The wind has been taken out of my sails. My small, tattered, mis-matched, and generally in disrepair sails have been completely deflated. This Constitutional Law lecture was suppose to be the Snap. It was suppose to be the lecture that ended all expectations of lectures. After all, Erwin is the foremost expert in all things SCOTUS. He wrote these not too terrible textbooks and accompanying slightly better treatise on his textbooks. But this lecture is just unremarkable. Unlike the other lectures, he has no podium. He prefers to sway back and forth with his hands in his pockets. Occasionally, he will take a step to the left. And then another small step to the left. Followed by two short shuffle steps to the right. Is he doing the foxtrot?
His outlines/lecture hand outs are sparse. Deceptively sparse, and he speaks really slowly. Does this mean that it's the black letter law that we need to memorize? Or is it merely nonsensical statements that require some kind of insight? Insight that I am suppose to extract from this dry lecture? He's memorized his own outline down to the very numerical prompts. Has he been doing this too long? Does he have a photographic memory? Or is the outline just that dumb? The day class had Erwin in one 8 hour block of lecture, live.
I feel dumb after listening to this. He is speaking some elfin language that is foreign. And his jokes? The puns that he is infamous for? Haven't caught a single one. He told a story about his kids, the same story every law prof tells about their kids when teaching about the 1st Amendment freedom of speech. Namely, each kid will go through a stage in their life when they learn about freedom of speech and try to use that as an excuse to not follow parent's instructions. Unfortunately, their parents are not the government and thus that defense is unavailable to the kids. Clever, yet so misguided. It's like every Yelp talk that gets slightly out of control. Someone starts off with "I have the right to say this, I have freedom of speech, you can't make me stop." Except I CAN. It's not a free pass to sound off on how McDonalds ran out of Nuggets. It's not a reason to call 911 to report that McDonalds has run out of Nuggets. Who thinks to do that?
In the mean time, I've been utilizing the powers of multi-tasking to stay focused on the lecture. I have it playing loudly with the lecture handout next to it. And I'm measuring out ingredients for cookies at the same time. Yesterday, when I was just plopped in front of the computer, I ended up surfing the web. I found out that Paris Hilton currently weighs 115 lbs and is 5'8" or something like that. Even less productive than I previously hoped.
This week, I feel like making dulce du leches blondies and something else. With chocolate. One of the two must contain chocolate to balance out the evils. Would it be too much to have chocolate and caramel in the blondies? And then the second one would be either brownies with caramel, or just brownies, or just snickerdoodles. What's on the menu? I forgot. Let me check and get back.
Oh, the lecture is starting again. Gotta go.
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