Welcome Back

Oh. My. God.

And so another semester has dawned and it has the distinction of being -- oh yes -- my last semester of law school.

And, just when I had started to get all "can't-believe-it's-almost-over" and even a little "oh-it's-not-so-bad" about this place, five insipid 1Ls (or possibly four 1Ls and a 2L) have plopped themselves down next to me here in the law school lounge to remind me that nothing -- nothing! not even having to pay off $100,000 in loans! -- could be worse than staying here on Long Island.

Being in Curacao over winter break is what initially bred the not-so-bad delusion. But there was one clear difference between taking law classes in Curacao and taking them here, and I ain't talkin' about palm trees. In Curacao, out of the 52 of us "studying" abroad, only about ten were from Hofstra. It was nice. So nice. Almost no one was from Long Island. People were from seven or eight different law schools. Conversations were interesting. If I ever needed confirmation that going to Hofstra was a terrible idea, Curacao may have been it.

But I didn't actually need that confirmation, for reasons such as today, back at the lounge. First, three girls sort of amble in, all loud and stupid as Long Islanders often are, and they proceed to figure out how to sit in some of the armchairs next to the arm chair in which I happen to be happily settled. After a bit of sitting, one of them giggles, "I feel so far away from you!" and what ensues is a somewhat less-than-the-motor-skills-of-a-preschooler display of moving her armchair closer to the armchairs of her friends. This shouldn't be too difficult, as her chair started the process about two feet away, but it required essentially switching the places of this armchair and the intervening small square side table. One of the friends helped, but her "help" would probably have been more effective had she been willing to lift herself out of her chair, rather than just sort of reaching with no leverage.

At any rate, they eventually manage to drag this table, that really probably weighs no more than one of our textbooks, the all of two feet she needs it to move so that she may be closer to her friends, but they manage to drag the table legs over my laptop cord two or three times during the process. The first two times, I just moved it out from under the table leg's path, but the third time when she left it there on top of the cord, I said, "Could you please watch out for the cord? Thanks." They were horrified, of course, but probably not just from my appalling bitchiness (?) as from the emergence of a voice without a twentysomething Long Island accent.

Then, they spend about a half hour talking about how they are waiting for the Dean's Forum to begin (a question and answer session that takes place here in the lounge where the deans meet with the students) so that they can get some free food, as there is pizza provided at the forum.

During this time, two more of their friends arrive. One of them is the sole guy in the group, so there is a lot of good-natured teasing of the sole guy about things that apparently bewilder him, such as laundry.

Next, the group discusses whether or not to attend a certain happy hour tomorrow evening which takes place down the street from Hofstra. One girl, who apparently has a brief momentary flash of intelligence, says that she is not going to drive to school that day, so that she can drink and then not worry about driving. This absolutely baffles the other four members of the group. "How are you going to get home???!" they cry. She informs them that the bus goes right by her house. They consider this, but interrogate her further. A bus? They are so confused. They try to think of other solutions, such as going to the happy hour and not drinking, driving and drinking anyway, etc. Finally, in desperation, one of the girls says, "What if you drive your car to my house and we drive to school together?"

I'm not sure if that ever got resolved, because it was almost time to start eating the free pizza. The last few minutes were spent with the guy actually kicking my cord out of the plug as he attempted to stand up (the outlet, by the way, is in the FLOOR), as well as a discussion about how much they hate it when people raise their hands and make comments during classes. "It's like, I don't care about other people's opinions I just want to know what I need to know for the final!" one stated. The others chorused their agreement.

Four months more on Long Island, and then, so help me, once I've seen that damn lighthouse at Montauk I am out of here, never to return.