I'm older than Captain Kirk was when he first captained the Enterprise, and yet if I wear shorts and a T-shirt around the law school, I still get mistaken for a law student.

Hmm. I guess we'll compare your painting to mine, then.

Hey, I still get carded in Vegas for being 18, and I'm 28. And not just every now and then, either, but multiple times in the same night, in the same casino...

But I still think it's a useful trait - you get to appear wise beyond your years.

"I guess we'll compare your painting to mine, then."

I have to confess that I don't get this reference. Is this Alabama-speak? Or something English reference you picked up overseas?

The Portrait of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. Dorian Gray has a picture painted of him in his beautiful, innocent youth, and due to some strange magic, the painting ages and becomes foul with his sins, while he remains young and beautiful.

One of my English friends, when complaining of the fact I didn't look my age (and kindly not commenting that I don't act it) once commented, "I want to know where he's keeping the painting."

I apologize in advance for being a nitpicking pr*ck here, but my well-read copy of Wilde's novel is titled The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The nit having been picked, I'll just pipe in and say that anyone who hasn't read the novel should pick it up sometime and give it a read; it's a good one IMHO.

One of these years I'm going to get around to reading the copy of J.K. Huysman's A Rebours that I picked up about the same time as I acquired my copy of Dorian Gray.

Noted, ya nitpickin' bastard... The Picture...

This is your last year to do stupid stuff that you can explain away by shrugging and saying "I was in my twenties, what can I say?" So enjoy it. And get to work planning your 30th birthday bash. I went in with some friends and we hired a 10 piece funk band and had a great ruckus of a party saying goodbye to the uncertainty and self-delusion of our 20s (and welcoming the uncertainty and self-delusion of our 30s, surely a better breed).

Well, according to The New York Times Magazine, 30 is the new 21. You know, kind of like black is the new pink. Or is it the other way around?

Anthony, as a future law school student, I was wondering if you could elaborate upon your choices of schools, and as to how you're finding Columbia in particular. I'm definitely interested in Columbia for next fall, and I'd be interested in hearing your comments upon it, as compared to, say, Harvard (if you visited Harvard or any other schools for example) or NYU.

Thanks,
Jd2b

But isn't it fun to get carded? I love it when they card me. In fact, I probably blow the moment by giggling "Sure!" whenever anyone asks me for some ID.

I'm 24, and sometimes I feel like the oldest person in my law school class.

Hi, JD2B. I'm afraid I don't have any good answer for you, since I only really applied to three universities, and Columbia pretty much by accident. I know very little about Harvard and NYU. I tried to get into the University of Chicago, but from all reports I've heard it's a pretty grim place to study law. (People may have been trying to make me feel better, though.)

I find Columbia to be a very good place to study, with much to recommend it. On the other hand, asking a starting 1L about that might not be the best idea--sites by 2L's might be better. As it is, I can say without fail that you could do a lot worse than Columbia--just don't get assigned to a dorm. :)

Sorry not to be more help...

Of course U. of Chicago is a pretty grim place to study law; first, it's really an economics department masquerading as a law faculty, and secondly it's not Northwestern. :-)

[in joke there; I am a Northwestern Law alum and there is very much a crosstown rivalry. In all objectivity, though 1) Northwestern is a grim enough place to study law itself, and 2)we were just engaging in sour grapes; by any decent measurement Chicago beat the pants off of us in terms of both academic quality and reputation (and that's given that Northwestern was not at the time I went there, and certainly isn't now, a slouch in terms of either academic quality or reputation).]

There are basically two reasons, to my mind, why anyone should attend law school in Chicago (any of them, from the powerhouses of U. of Chicago and Northwestern to the law mills like John Marshall): first, you can pick up a copy of the Chicago Reader every Friday and acquaint yourself (if you haven't already) with Cecil Adams and his column, "The Straight Dope", and second, come April and May you can cut class and attend afternoon ball games at Wrigley Field. :-)

i want to read a rebours... how can i buy it or where can i find some information about it?