It’s no secret that trudging through the more stressful and overwhelming times in our lives can encourage escapism, day-dreaming and basically anything other than attending to the things that need to be attended to. Case in point: readings, no; falling down the rabbit hole of endlessly Googling corgi pictures, yes. It is in this spirit that we feel particularly inclined to regale you with musings of how much easier mid-term and OCI season would be without email, smartphones and Facebook – in short, if instead of 2013, this were, say, 1970.
NB: We were researching “life without cellphones” (not that we were at a loss for what to write, or anything). Google recommended the following searches: “life without limbs”, “life without parole” and “life without plastic” – the world is a dark and…environmentally friendly (?) place, in case you needed any reminders.
Imagine if we didn’t have to all access the Toronto OCI portal on MyOsgoode at the same time on the same day, always awkwardly and inconveniently seeming to be during class, to find out about interview offers. Imagine if we didn’t have to watch each other obsessively (but understandably) refreshing our email every five seconds to see if any of the firms emailed us before call day. Imagine if we didn’t have to write thank you notes! (In the alternative, imagine if we had to write them by hand, in which event, computers don’t seem so bad anymore.) Imagine if we didn’t have to write midterms on computers, thus avoiding the insufferable clacker of MacBook keyboards that makes it literally impossible to concentrate during an exam. Imagine if we didn’t have to deal with moronic auto-formatting when making our summaries. Imagine if you could never lose a Word document, because documents were actually real, tangible things you held in your hand. Imagine if Jessica White couldn’t hide behind the anonymity of fake emails, being instead forced to affix her letter on the door of the lecture hall like a noble Martin Luther (which would obviously thwart her anonymity because, hello – handwriting analysis).
In honour of these simpler times, we recommend taking some time during the next few weeks to unplug and detox. It’s always important to find some time to relax, but it’s even better if you can find ways of doing so without relying on technology. Go for a run sans iPhone. Bake something pumpkin-flavoured. Have a conversation with someone – like, in person (no, FaceTime or Skype don’t count). Read something that has real pages rather than a screen that you swipe (it can, nay, should be something mindless). We spend enough of our time sitting in front of screens doing the things we have to do – why not extract yourself from them so you can do some of the things you want to do?
Before we part, some words of comfort. 1Ls: midterms don’t matter. No seriously, they really don’t. If can’t put down the textbooks, spend your time reading ahead so you can have more time to prep for the real exam. 2Ls: instead of scary lawyers sitting across the interview table from you, pretend they’re your great-aunt asking about what you’re doing in school. Most importantly, remember that the OCI craze will on day (sooner than you think) seem distant and small and silly. 3Ls: congratulations! Y’all have jumped through all the law-school hoops already. Enjoy the cakewalk and go knit an oven mitt.
In short: as always, Ozzies, hang in there.