bluebook competition?

here's a little picture of what i like to call "law school."

next week i will be involved in a citation contest (officially i will be a citationaire). now, before you get too excited let me explain what this is all about. i'll start from the beginning.

last semester we had an ungraded quiz (actually most of our work is ungraded...i've never seen so many people work so HARD for ungraded work...pure madness) to see who would qualify to be in the citation contest. now, when i say citations i mean footnotes and things of that nature. if you thought the mla was bad, its nothing compared to the horror that is the "bluebook."



its 415 pages long and tells us lawyers the proper way to cite...everything. you name it, the bluebook has it. needless to say this is the bane of most law students existence. ok, so last semester we took this quiz and had 10 minutes to answer 20 bb (thats the cool way to refer to the bluebook) questions.

here's a sample (and this is an easy one to get you two acquainted).
Kelley v. Law School, 123 U.S. 45 (2006). (imagine that the first part is underlined, but not the comma...that would be a bb no-no).

i would then have to figure out what is wrong with that cite (for all those that didnt rush to their bluebooks to look it up, School should be Sch. are you starting to understand the hellish nature of this thing?)

so, i stupidly did well (actually, in a sick way the bb and i gel nicely. i didnt study for the test yet i was one of the top 4...my roommates and i joke that the bb and i have a special bond).

so now i have to be in this competition next week. 4 of us from each section (there are 4 sections) will be competing in the competition. i just reviewed the slides from 2 years ago and i'm in trouble. the competition is 15 rounds and we have like 30-45 seconds to answer the questions (generally the same idea as above...yet harder citations). as if thats not enough, our friends and loved ones are sitting in the audience mocking us as we sweat out the bluebook competition.

and as if things couldnt get any worse, the various sections are smack talking each other...saying things like "you guys are going down," or "we could cite circles around you guys." lame, i know. and, my professor has been announcing the competition for the past few months and everytime she does she puts up a power point slide with our names on it! so i am constantly reminded of this competition. ugh. cool people....please save me!

i'll be posting the results next wednesday after 5pm...in case you're interested.