Addicted

I can't think of a moment in my life when I haven't been addicted. As far back as I can remember with clarity, I have always been addicted to something (there was TT in school, movies in 11th, pool in 12th, alcohol etc in I year. I stop here cos this is possibly where my current addiction took over. There isnt a very clear demarcation and the timelines get grayed. These are just approximate outlines). Most of the time it was harmless, but sometimes it's just degenerate and destructive. My addictions seem to pass only when I find something else to get addicted to (which happens when I get 'bored' of the previous addiction - for instance, I now see no point in playing pool as I have gotten decent at it and don't feel the drive any longer. Or the fact that over 96% of the movies and TV I now watch, I can predict the story to precision halfway through latest - which pretty much beats the purpose of watching it) It's a complete vicious cycle, which I just cannot break. 

This got me thinking. What is the cause of addiction? As always, I find all my answers in movies. I always feel that when in doubt, turn to art. Quite surprisingly, I find my answer in a very unlikely source. The movie is 'Road Trip' (yeah, it's one of those teenage adventure shitty crap - which makes you chuckle at how crude they can possibly get - this one is quite old and therefore, isn't so bad - it's surpisingly funny actually - nothing like band camp/naked mile/superbad). In this one of the characters (part of the main four) is constantly smoking weed. In one scene as he speaks to Grandpa Manilow - 

Grandpa: Are you gonna pass that doobie, or what?
Doobie? Yeah. Yeah, sorry.
Uh, thanks.
You know what your problem is?
You're all brains. Not enough cock and balls.
Actually, uh, people have been telling me that my whole life. In the sixth grade I got so worried about the situation in lraq, that I was on an adult dosage of Xanax. And by eighth grade, I was in therapy three times a week. And the truth is, weed is the only thing that could balance me out. (Source)

I think the root cause of all addiction is simple. It's boredom. All other causes (peer pressure, curiosity - well this stems from boredom anyway, emotional weakness) are secondary or may be triggers, at best. It all happens because you're bored. It is due to this that you seem to look for some way (by doing or consuming various things), to induce a chemical reaction that keeps the brain occupied (the aim being to get over the boredom). This leads me to believe that intelligent people are more suceptible to such addiction. It's a lot easier to bore an intelligent person than it is to bore a stupid person. 

Perhaps that is just it. We are constantly in a state of balancing our instant gratification with long term gain. This is possibly because we find ourselves without an aim, a direction. So many people feel there is no point in working (or living) as there is no passion in their life or there is really nothing to expect, except drudgery (myself included). 

But I digress.

I'm not addicted to weed, cocaine, alcohol, nicotine or tobacco. It's something that could either be far more serious or far less. For once, I feel helpless and totally out of control over it. Maybe the time has come to finally swallow my pride and ask for help and support. Maybe not just yet. I've gotten through everything else myself, I see no reason why I can't get through this one (oh yeah, that's still the pride talking - I haven't resorted to the 12 step programme yet, no reason to start now). 

Law school definitely doesn't help with any of this. It takes something as unique and interesting as the law and with te 'brilliant' teachers makes it as interesting, engaging and exciting as golf. Perhaps what we need are younger teachers, teachers who can better relate to students (NOT the juris freak, who'll just burst into tears if we asked him a doubt he could not answer). Courses need to be more engaging and should be taught with more vigour. Most teachers are so unenthused that students themselves feel there's absolutely no point in studying or bothering about the course ('scamming' being an easier, more efficient, quicker and possibly more rewarding way of dealing with courses). Criminal Law, wich is possibly the most intriguing of all laws was made into a drawn out lull, a dull ache that needed to be ignored (of course it did end with a bang for most of the batch). Quite simply, instead of cribbing about drug addiction in law school, the admin is much better off trying to understand why it happens and for god's sake improve the state of affairs in academics. If that is sorted out, everything would fall into place. Is it truly that difficult to find good teachers? What happens to all those fees we pay anyway?

GAANCHALI BIDI, KANNADA MAATHAADI…….!!

Got this as an email forward. Pasted, as is. Absolutely stunning (and quite true). Forgive the formatting.

Bill Gates organized an enormous session to recruit a new Chairman for Microsoft Europe. 5000 candidates assembled in a large room. One candidate is Raghu, an Indian guy. 

Bill Gates thanked all the candidates for coming and asking those who do not know JAVA programs to leave. 2000 people leave the room. Raghu says to Himself, "I do not know JAVA but I have nothing to lose if I stay. I'll Give it a try". 

Bill Gates asked the candidates who never had experience of managing more than 100 people to leave. 2000 people leave the room. Raghu says to himself 

"I never managed anybody by myself but I have nothing to lose if I stay. What can happen to me?" So he stays. 

Then Bill Gates asked candidates who do not have management diplomas to leave. 500 people leave the room. Raghu says to himself , "I left school at 15 but what have I got to lose?" So he stays in the room. 

Lastly, Bill Gates asked the candidates who do not speak Serbian - Croat to leave. 498 people leave the room. 

Raghu says to himself, " I do not speak one word of Serbian - Croat but what do I have to lose?" So he stays and finds himself with one other candidate. 

Everyone else has gone. 

Bill Gates joined them and said "Apparently you are the only two candidates who speak Serbo - Croat, so I'd now like to hear you have a conversation together in that language." 

Calmly, Raghu turns to the other candidate and says "En guru, aarama?" 

The other candidate answers "Nann magane, Sooryange Torcha??" 

GAANCHALI BIDI, KANNADA MAATHAADI…….!!

News!

News!

Is this really news? I mean, how could ANYONE (i refer here to the reporters) be so daft? I mean, who is stupider? The reporters or the French Government who apologised?

The Tmes Of India, a few weeks ago had on their first page a solemn report of some 200 odd deaths in a blast. On the right column they had a headline "Balle Balle at Galle" praising Harbhajan's greatness. Apart from the fact that the headline does NOT rhyme (no it's not pronounced that way), it seems a little insensitive. Below the fold on the same page, they had something about Shah Rukh's ankle getting sprained when he slipped on a diamond which had fallen off his wall, while he was exiting his Phantom. Why on earth is the news so irrelevant? 

Coming to Page 3, as shown in the movie brilliantly, what's the point? Who the hell cares what parties happen and who attended? It irks me to no end to read all this gossip about all these stars. But I still do. Personally, I think it's just us looking for cranks, holes or mistakes in the celebrities so we can always say, "Oh, they're human, too". Just lucky, compared to us. Why do we derive so much pleasure in others faults?

Personally, I have no qualms gossiping or 'sliming', or being slimed for that matter. In law school, it is taken to an extreme, but I never have had any issues with it. Sometimes it gets upsetting, but most of the time, it is just humour. The fact that my slime is heard by the party being slimed, has never concerned me. Such 'sliming', and I use the term as used in law school, is not done with any malice and is not meant to be secret. 

But there is one sort of 'sliming', a kind that disgusts me. It is when things are reported which have never been said, or never happened, without making it abs clear that it is a joke, with an intent to deceive or knowing that it is likely to deceive. This is something I just cannot stand. There is a thin line between such 'bitching' (as i term it) and 'sliming'. For me, the latter is perfectly acceptable.

I think the test lies in whether you mind if the party concerned happens to be standing behind you, as you speak. If you do, then it's best not said, for it shows you lack the courage to say it to the person's face. In such a case, it's best to keep quiet and not 'slime' or 'bitch'.

Some ppl of course make no distinction between the two. It's all the same to them. It is to these ppl that I would like to point out that ANY talk about another person, when the person is not around, positive or negative, can be regarded as 'sliming', as per their own definition. I am also confident that these ppl who complain about how slimy law school is, are actually the slimiest of them all. For not only do they slime, they also claim to abhor it. 

The funniest aspect of all this is that I've been called a 'slime' so many times that it ceases to affect me. I take pride nowadays in being called a 'slime'. I wonder, would calling me a 'slime', in itself, also amount to 'sliming'?

Mooting (and its futility?)

This may be a late response, but it is more than a response. I just use her post a starting point.

The temptation to write an angsty post about the futility of mooting is almost impossible to resist.

Almost.

Pssssst. It's futile. Completely. Don't whore your soul to inevitable ignominy.

Most times, how random things get, are funny, maybe even surprising. It is when one is at the receiving end of the brunt of the randomness, that how distressing it actually is, seems to hit one. Well, I am no judge of a moot court or the rankings, but in my eyes, the entire system followed in the University Selections (for that is ALL the experience in a moot court I have) seems absolutely random. 

I am not a stranger to this absolutely random arbitrariness. When in a college where the teachers have autonomy, it is normal to see such random results almost never commensurate with merit. It was slightly unnerving at first, but ince it always seemed to affect me positively, I chose to ignore it. 

Apart from my subjective opinion that people who were more deserving and most definitely better (myself not included) ended below those who didn't or weren't, I feel there are certain empirical reasons to believe that my mooting experience has been totally random. Three rounds of moots and not one bit of similarity between them. After 2 memorials and 6 judges (well 600 marks of orals, at any rate), it seems odd that the ranks ended up being determined by one judge, whose range of marking (3 to 70 odd) skewed all ranks. Well, the point of this post is not to crib. It is quite the opposite, actually.

I feel, as must be apparent already, that I deserved to do better than I actually did. I ended up somewhere near half, when my memorial marks alone would have placed me in the Top 10. My second round oral marls, total of three judges (out of 300) was less than my memo score (out of 100). But even after all this, I dont believe mooting is futile. I feel I learnt so much more from these 3 weeks than I had learnt in my entire law school life till date. Mooting helps in more ways than one. It helps you learn procedure. It helps you learn to research (quickly and accurately). It helps you focus. It helps you think. It helps you in myriad ways. 

What I am essentially trying to say is that apart from the slime, the randomness, the absolute disappointment etc etc, I still came out wealthier than I went in. What I regret is not doing this in my Second Year. I plan, as of now, to carry this on to my 5th. I may never make the top 5 due to the randomness, or because I'm just not good enough. But that is NOT the only reason I wish to moot. The entire process.

The process of spending one week thinking of nothing but the problem. Doing research. Every little argument is a victory. The satisfaction of looking at a finished memorial printed a few hours early to check objective errors. The euphoria of looking at the memo pass from your hands and into the hands of the MCS member, just in time, after running from Swathi. The process of looking to defend and make your arguments in absolute unpredictable randomness. The entire process makes mooting absolutely worth it. I would much rather write a dozen memos in a week than write a project, although even one of the former is more work than one of the latter.

At the end of all of this, the randomness seems so minor. The results are insignificant. It is the process that is meant to be enjoyed, and enjoyable it definitely is. After all, how much less (rather more) random, are actual Courts?

Palin

Seems Blogger's changed since I was last here. Whole new interface, new features etc etc. Seems the world DOES actually move on when I'm not around. That's good to hear of course, considering I can't be in all places at once.

I've decided to start writing again, but before I do, I just wanted to embed some videos of Palin. These are just spectacular.

Here's a link to the interviews of which the above was part.

Couric: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

Sarah Palin: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It's funny that a comment like that was kinda made to … I don't know, you know … reporters.

Couric: Mocked?

Palin: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.

Couric: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials.

Palin: Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. And there…

Couric: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

Palin: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state. (Source: CBS)

And finally, the follow up to the first interview!