Along with the opening of Disney's EPCOT center and the death of Leonid Brezhnev, 1982 is best remembered for the release of Conan the Barbarian, the "Citizen Kane" of barbarian movies.
As anyone with a love of barbarians can tell you, the best line in the movie is when Conan (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who surprisingly lost the Academy Award for Best Actor to Henry Fonda) tells the Mongol general what Conan thinks is best in life:
For law students, the next couple of weeks of studying for exams are likely to be pretty dreadful and keeping motivated is difficult.
To keep motivated, I suggest to my students that they post a picture that represents why they are in law school on their bathroom mirror — whatever it may be. While it may be something noble like "helping others" or supporting their families, it might be something less attractive like having the coolest condo in Manhattan or, like Conan, "crushing their enemies." The fantastic writer Elizabeth McCracken once told me that "Revenge is a perfectly good motivation for writing." I quote that line all the time.
Importantly, whatever the reason is, that reason is personal, locked in the bathroom, and only has to have meaning to the person brushing his or her teeth every day in that mirror. It doesn't have to be edited, thought about, or worried over.
At this point in my life, the picture on the mirror would be my children. When I was 22 and a first year law student, it probably would have been trees and wolves.
Or a really bitchin' guitar.
(Alex Ruskell)
