i should be mad, but i'm not. i'm mad that i'm not mad

[Bob]

so we've got this assignment, right, it's a group project, our class is divided into small groups of about 3 people each. the assignment is to prepare a 6-8 minute long speech (it's an opening statement re: a motion for a preliminary injunction but that's not important, the important thing is that i suck at speeches) for thursday evening. i'm the one who has to give the speech, so yeah, i have to do most of the work inevitably, but the other two are supposed to help me in terms of what i'm going to say. monday, i send out an email trying to set up a time to meet. one replies, one doesn't. i send out another one tuesday, the other one replies, we plan to meet up on wednesday afternoon. ok, great.

i show up, neither of them have read the assignment, they didn't even bring a copy of it. they don't know what it is and have no means of figuring it out save for sharing my copy. why, why bother showing up, is my question, i dunno. it's not like they had no notice. and the assignment's only like 5 pages long, and the relevant parts are only on a few pages but nah, they didn't look at it.

so i do the whole thing myself this afternoon, i come up with my arguments, i type up a script, i send it out to both of them asking for feedback. from one i get "looks great!" the other, no reply, i don't honestly expect one

so basically they're pretty much left me high and dry on this one. absolutely no help, even though i asked for it repeatedly and they're supposed to do it anyways as part of the assignment. i absolutely should be pissed about this, but i'm not. it's sort of just as well that i did all the work myself, i mean, the more familiar i am with this damn speech the better, because i'm going to have to have it pretty much at the center of my soul if i'm not going to choke, but still, they were absolutely no help. i should be insulted but i'm not. i'm mad that i'm not mad. instead of being mad at them for not helping, i'm mad at myself for being a doormat.

and oddly enough, i'm not too worried about the speech. i've been rehearsing it to my cats all day and i've been delivering pretty well. i'll get to look at it during the presentation (though you're supposed to make eye contact but fuck that, they'll be lucky if i don't throw up), so it's not like i'm in danger of forgetting my lines or anything.

still, what's up with that? what's up with them? what's up with me? cunts the lot of them

[Bob]

i also sent an email to the guy who's teaching the class (he's not a professor, he's a student, but they have 2nd years lead these classes, so he's more or less the teacher i guess), asking him a fairly important question about the assignment (the assignment doesn't say if i'm arguing in front of a judge or a jury, which kind of affects how i'm going to talk and what i'm going to say) and he hasn't gotten back to me yet either. every goddamn person in my life, jeez!

[adam_f]

Did your cats offer any constructive criticism? I would say your speech is a bit tepid judging by your attitude.

[ScarySquirrel]

You could always be a bitch about it and talk to the prof and be all, "These suckers didn't do shit and I want it taken out of their grade," or some shit like that.

That'll learn 'em pretty damn good, I reckon.

[adam_f]

If you told on them you would be no better than my dead gay son.

[Bob]

Did your cats offer any constructive criticism? I would say your speech is a bit tepid judging by your attitude.

no, but they were a captive audience. i took away their food bowls until i was done

oh no, i'm not going to complain to the prof...tea...secon...main guy. actually, after every exercise like this, we have to fill out these evaluation forms, where we evaluate our strengths and weaknesses, how we approached the problem, how each team member contributed to the project, how we worked as a team, etc etc...needless to say i'm very interested to see what they're going to put on it. i'm not gonna say anything, i'm just gonna watch

[backwoods]

welcome to my world brotha. jesus, if I only had a nickel for each time this shit happened to me I'd be goddamn affluent.

take comfort in the fact that those retards will probably keep fucking off their whole lives and end up with shit dead end jobs.

[adam_f]

edit: I didn't bring my A game to a Bob thread.

[Bob]

welcome to my world brotha. jesus, if I only had a nickel for each time this shit happened to me I'd be goddamn affluent.

take comfort in the fact that those retards will probably keep fucking off their whole lives and end up with shit dead end jobs.

i dunno, they're not even moochers or slackers or retards or anything (it is law school after all, those types don't get in easily...except for me of course), i'm honestly pretty shocked that they're being so worthless. i really expected them to pitch something in or at LEAST to read the damned assignment. maybe the reason i'm not mad is that i'm still in denial.

and they know that i suck at speaking, the whole class knows, i've embarassed myself trying to give presentations before. there's absolutely no way that they don't know (or at least, they definitely ought to think) that the idea of giving a 6-8 minute speech on my own terrifies me (which, oddly enough, it doesn't at this point), and yet, they've done nothing, nothing at all. i'm almost tempted to take it personally to be quite honest, they seem so estudious, generally. but i'm not going to take it personally, no, none of that, not anymore. circumstances aren't exactly making it easy, though, geez. what other conclusion could you draw?

[backwoods]

sounds like they are in the 2nd month of school and are starting to get the "do I really give a fuck about this class" syndrome. Natural selection will weed out social mosquitos like this from the class in about a month or so once they have done one-too-many-bong-hits the night before and end up skipping a lecture or two.

[ET]

what other conclusion could you draw?

Maybe they're forcing you into this position in order to get you to possibly overcome it. I doubt it though, with the whole not helping out thing. But you should show everyone in your class that you can still kick ass. If all else fails whip your cock out, spin in circles, piss on everyone while screaming "NO BUSH FOR OIL! I'M CHUCK WOOLERY AND I'LL BE BACK IN TWO AND TWO!"

[Bob]

Maybe they're forcing you into this position in order to get you to possibly overcome it. I doubt it though, with the whole not helping out thing. But you should show everyone in your class that you can still kick ass. If all else fails whip your cock out, spin in circles, piss on everyone while screaming "NO BUSH FOR OIL! I'M CHUCK WOOLERY AND I'LL BE BACK IN TWO AND TWO!"

haha

yeah, that seems unlikely, i mean, it's a class assignment, you know? it's a group project, the whole point of a group project is to i don't know work as a group. not make one kid do it even when he specifically asks you to help. so if that's what's going on, it means the main guy's in on it too.

i don't think it's a conspiracy though, that seems unlikely. so if it's not, what other options are there? they're either a) lazy or b) don't respect me enough to help

i'm having a hard time not taking it personally but i'm not going to, damn it. and you know what, i'm motivated now. i've worked too damn hard on this thing to screw it up because i'm nervous. i've been sweating over it all week, i worked on it all day (didn't get the rest of my reading done because of it, which i'll have to catch up on), and i'm not sure what an ulcer feels like but it definitely feels like there's something burning in my stomach area. not butterflies, more like acid, i don't know, it's probably nothing.

so yeah, after all that, i don't really feel like screwing up. the irony though, would be that of course everyone will go "see? you can do it! so, your next project is" and i'll get an ulcer for real. i hate this stuff, i really do hate it. i have to put so much work into it to even do an adequate job, there's no reason for it. make someone else do it, we don't need 13 presenters. i can write, i can edit, i can think, but i can't speak.

it's like, if you're on a basketball team, and there's one guy who's really good at rebounds or defense or something, and you're getting mad at him because he never takes a shot. he's bad at shooting, leave him alone, someone else on the team can take the shots.

[Documad]

I wouldn't take it personally. My guess is that they meant to read the assignment but they had too many other things to read for other classes. An assignment where you're just a member of a team is always the last priority.

Drink water the night before so you don't get cottonmouth
use immodium AD if nerves give you the runs
speak slowly

[Bob]

I wouldn't take it personally. My guess is that they meant to read the assignment but they had too many other things to read for other classes. An assignment where you're just a member of a team is always the last priority.


i guess so, but i mean, it's just a team of 3 people. and they didn't even read the assignment or bring it to the meeting. for me it's always the opposite, if it's a group assignment, i'll at least make an effort to be slightly prepared for it, because i'm responsible for the well-doing of every other member of the team. guess i'm in the minority on that? that's ironic because i generally hate people and don't go out of my way to help them, it's more to prevent guilt, but still

[Documad]

Bob, all of these things will serve you well in the long run. You know more about the substantive law you're studying than these clowns. In real life, good attorneys don't let their team down.

BTW, my favorite thing to do is helping someone prepare for an argument in court. I love talking over all the angles. Those guys missed out.

[Kid Presentable]

When shit like this happens, I always think I am living inside candid camera, and someone will come up to me and go: "You didn't REALLY think things would be this shit, did you?".

I got some girl booted out of one of our classes.

haha bitch.

[Bob]

Bob, all of these things will serve you well in the long run. You know more about the substantive law you're studying than these clowns. In real life, good attorneys don't let their team down.

BTW, my favorite thing to do is helping someone prepare for an argument in court. I love talking over all the angles. Those guys missed out.

well, i'll be sure to rub all the fun that they missed out on in their faces

the position i have to take is so unenviable that i'm almost excited to give the speech. i'm basically just going to do a character that's completely the opposite of my own beliefs, like stephen colbert or something. what i have to do, is i have to argue in favor of cutting off a working single mother's welfare benefits based on the strict construction of a regulation. every time i practice my speech, i end up doing this sort of impression of professor kingsfield from the paper chase, that's how much of a jerk i have to be

but like i said, i'm kind of looking forward to it. it'll be kind of like acting, i just have to memorize my lines and get in character

[Bob]

my speech went fine, if anyone's wondering. i kind of looked at my script too much, i pretty much read directly off it, but it's all i could do. i'm really a horrible speaker. if i'm reading off a script, i can do ok, i mean, i'm a good writer, i can think, i can write, but if i have to think off the top of my head, i'm done, that's it. so i read pretty much off my script, and people said i did quite well, and i actually won, i defeated the preliminary injunction. so basically, had it been a real thing, i'd have successfully cut a single working mother off from her welfare benefits because she had sex with a few men, i rule, i won, i FUCKING RULE

[tracky]

you do fucking rule

[Bob]

one of my fellow students said that i reminded him of bookman, from that seinfeld episode. you know, the one where the library told jerry that he had the tropic of cancer (or maybe it was capricorn, i forget) overdue, so the library cop, bookman, was after him to pay it back, you know the episode. i was honestly kind of flattered, because that was kind of the vibe i was going for (my task really was to very strictly interpret the rules that governed the situation). when i rehearsed the script to my cats, i always sort of fell into this impression of professor kingsfield from the paper chase, but i sort of got nervous when the real moment came, my face got red, i sort of felt like i got motormouthed, i dunno. but if i pulled off a bookman, i did ok

ACTING!