The Overlook Hot… I mean, Columbia Law School, as viewed from Amsterdam Avenue.

Danielle, one of Bwog’s other staff writers, sings the praises of Columbia Law School’s lobby. To her, it’s the perfect studying environment. It’s quiet, but not oppressively so; it’s spacious, but not overwhelming; it’s off-campus, but not really. I, however, never really got behind the idea of wanting to study there. I’m someone who rarely studies—and when I do, I usually do it in the Milstein Center. Besides, I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the law school—one of my classes this semester was in a lecture hall near the front of the building—and I’ve always viewed it as something as a liminal space, not somewhere I’d like to spend a late night/early morning. After weeks and weeks of hearing Danielle talk about how much she enjoys studying there, though, I gave in. I promised her that I would spend twelve hours in the law school lobby just to give it a chance.

At 8:00 pm on December 6th, I joined Danielle and her friend Sean, a freshman at Columbia College, for an all-night study session. As I expected, things got pretty weird pretty quickly.

Here’s an account of the night I spent there, written in the third-person:

8:08 pm: Danielle sees a law student who asked her out a month ago. They exchange awkward glances and a pitiful wave.

8:17 pm: Jake promises to start working on his last paper of the semester at 8:20 pm.

8:18 pm: Danielle messages a freshman friend and asks whether he wants to join us. He replies that he’s not sure because he may be a bit young for law school.

8:19 pm: Danielle half-acknowledges a girl she had been on hall council with. However, the unnamed individual, obviously sleep-deprived, doesn’t even look in our direction and walks out the door.

8:21 pm: Jake has not started his paper. He slumps in defeat, and his hat falls off. Hats off to you, Jake.

8:25 pm: Danielle receives an interview offer!

8:26 pm: The freshman tells Danielle that he thought that only law students are allowed in the law school. He has so much to learn.

8:40 pm: Jake gets his shit together and starts working.

8:41 pm: Another law student sees Danielle. He waves.

8:42 pm: The freshman complains about Canadian Goose and starts counting the number of people wearing the coats who walk by.

8:48 pm: Jake decides to go all the way to Butler to get pumpkin bread. Yay! Good life choices!

8:52 pm: Jake changes his mind. He stays.

9:02 pm: Jake is one page in!

9:02 pm: Jake tweets at the person with the pumpkin bread (a fellow Bwogger) and asks her to save him a piece.

9:19 pm: Danielle announces that she doesn’t care for pumpkin bread. Jake loses his shit temporarily.

9:21 pm: Danielle clarifies that while she likes pumpkin bread; she just doesn’t understand why anyone would trek to Butler for it at 9:30 pm.

9:22 pm: Girl walks around with a suitcase. Danielle claims it’s a backpack. Danielle is wrong.

9:28 pm: Jake looks back and sees a cascade of blood flooding the hallway. He enters a trance and then snaps out of it. That was weird.

9:34 pm: Danielle sees another law student she knows. She recalls them talking and him wanting to stay in touch… but he didn’t have Facebook. To this day, they have no way to keep in touch outside of random run-ins at the law school.

9:40 pm: We decide to give the freshman a name to welcome him officially to this article. Hi, Sean!

9:58 pm: Jake is chugging along. Danielle and Sean are not.

10:31 pm: Jake is halfway done. Jake is getting pumpkin bread.

10:45 pm: Jake ate the pumpkin bread. It was fantastic.

10:59 pm: Danielle and Sean have begun working, but now they’re talking about sucking blood.

11:18 pm: Danielle and Sean are asleep. Jake is killing the paper-writing game.

11:19 pm: Two men in the hallway will not stop talking. Jake is hot and bothered.

11:28 pm: Danielle and Sean wake up. They go to the bathroom. Jake writes more.

11:36 pm: Jake does a cartwheel to wake himself up. A woman laughs. Jake feels self-conscious.

11:39 pm: Sean sees two young girls, who appear to be twins, approaching. “Come play with us,” they cry! Sean goes pale.

11:45 pm: Two girls decide to copy Jake, and do cartwheels as well.

12:00 am: Jake is discussing his upcoming massage. Midnight strikes.

12:11 am: Sean and Danielle start randomly reading Quarto submissions.

12:44 am: A man yawns and then whisper-shouts “Oooooooh-wee!” Normal.

1:28 am: Jake goes to the vending machine to get an Oreo brownie (which he highly recommends). A custodian, who may or may not be a ghost, appears and offers him a Diet Coke. Jake complains about life to the custodian.

1:54 am: Danielle falls asleep again.

2:17 am: Danielle wakes up once more.

2:48 am: Sean and Danielle debate the merits of “Hips Don’t Lie.” Danielle is anti-. Sean is pro-.

3:05 am: Jake goes to the bathroom once more. That Oreo brownie was a bad idea. He stumbles upon the ghost of a zombie-like woman.

3:27 am: Sean keeps having visions and yelling “Red rum!” Danielle and Jake debate sending him home.

3:54 am: Jake wanders into some conference room and sees a bunch of ghosts attending some kind of ball. A waiter spills drinks on him and takes him to the bathroom to clean him up. Jake realizes that looks just like a former dean of the law school.

4:06 am: Jake returns to writing his paper. Danielle comes over and sees that Jake has written “ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JAKE A DULL BOY” over and over and over and over and over again. He gets up to chase her, but she knocks him unconscious and drags him into a custodial closet.

4:16 am: An exhausted law student walks past the scene, shrugs, takes a sip of coffee, and keeps walking.

5:57 am: Jake wakes up. He sneaks up on Sean and Danielle and chases them out of the building and into Morningside Park.

6:38 am: After a long chase, Sean and Danielle manage to escape, running into JJ’s to hide and devour mozzarella sticks. Jake freezes to death in Morningside.

6:39 am: Jake opens his eyes and finds himself in the law school lobby. This was all some kind of weird dream. He opens his computer to finish his paper and remembers that he had been watching The Shining on Netflix at one point during the night. That explains that.

7:04 am: Danielle and Sean have gone home. Jake takes the piece of pumpkin bread that he had been saving for them and devours it.

7:37 am: Jake finally finishes his paper. A law student who looks vaguely like the custodian from his dream walks by. Jake is confused.

7:55 am: Jake finishes an episode of Seinfeld that he had started the previous day. Five more minutes. He can do this.

7:59 am: It’s time to leave! Finally! Jake walks toward the exit. On his way out, he notices a photograph titled “Columbia Law School Labor Day Ball, 1921.” In the photograph, Jake stands front and center among a group of rowdy law students and smiles.

8:00 am: Jake decides that the law school is a liminal space and that he never wants to return here ever again. Sorry, Danielle.

brutalism should be illegal via Beyond My Ken