Thursday, November 29, 2007

I'm in love.

I'm starting to become more comfortable with law school. Law school and I haven't exactly become friends yet, but we're on a first name basis. Law school and I will be spending a lot more time together in the next few years, so we have plenty of time to take this relationship slowly and get to know each other better. I'm still skeptical, but it's getting better.

Westlaw, on the other hand, is my new true love. You can look up people's criminal records! If the law school authorities were really serious about getting us to pay attention in class, they wouldn't have taught us how to snoop on Westlaw.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

"Chuck Norris Approved."

I am deLIGHTED with Mike Huckabee's new campaign ad (via Althouse). Thoughts?

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Boring Interviews

Although I'm greatly appreciative of all the press the Facebook group has been getting lately, it all has been a bit boring. The pieces are feel-good, fluffy stories, and that's fine. That's all I can expect from a story reporting on a Facebook group.

However, my publicist (Gloria) has been brainstorming some quotes to make these interviews more interesting and memorable. Here are her first two shots:
Grammar is my Malawian baby - like Angelina and Madonna, I got tired of being pegged as just another outrageous, definitive sex symbol and I needed to be taken seriously. My psychic suggested grammar and my Scientology advisor agreed.

Grammar is trendy right now, but its my goal to make it timeless - more Cartier than Tiffany, more Hermes than Balenciaga. Grammar is the new black, and it looks good on everyone.

Crimson White article

The Crimson White is Alabama's school newspaper, and Keli Goodson wrote an article for us for today's paper. Here's the link, and the full text is reprinted below. I'll post some thoughts about it later.

____________________________________________________________________

Grammar lovers united by Facebook

Keli Goodson
Senior Entertainment Reporter

Issue date: 11/14/07 Section: Entertainment


For those English speakers who just can't use correct grammar or spelling, there is a Facebook group out to get you.

Formed in October 2006, "I judge you when you use poor grammar" has more than 220,000 members and has garnered plenty of attention lately, with mentions in The New York Times, the Canadian press and a blog from the Wall Street Journal.

First-year law student Sharon Eliza Nichols is the founder of the group.

"It's kind of overwhelming, still," Nichols said of the attention the group has gotten. "It's growing by one or two thousand a day."

"I judge" had to make another group after the first one completely filled the space Facebook allows for images, Nichols said. There are about 5,000 images on the group's Facebook Web page.

The first bit of attention the group received was from the newspaper The Ottawa Sun on Sept.r 7. A mention in The New York Times on Oct. 21 was next, followed by a post in the Law Blog of The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 26.

"It's been mentioned other places," she said, "but those three were the big ones."

Since the mention in The New York Times, Nichols said, she has gotten an agent, and a book deal is in the works.

"We're going to make a book with pictures and information from the group," she said.

The book will be a lot like the popular "Post Secret" books, as it will be mostly images posted on the Facebook group's Web page, Nichols said.

A book proposal has been written, and the book's release date will not be decided until Nichols and her agent choose a publisher, she said.

"I judge you when you use poor grammar" has also spawned its own line of T-shirts, produced by Teeful.com and available at www.IJudgeYouWhen.com.

The group started with a sign she saw one day that said "Applications Excepted," instead of the correct "Applications Accepted," Nichols said. She said she felt embarrassed for the business when she saw the sign.

"I started it as kind of a joking response to that," Nichols said.

She said another pet peeve of hers was the inability of some people to correctly use "it's" and "its."

Images in the group include things like pictures of Facebook profiles, church signs and billboards with misspelling, improper punctuation and other things group members find grammatically offensive.

"I think that the Internet has made written communication more commonplace," Nichols said. She said that results in some people not knowing better or just not caring.

She said it seemed grammar on the Internet was getting better, because people are beginning to be more careful about what they say and how they say it.

"Powerful people should choose their words carefully," she said. "When people mispronounce things it conveys a definite impression to other people."

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Women's Studies discussion in Manly Hall.

First line in an email I just received:

Today at 12:30pm, the Women’s Resource Center and the Department of Women’s Studies at the University of Alabama will hold their next Brown Bag Series discussion in Manly Hall, Room 102.


Anyone else find this really funny?

Milestone.

I just used up my first law-school highlighter. Ha!

"Thought surgery."

The other day, a friend of mine compared law school to "thought surgery." It's an accurate comparison because they're teaching us how to think differently -- how to approach and analyze subjects from a legal perspective, as opposed to whatever we came in here doing.

I'm not taking issue with learning how to think differently. That part of law school was expected. I'm wondering, though, how law school will affect my writing. In your experience, has it made you a better writer? Worse? More stilted, or more creative?

My prediction is that it will make me a more precise, but less interesting, writer.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Gobble Gobble

I go to law school in Alabama. People like to hunt here, as shown by the funniest cell phone ring tone I've ever heard.

Today in class, a friend's cell phone rang. The ring was the sound of turkeys gobbling with a shotgun blast at the end.

"Gobble gobble gobble."
"BOOM!"

I'm turning blue.

It's always a little uncomfortably cold in the law school, and I have a theory explaining it: I think it's to keep us awake! The school keeps the temperature around 65 so that students are always a little uncomfortable, and therefore we stay awake.

It doesn't work with uncomfortably warm, because people tend to fall asleep when they're warm.