If you’ve seen the word “gunner” in law school-related forums, you’ve probably interpreted the word to mean something bad. I mean, you can basically replace it with the word “leper” without changing the intent of the sentence too drastically.
Just how bad is a gunner? Here’s an Urban Dictionary definition:
A person who is competitive,overly-ambitious and substantially exceeds minimum requirements. A gunner will compromise his/her peer relationships and/or reputation among peers in order to obtain recognition and praise from his/her superiors.
Oh my word. Kill it. With fire. Seriously though: What does the world have against the high-performing student? I say this based purely on anecdotal evidence, but it seems that, in a scholastic setting, achieving academic prowess is seen to be at odds with ascending the popularity ladder.
Researchers in the UK, who studied children ages 12 to 13, have now discovered how to be good at both. And how is that accomplished? The researchers concluded that you can avoid being called a “nerd” (or, in the case of law school, a gunner) by … wait for it … being thought of as good looking and fashionable by your classmates. Like, ZOMFG! Obvious researcher is obvious.
Telegraph education correspondent Julie Henry writes:
“A number of the pupils interviewed were aware of the tensions inherent in being clever and popular. Some mentioned being chided jokingly for being ‘boffs’ by friends.
There was evidence that some of the pupils were carefully negotiating the “balance”. One middle-class boy said: ‘Well, you try to make yourself be funny as well as do the right answers.’ “
Read the full article here. (via Neatorama)
Photo: I Can Has Cheezburger
Yes, law school and the subject matter taught in it can be less droll and more “LOL!” At least as depicted by the members of The Libel Show at the University of Virginity School of Law. The show, which is similar to the New York University School of Law’s Law Revue, is:
“an annual theatrical production which has been humoring the Law School since 1908 (making us the longest running student organization on campus). Each year the Show lampoons our professors and life at the Law School through a variety of impersonations, song parodies, and skits. The Libel Show’s mission is to do everything within its power to help the Law School community enjoy raucous laughter.” (UVA’s Web site)
Above the Law posted a couple of preview videos from NYU’s 2009 Law Revue, and The Libel Show wanted in on the publicity action. They wrote ATL with a link to a video from last year that plays a bit like an odd mix of the Beastie Boys and the Backstreet Boys. A representative for UVA states that “in terms of humor … (the video) kicks the crap out of NYU’s Law Revue”.
UVA gets extra points from me for comparing a treatise by Chemerinsky (as in Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the new U.C. Irvine School of Law) to a thick booty.
“Excuse me! You don’t know what you do to me. Your booty triggers strict scrutiny. Fatal in-fact back that everyone can see. It’s thicker than a treatise by Chemerinsky.”
But ATL hits the nail on the head when they state its tough to get over “the resemblance between that one Con Luv Boy and Carson Kressley from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”
If you haven’t already, watch the vid up top, and watch the South Park-inspired vid below from NYU to come to your own conclusions:
The Blawgirl loves her a good chuckle (and referring to herself in the third person, apparently). And she also loves the clever things people do on April Fools’ Day. Here are what some pranksters have been doing around the world.
- A man and his emus. My favorite prank so far today has come from the dean of the University of Texas School of Law (via blawg Above the Law). Dean Lawrence Sager wrote an email to his students stating that he would be resigning his position at the law school in order to pursue his first love: raising emus. Sager writes:
“Some of my finest hours have been spent cantering across the Texas plains on the back of an Emu. They are stately, resplendent, Brobdingnagian birds, capable of carrying a man at full gallop the length of 30 hectares on a single hogshead of millet seed.”
UPDATE: According to Above the Law, the dean states that he did not write the letter, but he finds it very funny.
- All your CADIE are belong to us. Google releases CADIE, Internet-based artificial intelligence that has assumed control of the Google company and its goods and services. The setup is pretty elaborate, with CADIE, depicted as a boxy panda, developing her own YouTube page and blog.
- Twitter is the future. The UK’s Guardian newspaper published a story stating that it would go Twitter only.
- Scary clowns. Gizmodo.com has tons of scary clowns (that’s right. Clowns are effin’ scary) and appears to have been hacked.
- Be a Princess of Mars for only $99! Expedia.com is offering flights to Mars!
- New album from NIN. New NIN album ‘Strobe Light’ produced by Timbaland in Strobe-tastic, drum machine awesomeness. Posted by @trent_reznor on his Twitter page. The album is not free, mind you. It costs $18.98 plus a $10 digital convenience fee.
- The last Fark-tier. Fark will introduce a new social network beginning April 2 that looks eerily like some other social
network, I can’t remember which. - How much kyute is too much? A new breed of pet called the puppycat premiers on dogster.com.
- Disney park trifecta in So Cal. Orange County Metblogs broke news this morning about a third Disney theme park slated for Southern California (because the second one was sooo successful) that will be similar to Japan’s DisneySea. The Orange County Register’s Around Disney blog gave me a sad by calling up Disney mucky mucks, who swiftly called hoax. The concept is not too far fetched, as the idea of a third park has been kicked about for years, the Register states.
Find a massive, ever-growing (dare I say, extreme!!) list of April Fools pranks on TechCrunch.
I’ll update this page as I find things today!
Photo: snoshuu / Flickr and bonguri / Flickr
By now, most of you have heard of Twitter, the micro-blogging service where you write what you’re doing in 140 characters or less. If not, you’ve been hiding with fellow luddites under a rock somewhere, or in North Korea, or under a rock somewhere in North Korea.
I, personally, am a fan of the site, and was delighted when I came across Twistori. The site pulls tweets, individual posts from Twitter, with the words love, hate, believe, feel and wish, and posts them in a beautiful stream of love, hate, beliefs, feelings and wishes. It’s Twitter as art (twart?).
Whether you’re dealing with the stress of applying to law school or the nail-biting of waiting for admissions (or, boo, rejections), I am of the mind that looking at cute things is as good, if not better, than taking aspirin.
If you don’t know me, let me explain: I am a sucker for all things cute, with special attention paid to puppies, kittens and baby elephants.
I’m one of those annoying people who stops folks out for a stroll with their dogs just so I can pet them (the dogs, not the people). And, yes, I know they come from evil, evil puppy mills, but I can’t help but smile and play with the puppies at the local pet store.
Today more than ever there is no shortage of sources for cute on the Interwebz, which makes my fluffy-puppy-LOLcat-baby-heffalump loving heart glad. LOLcats have their LOLs, and all’s right with the world. If you want to join me on this cute odyssey, here are a few places to start your search:
- Cute Things Falling Asleep. I think the name is pretty self-explanatory. This site is a collection of videos from around the Interwebz, mostly YouTube so far, of puppies, kitties, penguins, babies, elephants, etc., falling asleep and looking oh-so-adorable doing so.
- Cute Overload. An overload of mind-exploding and heart-bursting cuteness.
- I Can Haz Cheezburger. LOLcat central. If you haven’t been exposed to the wonder that is a LOLcat (a cat photo with a caption written in LOLspeak) this is a good introduction. And if you’re not familiar with LOLspeak, the site also offers a handy primer and a link to the LOLspeak wiki.
- I Has A Hotdog. The sister site to I Can Haz Cheezburger, this site has photos of dogs and puppies, or “goggies”, captioned in the LOLcat style.
- The Cute Project. A site with the laudable goal of collecting all the world’s cuteness in one place. World peace, one kyute at a time.
Photo: I Has A Hotdog
Nerds and geeks now have their own balladeer. Songstress Marian Call released “Got to Fly”, an album commissioned by Quantum Mechanix Inc., in November. And though the music is friendly for non-citizens of the nerd and geek nation, the album contains special winks for those who speak geek. There’s the song “Vera Flew the Coop”, after mercenary Jayne Cobb’s weapon of choice, and “In the Black”, a nod to the slang for “space” in “Firefly”. The album can be purchased from iTunes. You can also check out Call’s Web site for other sites where you can buy the album.
You can follow Call on Twitter at @mariancall.
Here are the answers to the anagrams posted yesterday
1. Cabana Kaiser Bum Hos -> Barack Hussein Obama
2. Corny Egalitarian Song -> Antonin Gregory Scalia
3. Chlamydia Horn Tin Roll -> Hillary Rodham Clinton
4. Nosy Pelican -> Nancy Pelosi
5. Anal Parish -> Sarah Palin
6. Hogtie Thirty Men -> Timothy Geithner
Find anagrams for you and your friends’ names at the Internet Anagram Server.
I love words. I get giddy when I craft artful prose or pen a pithy phrase. And I am amused by things that have to deal with all of the above. Which is why it tickled me pink to find the Internet Anagram Server. Just type in your name, and the page generates a lengthy list of word combinations your name can make. Here are the anagrams of some famous people’s names. See if you can figure out who they are. Answers will be posted tomorrow at 6 a.m. PST!
1. Cabana Kaiser Bum Hos
2. Corny Egalitarian Song
3. Chlamydia Horn Tin Roll
4. Nosy Pelican
5. Anal Parish
6. Hogtie Thirty Men
There are very few YouTube videos that I rewatch. Whenever I need to be inspired, there’s the spine-tingling performance of Nessun Dorma by Paul Potts of Britain’s Got Talent fame. And, when I need some cheering up, there’s always “Laughing Baby”, where (surprise!) a baby laughs hysterically as his father tears up pieces of paper. Thanks to YouTube director Kutiman (also known as Ophir Kutiel, a musican based out of Tel Aviv) I’ve got several more videos to add to my list.
Kutiel, whom I discovered through blog BoingBoing, artfully remixes a hodge podge of videos from vocalists, instrumentalists, and other artists into what can only be called works of audio art. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but Kutiman’s blend of seemingly unrelated bits and pieces into a single cohesive song seems representative of the power of YouTube (and technology in general) to connect people who have never met, to bridge the gap between languages and cultures to make something new and beautiful. You decide. The video up top is titled “Just a Lady”, one of my favorites from Kutiman’s collection.
The videos aren’t just beautiful, however. Washington Post “Faster Forward” blogger Rob Pegararo states that they bring up some interesting copyright issues. Read his blog here. On a kinda sorta related note, BoingBoing also recently wrote about some economists’ call to abolish copyrights and patents.
Read more about Kutiel and his interview with NPR’s Michelle Block here.
Image from http://www.ladyofthecake.com
If you’ve already read the “About” section of this blawg, then you already know my significant other is also pursuing a law degree. Scary. I know. So imagine the fear I had when I first learned he would be going to law school.
From what I had heard on blawgs and from people who had a niece whose friend’s boyfriend’s best friend was in law school (or something of that sort, too lazy to diagram), law school would KILL the relationship. Or would turn my significant other into an unattractive, smelly, unshorn, libido-crushing monk two weeks into his first 1L semester. And that’s where author Scott Turow’s “1L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School” came in.
Turow’s account at the Ivy may be somewhat dated (he attended in the ’70s), and his mere admission into the hallowed halls of Harvard Law were something me and my LSAT score could only dream about, but the book gave me a realistic idea of what my boyfriend and our relationship would be facing. School work would be hard, but it could be managed. The relationship would need to be adjusted, but it could be maintained. Factor into that the fact that me and the boyfriend had been dating for an long, long, long time (almost five years when he started in fall 2008), and we had a pretty good shot at survival.
And for those of you who plan on strapping on a pair of steel undies and throwing away the key for three years, the book can also help you filter through the mixed messages of gunners, whose goal is to make you soil yourself with stories of the first year, and well-meaning-but-misled advice givers, and develop a healthy perspective on what to expect.
I am currently reading …
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