Thursday, April 27, 2006

When Gunners Lose Their Minds

In my Criminal Procedure class there are a substantial amount of people that fit the profile for being 'gunners', quite a few people that are 'on law review' and lastly, there are people, like me, 'who don't give a flying fuck.'

The Professor put up a flow chart for 4th Amendment violations in the middle of our last class. This quite complex flow chart with lots of arrows, boxes, and criteria fills the overhead projector screen. Although I am not exactly caught up on my reading or 'started writing an outline,' I am not completely unprepared. Being the astute student that I am, I have already purchased several commerical outlines and hit up some online outline banks for further resources. I have also spent much of this two hour session playing online poker and bothering people via IM. To sum it up: I'm only here because there is an attendance policy.

But everyone else defined in the above listing of classmate decriptions begin to lose their minds when the flow chart is finally on display:

Gunner: Could you put this up on the internet?
Professor: No
Law Review: Professor, I write really slowly could you…
Professor: (Cuts this student off) No...
Gunner #2: Please professor...
Professor: I went to law school in the bad old days, and if we would have asked her to put it up on the internet, she would have laughed at us.

The frenzy begins as people scurry from the back of the class room with pens in hand to copy every single detail of this flow chart down. Meanwhile, I dig through my bag, find one of the commericial outlines that I have, turn to the pages upon pages of flow charts, and find the one that is on the board.

My disgust at the ongoing fury turns to laughter. One my classmates asks the unthinkable: "How is the multiple choice section going to work?" Then the professor begins to explain the Multiple choice section.

Professor: "Choose the best wrong answer"

I like her caustic wit. There groans eminating from the class. My laughter is becoming more pronounced and I have to duck beneath my laptop screen, she adds a caveat:

"If you think that a question is defective, let me know. Fill a piece of paper out discussing each multiple choice option and tell me why each one of these is wrong. If I agree with you, I'll give you the point, I'll give everyone else the point, and as an added bonus, I'll give you an extra point."

The gunners and brain-trusts are licking their lips in anticipation of challenging every single question that they take issue with.

The Professor, God Bless Her, adds a caveat, "You have to leave the answer space on the scantron," the class begins to hang on her next words with gleeful abandon, "blank." Suckers.

I love when the gunners go beserk, it's reassuring. Let's bring it on