The 3Q Picnic

The picnic last week was dominated by 3Q's. I was the only 4Q. It reminded me of the time I was the only upper quarter who went to hang out with them when they were new 1Q's. The other members of my quarter called me a traitor (although eggs benedict is not my favorite, as one of them supposed).

There's an interesting ongoing dynamic between the quarters. When a new class enters, they are all smart, and they know they are smart, but they don't know anything about the law yet. You can try to help them out by telling them the supreme court is the trial court in New York, but they don't believe you or just don't get it for a while for some reason. Thrown into a new environment, they have to establish their position in the pecking order, but they don't yet understand what they're competing at.

It's all amusing to watch unless you're in the quarter directly above. In that case you're too close. For one thing, you are actually in some classes with them, and it wears after a while. Also, you just spent a quarter working through the same process and it's painful to be reminded. So despite going around all of your first quarter insisting that when you are upper quarter students you're not going to treat the 1Q's like the upper quarters treated you, you come back for your second quarter, experience the new 1Q's, change your mind, and forget that you ever thought anything else.

At the other end of the experience is Practice Court. To everyone in the school not enrolled in it, it is a mysterious ordeal, usually slightly feared. There is a lot of work, but the rest of the school doesn't really know what it's like. The timing of the quarters is a bit shuffled by the time you enter PC, but when you get there you bond with the other PC students regardless of earlier annoyances with those in other quarters. The rest of the school just doesn't get it.

Anyway, I learned my lesson. This time, nobody called me a traitor. I didn't tell anyone in my quarter I went.