How’s 3x100?

Diary Entry: October 17, 2024

Professor Pigou’s performance today sent me spiraling back to my LLM days. I’d enrolled in Property Law, eager to dissect the Anglo-American system, so starkly different from our continental model. As was my habit, I was a front-row fixture, hand always in the air, relentlessly active.

Then came the day of the “official call” — that peculiar American academic hazing. The professor aims a “tricky question” at you, and you have precisely two seconds to regurgitate the exact phrasing transcribed in his notes. Any deviation, any hint of actual brainstorming, is penalized as failure. That two-second window, for my non-native comprehension, was a guillotine. I failed the question, or some crucial part of it. Afterwards, a girl who sat next to me offered placid condolences. “It was okay,” she said, “you still did good. Don’t be nervous.” I recall thinking, Why would I be nervous? but I murmured my thanks.

Fast forward to today. I sit even closer to Professor Pigou, a front-row zealot, hand raised like a “crazy mad man.” I am, in turn, ignored roughly three-quarters of the time, a demonstrable display of “Не Вижу”.

Today, however, I knew I was in the queue. I was prepared; I had everything down. But Pigou has his own peculiar method. His questions are not invitations to explore; they are keyholes. Narrow, specific, and admitting no interpretation whatsoever. The topic was the calculation of rental income for a bankruptcy code claim. Instead of approaching the destination directly, he insists on a forced Socratic march, step by painful step.

He began at an almost insulting starting point. “Will 3x100,” he inquired, “ever be more than 300?”

I was momentarily baffled by the sheer absurdity. “No,” I finally replied, “3 x 100 is always 300. Nothing’s going to change that.” The irritation was immediate. Here I sat, a lawyer with a decade of practical experience, being forced to answer arithmetic problems designed for first-years.

I could feel his dissatisfaction radiating from the lectern. He was not pleased with my performance. Who knows? Perhaps he was ashamed — ashamed that the other students had to witness the spectacle of his prize JSD student being quite so stupid.

I had barely escaped the classroom when an email arrived from my JSD seminar professor. The accommodation was off. The seminar was back to its original 10 a.m. slot. This was, of course, a disaster. The Chicago trip, I’ve learned, involves meetings with “important people” — events from which it would be impossible to simply duck out.

I am, if nothing else, relentless. I marched back to Professor Pigou’s email. I explained the conflict and asked his permission to join the JSD seminar via Zoom, pleading the necessity of not missing discussions vital to my final qualifying exams.

He replied with that powerful, minimalist efficiency of his: “Sure.”

And just like that, the conflict evaporated. I had secured both: the “career-changing” networking in Chicago and the crucial seminar discussion. Content, I headed home, stopping on the way for my celebratory meal: Subway sandwiches and a Coca-Cola. Everything on it, save the avocado. Extra chili. For sauces: mayonnaise, Southwest, and something punishingly spicy.