and wanted to say that you are an amazing writer and your fucking hilarious (my girlfriend thinks you should definetly keep this stuff and publish it or go write for snl or something) anyway, im in the process of making decisions about law school. brooklyn is one of my top choices. i know your busy but i was wondering if you could share your opinions about the school? is it conservative at all? knowing what
you know now would you still decide on brooklyn for law school? is it competitive? overall do you like it? any advice or suggestions are appreciated. thanks"

naturally, i have one or two responses to this inquiry, but i hope that anyone else who reads this will offer their informed perspective either on the message board, or in an email to "jes..."

so, jes, flattery will certainly get you everywhere. in this case, the first half of your letter sufficiently inflated my ego to the point that i'm writing this entire entry for you. thanks for your kind words. unfortunately, i doubt very much that anything i write here is worthy of publication. my best bet would likely be a guest column in the BLS newspaper, but even that seems like a long shot. fortunately, i'm happy where i am, writing what i can to satisfy my fellow BLSers.

you've asked some interesting questions. here's my take, but remember that this is just one idiot's opinion.

is it conservative at all? well, yes, a little bit. of course, this is new york city, home to a great concentration of what some would call "enlightened, progressive, compassionate souls" and what others would call "the liberal elite." from my limited experience with the professors of brooklyn law, it seems as if most of them lean slightly or dramatically to the left. while most of my classmates tend to be liberal as well, a solid chunk (perhaps 15-25%?) would likely describe themselves as fiscally and/or socially conservative, and several other classmates probably fall somewhere in between. in my opinion, this leads to some really interesting class discussions, as well as to arguments / debates with classmates during lunch or over beers.

knowing what you know now would you still decide on brooklyn for lawschool? yes, i would. though at times i regret the decision to come to law school in general, i'm happy that i chose BLS. of course, the reality is that virtually everyone at brooklyn was hoping that they'd get into columbia or NYU (and possibly even fordham or cardozo), and had to "settle" for BLS after being rejected to these other schools. there's really no way to sugarcoat the fact that our beloved BLS is quite simply only the fifth-best law school in new york city.

now obviously, people consider several factors in picking a law school. for instance, in addition to the school's rank, i considered the cost and financial aid / scholarship package available, the neighborhood, the commute, the student body, the programs offered, the physical facilities, and so on.

bottom line, if the only law schools you get into are BLS and columbia, unless you're looking at a full scholarship to BLS, there's really no reason to come here. at columbia, the recruiters wait in line to suck your toes, even if you're a menlove like me. (so i've heard, at least.) however, if you get into several similarly-situated schools such as BLS, st. john's and cardozo, you should give BLS some serious thought. the neighborhood is great, most of the professors are good, and your classmates will generally be very cool, interesting and smart.

is it competitive? it's competitive, but not cut-throat. everyone here understands that the professors are only allowed to give out a certain amount of A's, that only a certain percentage of us will get onto law review, that only a handful of us will land the judicial internships, and that only a few of us will get onto moot court.

some people succeed in all regards. most people try really hard but fall short. a few people just don't care at all.

however, everything i've said so far is true at virtually every law school in the country. what's cool about BLS is that people aren't out to kill each other, to sabotage anyone else's chances for success or anything like that. for instance, if i was to miss a class, i could probably ask at least a dozen people to send me their notes. and i'd gladly return the favor if they needed my help.

before law school, i heard horror stories about pages being ripped out from books and stuff like that. i've never seen anything lame like that happening here. really, the only uncool thing i've heard of so far was that at the end of last semester, a handful of smart people in the class set up some secret study sessions to which no one else was invited (although this may just be hearsay, except that i don't really know what hearsay means, so i'm not sure.) of course, this is their prerogative, and it's not like any secret study session kept me from getting an A anyway.

bottom line: people work hard here and are generally happy to lend a hand. it's a healthy vibe for a law school.

overall do you like it? if you've really been reading menlovian for awhile, you probably know the answer to this question. but to summarize, i'll say that i do not believe that it is possible to truly "like" law school, because it's just so enormously and relentlessly shitty. yet, i'm not unhappy. i've had one or two great professors, made one or two friends, and learned one or two things along the way. i've also made several ones and twos in the bathrooms, but that's neither here nor there...

any advice or suggestions are appreciated. ok, here are some final tidbits of advice and suggestions to help you along your way:

• don't try methamphetamines for the first time the night before you take the LSAT.
• before you write your exams, learn the difference between "your" and "you're" (i don't mean to pick on you, but i noticed this and other apostrophic errors in your letter, and i'd imagine that sebok & co. would poop on any exam answer with such egregious errors contained therein...)
• start an anonymous blog! it's a great way to put off revising your brief for professor schneider.

hope that helped, jes... perhaps my classmates will have a thing or two to add to what i've said so far. good luck on the entire process, and perhaps someday we'll meet over a steaming hot cup of douwe egberts.

***

before i sign off, i've got four quick things to mention.

first, i'd like to welcome "adam" to our little menlovian freaknik thingy. thanks for logging in, dude! nice job on the creative nickname, and thanks also for sharing the funny anecdote about your dad. i wish i could've been there when you explained to him what the hell menlovian is.

second, big ups to the person who posted the link to the famous clip of bubb rubb & lil sis.

i actually saw that clip several months ago, but was happy to see those two again. so happy, in fact, that i had a whistle tip welded into my vas deferens. now my man-queefs make a screaming noise! wooo WOOOO!!!

(ok, that made absolutely no sense. anyway...)

(by the way, if you google bubb rubb, you'll find all sorts of fun soundboards, movie remixes, and images.)

third, we're off to a great start with the fundraising on BLSforGood. if you're interested in helping the people of africa, or even if you're just interested in piercing the menlovian veil, drop me a line at menlovebls@hotmail.com, and let me know how much you'd like to contribute. and thanks again to those of you who have already pledged over 350 dollars!!!

finally, i'll start posting daily again once classes get going. i've been working on a year-in-pictures piece that i think some of you may enjoy, plus some other weird stories and the usual random crap.

keep it real! (real dumb.)

-menlove