Bar Ads Progress Report

I have had my materials for seven days, and have made a summary for 35 pages of the materials. If I can keep up with my sweet five-page-a-day progress, I will be ready to take the bar exams ... never.

This Is The Way That School Ends

I am finally done law school. I wrote my last exam yesterday. It was kind of anti-climactic since pretty much everyone else was done before me. It was kind of weird walking out of Western, since I've gone here for six years in a row, and I won't be back except for Convocation. But I don't think I will miss being a student. I'm getting way too old for school and I don't want to be one of those people with five graduate degrees and a load of crushing debt. (I already have a load of crushing debt.)

Right now, I am fairly hungover and I need to pack up my life and move to Toronto, where I am sure I will have many adventures, if movies about hicks moving to big cities are any indication. Time for bar ads!

Mea Culpa / What Not to Take

So a lot of people have been harassing me about my not updating this blog. I'm sorry! To tell the truth, I am considering abandoning it for a lot of reasons, including my own laziness, the fact that three years of law school has sucked out my creativity like I always said it would, and lots of creepy stalkerishness that makes writing this blog a lot more uncomfortable than it should be.

But, hey, I'm not dead yet, and I'm even studying for exams in a timely manner. I suppose, as a departing third year student, I should be dispensing my wisdom. So here's a list of five courses you should not take at law school:

1. Income Tax. Thankfully, this is no longer required at Western. It's really boring and also totally my worst mark in law school, so it's not like I'm biased or anything. But, honestly, you will not need to know much of it unless you intend to be a tax lawyer.

2. Intellectual Property. This was a pretty excruciating course.

3. Courses with "International" in the title. I had to take a lot of these on exchange, because hey, what else is possibly relevant? It's a lot like a political science and/or economics. And I suck at political science and economics.

4. Ethics. Oh, wait, we have to take this. Well, at least I'll have residual guilt if I become evil.

5. Anything that requires hard work. This term none of my courses have 100% exams. I love 100% exams, and yet I've been stuck doing assignments all term, when I could have been using that time to sleep.

On the flip side, I heartily endorse Administrative Law and Trusts. This is probably because I enjoy very nerdy areas of law.

Classy

So last night was the Law Ball. Word is that a good time was had by all, and I think a good time was had by me, but I don't really remember. I was escorted out by the bouncers and put into a cab shortly after dinner, and I woke up at 4 a.m. in the hallway of my apartment building, apparently having unsuccessfully grappled with the concept that the key to my door is supposed to go in the lock.

As you may recall, last year, during the Law Ball, I was on my sober Lent, so this year I more than made up for it. I don't know what's happened to me, but lately I've had the tolerance of a twelve-year-old girl.

Here are photos of me as I got progressively drunker. Note that I now have cute short hair:

I Can See You Again

An interesting note: Since my last post, numerous people have found this blog by typing "Alan Thicke shirtless" into Google. God, I love the Internet.

It's Okay, I Get Lonely Too

Valentine's Day has never been a particularly momentous occasion for me. When I am dating someone and it rolls around, it's usually marked by the exchange of perfunctory gifts and shiny pieces of cardboard with someone else's words on them, and when I am single, I usually get invited to some anti-Valentine's Day party and am cheered by the drinking, the girly movies, and the thought that soon I will totally be able to buy a lot of delicious half-price chocolate.

This year, however, it's actually getting me a bit down, probably because last year was not such a banner year for my poor little heart, which isn't as black as one might think. Still, this doesn't mean I can't have Valentines, even in the absence of a man this year. Therefore, I present this list of ten people and things I am officially making my Valentine:

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It's the Charter's twenty-fifth anniversary. It deserves a little love.



2. Alan Thicke. Oh, be still, my beating heart. A while back, a friend told me a story about how his dad went to Western when Alan Thicke did, and my friend's dad totally hated Alan Thicke because Alan used to mow his lawn shirtless and all the ladies would fawn over him. I wish I went to Western when Alan did. As an alternative, I will send him an invitation to come mow my lawn shirtless. It's not like he's busy with his career.



3. Pie. Who doesn't like pie?



4. Jenny Lewis. Jenny Lewis' music makes me happy, plus long ago she was the little girl in the movie The Wizard, the one who lived in a trailer and helped Fred Savage in his journey across America so his savant little brother could play Super Mario 3 in a national tournament.



5. Isabel Allende. I have been going through her entire works (thanks, City Lights and H. Sommers Books) and I haven't found a writer who has impressed me so consistently for a long time. I have been spending way too much time reading non-law books, but readings for Civil Procedure and Trusts are admittedly less entertaining.



6. Turducken. Another turducken party was had on Monday night, and you can't help but fall in love with three different kinds of meat coming together in harmony. It's like the perfect storm of meats.



7. Stephen Colbert. I have watched The Colbert Report for quite some time, but just lately I have been finding myself totally attracted to Stephen. I don't even know why. Maybe I really like geeks, or maybe it's an acceptable transference for my secret attraction to Bill O'Reilly.



8. Ketel One. No explanation necessary.



9. The new boots I got at Aldo. Because shopping is always a good pick-me-up.



10. Facebook. I know I slagged it before, but I'm now officially addicted. It's a big problem. But hey, I really like the ability to find random people from high school, and also to judge my friends based on their taste in music, movies, and books. Because I'm superficial like that.



Happy Valentine's Day, all.

Live From Chambers

Today, the whole law school got a concerned e-mail from Professor Trosow about the video camera in our cafeteria, Chambers. Since Trosow and (regrettably) myself have been involved in Western's MIT faculty, we're obviously really concerned about issues of surveillance and the Man watching us and other things that technology theorists like to rant about. Meanwhile, we blithely eat our lunches, unaware that the evil eye of some Western administrator could be on us at any moment.

Trosow wonders about the purpose of the camera. Here are some suggestions.

1) Food Services is making sure that we don't steal plastic cutlery or $0.98 hot water. These are precious items. Also, it's Phase One in their diabolical plan to force us to buy their crap, since they can now monitor when a student has outside food, and hire goons to come stomp on it.

2) Some professor has the feed from the camera in his office, where he sits and makes fun of us, often inviting other professors to come in and share in the joy of mocking students. ("Look at that guy! C average, C outfit.")

3) We're all on some horribly, horribly boring reality show.

4) It's an attempt by administration to prevent Chambers from becoming the new fifth floor on Weldon or third floor bathroom in the UCC. It's bound to happen, you know.

5) The secret cameras that were installed in the stairway portrait gallery finally stopped working.

6) Administration has finally decided to eliminate those annoying "lost item" e-mails by providing students with video evidence of what happened to their lost books, iPod, or debit receipts.

7) If Chambers is ever attacked by bears, wild dogs, Vikings, or a horde of angry SNAILs, then we'll all know what happened. Unless, of course, any of the angry mobs have the foresight to take down the camera.

Anyway, I do think that we shouldn't be being videotaped. Let's stand up for our right to engage in shifty dealings in Chambers without being subjected to the consequences.