Because candy
My relationship with Halloween is complicated. I like to compare it to eating half a pound of gummy bears in one sitting, or attempting the cinnamon challenge. They may seem like great ideas, but once I start to follow through on them, I abruptly regret my actions. Halloween should come together so much better than it does. Prima facie, the combination of candy, adorable children in costumes, and adrenaline-pumping scary movies seems like a nigh unbeatable combination. But when I spiral down the black hole of eating my fifth Kit Kat of the hour, opening my door to super stoned sixteen year-olds holding pillowcases, and failing to sleep a full night since spending an evening with Linda Blair, Halloween slowly begins to surpass rush hour on the Downsview bus as my archenemy.
And yet, people seem willing to forgive and forget, year after year. I hesitate to attribute the deluge of jack-o-lantern-themed Pinterest crafts and friends’ Instagrams of “baby’s first Halloween” (God, I’m so old) to the sustained sugar high of many, many pumpkin spice lattes. No – there must be something more at play. While I staunchly cling to the age old truth that anyone who describes themselves as “really into Halloween” cannot be a quality human, I’m tempted to bracket my cynicism of all things orange and black in aim of trying to get into the holiday spirit. But we’re a witty bunch here at the Obiter, so this is no regular Halloween article. Join me, Ozzies, as I catalogue, in true ghoulish fashion, the scariest and most terrifying experiences a law student can encounter.
Hearing the phrase: “You have two minutes left in this interview.”: How no one has raised a ballyhoo about how disturbingly similar the OCI process is to The Hunger Games, I’ll never know. It’s basically the same dystopian, annual death match (we assemble ourselves in single file, march out into the fray, and fight until only the winner is left standing), right down to the (largely arbitrary) reaping, without the popcorn.
Closed-Book Exams: Or take-home exams, or essays, or seminar presentations. How do professors ever expect us to become competent lawyers if they force us to adapt to new situations, like – gasp – writing an exam without a summary-crutch? Everyone knows the legal profession just consists of mechanistically applying the same formula to situations which differ in only the most menial details, thereby allowing us to circumvent the need for an original thought to ever tumble through our heads. The audacity!
Hearsay Rules: You are Alice, Professor Berger is the Cheshire Cat. Down the rabbit hole you go.
A Sunday morning without brunch: No explanation needed. For more information, please see Jurisfoodence on page 15.
Correspondingly, a post-exam evening without alcohol and mindless TV: I don’t even know what one of those looks like.
Your first Tax Law lecture: Be honest, you only took this class because you figured you would be able to do your own taxes, without the help of your begrudging accountant friend or cruel social experiment disguised as one of those diabolic computer programs meant to sort out your taxes for you. Yeah, you haven’t taken math since tenth grade and you couldn’t do long division if someone was holding a gun to your head. But there are, like, calculators, right? Yeah, good luck with that.
First family function after beginning law school: I’m not sure which is scarier: all of my distant relatives suddenly asking me for legal advice, or the prospect of them following my fourth-glass-of-wine take on holograph wills. Merry Christmas to all and to all a barely coherent and definitely negligent estate planning session!
Buying your first (proper) suit: I don’t mean pairing an ill-fitting H&M blazer with those pants in your closet that may not be dress pants, but definitely aren’t jeans either. It’s a fact universally acknowledged that your first proper suit will cost roughly the same as a semester’s worth of textbooks. Where’s the space on bursary applications to record expenses for ridiculously overpriced business attire, designed to make you look like the soulless paper pusher you’re about to become for the low, low price of ~$70k, three years of your life, and a not-so-small portion of your sanity?
Seeing your printed summary for the first time: “I…know all this?” No, you don’t. None of us do. We just got really good at guessing.
Interacting with people outside of law school: It’s a lose-lose situation. You know how annoying you sound, talking about how promissory estoppel is so cool. You also know how bitter you are about how non-law people have real lives. Like, lives full of homemade scones and yoga and chevron-patterned pillows they made themselves.
Now that I’ve terrified you all within an inch of your lives, turn the page to peruse the fabulous issue we’ve put together for your enjoyment. While I take personal offence to the fact that no one submitted an article detailing the legal problems of Real Housewife Teresa Giudice (never was there a more perfect marriage of law and entertainment), the articles we have rounded up are as awesome as that time you found a full-sized Snickers bar in your Halloween haul. Enjoy!