nin137

Nick's Journal
2006-09-13 16:47:48 (UTC)

50 Feet

in this here city we have an ordninance ya see...we like to
keep our smokers 50 feet from our buildings...take a hike!

i met the first person who i think i can really consider a
friend in law school. i've met a bunch of really cool
people with whom i'm studying but i just haven't really
'clicked' with any of them. but then yesterday i finally
got to know someone who had the same mentality as i...a
daunting task trust me.
his name (i'm about 95% certain) is clay and he won me over
yesterday with his presentation in criminal law. at risk of
sounding homosexual...if had my eyes on clay for a while.
we were paired up the first day of class trying to figure
out the elements of a statute. i remembered him being some
what funny and very exasperated with the whole task. i
watched him for a while and saw how he didn't really seem
want to interact with anyone else at law school. whereas you
normally see all those friendly faces fawning for
friendships his was stoic and somewhat sardonic when peoople
spoke to him...he was also the only smoker i'd seen in my
class.
well the other day he was giving HIS presentation during
criminal law (this is the same class in which that asshole
called the other guy out). well not to go into a sidebar
here but the whole deal is we're arguing for sentencing of a
woman convicted of manslaughter because she left her kids at
home and the house burned down. she knew her kids were
pyros and even burned them with a cigarette lighter to teach
them not to start fires.
well Clay's suggestion was that she should be sent to a boys
& girls club or ymca to help her recover her depression and
also educate her on how not to kill children.
of course some asshole started busting his chops right away,
"so let me get this straight...you're letting a child-killer
go to a place where she would be over-seeing children?"
"that's correct, i figure this way the loss of her two
children is mitigated by the presence of other children and
at the same time she learns responsible parenting."
"does she get to bring a lighter?" general laughter follows
"no i was thinking more along the lines of a flame-thrower"
dude won me over from there.
so i walked up to him as he was smoking across from our law
school building and since i can't bring myself to say,
"can i bum one?" i asked, "could i have one?"
he consented and we started the usual line of talking that
guys have when they are testing each other out as to whether
or not they would like each other (sort of like dogs
sniffing each other's ass).
after a while we got into some good conversation when we heard,
"excuse me sirs," that fucking condescending excuse me...ugh
"i don't know if you know this but you are to be 50 feet
from any building when you are...smoking" he said the last
word as if he were saying "eating feces"
we looked at the law building across the street from us and
i said,
"i think we're far enough from there"
"but not here"
we looked behind us and saw the engineering building.
with this clay got up and walked heel to toe towards the
building then ran back
"75 feet" he said with a grin
"yes well that may be but we PREFER that you smoke over there"
with this he pointed at this little cubby made out of wood
where everyone else was smoking.
"um...no?" clay said and we went back into conversation.
the dude stomped off and we resumed conversation,
"i hate when people fucking tell me what to do. that's the
worst part about being a smoker, people feel as though they
have a moral and therefore intellectual superiority to you,
i really fucking hate it when people think they are
educating me by telling me that smoking is bad."
"yeah i know what you mean," i retorted "well not really i
don't smoke that much...but i hate when people tell me to
tie my shoes. see these sneakers always come untied..and
i'm jsut sick of re-tying them every five seconds, but dear
god if i were to walk more than 5 minutes with them untied i
get it from every good samaritan out there."
"that's not really the same"
"yeah i guess not"
huh.
"so you really care your school books like a little school
girl" clay says
"what do you mean?"
"well you clutch them to your chest and wrap your arms
around them like they're a fucking baby."
"i hold them more liek they are three babies each worth $100
a piece."
"are you suggesting that these law books are worth more than
babies?"
"babies aren't worth shit...come on you could have at least
have picked that one up from criminal law"
he took a drag and looked out pensively,
"yeah i guess i forgot about that."
so from there on we just made fun of people in our class and
how horrible our criminal law professor was in busting
chops. but we agreed that he was by far the best teacher
because at least he didn't allow the bullshit diversions our
contracts professor allowed to happen.
"your argument with that hippie was pretty good" clay then
picked up
"oh about adverse possession?"
"yeah, what a dumb bitch, sometimes when people like her
talk i just shudder. i mean there's that asshole in
criminal law but you can tell that he's just an idiot and
just is looking to distinguish himself, but then you have
this bitch who thinks right off the bat that what she says
is right and not really open to debate....ugh those are the
people who get elected to office."
"yeah well i enjoy debating with them, even if you can't
make them see a different view you can atleast frustrate
them and try to humiliate them in front of everyone."
"yeah, but you can't be too direct or else you look like an
asshole just like that guy."
"it's a delicate balance."
with this clay nodded and then stared off into the distance
saying,
"well time for me to hit the books, i'll see ya in torts."
and with that i found that i finally found someone who makes
me like law school even more.




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