New American Law Student (Vol. II)

There comes a time in every New American Male's life when he is torn between overachieving in order to improve his employment prospects, or "keeping it real" by continuing on with everyday N.A.M. activities, such as throwing the diamond up and watching some combination of Family Feud and Divorce Court all day.

As someone whose most significant work experience includes moving home and office furniture ("Big or small, we move it all"), this problem became more acute when I decided to enter the fanciful world of the law. Lawyers tend to wear non-IMBS's, are usually ignorant of frolf, and dislike crunchy tunes. As if that wasn't enough to scare the wits out of me, the prospect of padding my resume in order to find work really challenged my N.A.M. ideals.

In an ideal world, the New American Male would host a reality TV show on VH1 called "The N.A.M. Artist" where confused American males would compete to become the next N.A.M. VH1 would be ideal, but I would also settle for Bravo.

The key to this tension between reality and NAMness is this: make every employment and extracurricular decision with the underlying goal of keeping it real. Do the Moot Court competition? No, thank you. NAM's frown on make-believe. And the journal competition? The world of academia has ignored N.A.M. scholarship ever since Joe Namath's attempted kiss of Suzy Kolber. What about being a TA? Well, "if we're not schooling the youth with wisdom . . . that’s not keepin' it real, that’s keeping it wrong." Gang Starr, 2 Robbin Hood Theory at 0:37 (1998). In short, make your decisions, and afterwards, don't rationalize them. That's what monkeys do.