I can see the light, Oh Lord

Is it salvation or an oncoming train...

The first term is coming to an end. I know this because I can consult my timetable and see blank space in a few weeks. Oh, blessed blank space...

Sorry to get all spiritual on you this week (but I do write this on Sundays) and weekends are good times for reflection. I have my basic prep done up to Tuesday, no outstanding assignments to get ready, no group assignments to stress over and no exams for almost 2 weeks.

"And he looked upon all that he had made and it was good..."

**cough, well perhaps 'adequate'...**

After the previous weeks grief with the mocks, I was anticipating some cutting edge study again coupled with some group bonding (I'll ignore the cries of 'you dirty old man' from the background). In that respect exams are a good thing, they bring the participants together-a sort of 'siege mentality', united we stand, divided we fall, that sort of thing.

"Bugler plays in the distance, troops saluting the flag as it is lowered for the last time"

**cough** this is why I never get the work done, too much day dreaming...

But, drivelling aside. I do have the great joy of working with a fantastic bunch of guys. Intelligent, fun and dedicated (just enough, not that 'over the top' creepy-style that puts sane people on edge). Your future conveyancing and personal injury claims are secure in their hands. (just dont get into trouble with the police) but more about that later (maybe)

Monday saw the start of (yet) another new course-solicitors accounts. This is building on the work we did on business accounts earlier in the term. The i-tutorial had been as comprehensible as quantum mechanics written in the original Japanese, all 'debit the client office account ledger whilst crediting the client office cash account', but when we got down to real life physical examples it became a whole lot easier and it looks like I'll enjoy this. (like anything with numbers and cash). Oh god, Ive just realised that I've got my vocation wrong again! I'm one of nature's accountants....

Tuesday was a bit weird, we had been split up into two smaller groups and had our workshop split too. The idea was that a smaller group would get more individual attention from the tutor for the license that we had drafted in preparation. Shortly after the New Year, we will get our drafting assessment and have to create a license.
Our last lesson on drafting was about 2 months ago, so naturally it all came flooding back **cough**, Well no, I couldn't remember a damn thing. That morning I did run to a good line of obscenities as I vented my frustation at all things legal wise and especially bloody drafting. What I wrote looked the biz, but when you cut into the 'meat and potatoes', it had a very large amount of spud but was meat-lite. In honesty it wouldn't have passed a real assessment but I wasn't too worried, I had bigger fish to fry.

I am getting peckish now, I really must stop talking about food

Wednesday was the day of my mock advocacy. About a month ago, we had been given the background to a case. Based on witness statements and basic scientific evidence, we had to present a case either asking for or opposing summary judgment (a binding 'mini-trial' made without the full formality of court in an attempt to cut down the sheer number of trials and save money).
Like the vast majority of the class, I had to find a way for my poor client (a payment dodger whose greenhouse heating unit had failed to work, killing all her delicate tropical seedlings). The bad news was that I had not actually heard of one person who had won the case from our side. There were a couple of points that if I hammered hard enough might become strongpoints but it was a case designed for the claimant to shine.

Now in theory, winning and losing doesn't matter a thing. What matters is observing the formalities and saying all the right litany in the right places. However, I dont think I've done anything by the book for weeks now, so my big aim was to win. Silly sod that I am. (funnily it may have helped-I wasn't as nervous as I ought to have been)

Anyhow, first thing was to start the prep for the next day (or else get swamped later) then prep up for the advocacy.

Doesn't time go fast when you don't want it to?

Before I knew it I was getting into a taxi and heading off to school (I plumped for a taxi since I had my suit on-even the mock has to be attempted in fancy dress). A few minutes practising in a distant room then I headed off to meet my tutor and opponent.

My opponent was a demure, slip of a thing. Weeny bit of the private schooling about her and unfortunately she didn't fall for my attempts to unsettle her before the start. (God, I can be such a git...).

We sat down and she began...

Holy fricking hellfire!!!!!! She suddenly turned into the bastard child of Rumpole, Kavanagh and Perry Bloody Mason. All that litany that I had struggled with came flooding perfectly out of her mouth coupled with vitriol towards my client and scorn towards her sorry representatives. My fingers were cramping up with the sheer amount of notes I was making ready to retaliate.

When she finally stopped, I was broken. She had discussed every document in the bundle and done such a hatchet job on my client, where could I begin? I did however, have a 'game plan', I could run a few good points and hope that the 'judge' put more weight on them than the entire swamping from the claimant.

Let's just say that I spoke a bit (we'll leave it at that). The 'judge' asked me a couple of questions based on my submission and then asked the opponent to reply to my points.

Oh, god-here she goes again! Tidal wave number two swept around the room as she demolished my feeble attempts at argument. When the wash had subsided, she sat back in her chair satisfied in a good job well done.

The 'judge' thought for a short while and then leant forward and gave her decision.

'I find for the defendant in this matter'

Wahoo!!!!!!! I had won!!!! The first winner for this case in our workshop group!! Wahoooooooooooo!!!

Then the bad news, I had failed...for that matter so had Peri Mason next to me. Granted, she had forgotten part of the litany and had made the mistake of talking about documents that were favourable to my client (and thus bringing them to the judge's attention) but it was still a shock to me-she had been very impressive (I even asked if she had done this before...for money). The 'judge' took time to tell us where we could improve.

I needed to speak slower (no great surprise there, I had recorded my submission on an electronic dictafone and gabbled so quickly that I could barely understand myself) and then I realised that I had missed out 1/4 of my submissions (including discussing the law...doh). If I had done that then I would have passed (I was told) Shame about that, good job it was only a practice.

But I won. Wahooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Sorry, I will stop that now...

On the way out, I met the next candidate for the defendant, who just happened to be one of the guys from my workshop-so we chatted and I happened to mention in passing the areas that I had been congratulated on (just for his benefit like, I wasn't boasting...much...)

Back home and more bloody prep for tomorrow (I haven't even touched Fridays yet-got a bad feeling about this)

First thing in the workshop, I had a quick chat to the guy who I had seen about to do his advocacy. He was really delighted-he too had won his case!!! And he had passed!! Oh...well that's my moment of glory buggered then. **mumble, mumble, moan, whinge** I'll have to pass the real thing now...

I had run into time problems for the prep for this workshop (the advocacy had taken about 5 hours what with one thing and another) and had tried to do the 'test & feedback' questions in a rush just 1/2 an hour before the class. T&F questions are multiple choice but to get around the sheer guesswork most of them are 'which one (or more) of these answers is (in)correct'.

I knew two right off and guessed the rest. My score was 4 out of 10 (What you might expect from blind guessing (2 from 8)) the workshop was good but my biggest joy was finding that I had the highest T&F score on our table! The other guys came up with two 2s and a 1! What a group! 5 degrees between us and we got a combined 9 out of 40!

The best news is that this was workshop number 8 out of 10 (I'm not a fan of civil lit...sorry tutor!)

Friday-business. I had spent as much time as I could but fell short on the prep. The class didn't start well, the tutor wanted a change so moved half of the class around to different tables. There was no vote on this, it was a purely unilateral decision.

This irked the hell out of me.

At a casual calculation, I had paid £50 for that lesson and to have my closest friend (and ally) in the group moved just because the tutor wanted a change annoyed the rowlocks off of me. Even worse, was that this particular tutor speaks at such a gabble speed that he makes me seem backward and so off he shot at high speed.

He then threw a question at me based on the prepatory task that we had all completed. Unable to answer off the top of my head, I started ferreting through my huge stack of papers for my answer. I think he gave me a count of about 3 before asking someone else (who had to find their answer but had had 3 seconds grace to get started) So I sat there with my answers in front of me, did I get another question? Did I blocks!

I realise that I shouldn't have seethed, but I did. Like a petulent 4 year old I had a 'pout on' for the rest of the class. God, I'm so grown up and adult, like.

There is a thought that the two events were connected. he wanted to separate me from my chum and make me seem a fool just because I hadn't submitted an entry on the last group exercise (I would have done but the College has taught me all about prioritisation and it seemed a low priority) But that's the joy of prioritisation-no one believes their own work could ever be a low priority to someone else...

Or it's just good old fashioned paranoia, one of the 2...

Anyhow, the weekend has been good. I worked hard yesterday and put the hours in. Today I almost got my day off-just a couple of fairly relaxed hours of business notes. And today, the highest priority of my week! I began completing the CPS application. (notice, 'began completing' this will take a little time to do-it all hinges on 4 waffle questions **cough** sorry, 'significant statements about personal growth and career development)

I've got to the 1st of Dec, it should be done by next week. There's no rush, just the most important thing I have to do this year.

**Sigh**

What exactly is a mock turtle?

Some form of tortoise made of papier mache?

Sorry, my mind is still a bit fragged from this week. Yes, the link says it all (badly)-this was mock week.

Weeeeeeell, not really.

More like mock weekend. Workshops were cancelled.

Weeeeeeell, not really, we still had one.

On Tuesday-slap bang in the middle of our revision period. About as irritating as could be. You spend the morning doing the prep, travel there and back and lose effectively one days prep for the exams. To balance this, one (yes, a whole one) of the questions in the mock will be about the subject of the workshop. Maybe-if, and it's about 25% likely the exam question is about income tax, then we are screwed because we didn't cover that in the workshop. However, if we get capital gains tax, inheritance tax or corporation tax then we would have had about a little extra coaching. Worth a gamble? Yep, guess so-a 75% bet, they come up 9 times out of 10, don't they?

I was (regular readers will know this) expecting a low turn out-in fact I was expecting below 50%. What do I know? In fact, there was almost complete turn out. The only two missing were two young women from my group (who no doubt having had the benefit of my wisdom and teaching throughout the course thought that they didn't need any extra help **coughing fit and choking on ego**)

The session was very good and could (75% chance) be really helpful. The funny thing is that as we approach the end of sessions with this one particular tutor (who as you will remember was (almost) universally loathed and despised), there is actually a sense of loss about being her being taken away. Yes, she has an old fashioned and slightly abrasive way to teach BUT what she has taught has sunk in and her ways have forced a lot of students to work harder-if only to avoid being embarassed by her questions.
With hand on heart, I have to say that I haven't minded her at all, we have had a 'frank exchange of opinions' once or twice (some I won, some I lost) but her knowledge is sound and it may be fair to say that she has warmed to us slightly. But to anybody who claims that they will miss her, I just ask the obvious question,

" so if she offered to replace X (a tutor, any tutor) for the rest of the course you'd be happy?"

Funny how that never seems to get the same sort of positive answer...

Anyhow-can't put it off any longer. The Mocks
As I remarked before, I have a terrible record in mocks of any sort. The first exam was Thurday afternoon-Business Law and practice. My worst subject. My only hope was to get a good revenue question and hope to steal some marks from my ability to manipulate sums.

I arrived fairly early and got a prime seat next to a window at the back (plenty of room to spread out and fresh air-marvellous). For the record (and my own personal amusement) I put only a pen and ruler out on my desk. EVERY other student had at least 1 Ring binder, 3 textbooks, their notes and assorted writing implements (giving them no writing room, unless they leant on one of their books).

The looks I was getting were brilliant. I soooo wanted someone to say, 'you realise this is an open note exam?' So I could say, 'nah, Ive learnt it off by heart-it was so easy...' and really screw up their minds. Big shame-no one did. Life can be so cruel-but maybe not as cruel as me!

As I suspected, I had had a bad nights sleep and was awake purely down to the combined power of fear, adrenaline and Pro Plus. Then comes the moment.

" YOU MAY NOW TURN YOUR PAPERS OVER AND START"

And I'm off. I decided to do the multiple choice questions last-that way, if I'm struggling for time, I can guess and get at least some results. If I were to do the longer prose questions last then this is not an option.

I start off with revenue. Wahoooooo, its capital gains tax and inheritance tax!!!Not only that but it's in a simiar form to the question we had on Tueday.

Double Wahoooooo!!

By this stage, my notes have appeared on my desk. I wanted to do each exam purely from my own typed notes and not to rely on the textbook at all. I got pretty close, not perfect but close. I finished the questions with about a minute to spare and felt pretty good. With a pass mark of 50% this should be a comfortable pass. I would like to think it was closer to 70 or 75 (although years of the OU do give you a rather inflated view of the marks you should get...)

Chatting afterwards to class mates reveal a few things. Most haven't finished. The problem-too many notes. I am willing to bet that people had 4 (almost identical) sets of notes for some subjects. They had their I-tutorial notes, their textbook notes, their workshop notes and any notes from pre or post workshop tasks. I saw people who had 2 thick A4 ringbinders full of notes (sitting about 6 inches deep)-and their textbooks. My notes were less than 2cm thick and were only single sided-without being too smug, it's a hell of a lot easier to manipulate that lot at speed. Plus I spent my revision time reordering them (thank heavens for cut 'n' paste!) and not having to rewrite them.

However, my 'success' in that exam came at a price. I got complacent and did almost no study that night or next morning. At 10 am we had civil litigation and I struggled a tad. Open note exams test not your memory but your understanding. Although I feel that I scraped a pass a lot of what I wrote was not terribly sophisticated. (I've already made a note to reorder those notes on my 'to do' list-which is starting to get a long as my notes...).

We then got a whole 2 hours off to recharge, rest, eat and go back to the exam hall for Property law and practice, which should have been my best exam.

And it wasn't...nowhere near. It was good to see the limits of my ignorance and impracticability but that's the only positive I can take. I finished with about 15 minutes to spare and that's way too much so I obviously missed a ton of stuff. I still feel that my basic understanding and good work with the notes would get me a pass though.

Except

I was told by two different classmates after the exam that the College are very severe on the marking of mocks (to stop complacency maybe?) and approximately 80% of students fail. This could be an urban myth but in truth the mocks were not very demanding, the questions asked were pretty obvious and basic and should have been within everyones ability to complete. With this in mind, I've had to review slightly. I would hope that the business was still a pass but the other two. Well, let's just say that it's good to go with the crowd...

That night I was so shattered that I had to ignore the offer of a night out with a spot of clubbing (now that IS tired!) and in fact went to bed at about 8:30. ROCK N ROLL!

Next week, I have my advocacy mock. Just me, an opponent and a case to win. I spent a few hours in prep for it today. It is so long since I did advocacy, Ive forgotten all the 'correct' things to say at the right time (think obscure traditional religious services and their litany). At this rate, I may end up saying 'amen' at an inadvertant time...

Finally, thanks to the people who wrote to me and supported me when I had a downer last week. It's passed for the moment (but be prepared for it to resurface the last week of term-two proper assessments-both closed notes)

For S, I too am 42 (acting 19 when near a dance floor, acting 63 the day after). I don't have a training contract. My only ambition is to work for the CPS. I have their application form sitting on the PC, it has to be submitted by Dec 1st. If that falls through then I may make a few tentative applications to get a TC with firms that do a lot of criminal law-but in truth my hearts not really in it. I love the idea of working for the CPS-so if they reject me(which is extremely possible since they will get over a thousand applications for 25 places) then I will try to get in an entry level position and work my way up (or probably sideways)

Good days & Bad days (primal scream theory)

Well, it had to happen. This week I had my first proper thoughts about jacking it all in and doing something different. It's difficult to put my thoughts into words but the cumulative effect of all the things that I don't like came to a head and I had no way to express my frustration. It would be nice (and sensible) to have a way to let off steam during the week but I don't, so it all builds until **poof**

(**note to self** must be careful how I put that)

I was staggered when a couple of weeks back a friend on the course referred to me as 'an angry person'-that was one of the things that I badly wanted to avoid. I wanted to be 'cool Paul', 'laid back Paul', 'do anything for anyone Paul' not 'Mr Angry of Guildford' or even the '**poof** boy'.

(**note to self** must be very careful how I put that)

There was no one event that I could point to that took me over the edge. Just a slow accumulation of things that have frustrated me. Some course based, some me based. I have noticed that of late, my temper has gotten shorter (and usually about increasingly more trivial things). I feel a general sense of depression over the amount of independent study I have to do and of course the exams and examinable pieces of work are starting to become more imminent and pressing.
I think that it's the independent study thing that is aching the most-I've put a lot of money into this course and a lot of time so far. Yet getting 10 hours a week for my £8750 (and don't forget the pay off of another £250 to the Law Society for god knows what) does not seem what we former blobs in the retail industry called VFM.
In addition the College way of teaching in these 'supervised' sessions-give you a task to do in practise about which you only know the theory, then when you've bolloxed it up-giving you a perfect tutor made version is also getting on my pecs. I keep wanting to scream,

'OI, I've paid a bloody fortune for this, just swadding teach me!!!' (or words to that effect)

It appears that the College of Law's motto is 'Learning by failing'. Where this gets my goat is that for the exams (which are open note) we'll be allowed to take in anything we like (provided we can cram it into a lever arch file-Ive now got 3 of those to go with the 15 (!) A4 binders). Will anyone take in their failed version of those tasks?

NO, they'll take in the tutor written ones.

So why do we have to do them? Surely it would be better to see the perfect specimen and then draft ours based on that one? (like is done in practise) Or do the College feel that we have to have our spirits crushed first like heart broken puppies (oops sorry, should be 'house broken puppies'-nar, what the hell-looks good!)

Right, rant over, steam leaking out of ears. Mr **Poof** is behind me.

(**note to self** must be very, very careful how I put that)

There was a slight mood of worry about the College for the first couple of days. The Law Society were in town to examine the College's facilities and teaching (hope they brought magnifying glasses, ha!) and the staff were a bit edgy. It was all a lottery about who went where and saw what-would our numbers come up...?

Monday was our last property session this term. We'll come back to leasehold in the new year but our next session with that tutor (after the exams) will be for solicitors accounts (hurrah, more accounts!) Although we've only had 6 sessions, I have two full A4 folders for this one. It's safe to say that in the next couple of days I'm going to be doing a lot of delousing of my folders. Quite a bit of property can go, it's a subject that generates huge amount of useless paperwork (searches that show nothing, questions that give no information, long 'standard' contracts that repeat themselves)-all ripe for the recycling bin.

There was a drop off in attendance for the tax class on Tuesday. The combination of our least liked tutor, possible inspection by the Law Society and an imminent deadline for our research project meant we staggered in at just over half attendance (and much pity was shown for the only person who turned up for one of the tables-he had to do all 'his' group's presentations-as well as do the work solo)

Alas, we had no assessors sitting in with us-shame!

Wednesday was all of a panic as the entire LPC year put the finishing touches (translation-got off their behinds and did the work) to their first research projects of the year. This is serious work, it is marked on a 'competent or not competent' basis. Those found 'not' will have to retake a different project later this year and automatically are unable to attain the highest pass mark for the course. It does seem bizarre that we had about a month to do this but almost to a man, everyone did it the day before and polished it up on the day it was due to be handed in.

About the only thing in my favour is that mine was probably one of the longest that was handed in. Of course, size doesn't matter. Which is what everyone with a short essay tells you. And what everyone who has a mark a short essay tells you. But we know better, huh? **cough**

Anyhow, I handed in my monster the next day. Very strange-a queue of people handing in work and receiving receipts (the work is anonymous-identified only by the student number which (allegedly) the markers have no knowledge of which student is tied to which number). I have a suspicion though that anyone reading my work will know who wrote it. The sheer amount of 'anyhows' and 'however's will give it away for sure...

Anyhow **cough**, Thursday was the day when it all went pear-shaped. The afternoon civil litigation class (7 down, 3 to go) was awful-a classic of the 'go on, you now write down this legal document that you dont know how to draft-I'll then patronise you and a little bit later hand out this pristine one, to make you feel about as high as a dachsunds wedding tackle' school.

I may have paraphrased that a tad.

I then hung around for nearly two hours for the first workshop in my Public Legal Services course. This is purely optional and for those people who either want to work in or know about 'legal aid' (its not really called that anymore though-but the man in the street still does-much to the Legal Service Commission's distaste)

1) we had a lecture, it was awful-full of 'trade speak', acronyms and the word 'superficial' does not do it justice. The speaker then finished her lecture with a slide that was asking for 'young solicitors' to work for the LSC. I could spit.

2) two of the most annoying human beings on the planet are in the group. Both of these two males (oh god, why does it have to be males?-they set the gender back 500 years) are what are generically referred to as 'spods'. They are so full of their own cleverness and wit that they feel that lesser mortals (i.e. the rest of the class) should get the full benefit of their wisdom and insight whenever possible. They seem incapable of shutting up-every question asked to the room is answered by them, they feel obliged to give their opinions on all and sundry and make me want to scream,

'shut the duck up the pair of you spods' (or similar)

And they are sooooo dull, the sort of people that accountants snicker about and refer to as 'dreary'.

3) My group are so earnest, I want to scream at them, 'look-if you want to work for the underprivileged so much go and help in a soup kitchen or something. You are only doing this because you want something good to put on your CV.'

I was told last week that I was cynical, I disagreed...

Possibly the defining moment (maybe that straw that broke the camel's back) was when one of two spods asked if for the next meeting we could have it quarter of an hour earlier because he had had to wait 15 minutes after his last lecture. Yet again, I wanted to scream,

'some of us had to wait 105 minutes you selfish tosser, but we are
not trying to change the world to fit in with us'

I really must go and lie down soon.

Friday was, well Friday. It's business law day and no matter how hard I try I become Flopsy, Mopsy amd Cottontail in the path of the juggernaut. I try to keep a clear brain but fail. Maybe it's the tutor, maybe it's the subject-but mostly it's the me. I guess that I'll never get that job as director of ICI now.

Now, I have a couple of days to get my notes in order for the first open note exams in 21 years (since I left the last one in tears this can only get better...). The fly in the ointment is that on Tuesday we have a tax class organised. I have a teensy feeling that this may be the worst attended class of the year. The most loathed tutor and an unwelcome interruption to the revision week-well, what do you think?

One down, 73 (ish) to go

Back to school then.

There I was on Monday, freshly ironed shirt, shoes shining like the sun, my satchel polished and an apple in my bag ready to give to teacher. The only thing that put a crimp on the day was having to go in for the morning shift to sit an exam. I wasn't too concerned, the assessment was in business accounts and I had performed above average on those throughout the course. My revision had gone well and I had sat a mock exam the day before which I had finished in 47 minutes-not bad for a 90 minute paper. I reckon it should be a piece of widdle...hang on, is that the distant sound of something rapidly approaching to bite me in the harris?

First thing, predictably I had a poor nights sleep. This is not remotely unusual and is going to be a tough part of the year for me (maybe the hardest part)-even a minor unimportant test/presentation gives me anxiety attacks-so I reckon that as the real things approach my eyes are going to get really sunken from lack of kip and I'm going to be a tad wired...

And yes, I am on medication. Beta blockers to stabilise the heartrate. Useless-I might as well take smarties...

Anyhow, being a little early I decided to take a trip to the mens room to wash my face and put a fresh shirt on.

Point of interest: The phrase 'smell of fear'-I now know what the smell of fear is-the men's room was full of it. And I thought that I was worried about the exam...You could have powered a nuclear submarine on the amount of nervous energy that was being released. The sailors would have suffocated from methane poisoning but that's another story.

So, leaving that room very quickly, I headed off to the exam-there was a tiny bit of a misunderstanding. We have been told that all exams will be sat anonymously, i.e. we only have to put a candidate number on the paper and nothing else that could distinguish us (give or take handwriting). So, whilst looking for my number I came across a card with my name on it, but luckily my foolish thought were easily put right. Yes, we are anonymous writers but we do have to have a way to find our desks...Put it down to the nerves and lack of sleep...

And I was on edge-that's the truth. Only once I had started the exam and couldn't get my accounts to balance ( a cardinal sin) did I realise that I was panicking. Luckily I had the time to sort out my mess (thank goodness for the person who told me to do my accounts in pencil!), put in all the bits I had missed and get it to balance, whilst keeping it pretty neat (for once).
The accounts take up the majority of the paper (56 marks out of 100 so I was very keen to do my best on that bit. Hopefully I scored about 40+ there which should leave me very little to do to pick up those last 10 or so to pass the paper. The rest of the paper was pretty horrendous (I should have got more than 10 nevertheless).

The only bright bit of the rest of it was that I found the 'conduct question' and answered it appropriately using the right chapter and verse from the 'the solicitors Code of Conduct'. Not only because it was points in the bag for this question but also because it goes forward to my ongoing, pervasive conduct score.
Conduct is measured in 2 ways-40% from little snippets in questions that crop up during the year and 60% in an exclusive conduct assessment. It would be good to go into an exam knowing that I have 25-30 of those 'freebie' points stacked up already and that's my aim.

As I've mentioned, I have mocks coming up in about 11-12 days. I'm not bothered about those (though I imagine that my sleep pattern will be shot-but I do want to pick up any conduct points that arise in those as well-it's the only point of doing them really, I know that I will crash and burn big time-I always do in mocks). Traditionally I do very well in the final exams (and badly during the year) and I am sure that I am a little too old to change that now...

We had a break of about 2 hours and then into the workshop-yes, even on the day of an important exam we have a class.
I have absolutley no idea what it was about-the whole thing rolled over me like a thick duvet. Something to do with houses I think. I should point out that although I was one of the walking dead-I was only one of them, we actually had a class full. Let's just say that the tutor earned his money that day and leave it at that.

Tax law on Tuesday-another good one for me. I do enjoy getting to play around with a calculater. It is strange though that so many of the class do struggle with numbers-most of the calculations we do are a little more than a couple of additions and a couple of subtractions with the odd multiplication thrown in-yet it throws most of the class.

Weird.

The only thing that I can think of is that it seems that I'm the only one to have come from a scientific background-most people who do law seem to choose either arts or social science 'A' levels. (I did physics, chemistry and maths-but it was 24 years ago (I've found that if you say it fast, it seems much more recent)

This week, we have to choose our electives. During the third term, our work load drops a little and we concentrate on 3 subjects (electives) that interest us/are important to our futures/what our employers want. I chose mine about 3 months back and although having wobbled a bit haven't actually wavered from that choice. Since I'm still in the Public Legal Services optional workshops (first one this week!) I have to choose 2 from 4 based around public work-so I've opted for;

Advanced Criminal; and
Welfare, Benefits and Immigration law

and a bit of employment law (even though I cant actually type 'employment'-it always comes out as emplyment) . Thank goodness for spell checkers...

On Thursday I picked up a sheet describing the WBI law course and I quote,
Tick the following boxes if they apply to you, to do really well on this course you need to be able to tick all the boxes.

• " I don't allow my exam nerves to affect my performance in the exam"
• "I don't have a problem with working fast and efficiently under time pressure in exam conditions"
• NB The final exam is perhaps the most demanding of all the elective exams.
  

OOPs, bugger...

The reason that I mentioned this out of order is because we don't know for certain who teaches what course-except we found out that the aggressive tutor from revenue teaches one of the most popular choices (not one of my choices by the way) and a great many of my classmates are considering changing their elective just to avoid her (even though she is only one of three tutors on that course)

Thursday was pleasant for me for another reason. Owing to a cock up by our civil litigation tutor forgetting to hand out the group exercise to half of the class, only one person (me) had actually prepped (it was due in that day). So the rest of the group asked me if they could submit mine as being the group's work. Naturally I said yes (no point in saying no), and was treated like a king for the rest of the day (well, actually I just slacked off and let them do the group workshop tasks). Good deal, that one!

A similar thing had happened for the last group business exercise. I was asked if mine could be submitted as being by the group-so I agreed and it was redrafted by another team member. We got it given back by the tutor on Friday-covered in pencil marks and alterations. Even for a lot of money, I couldn't say which parts of it were mine (but I'm guessing the most corrected bits)

The weekend has gone pretty quick (don't they always?) but I haven't done as much prep as normal-there's something not quite right. My motivation levels have needed a bit of a kick-whether it's from the tail end of the cold that I've been struggling with for about 3 weeks or just a overalll feeling of 'yeah, so what', it's difficult to put my finger on it.

But, it's not only me. Having had a few chats with my fellow tutees this week there is a general mood of 'nah, dont fancy it, mate'. The consensus appears be that half term is a mistake and it would have been better to have kept going to the Christmas break. I hope that it picks up again next week or else the following week (mocks) are going to hit a few people hard.

Dont worry me though, just so long as I pick up my conduct points!