Our Hollow Earth

This stuff is too good to keep to myself. If anyone wants a good laugh, check out "The Hollow Earth - Fact of Fiction" and "World Top Secret: Our Earth is Hollow!" I don't know about any of you, but I'm convinced.

After a mild rebuke from Mav I decided it was time for a post. The funny thing is that I haven't been that busy at all. Quite the opposite. Because I took two classes over the summer, I am able to take a lighter schedule this semester than I normally would have. I just haven't really had much to write about lately, so I'll try to fill the space with something that is not too boring. Maybe I'll talk about my preparations to move. I reserved a rental truck and am planning on driving to LV on May 8th. Dad put in for vacation time, so it looks like he and I will be the road warriors again. It's kind of funny because it doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we were making the drive from SLC to NJ. Maybe it is just that the 18 hour days are still so fresh in my mind that I can't believe I will have to do it again. It was actually a pretty cool experience in a lot of ways, and it would be fun to take about 2 weeks and stop at all the cool places along the way. I am looking at apartments right now, and have about 5 or 6 that look like they will be ok. Lindsay and I are also planning a mini vacation to D.C. during my spring break. Neither of us has seen any of the sights in D.C. and we don't want to miss the opportunity while we are so close, so we are going to spend a couple days there. Kind of funny, they have been talking about "Punxsutawney Phil" a lot lately and apparently the ceremony depicted in Groundhog Day is a pretty accurate representation of the actual event. They wear black top hats and have the little rat whisper in the mayor's ear whether or not he saw his shadow. To the left are actual pictures of the madness.

The Gunner

"A gunner, especially in medical schools and law schools, is a person who is competitive, overly-ambitious and substantially exceeds minimum requirements. A gunner will compromise his or her peer relationships in order to obtain recognition and praise from his or her instuctors and superiors. " (Quoted from Wikipedia.com).

The gunner is the guy who always has his hand raised, regardless of whether he has something intelligent to say about the subject. In the gunner's mind, the fact that his hand is up is evidence that his comment is valid. Most of the time his comments are off base, watered down, or just plain pointless. The gunner believes that quantity is more important than quality. He believes (incorrectly) that his endless comments will be rewarded with a grade bump and the admiration of his professors.

In most classes there is one or two gunners. However, my Employment Law class has created a whole class full of gunners. 1/3 of our grade is based on class participation and we are required to participate every class. Participation can either be orally in class, or we can post a 50+ word comment on the course web board. Because it is much easier to get the participation points by participating in class, at any given time about half of the class of 120 students has their hand up. Because we are only graded on participation and not the quality of our participation, most of the comments in class and on the web board are off base, watered down, or just plain pointless. Yes, I swore I would never be a gunner, but today my hand was ready to shoot up like I was a gunslinger in the wild west. I saw an opening when the topic shifted and my arm shot up. I heard my name called and I gave my obligatory 1 sentence answer: "the employee's purpose must have been for collective bargaining or other mutual aid." Pretty insightful stuff. At that point my turn was over, my points were recorded by the professor, and my temporary transformation as a gunner was thankfully finished -- until Thursday's class anyway.

Jury Duty

Right now I'm sitting on a bench outside the law school enjoying some beautiful weather. According to weather.com it is currently 63 degrees here. I can't believe how mild this winter has been. Especially considering last year at this time there was about 2 feet of snow on the ground and it was about 5 degrees (-10 with the wind chill). So I got a notice about 10 days ago that I was called for grand jury service beginning March 8th. The grand jury requirement was once/week for 17 weeks so I wrote back and told them that due to the fact that I will be moving in May, I will be physically unable to perform jury service. A week later I got another notice, this time they had changed me from grand jury to petit jury, which is only a 1 trial commitment. The problem is, they changed the date to June 13th! I guess they missed the whole thing about me moving in May. I called the jury management office today and explained to them that I will not be living in New Jersey at the time, and they told me to just fax a copy of my employment offer and they would release me from service. It's kind of too bad, I think it would be pretty interesting to serve on a jury. It's also kind of funny because I was called for jury duty in Provo and the date was for September 2004, which was about a month after I moved out here.

D.C.

Lindsay and I went to the Washington D.C. temple on Saturday. It is only about a 2 1/2 hour drive from where we live, so it's not too bad. We also watched the new Joseph Smith movie at the visitor center. While we were waiting, we were walking around looking at the displays, and when we got to the display about eternal marriage, the picture (or should I say poster) was my friend from my mission when he got married. The funny thing is Lindsay said "lets see if we know anyone in the picture" and I said "I know that guy" and she thought I was just kidding and I had to convince her I was serious.