They're all seats of doom

I may or may not do a bigger post containing my advice for PC students who enter the dungeon on Monday (as I don't want to rob you of the wonderful mysteries of the experience and frankly, you're already hearing tons of advice, most of which is rubbish), but I do have a matter that is rather dear to my heart to discuss.

Yes, a large part of PC travails is mental. [Incidentally, although "is" agrees with "part" in number, it sounds awkward and so actually, in English it is allowable to have the verb agree with "travails," in which case it would read "travails are mental." But, as something of a conjugational purist, I've decided to sacrifice euphony for accuracy.] However, there is nothing to be gained from seeking, bragging about, or pining over one's seat in the PC room.

Every piece of conventional wisdom about where to sit was proven wrong when I was in Practice Court last quarter. Yes, Prof. Evidence does cite the names of the people in the front row in hypotheticals, but you know what? He calls on them to answer substantive questions, too. He also uses a number of other people as hypothetical namesakes as well. The front row is not, therefore, desirable because it provides immunity. One myth debunked.

There was no discernible blind spot in either Prof. PC's or Prof. Evidence's calling-on habits. In fact, Prof. PC made certain to call on everyone on the seating chart. There is no part of the room that is a particular hot spot. If anything, there are certain people who become hot spots themselves, and then those surrounding them are privy to Socratic shrapnel. Unsurprisingly, my row (myself, DB, BR) became one of those impromptu shooting galleries. Then, once you unintentionally coin a catch-phrase in Evidence, the same can happen. That said, twenty bucks to the PC student who name-checks me on "semantic cloak" whenever possible.

The one reason I won't say everyone who's been peddling this pre-PC ridiculousness is full of shit is that perhaps these precepts were true of an Underwood-taught PC class. But, that era is over now, and Wren and Powell have no such tics or tricks--or at least they didn't in the Spring-Summer 2006 season. There is absolutely no reason to worry yourself over where you will sit on Monday morning. There is absolutely no point in getting to the PC room at ass o'clock in the morning just to get some magic seat that will spare you, or to avoid some mythical seat of doom. They're all seats of doom.

If there is a place you feel most comfortable, by all means, try to sit there. You will be spending a lot of time in your seat. Being on a particular side may be important to you--I know I prefer a general portion of the classroom, but only because of habit. But don't waste time worrying about the consequences of your seat location (and especially don't be an ass about it when you get there). You will have far more to worry about.

Or maybe I'm in on the conspiracy to keep the perfect seat hidden...