WonL
The random thoughts of an architect-turned- lawyer from the deep south living in Washington, DC...
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Tabbing
I decided something yesterday. Okay, I actually decided AGAINST something. Well, maybe I just came to a relization. TABBING sucks! I have decided not to tab for CivPro. (Tabbing is taking those cute colorful little pieces of sticky plastic and putting them protruding out of the side of the book for a quick way of turning to the "important stuff.") Why I hate tabbing:1) First is act of finding the perfect tabs. Now, I have seen some people use post-it notes. They do that little curly thing where you can't actually read what you wrote. So, post-it came up with tabs to alleviate the crinkling problem. These are some tough tabs. So tough in fact, that they will not give way and when the book gets shoved into the book-bag, the pages of the book bear the brunt of the damage. So, my tough durable tabs are still in tact, but the pages of the book I actually need to read are all bent up.
2) Tabs are made up of such a material composition that it is extremely difficult to find a pen that will not run or smear. In fact, for Contracts, I think I spent 30 minutes testing out different pens and markers for that perfect consistancy. This is where my obsession (#11) came in handy. However, it probably would've been more valuable to use that time studying.
3) I had some issues trying to figure out what to write on the tabs. They are small (even though I went with the wide ones). But still, I cannot fit the word "unconscionability" on a tab. On the other hand, I'm not sure that I would know that 2-302 is the UCC rule dealing with unconscionability, so writing 2-302 would do me no good. Hmm, do I abbreviate? If so, to what degree? Uncon...uncons...unconscion...getting back to the whole word here!
4) The perfection of tab-applying got to me. (Keep in mind, my undergrad trained me that everthing is about presentation. When we hung our drawings on the wall for critiques, if they were not tacked in a straight line, we'd have to take them down and try again.) Being the perfectionist myself (okay, anal retentive is more like it)...when applying the tabs, I did it extremely methodically. I made sure that the edge of each tab lined perfectly with the one before it, even if it was 30 pages prior. My time was not well spent here either. As explained in 1) that perfect line of tabs is gone the minute the book gets shoved somewhere.
5) There is such thing as "over tabbing". In fact, if you are finding yourself putting 2-3 tabs on one page, you have probably gone too far. It's a lot like the inevitable over-highlighting. There is always someone who opens their book in class and you look to see that they have actually highlighted every word on the page. I digress, they skipped over some "the"s. Seriously, there is no need to highlight the citation to the Federal Supplement. I assure you that will not be on the test. (I say this, but it wasn't until halfway through the semester that I quit highlighting the citations!)
6) During my contracts exam, the tabs physically got in my way. The three hour exam is extremely intense and FAST. I do not have time to deal with a bunch of colorful little pieces of plasticy stuff. I was so annoyed by those stupid tabs being in my way, that I decided I'm not using the stupid tabs anymore.
I found a new use. My roommate was in my room the other night and thought it was really cute the way I used the colurful tabs to make faces out of the light switches.