Week 15: Suspended Animation

So, I’m thinking about last week, and I don’t think I learned anything. I don’t think I did anything. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT EVEN HAPPENED.

We’re at the end of the first semester. Week 15 was our last full week of classes, and right now everything feels like that part of the cartoon where Wile-E has left the surface of the cliff but has not yet begun his inevitable plunge to the canyon floor. 

The plunge happens Friday when we have our Civ Pro final.

Actually, I guess the plunge is happening now, and the depth of my thinking over the course of the semester, the organization of my notes, and the quality of my study over the coming week will determine whether I hit the bottom like Wile-E or make a miraculous landing, Road Runner style (I am, er, hoping for the latter, although I feel strangely numb about the whole thing right now. I’ve read somewhere that when a mouse is caught in the cat’s jaws, just before death it goes limp. The brain just short-circuits the whole operation and the mouse knows only numbness for the last seconds of its life. This is kind of like that? I guess?).

I can say that I have a plan. I feel like I’ve got a sense of the style and content of writing that is rewarded by professors, and I understand the material pretty well. I’ll have two full days (Wednesday and Thursday) to prepare for the first final, and I think it’ll just be making sure that I understand the rules.

Oh! Oh oh oh oh oh! Here’s a thing: you guys often ask me if the LSAT has anything to do with law school. It totally does. The way in which I approach Games is very, very similar to the way in which I am now approaching Civil Procedure. It’s about a systematic, organized and fucking FIERCE following of the rules. There are more rules in Civ Pro. They’re not written as clearly, and they’re multi-part. But it’s still rules, and if I can follow rules (and as you know if you’ve taken my course, I am a rule-following mofo), then I can do whatever task is asked of me.

So, if you’re trying to understand why the LSAT is the way it is, I’d say that part of the answer is that it holds a dim mirror up to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and shows you a shadowy reflection of the kind of work you’ll be doing in that course when you get to law school.

And, really, the parallel to Civ Pro seems most obvious because it’s the most patently rule-based, but ALL of law school is doing this same work: applying rules to new sets of facts. It’s just that in other classes, the rules aren’t always laid out and numbered for you the way that they are in Civ Pro.

So if you’re in the throes of your LSAT prep, keep in mind two things:

1. The LSAT is easier than law school.
2. The LSAT is similar to law school.

I’ve got to get to class now (a Torts review session. I’ve just reloaded the Tunkl factors (for determining whether an exculpatory agreement should be enforceable as a matter of public policy) and I needed a break so I wrote this, but if I don’t wrap it up quick I’m going to be late. So I should stop writing. I really don’t know why I’m still typing. It’s dumb. It’s not even funny. I just keep going on, and there’s no point to the exercise, except maybe to see how far I can (arbitrarily, really) push this end parenthetical, which is certainly already past all bounds of reason (and far, far beyond any bound of necessity), but maybe now it’s gone on so long that it stopped being dumb and started being funny again? But I really am going to be late), so I’ll see you next week. Probably.

Questions? Comments? Complaints? Post them below, or shoot me an email.

Be good to one another, for we need it now more than maybe ever,

d

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