This morning I came to Tax class having only read about half the assignment. No big deal; I'm a 3L. Also, my Tax professor doesn't call on people randomly; he snakes back and forth across the rows, so you always know when your turn is coming. It's reassuring. But when we got through the stuff I had read, and just began on the stuff I was unprepared for, the snake was dangerously close to me. I kept reminding myself that most of the questions he asks aren't really from the reading anyway, but still I was a little nervous. I spoke in my mind--I'm not sure if it counts as an honest-to-goodness prayer--and said, "Please don't let him get to me before class ends." Moments later, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the classroom ("Because I could be held liable," the professor quipped). I was saved.

So because the library (the building where are classroom is) was on fire, or at least thought it was, I couldn't go in there to study. Instead, I went to the newly renovated Hark (the union building here at the law school), where I am now sitting. A girl sitting near me just did something that has been done to me countless times here at law school, and something that I really don't understand. She said to me, "Excuse me, could you watch my stuff for me for a sec?" I nodded, and she walked off, leaving her laptop, backpack, and purse just lying around.

She obviously expected me to protect her stuff from someone who might steal it. But who does she expect will steal it if not someone exactly like me? She's never seen me before in her life; she has no reason to trust me any more than any other HLS student wandering around in this building. This is Harvard Law School--it's not like we have a bunch of punk teenage hoodlums roaming the campus. Stuff does get stolen here--I know; my computer was stolen my 1L year. But it's stolen by other law students. Students who look just like me. If I were a very dishonest person, I could have made off with her computer and sold it for a couple grand, or at least rummaged through her purse and retrieved her credit cards and cash. I always take my valuables with me, or else lock up my computer with the lock my mom gave me for my birthday. Don't trust strangers.