Would the real Liza please come back?

Normally, during finals, I attempt to remain at least mostly cheerful. If that means I have to fake it every once in a while, that's fine with me. If it means that less cheerful people want to smack me upside the head, that's fine too. However, this latest round of finals seems to have brought out some sort of cranky, bitter, and slightly alcoholic alter ego. So, with that, I'll be back after finals are over next Tuesday, or as soon as I regain my former disposition, whichever comes first.
Cheers,
Liza

Hush

There is something strange that happens to law students near the end of the semester. People are stressed out, panicky even. They realize they're unprepared, or underprepared. It happens when your whole grade hinges on one arbitrarily graded exam. So it's no surprise that on the last day of classes for the semester, the sudden urge to make up for being a shitty student all semester is even more intense. People start asking the darndest questions...at the worst moments. I'm speaking of the end of class, the two minutes or so before we're all about to be released for the semester. The professor winds up, prepares to bask in the expected applause of a group of students who are either impressed with his teaching or just gloriously happy to leave, and suddenly, inevitably, a hand goes up. Now, what is so important that it can't wait? Generally, end of class questions are asked by gunners and thus have no real bearing on the class for the rest of us. They are better left to email, and are annoying under the best of circumstances. But when it's the last day of class, and he's about to let us leave early, DO NOT raise your hand. Leave it down. Resist the urge to show off how smart you are. The class will thank you. If you don't in fact resist, people will stare disbelievingly at the back of your head while you ramble on about the minutiae of the last four months. They will curse you under their breath. They might even be forced to sit on their hands so that they don't chuck a book at the back of your head. Really, it's better to just keep quiet and let it ride. You can always get to it later (as a serious procrastinator, I know this to be true). So mind your mothers and remember: if you don't have anything to nice (or helpful, productive, or worthy of attention) to say, just don't say anything at all.

Sluts? Or Goddesses?

Today, at the pool, this little gem of a conversation reached my ears:
Sorostitute 1: I watched History of Porn last night.
Sorostitute 2: Are you doing extra credit?
S 1: Yeah, totally. It's incredible, I get to watch porn for extra credit. We started watching Sluts and Goddesses too.
S 2: I don't know if this is true, but I heard one of them fucks a tree.
S 1: She does fuck a tree!
Sorostitute 3: Huh, maybe I'd like it.
S 1: It's like really new-age, artsy, ultra-feminist porn. You wouldn't like it.

I guess now I know what kind of person hears the words "tree fucking" and thinks "Now that's something I could get into."

I call bullshit

You know what bugs me? Movies where people accept some sort of lesser existence than what they started with. Let me just preface this by saying that I watch really bad movies, so ummm, try not to laugh. Like, the other day I watching Jersey Girl. Ben Affleck has this great job as a publicist in New York and this fabulous apartment in the city and presumably quite a bit of money, and then his wife gets pregnant and he has a little girl but the wife dies and he loses his job and, long story short, 7 or so years later he ends up blowing off a job interview that would get him back in the business and the fabulous apartment so that he can go to a school play. And then today I was watching Just My Luck (told you I watched bad movies) and the Lindsay Lohan character has a fantastic life that she gives up for some guy and turns into a walking calamity but she's in loooooove so it's all okay. And then there's The Family Man, where Nick Cage gives up his incredible apartment and his money and his girlfriend in her slinky black negligee and his Porsche (or something such fancy car) for his high school sweetheart and her bratty kids in New Jersey. And I have a problem with this, a serious problem people! No one has everything and then is somehow happy giving it all up to live with much, much less. I call bullshit. If it were me, with the fabulous job and all the money and whatnot, I'd kiss my faux Jersey family goodbye, head back to the city in my Porsche, and climb back into bed with negligee-wearing girlfriend. Seriously, next time that I turn on a movie and the lead learns some sort of ridiculous cosmic lesson and I'm supposed to swallow the idea that said character is somehow happier in the grand scheme of things, I'm gonna throw my TV out the window.

Another short post

Why did it have to be on Monday that I managed to sit in a little pool of coffee at 7:15 in the morning on my longest day of classes? Why not the day that I only have to be here for an hour and a half? Cue feeling sorry for myself.