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August 31, 2002
What's Your Favorite Condiment?
As always, when I start a new stage of life (new job, new unemployment, new place to live, new school, etc.), I made commitments to myself about things I would change when I got to Georgetown. Towards the top of the list is to be more outgoing. More social. Maybe even a little more aggressive (that calendar aint going to fill itself... I might actually have to go on a date or something).
I'm surrounded by new people who I don't know and with whom I have a clean slate. But mere days into the adventure, complacency has struck. The second night I was here, I met a few people that I really like and now I've basically stopped putting in effort. At large events deisgned to new 1Ls (1L = first year law student) to meet each other, I look around the room at the nameless masses and quickly gravitate to my new friends. It's easier. And I like them. And talking to strangers is uncomfortable.
On top of that, we've all grown tired of repeating the same miserably awkward and not very interesting introductory conversations. Where are you from? Where do you live now? What section are you in? This is typified by a conversation between my friend M and an already anonymous girl from Kentucky:
AKG: Hi, I'm AKG.
M: I'm M.
AKG: Where are you from?
M: I'm from outside Philly. How about you?
AKG: I'm from Kentucky.
M: Kentucky. Do you like it?
AKG: <pause>
My own version replaces "Do you like it?" with "Oh, really. What part?" as though I have any clue anything about the person's home. Then I try to pull some anecdote from driving across country into the conversation. "Oh, Cleveland... I've been there. Well, actually, I've only driven through. But it looked nice from the interstate. <pause>"
And then I look around the room for a friendly, familiar face. Preferably one whose name I can recall. I've met (as in had the above conversational stint with) easily over 100 people in the past 5 days. I can't remember their names. It forces me to say things like "I'm so sorry, I'm terrible with names, but we met the other day at..." But I'm not really terrible with names. I just need something other than a name to latch onto. A glimpse of personality or humanity.
To make it worse, My new roommate O and I had a party on Tuesday where some 40-50 people introduced themselves to me. They remember me because it was my apartment and O and I had cooked good food. But I hardly remember any of them. So it creates more awkwardness. More people need to make a memorable scene when they introduce themselves. Like this (you have to scroll down a little).
Last night, after hearing the dean and the president of the university welcome us and congratulate us, we had a big picnic (moved indoors because of potential rain). Inspired by tedium and possibly by alcohol, my friend A began walking around interrupting conversations to take a survey on people's favorite condiments. As we followed A from one group to another, we all agreed, it was better than asking what section they were in.
Posted by buddha at August 31, 2002 04:50 PM
Comments
I'm glad to see the B is back to form. S is thinking of a career in real estate. M is here reading this with me.
Posted by: J at August 31, 2002 10:16 PM
real estate, huh? what prompted that?
Posted by: dan at September 1, 2002 01:44 AM
S is working as an ad salesman for a small newspaper and says many of his clients are real estate people. He's been talking to them and thinks it's interesting. Plus, the certification course is cheap. Like $100.
So are you ever going to be on AIM while you're at GT?
N wants to know how you like studying to be a prostituter.
Posted by: Anonymous at September 1, 2002 09:01 AM
congrats on learning the bold tag, but you don't have to use it for everything. ;-) i'm just trying to avoid putting names of people i just met, who don't know me that well and don't know about the site, on line.
so far, studying to be a prostituter has been fun. of course, that may change once i start studying.
Posted by: dan at September 1, 2002 01:51 PM
Gee. I like Chutney. Or Soy. or maybe the stuff koreans serve with mon du. It's like soy but sweet and with little green things floating in it. Yeah, I think they are green. Green is a nice color for a condom.
Posted by: S at September 1, 2002 06:41 PM
second to ketchup, which was given unfair advantage due to the fact that we were at a cookout where it was prominenty featured, honey mustard seemed to be a strong favorite.
Posted by: dan at September 1, 2002 09:18 PM
Seeing as ketchup is its own food group (as is avocado), I'd have to say honey mustard is the clear winner.
Posted by: Anonymous at September 2, 2002 06:53 AM
Guacamole. Is that even a condiment?
Unfortunately, my prediction is that the conversations won't get any better amongst your classmates for the next three years. Instead of discussing Kentucky, you'll be forcing out such verbal triumphs as
"I can see Cardozo's point in Palsgraf, but what exactly is a zone of danger?"
or
"No you idiot, you can only claim self-defense in minority jurisdictions when the escalation was preceeded by defendant's exit from the area and verbal annulment of the original dispute!"
or the classic
"Replevin is, like, such a 19th century cause of action."
(See Torts, Crim and Civ Pro respectively)
My adivce: apply your budding outgoing nature to human beings who do not infest a law school. You'll be much happier.
Posted by: Patrick at September 3, 2002 07:38 AM
Do I detect lawyerly dissatisfaction radiating from Aoyama? Perhaps it's high time we met for another beer, despite the fact there are no soccer games. It might be nice to hear about a job other than teaching...
Posted by: Jason at September 3, 2002 08:29 AM
Hey Jason do me a favor and slap that boy!
Posted by: Anonymous at September 3, 2002 06:31 PM
Welcome back Dan! Glad that we can still count on JewishBuddha to keep us up to date on your law school adventures. Hope you have a great year.
Posted by: DK at September 3, 2002 10:15 PM
Yeah Buddha! I see you're keeping the traditions we learned in college alive by having a D and O Party.....I'm sure it was very similar to the O parties we had at Dartmouth.
Posted by: Matt[1] at September 6, 2002 02:55 PM
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