Housekeeping

So. I have know had one class session of each of the five courses that I am signed up to take this semester.

By far, Criminal Law is going to be the most entertaining.

The professor is quite old. He was in the navy in his early 20's (I think around the time of Korea/early Vietnam) and worked special ops, although he wouldn't tell us what exactly he did. He then became a lawyer and did lawyer-type things before he ended up in teaching. He had a stroke in the middle of a class in 2002 and as a result 1) no longer teaches the case that he was discussing when he had the stroke and 2) informed us that should he need mouth-to-mouth again, he would prefer it to be from a girl this time.

He cannot see very well, so the people sitting in the back rows are likely to not be called on until he learns most of our names. The de facto advice is to not wear red to his class, because that will catch his eye, no matter how blind he is.

He told us that he has been at this law school so long that Kwame K was one of his students (and I quote, "I guess I didn't do a very good job teaching that year. Oh well."). He showed us pictures that he draws on the walls with chalk as a test to see if the housekeeping crews clean very thoroughly. (There is a little horsehead drawn above the chalkboard. He claims it's from last year, although I'm a little suspicious of that.)

Lastly, he claimed that after surveying all of the students who graduated from Law School and took and passed the Bar, the area that they all did the best in was Criminal Law. He said that his methods do not fail and we should all be reasonably prepared after this course.

One of his methods is to write the legal definition of crime on the board (legal, as in listing all of the elements that need to be proved in order to win the case) and then have the entire class (and we are at least 100 strong) recite the definition loudly so as to annoy his colleagues.

Today's definition? Rape.

Even now, 8 hours after class I can recite word for word this definition.

Rape is a non-consensual act of sexual intercourse with a woman not the actor's wife.

Honorable mention of his quotes goes to:

"Crime is fun!"

Professor: Who do you have for Civil Procedure?
One or Two people: Ste-chef-ski (this is the phonetic spelling, I don't know the actual offhand)
Professor: Who?
Four or Five people: Ste-Chef-Ski
Professor: WHO?
Ten or Fifteen people: STE-CHEF-SKI
Professor: Oh. Glen.

"I don't respond to e-mail. Back in my time, when the classes you took in school were determined by gender, girls were taught typing and boys were taught they had sausages for fingers and should instead work a saw."