Curiouser and curiouser...

...some details have been slightly altered in this post.

In order to make proper sense of the very strange experience I had in the library today, I need to take you back to January 2007.

I'm sitting in a cafe at uni with my friend, taking notes on cases. I'm concentrating pretty hard (unusual but welcomed) and I have a textbook sitting on the table at my side.

Suddenly, a guy that I do not know, who shall be henceforth referred to as Stalker (you can already see where this is going, right?) chimes in, "So that textbook's written by AuthorName." Startled, I look at the textbook. It is (unsurprisingly) written by AuthorName. This isn't the greatest intellectual observation of the century, given that AuthorName is emblazoned across the front of the book.

"Yeeeesss..." I say, grudgingly, given that I'm trying to do my reading and it is pretty rude to interrupt someone who is obviously otherwise engaged.

"Is AuthorName Irish?" asks Stalker.

"I'm sorry, I haven't a clue," I say politely.

Stalker starts talking about how interesting the subject is. I start looking at my watch and calculating that a) I only have 20 minutes left to finish off these cases and b) Stalker is starting to irritate me.

So I pull the Rudeness Card on Stalker.

"Look, I'm really sorry, but I'm trying to concentrate on this reading and get it finished before closing time here." I say, interrupting him in mid-sentence.

Stalker looks taken aback and makes some half-hearted witticism about students, libraries and cafes. And goes away.

* * *

It's April and I'm in the common room, probably to revise. I even have the same textbook with me. I look up from checking my email and freeze. Stalker! Stalker comes across to me. "Do you do Law?" he asks.

Shit. Well, the only other option I have, given the common room I'm in, is Accounting and Finance, and I don't think Accounting and Finance students read law textbooks. "Yes." I venture.

Stalker seems to remember our unfriendly meeting in the cafe earlier that year. He asks me my name. I tell him, instantly regret it, and spend the next five minutes after he finally stops asking me questions and goes away restricting my facebook privacy settings to maximum.

* * *

I'm walking out of a building at uni, sometime close to exams. Someone holds the door open for me. Guess who?! Stalker looks at me and says, "I've met you before, (my name)?"

Argh!

* * *

So, we're back in the present and I have all but forgotten about Stalker. What are the chances he'd be around this year, right? I wasn't even sure he was connected to my uni at all.

I'm in the library checking my email and replying to stuff related to this moot. Someone says, "Oh, you're doing MootName?" I look at the person sitting next to me. Shit!! Not only is it Stalker, but he is actually reading my email over my shoulder!

Now, talking to somebody who's obviously busy doing something is rude, but perhaps forgivable. Reading somebody's email over their shoulder? Not cool. Not cool at all.

Stalker managed to completely poleaxe me this time, so I actually replied to him. During our conversation, which I shan't bother to paraphrase, I learnt the following interesting tidbits.

- Stalker (supposedly) does research for Eminent Professor who I much admire.
- Stalker (supposedly) is teaching a class in a subject I have taken in the past.
- Stalker (supposedly) has had some involvement with MootName that I am involved with this year.
- Stalker (probably..this is my own conclusion) is a Ph.D student.

But! The plot thickens.

Stalker says he has been involved with MootName at my uni in the relatively recent past. But I know for a fact that a team has only been entered in the last two years, in the six years prior to that there was no team! So unless he is talking about a different uni, which it didn't sound like he was, this can't be true.

Stalker suggested that he was teaching a class this year, which is plausible, only I checked the timetables and I can't find anyone teaching those classes who might be Stalker - Stalker is male and I know both the guys who teach classes in that subject.

Stalker didn't know how to access past exam papers. Doesn't that sound like something that someone who is teaching classes should be able to do?

But Stalker must be involved with the uni because he has a username and password to use uni computers.

What can I hypothesise?

• Stalker is a Ph.D student but he is lying or exaggerating when he talks to me.

There is definitely something very weird about this guy and I am normally a pretty astute judge of character.

What further conclusions can be drawn if this hypothesis is proved correct?

• Stalker is (totally hamfistedly) trying to hit on me.

In fact, I'm almost sure of it. Problem is, Stalker is pretty darn persistent with his questions, I have already used the Rudeness Card once (and I'm not an absolute bitch, I don't like doing it) and he doesn't seem to take the hint.

If on the offchance you are Stalker, please note: I really am not interested. You appear to be socially inept. I have already concluded that you are very weird. Please go away and stop trying to talk to me. You are not my type in this universe or the next.

Sod's Law

How is it that I end up in the Competition Law class that contains

a) only two people I know, and one is;
b) the Nameless Law Student who we had to kick out of last year's mooting team because they failed to prepare their written submissions and left us stuck in the library until midnight freaking out because we had to write about 2,000 words of properly researched & referenced text in about 4 hours.

I'm not normally disposed towards freakouts, but that day was so stressful I couldn't even send the email with the submissions attached because my hands were shaking as if I had Parkinson's. At precisely 11.59pm. The penalty for late submission is severe.

I know I should be all gracious and live and let live and all, but it still grates!

(makes mental note to tell this year's team that our deadline will be well before Christmas)

Back in the swing of things

Sorry I haven't been posting over the summer - I wanted to keep this blog relatively focused on law and legal issues and as I've been off enjoying the carefree and hedonistic life of a student over summer vacation (please note there is a smidgen of sarcasm in the above) I haven't updated (actually I was busy getting fitness industry qualifications and being temporarily homeless).

So, university has restarted and I've already used up a small forest's worth of paper in printouts. It's odd how some classes are so heavy with reading and others less so, yet they generally all boil down to a three hour exam at the end of the year. In case you're wondering, this year's options are International Protection of Human Rights, Jurisprudence (compulsory), Intellectual Property Law and Competition Law. I decided that Advanced Torts wasn't really going to add anything and doing an outside option was a bit of a cop-out.

I got called for jury service over the summer - as did a lot of people I know, oddly, but they seem to have lost track of me seeing as I moved over the summer and am now in a different electoral district. The system doesn't seem very well suited to dealing with transient people like students; it's odd that they haven't taken steps to doing some sort of Internet-based response rather than getting you to mail the form back to them. I asked for a deferral but didn't hear anything back (I think because I moved and not all the mail got forwarded) - probably I should chase that up. Perhaps there is a warrant for my arrest out this very second (!!).

I'm busy putting together a team for an external moot right now - the same one as I did last year - and am holding tryouts next week. I've given the poor sods a little "assignment" - doesn't seem to have put anybody off as I have about 12 people interested in 3 places in the team. I'll probably post more about this as the team develops - not too much as it'll probably violate the anonymity rule if I do - but just general stuff about mooting.

Anyway, that's the catchup, I'll get back to writing something of substance in the coming days and weeks.

Course choices

I should be making next year's course choices round about now. I'm not sure how important these really are in terms of future employment; I guess it's helpful to have a demonstrable interest in a certain area of the law if you hope to go on and practice it, but given that most chambers tend to discourage early specialisation I doubt it helps to go in with blinkers on.

I still have one compulsory element to complete, which is Jurisprudence, and which I am really looking forward to as I tend to enjoy the theoretical stuff. I'm flirting with the idea of an outside option - Gender and Society - I'm planning on hitting up the human rights chambers so I don't think it will be too difficult if I'm asked why I took this course rather than a Law option. Helena Kennedy thought it was important, anyway (Eve was Framed is an excellent book and one which I highly recommend reading).

As for the rest? One definite is International Protection of Human Rights. The fourth is the one I'm undecided on - choices are Advanced Torts, Commercial Contracts or Competition Law. Advanced Torts is the one which is the most immediately appealing to me, but I probably shouldn't choose courses on their gore and drama potential. There is also the consideration that I would like a decent clutch of firsts next year and don't want to choose courses which will make that tricky. Conundrum!

Internships ahoy

It is summertime at the moment (though you would be forgiven for disputing this, given that enough rain has fallen over the last few months to turn my feet webbed).

Many people seem to share a fond view that students spend their entire holidays ensuring that their overdrafts are well and truly maxed out, lazing around, getting on their parents' nerves, allowing their blood alcohol levels to return to normal after the excesses of end of term parties and spending an inordinate amount of time on social networking sites aimlessly clicking.

I have to admit that sounds like a beautiful idea, but unfortunately for many wannabe lawyers, the necessary evils of internships and mini-pupillages will intrude upon this idyllic sloth. Most of my friends who plan on becoming solicitors have already spent countless hours doing online applications and traipsing to interviews - now these efforts have been rewarded by places on vacation schemes and the chance to work for what is probably less than Minimum Wage, given that most of them won't see daylight for the duration of their vacation schemes and will stumble, bleary-eyed and midnight-tanned, out into the dazzling sunshine pouring rain at the end of it all. It's worth it for them. It's a foot in the door, and some of them will be rewarded with the offer of training contracts.

In contrast, the mini-pupillage doesn't really play the same pivotal role that vac schemes do for solicitors. I must admit to feeling rather smug, watching my beleaguered friends fill out application after application at the beginning of the Lent term - most mini-pupillage applications require minimal amounts of paperwork. This smugness was probably ill-founded, considering I'll probably be living in a garret, eating 22p bread from Tesco with "value" jam and burning pages from old textbooks to keep me warm whilst they're all getting sloshed in Canary Wharf courtesy of the money advanced to them to cover their LPC.

It's possible that an early offer of pupillage will arrive; I'd prefer not to hedge my bets at this stage. At any rate, it has certainly been brought home how much more certainty is afforded by the vac scheme system (unless you don't get offered a training contract at the end of your vac scheme, in which case I warmly invite you to share my future garret- as long as you bring your own bread). Mini-pupillages offer many things; a chance to scope out prospective chambers; an increased understanding of the (sometimes arcane) world of the Bar. The list goes on. But at the end of the day, nobody is going to turn round and say, "You know what? You made tea so beautifully. Your photocopying was exquisite. We would love to offer you a pupillage."

For me, the days spent researching, filling out applications and preparing for interviews - they haven't been avoided. They'll just come at a slightly later date, whilst some of my wannabe (gonnabe?) solicitor friends will be able to sit back and enjoy the rest of their summer knowing that they have secured a training contract and can now commence full scale slothfulness. Lucky buggers.