Jumping Jessup Stress

Jessup memorials have been handed in, I have jumped out of a plane, closed a million dollar sale, been smacked down in court and yet the adrenalin that was pumping before it was due was just as insane if not more so.

Some highlights:

It expired when?

We have access to the tea and coffee room after hours, this is a good thing as we needed to be fuelled on caffeine beyond the normal end of semester/exam period. One morning a team member said ‘this coffee tastes like dirty Windex’ this particular brand of instant coffee is actually pretty damn good, so it needed some investigating.



Note the expiry on that bad boy …. It expired TEN years ago! No wonder it tasted horrible..

Why you no smell?

When you don’t leave the law library for about 4 days people tend to get a little funky. This team has hygiene down to a fine art. I was sent for supplies that included; towels, soap, tooth brushes and paste, conditioner, and other assorted shower goodies. However, by the time we have access to the shower it was only cold water. Fun stuff, it worked out in the end as after a cold, cold shower we were all WIDE AWAKE. Showering at about 3am at the university was interesting; it felt like some twisted academic boot camp.

I AM GOING TO KILL YOU

We are generally a pretty cohesive team, when the memorials are due in 1 hour and stuff is still not started tempers and thresholds for bullshit runs a little low. I am not, I repeat NOT a violent person, however this twerp was so close to pushing me over the edge. All is good now but I will never, ever work with this person ever again.

Not over yet.

Now the oral practice beings.
Again, it feels like we are starting at the bottom of a long climb up massive mountain.

In other news (Kitchen talk)

I finally did it, three years of silently copping my head chefs bad temper and snarky attitude and I lost it. This is the moment I have been playing out in my head for years. It went almost to plan, almost. I grabbed a huge roll of plastic wrap and SLAMED it down on the bench, got it attention and (here it where it deviates from the plan) said a few coherent words to the effect of ‘enough, stop acting like a child, enough throwing pans, fucking grow up’ then I started making sounds miming out the his bad attitude… yup any effect I had at that point was lost as I looked like a crazy person who had lost his mind. Smooth.

However I did save my dignity as a person afterwards, when he asked if ‘everything is all good’ I told him, in a calm even tone how this was not a onetime offence, his behaviour is grossly out of line and it affects everyone in the kitchen and to check himself.  There is much more to it but this is a law blog not a ‘I hate hospitality’ page.


Back to the wondrous fun that is Jessup (this is a lie, I am lying. There is nothing wondrous about this competition)

Also. Mr Ovum came out. Things went O.K not badly, not well either. The Mother is the issue, but she will come around in time.

Jumping Jessup

Jessup owns me

If I am not in the library working on the migraine that is Jessup I am at home thinking about how I should be at uni working on Jessup. Even my dreams have been pervaded with dreams of pleading tables, international law and how grossly under prepared we are.

Uni Results were released, I passed… just, actually 2/3rds of the year failed trusts but then they bell curved it and I only passed by 1%. That freaked me out quite a bit, usually I get great marks but this was a terrible experience I never want to repeat.

I know where I went wrong, I assisted in court for a few weeks full time in the pointy end of semester and worked extra days through SWOTVAC (because I was asked to). However I don’t think I would change it, the actual hands on experience was worth it.

My pitiful marks:

Trusts: Pass

Property B: Pass

Policing diversity: Pass

Crime Prevention: Credit

WTF! A credit for crime prevention? Two assessments where all I did was 2 days before it was due was look at the power points briefly, check the criteria sheet and then start bullshitting… what a joke.

Christmas was good, until I went to Mr. Ovums house and was introduced as the ‘house mate’, four years and they still don’t know, they should but they honestly don’t. Mr. Ovum plans to tell them in the next few days that should be interesting to say the least…

I have been voted onto the Law Student Society as a competitions director for 2012, if nothing else it should be lots of fun. Out of 40 something votes I got 30 something. All the people vying for the position got up and spoke for 2 minutes on why they should be elected. I had nothing prepared (why so surprised?) spoke about how much I enjoy mooting and how this excitement would come through in how I went about by position. It worked.

I find all the good things that have been happening to me a touch funny, you see these things were never supposed to happen, not to me. I am not a stellar student, I procrastinate and never sew myself being ‘one of those students’ but here I am. Trying to keep it together and not have it all blow up in my face in a spectacular manner.

Back to the mind rape that is Jessup – Obiter

More than I can handle

The job generally is really, really good. The team I am with is both supportive and fun, could not ask for a better position. However I was given the option of being sent to a different town for a month and being ‘instructing clerk’ for a large trial. How could I say no! Even though it is the pointy end of semester and I have more that I can poke two sticks at anyway. But I like to cause myself as much stress as possible so the obvious answer was HELL YES!

I regret that. Now I have the ICC moot, Jessup, trying to write weekly for Survivelaw.com, Exam notes and preparation on top of being in a different city 4 nights a week. If work was only 7-5 or court hours it would be fine, but as I am living with the barristers I am their bitch 24 hours a day. I loathe it. There are two barristers a Senior who has been practicing for 20 years and a Junior who has been doing it for a whopping six months. The Junior is making my life a living hell it goes beyond the arrogance of the barrister and solicitor crap to a personal level where he treats me like scum. I have worked with horrible people but this douche takes the cake.

I am so eager to make both of them happy tho, I do not have any carriage of the case so in court the best I can do is hand them pens or a folder if I can find it first. Because of my almost total uselessness I am going over and above in every respect and the Junior is abusing it and me. The result is I am very, very highly strung and it is taking its toll. I have managed to leave the Senior barristers luggage somewhere that was not the unit, so he had no clothes in the morning…oh yeah I fucked up.

Then the week was peppered with other minor mistakes the Junior has blown out of proportion in a bid to get me the sack (this guy is apparently a homophobe). But the best one is where I crashed the work car into the car front of me on the way to court, to be fair it was only a bump and there was no major damage caused. However the Jnr is crying whiplash, he even had me book a doctor’s appointment for him... what a cock. The thing that really gets me is that I was sure my foot was on the break! Stupid European car, my car may be a bomb but it least I know how firm the peddle is when you break to a stop.

I hate this so much. I have had a really good run of things the past few months but everything is now taking a turn for a not-so-good. I am sure I will bounce back, I always do but I am just not feeling it right now.

There has been so much good stuff I wanted to blog about but I have not time 
I have too much to do to be writing a blog – Obiter Ovum

MMM the universe does like to mess with me.

About the same time as put the feelers out the got me the job at Lucifers Corner Officer I had other tendrils in other pies. The second one was never going anywhere and I never had any expectations for it. A few months ago a got an email from a work mate who knew someone who knew someone, you get the drift a very long shot... the email was about a position that may come up in the distant future.

Then two weeks ago the friend of a friend called me and told me to email the partner of a Glass Tower firm. So I did, immediately. A week went by and I had heard nothing, not a thing so I called the Barrister and asked if I should follow up. Apparently he had been out of state and I should wait a little longer as he was back on Monday. So my hopes were up again (give me a 1% chance and I WILL go for it, I am a total optimist – do I belong in the legal profession?) and Monday was a long day full of compulsively checking my iPhone.

Tuesday I tweeted about loathing the idea of another Christmas in hospitality, 10 steps further and I got a call from the partner. The interview was set for the next day however he said it was probably not what I was looking for, still he said ‘probably’, still hopeful. Expecting to fuck it up or for it to be above my station but hopeful nonetheless.

After waiting what felt like an eternity in the reception the partner rushes in takes a cursory look at my resume and asked about my availability. By some strange luck there was a full time position filled by a part time student who could not work on the days I can!

The position is as a Mention Clerk and Researcher / Brief Writer – THE DREAM LAW STUDENT JOB (for me anyway).

I got told to RUN to the courts and chat to my new boss. Yup I was told to run… I think this was his idea of fun. I can cop that. I ran.

I start tomorrow.

However the universe often charges me a price. Today my iPhone and wallet was stolen. This opportunity is so incredible having my crap stolen does not really faze me.

Interpreters in the Criminal Justice System.

Since the passing of the Criminal Code in our state there has been a right to an interpreter where a jury is satisfied the accused cannot understand the proceedings. This is all very well and good so long as it actually happens. Upon being told that many accused indigenous people who speak creole or pigeon English are not assisted in such a manner and worse yet their advocates are not invoking their right to such assistance floors me. The discussion then came to how we go about effecting change in the system. One suggestion is that until such skills have a cash value attached to them nobody would take an elective in the area while studying.

I would like to believe this is not true, however I can only think of two people who might be an exception to this rule.

The university really flogs the ‘indigenous justice’ horse, we get it on an academic level but only in a superficial way. The fact that many indigenous people are being incarcerated due to cultural linguistic differences that very people are aware of and even less actually care about is frankly disturbing. We spend so much time examining what is wrong with the system to result in overrepresentation and have very few answers that can immediacy affect change. Enforcing these rules, or creating some incentive (it appears delivery of justice is not incentive enough) to advocate the rights of these accused in this way may be one step towards change in our system.

Back to pushing shit up hill.

Uni is back on and is starting to gain momentum.

Assessment is not due for a month or so but as per usual getting started early because last minute essay writing and research sucks!

Recently ran into a past Jessup competitor and they have me freaking out! I am going to have a coffee with him in a few days so I can pick his brain. Still freaking out about it.

I entered into a Client Legal Interviewing competition with a great friend (we did the first year moot together) I am feeling pretty confident about our chances, this probably means we will be total crap. Looking forward to it nonetheless, at least the preparation involved is nowhere near the epic amount that needs to be invested into a Moot comp.

For one of my subjects I need to write a reflective journal on that weeks’ topic for the next 13 weeks. The Subject is Policing Diversity. I will be posting it on here. Maybe it will generate some discussion? Or totally alienate all 5 of my readers… Hi Michael! *waves*

My old man is a cop and my policing subjects have provided hours of discussion and debate. The best has been about policing discretion and how it is used, he is convinced there is no such thing… I could not even begin to wrap my head around how he can make such a statement. For that subjects’ final assessment it was an essay on whatever policing subject I wanted. I chose police discretion, not just because it is an interesting area but was guaranteed to tick Dad off. It was only after reading about the different theories of police discretion did I see where he was coming from (and still totally disagreed). I am hoping this subject will do the same.

And now I have Trust study to do.

Reflection Week 1

Week 1 Policing diversity

When I first started to read about the topic of police diversity I was a little unsure as to what ‘diversity’ it topic was making reference to. Was it diversity within the institution of policing or the diversity of situations, people and places police come into contact with? Both areas of diversity have an impact on how police, police.
An element of policing that until recently I had not put any real thought into was the diversity of targeted policing methods such as drug squads and RBT. Without diversity within the policing model more sophisticated crime would probably go un-policed, such as cybercrime as specialist knowledge would be needed to effectively detect and apprehend the offenders.

The range and breadth of events, people and places police come into contact with on day to day biases also highlights the diversity of situations our police encounter. Where diversity within the service/force meets the broad range positions police work in is the Police Liaison Officer. An individual who comes from a minority group is made a part of the police organisation (not having the powers of sworn officers) and used to liaise with the group they are a part of on behalf of the police.

The various assortment of Liaison Officers such as Aboriginal or GLBTIQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Transgender, Intersex and Queer, even as a member of that community I am a little confused about the evolution of that acronym: may not feel that way if I was ‘Intersex’ though) is probably a good thing. However such officers make me a little nervous about the quality of the advice and mediation they would be providing due to their lack of powers and understanding of the law.