Four weeks down... nine to go
Unbelievably, another week is toast. That cold... flu... whatever it is/was hadn't gone away on Tuesday when I thought it had. I woke up on Wednesday and it was still with me. So I didn't go to class. Which sucks. But hey, I'm feeling way better now and I'm almost ready to declare it over once more. But not quite. Call me crazy, but I think I angered it last time when I said it was over. I mean, how would you feel if you were a big five or six day cold and someone called you a small two day cold? I'd be all "yeah okay watch this action..."
Anyway as you can probably tell I'm still a little medicated. I went to my Charter class this morning and hung out in the library all afternoon to do my sports law readings. Okay well I didn't actually read everything so much as I got it all and looked through it thoughtfully. Seriously, it was about two hundred pages and I just don't have time for that. So I spent about an hour going through it... reading introductions and conclusions, paragraph headings, etc. I'll know what I need to know for class, and trust me for this class I don't need to know much. I know, I know... that sounds bad... negative... and all that... but I think learning what we can skip and what we need to read is part of being in law school. If I read every single thing assigned I would never, and I'm not exaggerating here, ever leave the library. And I wouldn't have time for research, or the volunteer crap that I do, or anything else. So yeah I'm selective. But hey, there's no final in that class and this topic (league expansion and franchise relocation) goes nowhere near my research area.
Haha okay maybe that's not precisely true. I mean, it might be true, but I don't know because I haven't made my research proposal yet. It's due Wednesday. Sports law is the one class where I have no idea what I want to research. Which brings me back to this countdown thing I'm doing. I'm not counting down because I'm looking forward to the end... yet. I actually kinda like school a lot of the time so I don't start wishing for the end of the term until the last month or so. The countdown is to remind me how much time I have left so I don't let everything pile up till the last minute. Well, that's the theory anyway. So, with that in mind, starting this week I'm going to go through each class individually for a progress update...
Charter: I still like the class. Apparently I'm supposed to hate it but I still like it. There was an option in this class of a 100% final or a 100% paper and I picked the paper because, after first year, I'm not totally happy with my exam writing abilities. My best marks last year were in writing assignements, and so... my research proposal is due Wednesday but I already talked to her about my topic and she has approved it in principle. I'm going to look at our constitutional right to freedom of expression and the ways in which hate speech legislation modifies that right. Sounds like fun, I know... don't be jealous.
Sports law: Okay so here's the format of this class. We are graded about 70% on a research paper and about 30% on participation. It's a seminar class, which means there are less people (about thirty in this one) and more interaction between the prof and the students. That 30% participation grade is satisfied mostly (that's his word... I think it should be 'completely') through a group project in which the group of the day leads the class in discussion. Sounds like a lot of work, I know, but from my experience so far it doesn't seem to be. The prof actually gave all the groups packages for us to select readings from. So at the end of each class the group for the next week hands out a reading list and then the next week they sit at the front and "lead the class." But they don't really have to worry about doing a lot of talking. Why? Because the rest of the class is so eager to jump in and give their opinions? No. Not at all. The prof has a panel of about three people that come to each class.... a co-professor and someone else who is in some sports related field... and they take up most the time. It's great. The group at the front says "so let's talk about x" and then the prof and his friends talk about 'x' for a very, very long time. It's all good though... it means I can waste less research time getting ready for what amounts to unpaid teaching and concentrate on the big stuff. Like my research paper, the proposal for which is due on Wednesday.
Taxation: I don't have a lot to say about this class. It's graded 100% on the final exam so no paper here. Everyone always jokes about how boring and tedious taxation is. Which makes me feel a bit weird... because I love it. After this entry I'm going to do some taxation reading. On a Friday night. And I'm looking forward to it.
Intellectual Property: This class kinda falls under the radar a lot of the time. It's on Friday afternoons and it'll be 100% final too. I think IP is pretty interesting but I suspect that practicing in that area of law might actually drive me insane. I need to do some serious reading for this class. It was cancelled this week because there was a big 60th anniversary law school party. UBC is older than that but the law school didn't open till 1945.
Negotiation: This class makes me feel like I took too many seminars this semester and not enough black letter law. It's a good class though. And negotiation is a growing field. This class is made up of a lot of things: Two case studies... the first of which is due on Wednesday... a final research paper... the proposal is due on Wednesday too... and a short class presentation about one of the case studies. For the first case study I have to analyze a fictional negotiation and talk about techniques, etc. The research paper has to either analyze a major negotiation or analyze one aspect of negotiation. We have a teachers' strike happening in BC right now and I might look at that... but I have a feeling that might be a popular one so I'll probably think of something else.
Well.... talking about all that stuff has made me realize how much I need to go and do some of it.
Later gators...
Anyway as you can probably tell I'm still a little medicated. I went to my Charter class this morning and hung out in the library all afternoon to do my sports law readings. Okay well I didn't actually read everything so much as I got it all and looked through it thoughtfully. Seriously, it was about two hundred pages and I just don't have time for that. So I spent about an hour going through it... reading introductions and conclusions, paragraph headings, etc. I'll know what I need to know for class, and trust me for this class I don't need to know much. I know, I know... that sounds bad... negative... and all that... but I think learning what we can skip and what we need to read is part of being in law school. If I read every single thing assigned I would never, and I'm not exaggerating here, ever leave the library. And I wouldn't have time for research, or the volunteer crap that I do, or anything else. So yeah I'm selective. But hey, there's no final in that class and this topic (league expansion and franchise relocation) goes nowhere near my research area.
Haha okay maybe that's not precisely true. I mean, it might be true, but I don't know because I haven't made my research proposal yet. It's due Wednesday. Sports law is the one class where I have no idea what I want to research. Which brings me back to this countdown thing I'm doing. I'm not counting down because I'm looking forward to the end... yet. I actually kinda like school a lot of the time so I don't start wishing for the end of the term until the last month or so. The countdown is to remind me how much time I have left so I don't let everything pile up till the last minute. Well, that's the theory anyway. So, with that in mind, starting this week I'm going to go through each class individually for a progress update...
Charter: I still like the class. Apparently I'm supposed to hate it but I still like it. There was an option in this class of a 100% final or a 100% paper and I picked the paper because, after first year, I'm not totally happy with my exam writing abilities. My best marks last year were in writing assignements, and so... my research proposal is due Wednesday but I already talked to her about my topic and she has approved it in principle. I'm going to look at our constitutional right to freedom of expression and the ways in which hate speech legislation modifies that right. Sounds like fun, I know... don't be jealous.
Sports law: Okay so here's the format of this class. We are graded about 70% on a research paper and about 30% on participation. It's a seminar class, which means there are less people (about thirty in this one) and more interaction between the prof and the students. That 30% participation grade is satisfied mostly (that's his word... I think it should be 'completely') through a group project in which the group of the day leads the class in discussion. Sounds like a lot of work, I know, but from my experience so far it doesn't seem to be. The prof actually gave all the groups packages for us to select readings from. So at the end of each class the group for the next week hands out a reading list and then the next week they sit at the front and "lead the class." But they don't really have to worry about doing a lot of talking. Why? Because the rest of the class is so eager to jump in and give their opinions? No. Not at all. The prof has a panel of about three people that come to each class.... a co-professor and someone else who is in some sports related field... and they take up most the time. It's great. The group at the front says "so let's talk about x" and then the prof and his friends talk about 'x' for a very, very long time. It's all good though... it means I can waste less research time getting ready for what amounts to unpaid teaching and concentrate on the big stuff. Like my research paper, the proposal for which is due on Wednesday.
Taxation: I don't have a lot to say about this class. It's graded 100% on the final exam so no paper here. Everyone always jokes about how boring and tedious taxation is. Which makes me feel a bit weird... because I love it. After this entry I'm going to do some taxation reading. On a Friday night. And I'm looking forward to it.
Intellectual Property: This class kinda falls under the radar a lot of the time. It's on Friday afternoons and it'll be 100% final too. I think IP is pretty interesting but I suspect that practicing in that area of law might actually drive me insane. I need to do some serious reading for this class. It was cancelled this week because there was a big 60th anniversary law school party. UBC is older than that but the law school didn't open till 1945.
Negotiation: This class makes me feel like I took too many seminars this semester and not enough black letter law. It's a good class though. And negotiation is a growing field. This class is made up of a lot of things: Two case studies... the first of which is due on Wednesday... a final research paper... the proposal is due on Wednesday too... and a short class presentation about one of the case studies. For the first case study I have to analyze a fictional negotiation and talk about techniques, etc. The research paper has to either analyze a major negotiation or analyze one aspect of negotiation. We have a teachers' strike happening in BC right now and I might look at that... but I have a feeling that might be a popular one so I'll probably think of something else.
Well.... talking about all that stuff has made me realize how much I need to go and do some of it.
Later gators...
posted by Darren at
7:49 PM
1 Comments:
Hey! In a lot of ways it's similar because of the common law... even though US courts don't often look outside of their jurisdiction the process is still the same so it's relatively easy for Canadians to practice in the US. And our criminal law is legislated by the federal government... so that's a bit differnt...
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