Greetings once again from a prestigious NYC law school. Been awhile since I mentioned it, but I figure a nice whiny update would be all right and the venting would do me some good.
At the start of my first year of law school I had some real nut job housemates who tried to shake me down for money and were just all sorts of outrageous. I got a new apartment on my own, great relationship with the landlord, that part worked out well. The ex-housemates began stalking me though, following me after class, shouting obscenities, making no 'direct threats' but stepping in front of me and being extremely confrontational. Gets tiring after 3/4 a mile of that. I lodged a complaint with security and they sent it to the Dean. I'm not a small guy and I've little doubt I could whoop the two of them, one is a empty muscle roid user and the other a frail recreational drug user, but I had no doubt that the word of two dirt bags against one clean record upstanding citizen would see me made an example of, that being how the world seems to work after all. Upon hearing what was going on, the threats, the lies, and the harassment (which being across campus and rather loud was pretty much undeniable) the Dean's response was that 'my story [was] consistent'. I was rather taken aback as you could imagine. The Dean's solution was to have a talk with the two of them, no marks on any record, and tell us all to stay away from each other. Worth mentioning, we had and still have, all the same classes. I had mentioned group changes but was told I could do that if I chose... but it would have cost 800 dollars for the book changes, something I couldn't afford after surrendering brokers fee and security deposit from the move, plus all the start up expenses. Also I didn't think it fair that I should suffer further having done no wrong and that running away was just... inappropriate, especially given their badmouthing of me. It would leave the group with just their side and no opportunity to learn otherwise. No more direct confrontations, but they continue with nasty rumors. The worst, in my opinion, being that I am a pedophile and my name could be looked up on the state Megans law website. Call me human, but I find such things really upsetting, especially given how the mob can just seem to accept them, after all, they were told by a totally unreliable source there is evidence, why look for this supposed evidence themselves? And of course people that pass along and repeat such things have that absurd journalist style moral imperative not to share their source... but really, who the heck else would have it in for me at the law school and be so downright evil?
Skip ahead abit, Law School Finals. During the very first one there was a fire alarm. I was in a group of 8; there was another group of 80. My group who was handwriting the answers was immediately evacuated and stood out in the coldest day of the year for over 40 minutes. When coming back in the test was resumed when one of the proctors was in, not when everyone was back. Some were waiting for the elevator; there was quite a line as the entire building was evacuated. Despite the 40 minutes in the freezing cold (not a hat or glove amongst us) we were expected to resume writing immediately and the end time was only pushed back a half hour to compensate, so gypped 10 minutes at the least. The other group, of 80, was not evacuated. They simply refused to leave. Some people even cursed at the proctors. Staggers my mind, but what does even more was that there were no penalties for this. Instead they got that extra half hour as well. As you can imagine 3 others and myself (there are always free riders) went to the prof immediately after this. He informed us there is nothing he can do, he cannot even grade them differently as such actions are the administrations call. So we went to the admin. We were told to submit a complaint in writing. Myself and one other actual did this, the other not really doing anything... So complaint handed in, my name and contact info along with it at their request... I wanted us treated as a group. Weekend and a day pass, no response. I go in, the Dean (same Dean) responds that she has had complaints from the other group that we 8 had time to talk with each other about the exam and thus it was WE that had the unfair advantage. As you can imagine, this absurd claim was the Dean's way of saying get lost. Anxiety increased, all other exams suffer greatly.
End result of these troubles being that the exhousemates are still in all my classes and I'm bottom ten of my class. The class size of 300 and something somehow became 220 for the ranking... I figure everyone that was worse off than me on grades simply transferred out and were stricken from the ranking. With such a bad transcript I'm really in trouble for getting a summer position. I'm not a dumb guy and I usually test well, the classmates who got As seem to be all the ones that spoke with me about their Qs (I am a law nerd and overly versed in legal philosophy). As you can imagine its left me astoundingly depressed.
So I leave with a Q. Who do you think is worse in the end, the troublesome exhousemates or the Dean?
(If things don't pick up this semester I plan on taking my sob story to a good third tier law school that offered me a full ride a year ago and see if we can make a deal)
