Visual Eavesdropping

I try to be a good student. I really do. As I progressed at PHC, I realized that I listened better (and remembered more) when I took notes by hand. By my senior year, all notes were taken by hand. The laptop just offered too many distractions, even if I wasn't online, there were always the margins to format, the bullets to adjust, and the attempt to convert that diagram the professor just drew into pixels.

Law school started where PHC left off - a pen and a notebook. The first semester took an entire pen of ink (I spent the last week wondering if my pen would hold out - it did, but barely). This semester I am again taking notes by hand. However, that doesn't always prevent me from noticing my fellow student's laptops. And yesterday during a particularly slow Property class--a class fixated on New Jersey minority rules and the mistreatment of Native Americans--I couldn't help but notice the Facebook post being composed next to me.

First, there was google search on Michelle Bachmann, the conservative Congresswoman from MN. Apparently she recently came out with a list of proposed budget cuts. The research led to a Huffington Post article, criticizing her for (at least) one of the entries on this list--something involving soldier disability payments. At this point I was curious. So, out of the corner of my eye, I kept watching. It was much more interesting than the professor's review of our previous class.

This student disagreed. Vehemently. And needed to tell all his Facebook friends. So a post began with how scary Rep. Bachmann was. It then went on with a sentence about how she was cutting funding for soldiers who paid into the system. So far, a reasonable argument. He should have clicked "share."

Then, however, it turned strange. For the next sentence launched into how he wanted someone to take him out to an expensive dinner. I must confess, it was quite the non sequitur--at least from my perspective. I was presuming an inside joke. He proofread it, and must have realized the problem. His analogy wasn't clear enough. So, he set down to make it stronger. And this is where it turned stranger. He added a sentence about returning home alone. Then started tinkering more. Suddenly I realized, the analogy he was trying to make was one of prostitution, where the prostitute was paid but didn't deliver. Not the strongest argument in this context for multiple reasons: the overt comparison of Bachmann to a prostitute (and the implicit comparison of Congress to the prostitute, expected to deliver ... something), the military as the customer, and most strangely, himself also as the prostitute (since the analogy was first person). However, at least the two parts of the post were now connected.

But he wasn't done. For upon proofreading, he determined more description was needed. So he started adding adjectives and adverbs. Not necessarily obscene ones (although there were a few), just objectively bad ones. Phrases that detracted from his writing; clauses the editing process is supposed to cut.

What was most fascinating was the more he worked, the worse his writing became. I wonder if mine is that way. The best/clearest/strongest argument was the first, before editing took it through the strange into the comical. I think he realized this, for by the time it was posted, the whole second part was gone. Or so I thought. Then I realized that he had just split it into two posts.

Oh well. I shouldn't complain too much. This class is graded on a curve.