garganta profunda

hi guys,

thanks for all the fun and funny shit on the message board over the long weekend. 80+ messages! i love when everyone gets into a little tizzy about something or other. just think of all the great stuff we've argued about this year.

so i don't want to dwell too much on moot court, as the whole process obviously brought up a whole range of emotions from all of us who participated, but i do want to echo some of your sentiments about "the call that never came."

lord, did i ever put a lot of time into the moot court tryout. true, it did not go so well for me. i can't deny that my opponent scored big points by raising some really heads-up objections to my questions in the cross examination. and it's also true that my opening statement was far from memorized, and that i was sweating like a husky boy in his bar mitzvah suit throughout my entire tryout.

i have no gripes about how the judges made their decisions, nor can i complain about the moot court tryout process itself. the people who are really good on their feet, who are confident and who come across well got invited. a lot of things in the world operate on a similar premise.

same thing goes for appellate ad. most people who made the second round did really well on their briefs. this means that they put a lot of effort into their work, and were probably pretty smart to boot. in other words, they deserved to make the second round. and those who made the final cut had to be at the top of their game under enormous pressure.

of course, some people surely got raw deals with cold benches or unfair brief grades, and i'm sorry if this was your experience. it sucks, and it's not fair.

however, the one thing that i do want to complain about is the way that the invitations were made. the whole thing just reeked of sorority rush week. i felt like such a friggin' tool walking around all afternoon with my hand on my phone, waiting for a call that never came. i'll also admit that i probably checked my phone every twenty minutes or so to make sure that it hadn't mysteriously run out of battery power or anything like that.

anyway, i'm not sure that the phone call method was the most humane way of handling the invitation process. i'm sure that it's partly based on the need to actually "invite" each person, to see which division they want to join, or if they even want to join at all.

however, if phone calls are actually necessary, why can't these moot court folks have the simple decency to call EVERYONE who tried out for moot court, whether they made it or not? sure, it's not as fun to give someone bad news as it is to tell them that they made the cut, but think about it this way...

i spent a good 24 hours total writing my brief, and practicing for the oral argument, and i'm a total menlove. i'm sure that most people spent a lot more time than that. the people who made the second round had to add even more hours of stress and prep work, hours that surely would have been better spent working on a 95-page contracts outline. the people who tried out for trial ad probably lost another 24 hours of prep time. all things considered, we all lost hours and days in the process of trying out for this stuff.

and they can't spare twenty seconds for a phone call?

"mr. menlove? hi, this is Billy Blackacre from the moot court honor society. i'm sorry to inform you that we aren't going to be able to invite you to join this year, but we thank you for your efforts, and wish you luck." click.

twenty seconds, max. twenty seconds of their time at say, ten in the morning, would have meant an afternoon without anguish for me and for the majority of students in our class.

anyway, that's all the complaining i have to do. on a more positive note, i'm really happy for and proud of all the folks who got into moot court. it's a big honor, and i have no doubt that you deserve it. i understand that only about fifty people out of the 500+ who tried out made the appellate ad, and something like 30 out of 230 made trial ad, so you guys deserve some serious props.

specifically, i'd like to give a shout out to my fellow section 9ers who made moot court.

you know what? fuck it, i'm going to give shouts out to the section 8ers as well. some of you all are starting to feel like family to me.

section 9ers: mark antar, scott chait, scott eckert, jed friedman, demian ordway, lishani senaratne, aimee shultz

section 8ers: michael blatchley, andria bouskos, carla cheung, jenna haze, michael pasinkoff, julie shaw

i apologize if i left anyone's name off of the list. i realize that i may not actually know everyone's name in section 8. if i left anyone out, let me know!

regardless, to those of you who made it, congrats! you all deserve a standing novation.

***
so now we are really in the home stretch. you guys know that i usually try to post five times a week. however, some of you might remember that come exam time, i really only write something after each exam. aside from that, my life turns into a mad dash for the finish line, same as all of yours.

the point is that although i'll try to write a little something after tuesday's and wednesday's classes, believe it or not, menlovian is pretty much over with. all things considered, you should expect two or three more entries this week, an entry after each exam, and then a final menlovian entry, which will either be very, very brief, or ridiculously out-of-control, over-the-top long, revealing, and hopefully entertaining.

regarding that final entry, seeing as how we haven't had any pledges in a week, it's been looking like it will end up being a short goodbye & thank you sort of thing. sort of a bummer, but actually, the upside for me is that i get to keep my identity a secret. also, i know that a few of the people who made pledges (myself included) will be honoring their pledge to Africare regardless of whether we hit $1500 or not, so i'm happy about that as well.

however, it's still possible that we'll reach our goal. i'm not going to be harping on it in these final weeks, as we've all got exams and job-searches and whatever to deal with, but i just wanted to remind you about a few points:

• if we raise less than $15oo, all previously-made pledges are deleted and cancelled. it's all-or nothing.
• if we reach our goal, BLS becomes life members of Africare, and all menlovian-related secrets and stories will be revealed.
• the deadline for pledges is midnight after our con law exam, the evening of the 13th.
• as of right now, we are $763.96 away from our goal. we've come far, but there's quite a bit to go.
• to answer the question that was emailed to me, yes, people who have donated may certainly donate a bit more if they like, and yes, i will reflect the change on the BLSforGood website. nihilists who aspire to become sour patch kids need only pledge four dollars, and so on.

***

so tomorrow is our last regular class with beryl and helladonk. it's hard to believe, and i'm excited to see what they each have in store for us.

before i go, i have one random thing to mention. i know that i don't do too much in the way of recommending movies or albums to you guys. it's just too hard to do so without giving away my identity. however, i do have to recommend the TV show called "wonder showzen" to all of you. it airs on MTV2 at some pretty strange hours, but believe me, it's worth the effort to try it out.

if you're a fan of "TV funhouse," "family guy," "mr. show" or "sesame street," i'm pretty sure you'll like wonder showzen. it's pretty much the most fucked up and creative half hour on television. it's not new either, it's been around awhile, but trust your old friend menlove on this one. if you want to get your mind off of the madness that is law school for a short piece of time, set your TiVo's, check it out, and let me know what you think. (people who are easily offended probably should not follow my advice. at times, wonder showzen makes south park look like the 700 club.)

see you all tomorrow for our (as poser called it) penultimate day of class!!!

-menlove

*BLSforGood*