Last post of the year...

... so it's New Year's Eve and tomorrow is 2007. Scary. That means this time next year will be the start of the year when i start my training contract. Yikes.

In any case Christmas was good apart from the hysterics with the family car.

It hasn't been starting very well apparently. For about three weeks. But men are stubborn (wide generalisation I know but it is required). My dad is a man, and he is particularly stubborn. Thus he hasn't taken the car to the garage because it's "kinda" been starting.

However the other day, as we were about to set off for a trip to my two aunts' about an hour's drive away and the car wouldn't start at all. Usually it would start if you gave it a while but now it was making weird hissing sounds and just plainly refusing to budge. So it had to be pushed a bit to be started up at which point any sensible person would decide to either go home or go to a garage.

Not my dad. After a rather animated shouting match, he made the executive decision that we would carry on to my aunts', and my protests about the fact that we would not be able to get the car moving at Aunt No. 1's as there is no hill, fell to deaf ears. So off we went and as predicted the garage had to be called to tug the car along at my aunt's before we could move anywhere.

The car is now going to a garage. Thank god. Saga over. But I have been getting the bus for the first time in four years at home and thats been quite exciting!

Happy New Year everyone!!

S.

Holidays are coming...

Oh yes you all know it, nearly Christmas!

Screw political correctness and screw Jesus, I love Christmas even with all its commercialised trimmings! I don't love it BECAUSE of the commercial trimmings, but in spite of them. So why do I?

For a start I'm at my parents'. And there is a never-ending supply of food in the house. It is perfectly acceptable to eat dinner three times a day and an oft-spoken phrase that passes between me and my mum is "what shall we eat next?". *

There is no reason whatsoever to leave the house, and if you do it's nice and quiet everywhere and no people and stuff for when we decide to take little walks and stuff. I also like to see my parents liking the presents I got them (hopefully). And we make puzzles. Everyone is merry and we sit at the table and eat dinner and my dad makes conversation (ok, so that's probably because we have guests) and doesn't get up until we've all finished. And the three of us all watch films together and stuff. There are lots of benign films on TV and me and mum can watch Disney films and Crime Dramas. While eating of course. Generally just nice family time.

Everywhere has pretty lights and plays Christmas music.

The Coca-Cola ad is on tv. Holidays are coming etc. With the big truck with pretty lights. Although they've changed it this year and I want to make an official complaint. But I saw the proper ad today and jumped up and down and my mum laughed at me.

*next week - New Year's resolution is to join the gym... although I don't make resolutions, but if I did!

Friends and family... and more law stuff

I'm going home to Mum and Dad Law School this weekend. For three whole weeks.

I'm very excited - I love going home and hanging out with the parents, and it will also be Christmas which I love too. I guess I enjoy going home so much because I can revert straight back to being a teenager when life was but a daydream and there were no serious things such as careers and paying rent to worry about. But it will be Christmas and I'm going home so I'm mega-excited. Yes some more of the well known Susie Law School enthusiasm has been saved up for the holidays.

On another note - Law School Friends. I get on with people in my class, no problem. However I wonder how many of them hate me. It's already been well established that I work hard. It's already been well established that I 99% of the time know the answer. It's also been established that if I know the answer and nobody else is volunteering it, I will speak up. But I do wonder if they think I'm an annoying know-it-all. I occasionally find myself feeling guilty that I do always know the answer (not TOO guilty, after all I still want a distinction) and perhaps slightly resented by my fellow classmates. And it worries me a bit as after all, people potentially bitching about you isn't the nicest.

It doesn't worry me too much, after all I have my friends who I know like me and I like them, and I wouldn't change them for the world. But the whole thing made me think that possibly Law School friendships are a bit like those you have with your colleagues at work. Everyone gets on perfectly fine on a social level, but only very few spend time together outside of work. At work however, everyone is looking out for themselves and nobody likes other people to do well. It's a dog eat dog world.

Or Law Student eat Law Student.

On another note, I had a dream last night that I had my first moot and hadn't prepared at all and lost. Not good.

Why go to Law School...

... if you don't like the law?

Now, my regular readers I am sure (all two of you... hi mum!) have noticed that I am a geek. This is a particularly geeky post.

I love studying, and more importantly I love studying law. So far I'm enjoying Law School more than pretty much anything else I've ever studied (bar parts of my masters which are about equal to it). I love going to class, there are some bits I find less interesting than others. Surprisingly Criminal is one of those, although I have studied it before and enjoyed it then, now I'm not finding it as exciting, but still interesting of course. Luckily, I love trust law and contract, the two I'm most likely to need in practice so that's handy!

Anyway, the point of this post is not how much I love Law School but how little other people do. I have encountered so many people who find it dull and can't be bothered etc and I can't help but wonder - why bother?

Money, career prospects... I can see the appeal, but why do something you really aren't that passionate about? I mean, forty years of your life, going to work every day, at least pick a job you LIKE! I find it all very odd but I suppose everyone has their reasons...

Personally - it's like reading a really good book. I can't wait to get to the end and be a lawyer, but I don't want Law School to finish either.

Oh joy!

A particular law student...

... in continuation to this post, today I want to tell you about another type of law student.

This is "the annoying loser everybody hates".

Now you might think this is in response to a particular occurrence and you might be right, but obviously as a disclaimer and to avoid being sued, I must state that this is all pure conjecture and none of this really happened... ahem...

So it's the hypothetical guy (or girl, in these times of political correctness) who knows everything and feels that what he has to say is more important than what the lecturer has to say. He will interrupt with an entirely unrelated comment only to hear the sound of his own voice and refer to his previous career at another specialist field to undermine the lecturer, comment on his pronounciation of medic... I mean specialist field terms, and tell what he believes to be funny anecdotes that are received by other students with groans and laughter.

This person is not hugely popular, as you can imagine. Even with the lecturers. They have to actually tell him to stop talking. In a nice diplomatic way of course, but they must say they will only take questions at the end and continue the lecture. And then take questions from other people.

Hypothetically of course. This person doesn't really exist.