I'm Batting A Thousand

I've broken 1000 hits for this blog! Sure it's a puny number compared to some, but I didn't really ever expect to reach more than 52, 53 hits. Maybe once every few weeks. So, those of you who visit regularly... Thanks! Those of you who have linked to me THANKS! Those of you who haven't done either... SHAME ON YOU!

As I mentioned before, I finished Brush With The Law last week, and I thought it was pretty good. For those who haven't read it, Brush is about two former law students, one for Harvard and one from Stanford, who had interesting, and for the most part depraved experiences in law school. OK, depraved isn't fair... but certainly not mainstream. One of them basically became a compulsive gambler and they other was a crack fiend for most of 1st and 2nd year. As a story about law school will be... this book probably won't be very helpful for you. But, as a good story that's interesting to read, it was really good.

The one law school related thing I really liked was one of the author's description of the personality types of "Zero-Summers" and "Cold-Stovers."

"Zero-Summers" are the people who think law school, and life, are a game where there have to be winners and losers, and in order to be a winner, someone else has to be a loser (so you're "scores" add up to zero). These are the people who intimidate others by laughing when they give the wrong answers, are quick to show you their A's, and will run from you rather than show you their C's. "Cold-Stover" came from the author's grandfather. At Thanksgiving, the grandfather's dog reached up onto a hot stove, burned its paw and ran away. The grandfather said "That dog won't ever touch a hot stove again... but he won't touch a cold one either." The point being that the Cold-Stovers of law school are the people who were "burned" before (a thought they would be burned) by not studying and getting a bad grade, by trying something daring and getting hurt (physically or emotionally), etc., and now they are so scared of being burned again, they won't ever go near a cold stove for fear that it is a hot one.

I thought these were great terms that painted a vivid picture in my mind of some of the people that I may meet while in law school. And as I mentioned, the book was very good as a story and an entertaining read. The only small criticism I have is that the end just kind of ends, especially for one of the authors. There isn't much of a resolution, or if there is a resolution, it just sort of happens without much discussion. Otherwise, a good quick read.