Pavlovian Response

I watched "The Paper Chase" tonight with a friend. I hadn't seen it since the beginning of last summer (when I was finalizing plans for 1L). Having completed my first year of law school, the movie seems... much less realistic. It's more like a bunch of law school themed caricatures. Some people act that way... but if they do it's definitely not as extreme (someone might freak out, but nobody tries to kill themselves, someone may be a gunner, but nobody sits around planning on how they'll make the leap from ordinary student to total tool). It was still pretty cool. I was able to identify people who were similar to movie characters (though like I said, nobody who is nearly as extreme as the characters in the movie), plus the guy got grilled on Hawkins v. McGee (that's the contracts case where the Dr. promised to fix the boy's burned hand with a skin graft, and it didn't work, for those of you who haven't had contracts in a couple of years), which was cool, because I remember reading that case.

One thing I found incredibly interesting was the scene where the students are all walking into the room to take exams. When they sat down and I saw the bluebooks... I actually got an adrenaline rush... like the kind I get before exams. I felt like one of Pavlov's dogs... except instead of salivating I think I crapped myself.