Hi there,
I am writing in because I strongly believe that law lectures should continue to be online next year, however, there could be a compromise. This year, as everyone already knows, has been borderline impossible at times with online learning. We all know the benefits of going to class every day and we are reminded that time and time again in the school of law. However, returning to the days of no recordings would not benefit us as students. Having to fully rely on another person's notes to gain a genuine understanding of some difficult topics just isn't fair. I believe recordings should be made available for a certain time period, or at the end of each topic, to encourage students to continue attending class but not stress us out if we miss one for whatever reason. I do believe big turnouts equate to a better learning environment, but sometimes being able to go back to a difficult lecture towards the end of the year really helps. When you zone out in class for 10 minutes you know you can return to the explanation in the future or sometimes it just does not make sense the first time around. Some students are not always comfortable speaking up in a room of over 100 to ask for something to be repeated. Just my opinion. Payge Swanson Obiter put out a call for articles from students who were either for or against continued recording of lectures. No 'against' articles were received.
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Yea G’day,
The old Obiter team here just checking in for a final wrap up of what has been a truly batshit year. Notwithstanding a once-in-a-generation pandemic that kept us away from Uni plus a subsequent global recession, bushfires, police brutality, and a truly unhinged Kanye, we have been very pleased to continue to pump out Obiter for the people. As you will all know, Obiter is the world’s second oldest academic publication, dating back to 1169 AD, and this year, in an exciting and long anticipated move, we have provided Obiter with a new place to live online, in keeping with a commitment to reduce paper consumption (and provide law firms with a highly visible place to advertise employment to the less dusty among us). We have been very happy with the engagement we have received on our new platform and we are stoked to be handing over to Ben and Jack who are highly versed in both software engineering and classic Icelandic literature, which will certainly make for some fantastic online reading. As always please write to the Obiter officers with any suggestions for content, direction, or if you have a fantastic coq au vin recipe. Keep charging, 2020 Obiter team. Welcome to Obiter’s Round Up edition. Yes, Roundup is the name of a herbicide produced by the notoriously litigious company Monsanto. If there happens to be a Monsanto rep in our incredibly wide readership- please don’t sue us. The apocalypse may have come and gone with us living to see the other side, but COVID’s taken its toll on the LAWSOC coffers. RIP Revue. No, this is the edition of Obiter where we round up this goatf*** of a year, whilst paying homage to David Round as he retires from lecturing.
Our guest writers from the 2020 exec have amply covered the challenges LAWSOC’s faced- and the creative solutions it’s employed- and so I won’t repeat them here. Suffice to say that it’s been a hectic year. As for Obiter. If you’re reading this, then clearly you’re up to date enough to realise we’re moving this operation online. If you’re not reading this, sort your shit out. Yeap, just like your Grandma getting Facebook, Obiter’s finally arrived in the 21st century. No longer are we limited to delivering you your hotly anticipated law school goss a mere four times a year. No longer will we be chopping down trees to do it. Instead, we’ll be posting material regularly (sporadically) throughout the year. Might even make some video content for you. Not eyebrows. If you have any shining ideas on how we should capitalise on being unshackled from the paper page, let us know by emailing [email protected]. That all being said, there will still be a hardcopy Obiter at the start of the year. After all, we’ve got to give you something in your Club’s Day goody bags. So that’s that. We’ll be drip feeding more articles throughout the study break for you to read while you’re procrastinating. Don’t blame us when you get a C in Torts. We know you came here from Instagram anyway. Now go do some study. Cheers, Jack and Ben. Clockwise from top left: David Round, Jesus, Alexander the Great, Tom Bombadil. Obiter Editor Jack Holloway interviewed recently retired law lecturer David Round. The full article from that will appear in Issue 1 (2021); but for now, here are some quick fire questions, providing the answers you always wanted to know. J: If you couldn’t be David Round, who would you be? D: Can I choose characters from history too? J: Be anybody you want. D: Ah, well, “call no man happy until he is dead” is the advice which Crœsus, King of Lydia was told by Solon. Well in that case what do you want? You want a short life. Can I be Alexander the Great? I don’t want to be Alexander the Great. J: Well you’ve got the hair for it. D: Wait, no, I won’t say Alexander the Great. Well the question is, do I want to die in old age, rich in years, happy, contented, or do I want to die heroically in battle. J: Well Alexander the Great didn’t have either of those. D: No, that’s right- they think it was malaria, or possibly dysentery. Who would I want to be? Jesus? Ah, no, I don’t want to die by crucifixion. Elizabeth I? No… Elizabeth II? No. I think I would like to be Tom Bombadil. J: Out of every film you’ve ever seen, what was your favourite? I suppose you mean the ones I remember. There’d be the Big Lebowski, that would have to be one of them, and Beowulf might be another, and a third one, well it’s not going to be Gone with the Wind, let me tell you that. I remember seeing Ben-Hur when I was very young, but I wouldn’t say it was one of my favourites…. oh, put down Gladiator! J: Do you have any irrational fears, snakes, airplanes, clowns, that sort of thing? Well, I don’t like heights, but then that’s I think a rational fear. Don’t like drowning either. But then that’s quite rational. But then they say that being a spinster- I don’t know if it’s the same for a bachelor- is a bit like drowning. It’s quite enjoyable once you get used to it. Heights, that I suppose and bankruptcy. J: So no skydiving? No skydiving! No! No mountaineering either. I’m not a mountaineer. You’d have to be crazy to be a mountaineer. Well, not crazy, but an entirely different sort of person. J: If I found you at a pub, what would you be drinking? Well, it would depend on who I was with, I would suppose, but probably it would be beer. Exactly what beer would depend on what was available, I go for the on-tap beers. I don’t go into pubs all that often, but these days every pub you go into there’s always a beer you haven’t heard of before. Or I could be drinking a cider- and there is a professional interest in cider, because over the last couple of years we’ve been making several hundred litres of cider. J: Favourite Prime Minister? I think I would probably have to choose Sir Keith Holyoake. I liked Sir Keith- it was a simpler age- he was fortunate to have lived when he did, and timing is everything in life, we’re all so fortunate or unfortunate with when we lived, and as I say I think my generation has had the best years and now… head for higher ground. But it’s going to be exciting- if you can stay alive. It’s going to be jolly interesting. J: How do you drink your tea? Plenty of milk, and honey. Oh, and with tea leaves of course, I refuse to have teabags in the house. The teabag was unknown to the Greeks, as a friend of mine jokes. And, weakish. J: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? Oh. There would be all sorts of candidates, like, ‘whenever you feel afraid, whistle a happy tune’. And things like that. But, I might be a little bit literary here, I’m not saying this is the very best, but there is a poem by Robert Browning called “The Statue and the Bust”. It’s quite a long poem, I actually know it off by heart, although I shan’t inflict you with it because it will take at least a quarter of an hour to recite, and it’s a beautiful and a sad tale about a man and a woman, a nobleman, in Florence, who fell in love with each other, instantly in love with each other on her wedding day to someone else. He was the Grand Duke, and her husband was one of his servants, and for years they looked at each other every day, and every day they planned to just… but the thing was, they were always waiting, always waiting, never actually doing anything. And in the end, the years went by, and neither of them actually did it, and then in their later years, the Duke ordered a statue of himself to be erected in the square- and it’s still there, and I’ve seen it- and it’s a statue of him riding across the square, and looking at her palace window, where she appeared every day. And she put a bust of herself, in terracotta, in an arch on the window, looking down. And it’s an absolutely true story. Anyway, Browning wrote this poem about it, and he said… now I’m just trying to think of the words at the end… If you choose to play! -- is my principle. Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will! The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin: And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is -- the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say. You of the virtue (we issue join) How strive you? De te, fabula. In other words, the story, the fable, is about you. That’s the thing. I think on the whole I was a timid child and was inclined to shrink back from new experiences, but I resolved many years ago, when I became conscious of this, I thought no, let’s not do that- this isn’t to say I’m going to go skydiving- but nevertheless, there are other good pieces of advice. Obiter Editor Jack Holloway interviewed recently retired law lecturer David Round. The full article from that will appear in Issue 1 (2021). However, one of the key questions I had for David was his views on the two referendums. In the interests of publishing material which is relevant to the times, here is that part of the interview: J: Now of course, I want to talk to you about the two upcoming referendums. D: Well in both cases, I am honestly torn. J: Shall we start with what you see as the pros and the cons of the cannabis legislation? D: Well I was reading a column about exactly how restrictive the law was going to be, and actually, it sounded horrendous. Very, very tightly regulated, and taking nearly all of the fun out of it, if I may say so. I came to marijuana- I was a student before I ever encountered it the first time, and even then it was extremely rare, it was only occasionally at a party, and it was just leaf, and if you occasionally found a bit of bud, that was amazing! And obviously, as the years go by, it’s gotten stronger and you’ve gotten more used to it. But the idea of it being lawfully, legally available to the young… on the other hand, you could say look, this is just legitimising what is obviously already the case, we’re talking about a drug that is completely here, already. But at the same time, I think there is something to be said for hypocrisy. For example, homosexual activity was illegal in New Zealand until I was 34 years old, but it happened before then and as long as you were discreet and so on, you rarely had to worry at all- it was just illegal enough to be exciting. Having said that it was possibly a bit more than that, but at the same time there was a vigorous, strong healthy gay subculture, and you didn’t hear about the suicides if there were any. Occasionally people were arrested and so on. But in a way, cannabis use now is like that, in that as long as you are discreet, and sensible, well in fact I think the law now is that the police are not to prosecute for the possession of cannabis. But the situation now is that it’s illegal but at the same time it’s winked at and ‘we’re all adults here’ and we understand this, and so in some ways perhaps that’s better than just decriminalising or legalising it. In a global context, it was a bit like this with prostitution, and the prostituion law worked reasonably well, and there were brothels, and the police kept an eye on them, and ok that certainly came at the cost of a certain amount of excessive police cosiness with the madams, but at the same time if you were doing something illegal you could be kept an eye on and then moved on. And now that prositution is completely legal, the police don’t have any ability at all to police prostitution in their rough and ready way. And it was a rough and ready way, certainly. And you could mount an argument that actually, it would have been better to have left the law as it was, when it was unsatisfactory and old-fashioned, but at the same time it was the established law, it had been there for a long time, and everything else was in tune with it, I mean now, for example, here’s a question- career advisors, if prostitution is now perfectly lawful, are careers advisers to be expected to say well, “you’ve got some good prospects ahead of you”. Would it be discrimination against human rights not to do that sort of thing? Surely you could argue that the law is actually better to leave things as they were. Where something is forbidden but at the same time, we know it goes on, it’s allowed. J: So you think there’s a certain romanticism to that illegality. D: Yes. And the same thing is true of euthanasia, which does occur now, from time to time, and everyone knows that it does, but because it’s still technically illegal, it’s done only in really extreme circumstances. And when it does happen, generally everyone’s very understanding about it and nothing’s ever said and it’s all fine on the death certificate, and you’ll know here’s some person in incredible agony and then one night there you have it. And ever so occasionally someone is prosecuted for assisting it, and when they are there’s usually some compassionate sentence. I remember there was a very sad case some years ago of a young guy who was a builder in London, and he broke his back and became a quadriplegic, and lay in his hospital bed for some months, and then one day asked his friend to come along and they shared a last joint together and then his friend put a pillow over his face, entirely of his own asking. And he was charged, it was quite public, but was only convicted of some minor thing, and no-one blamed him for a second. And really that is the best thing, I think, that it is illegal but nevertheless we know it happens, and when it does happen occasionally we turn a Nelson eye to it. And already, with cannabis, there are all these questions about drug testing and work the next day, although you might say these questions are here already. While LAWSOC has traditionally run a tennis day for the term four welfare event, this year saw an alternative sport take its place. Don't worry if you missed out; the event got glowing reviews, and will undoubtedly be making a reappearance on the 2021 calendar. If Bowls Papanui lets us come back, that is. Whether you’re a first year fretting about the law of finders, or a fifth year fantasizing about finally being free, you can always benefit from improving your techniques for managing exam stress. Here’s a few suggestions:
Take a break. Plan an activity you enjoy. Nothing new here- you’ve been hearing this one since your Year 11 mocks. But the reason it keeps coming up is because it’s true. There’s multiple studies showing that those who take frequent breaks are more productive overall than those who don’t leave the desk. I could cite some of them here but a) I haven’t got time for that b) this isn’t an assignment c) you’re not going to read them anyway. Please note, this tip is directed more towards those of you who are already on Level 7 until 11pm. If you prefer to live by the time-honoured mantra of “due tomorrow, do tomorrow”, don’t take this as advice to take a break. Treat yourself like your best mate Sounds cheesy, right? But if your best mate was on the verge of a break-down in the library, you wouldn’t tell them to harden up and get over themselves. You’d take them to a cafe and get something nice; or tell them to go read a book in the sun for half an hour; or to go for a walk for a bit. On the other hand, if your best mate was being a wastrel and setting themselves up for failure, perhaps you’d be so kind as to grab them by the scruff of the neck and drag them to the library. Don’t pay too much attention to everyone else Yeah, your notes are a mess and everyone else’s look amazing. You’re still battling with (insert legal concept) while your mates understood it first time round. Doesn’t matter. You will achieve absolutely nothing by comparing how you’re going to how everyone else is going. You only need to compare how much you know today to how much you knew yesterday. Along the same lines, don’t get too hung up on the post-exam discussion- realising all the things you should have written doesn’t count for much once the exam is over. You’re better off putting that energy into focussing on your next one. Focus on things inside your circle of influence There are some things in life you have some control over. These are inside your circle of influence. Most things, you have no control over. These are outside your circle. There’s no point in putting energy into things outside your circle of influence. Exams that are already over? Outside your circle of influence. The shitty marks you got earlier in the year? Outside your circle. The fact that the library’s packed to the rafters and all your favourite study spots are taken? More or less outside the circle. Things that are inside the circle: how much information you put into your head before the exams, and how well you look after yourself whilst doing so. Or, in the concise words of Steve Hansen: “Worrying is a waste of emotion”. Jack Holloway |
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