…Not Papers

Or so proclaims the banners in our hallways. So I enter the common room because I’d like to ask Kelson about our LGLS assignment. Basically we are trying to take case law circa 1918 and apply it to a modern day terrorism case. Did a security company owe a duty of care to the passengers of a plane onto which a bomb was smuggled? I am finding the cases we are using completely useless in this, because I see a major differentiation between a “service” and a “product” in a contract. Hence the Kelson question asking.

So I enter the common room and am told by Sara as I round the table, “you can’t come this way.” Why not? She is working on her LGLS assignment and doesn’t want me to see the typing on her computer. Why not? Well, probably because she assumes that I will take her ideas at a glance, appropriate them, and use them as my own work. This assumption requires a few others:

1. I am at Brandeis, not to learn, but to get a diploma.
2. I am taking this class, not because I want to do so, but because it is a requirement, and my goal is simply to pass.
3. I will cheat on this easy assignment rather then write my own two page response.
4. I lack basic integrity.

While I admit that I never took COSI 2a seriously, because it was a stupid requirement that I really did not want to take, even in that class I never really cheated, and besides, that is certainly not the norm, and anyone who knows me knows I am interested in the law (hence starting Mock Trial…) and writing. (wow…long run-on there…)

So what makes Sara think that I am going to steal her work? Or is she simply concerned that I might inadvertently catch a glance and be influenced by her superior logic and writing skills to abandon my own ideas and accidentally assimilate hers? I don’t really know, and I’m not sure what made her this paranoid about me, but I do know that it is somewhat startling and upsetting. Ah, well.