5 Down: Administrative Law

What would make this class easier: I don't even know where to start. More legislation? More guidance from the Supreme Court? What would really make this class easier is if they abolished all tribunal and boards and made everybody go to court for everything. The justice system would collapse, but this class would be a lot easier.

The exam: 4 questions - we had to pick three of 'em - 3 hour exam

Worth: 100% of the final grade.

I don't get that stressed about exams. I hate all the studying, but I'm pretty relaxed when I'm doing it and I'm not really nervous on test day. Admin was a massive exception. Last night around midnight I become convinced that I couldn't pass this test. Really, really convinced. Happily after thinking that the next few pages of what I was reading cleared a lot of things up and I got over it. But I have to admit, I had some serious concerns. And this morning when they were passing out the exams, I was nervous.

And now that I've seen the exam, it's clear that the nervousness and self-doubt was completely justified. Question 1? Insanity. Some people I know looked at question 1 and decided to do it last after they'd built up their confidence. Not me: I jumped right into it. And 45 minutes into the exam I became convinced that what I was writing about had nothing to do with the question. Not a good feeling, but by the end of the question the panic had been replaced with a general feeling of incompetence, so I'd call that an inprovement. The next two questions were a lot better; I seemed to have a better idea of what I was talking about. At least I thought so.

Overall? Tough to say. Definitely in the vicinity of trainwreck, but not complete carnage. I'd call it a derailment at slow speed with some injuries but no fatalities. In other words, it could have been worse.

What I need to say is this: Admin law is the source of all evil.

Next exam: That is IT for law school. As of noon today (ok 12:15 with reading time) I am no longer a law student. And I have no more exams. Unless you count the bar exam at the end of July. But I'll be getting paid for that, so...

Gut feeling: No way - I'm not even thinking about the bar exam yet. That would lead to insanity.

4 Down: Professional Responsibility

What would make this class easier: If there were no ethical standards guiding lawyers [insert lawyer jokes here]. Seriously though, it's surprising how easy it is for lawyers to get in trouble.

The exam: 4 questions, 5 pages. It was a 2 hour exam, and like usual 2 hours felt like about 30 minutes.

Worth: 100% of the final grade.

The exam wasn't that bad. The questions were about lawyers and clients behaving badly and we had to advise on what they should do using the Professional Conduct Handbook and the case law. More than most law school finals, there was a lot of opportunity to ramble on about abstract principles. So kind of like a history exam.

I took way too long on the first question (this happens to me often). The exam started at 9 and I finished question 1 (of 4 roughly equally weighted questions) at 9:50. Question 2 at 10:15. Question 3 at 10:45. Question 4 at 11. My answer for question 4 isn't going to net me a lot of points, but overall I should do okay.

Next exam: Administrative law tomorrow at 9am

Gut feeling: Thinking about the exam is, in itself, a gut feeling. A freshly-sucker-punched-in-the-gut feeling. But you know what? After this it's ALL OVER. So how bad can it be. Trainwreck? Pronbably. Just have to pass...

3 Down: Immigration Law

What would make this class easier: If people didn't immigrate to Canada ever.

The exam: 2 questions, 2 hours. One about a family class sponsorship and one about a refugee claim.

Worth: There were options for this class: 3 hour exam worth 100 percent, 2 hour exam worth 66 percent and one assignment, or 1 hour exam worth 33 percent and two assignments. I took the 2 hour exam and did one assignment in February.

They had two rooms: 1 hour and 2 hour exam people in one room, and 3 hour exam people in the other room. After an hour the guy says "ok 1 hour people pens down and clear out quietly for the 2 hour people because they're still writing." So everybody in the room except me gets up to leave.

Basically I sat in a classroom by myself for the last half of the exam. Strange feeling? Yes. But it went pretty well. I'd have to say I think so far I've done the best in immigration. Probably a good thing because I want to practice in that area at some point. Although I want to practice in wills and estates too, and I'm pretty sure I sucked on that one.

Next exam: Professional Responsibility on Wednesday

Gut feeling: No clue. I think it will be ok? It's only a 2 credit course, but there was a crapload of reading to do. Then again, I didn't do it. Hm... I've got a really good CAN.

I'm not doin so good Pearl...

Click the link to see the video:

The Landlord

I embedded the video into the blog for a couple days, but the automatic start is too annoying

2 Down: Succession

What would make this class easier: If people didn't die.

The exam: 2 questions that were really really long. The exam was 7 pages long - each question was worth 50 marks.

Worth: 100% of the final grade

Yesterday when I was thinking about today's succession exam, I was pretty confident. I'm glad I didn't know then what I know now. It's not that the exam was that hard in terms of subject matter. It was just... well... hard to finish. Each question was about 3 pages long, and the pages were full of scenarios, developments, etc. in the lives of fictional people who had really screwed up wills. My job? Sort it all out!

I'm fairly confident that if I sorted it out in real life the way I sorted it out on the exam there would be complaints to the Law Society, possible disciplinary action, and massive payouts from my professional liability insurance. Happily, in real life I'd have more than an hour and a half to work on each problem.

I think I probably did okay on the exam. But in law school, you never can tell. I don't think I aced it, but I don't think it was a complete trainwreck either.

Next exam: Immigration on Friday morning.

Gut feeling: I should probably be a lot more worried about this exam than I am. But with the rest of today to study and all day tomorrow, I don't think it'll be that bad.

1 Down: International Trade Law

What would make this class easier: If there was no WTO or NAFTA, because we spent pretty much the whole term talking about that.

No. Wait... If there was no WTO or NAFTA every country would have to negotiate individual trade agreements with everybody they wanted to trade with. International trade law would be a mess, and most importantly, so would the exam. Ok I take it back. We'll keep the WTO and NAFTA. For now.

The exam: 2 questions - 1 long fact pattern worth 60 marks, the other, which was made up of about 11 short answer questions, was worth 40 marks. 2 hours long.

Worth: 100% of the final grade

This exam was just like the April 2005 exam. I mean, literally, it was just like it. I haven't checked yet, but i'm pretty sure most of the 11 short answer questions in part 2 were taken from the 2005 exam. It was so similar I had a moment of... something... where I thought something had gone very wrong and I had just been handed a copy of an old exam instead of the current exam. But then I checked the front page: April 2007.

The first question was pretty close to the 2005 exam too... I took way, way too long on the first one, but made up time at the end by making my short answers really short.

Next exam: Succession tomorrow morning.

Gut feeling: Not a trainwreck. I've already spent two days studying. But there's a lot of studying to be done today.

No updates

Ok, ok I know I haven't been updating like I promised, and I have a good reason: I thought daily updates would be a good way to make sure I made a lot of progress. Seeing it written down would be a good thing. Now I know that if I was to give daily updates, it would be almost impossible to live in denial. So I'm not doing it.

But, it HAS been a while, so here's where I'm at:

Burnt out.

But more specifically, here's where I'm at:

I've been studying for succession and international trade, and I think I could pretty much finish off either one of 'em without too much more studying. This is the exam schedule:

Tuesday the 17th: International trade law
Wednesday the 18th: Succession
Friday the 20th: Immigration law
Wednesday the 25: Professional responsibility
Thursday the 26: Administrative law

Tuesday's not a problem, Wednesday probably isn't a problem, Friday could be tough, because all my studying has to be Wednesday after 12:00 and Thursday. The good thing is Immigration is a short exam... I'm only doing a day and a half of studying for professional responsibility, but it's only a 2 credit course so I won't need more than that (in theory). Administrative law. Problem. 3 days of studying. That might not be enough. Problem. Admin = torture.

That's the update. I don't know when the next one will be. Maybe a quick one after the international trade final. Maybe.

The promised update

And it will be a quick one:

Finals: It's not good, but it's easily doable. I've got all the CAN's I need, I've got some good notes... for some of the coures.... so I'm not too worried.

Phone: Found it! In the car.... thanks for the emails, phone calls, and cards of support.

The good, the bad, and the ugly...

THE GOOD

A friend of mine was over on Friday night and I was telling him about my dvd player and how great it was because I had had it since 1999 and I'd never had a problem with it. We were watching DVD's at the time. 30 minutes later the DVD player decided to never work again.

So yesterday I went out to Best Buy to get another DVD player. And I was pretty proud of the fact that I didn't blow the budget - although I had been tempted to get a Blu-Ray player, because I figure that's what everybody's going to have in a few years anyway, I went with the economical HDMI player for 99 bucks. The guy said it was the best one they had if you just want to play DVD's, so it all worked out.

But then I bought the tv. 37 inch high definition LCD. And I had to get a high definition cable box, so I went with the PVR (which is really cool so far). Okay so it wasn't a cheap trip. But really, we all know that tv is pretty much all I've got going on in life, so I should have a nice one right?

And with a no interest payment plan, it's not going to be that bad....


THE BAD

I can't find my stupid phone. I think I might have lost it, which is ridiculous because I just got it. I really don't want to buy a new one. Like, I really, really don't. If I have to, I'm not going to do anything dramatic like set myself on fire (as I almost did yesterday when the Maple Leafs beat Montreal, thereby securing themselves a place in the playoffs), but I'm really not going to be happy about it. Actually that's not true about the playoffs. They're not in. But I thought they were. So I almost set myself on fire for nothing...

Aaaaaand I told my grandma I'd call her today to check up on her (because my parents are in England), so I'm looking like the negligent grandson at this point too.

Hey maybe it's in the car.... hmm


THE UGLY

Finals. I need to study a lot. And by a lot, I mean a lot. From now on I'm going to post a study update every day. Usually I don't make blog promises, because I never keep them, but I think this trainwreck needs to be documented.

Stay tuned....

Breaking News: Darren Gets Second Friend

April 1, 2007

Vancouver, BC: Darren added a friend to his myspace profile on Sunday, when Matt accepted a friend request he had sent out the night before. This brings his total number of friends to two, and means the awkward and ungrammatical statement: "Darren has 1 friends" will no longer be displayed on his profile.

A brief ceremony has been planned for Sunday evening to mark the occasion. Darren is especially proud of this achievement, taking a break from his busy tv-watching schedule to provide the following statement:

"I'm really stoked. And to think I've only been on myspace for 2 and a half years. That's just slightly less than 1 friend a year. Not too shabby."

A third friend request was also sent out on Saturday evening, but no response had been received at press time on Sunday.