Earlier in the week our friend at Carrington dropped off a little study package for Law at my door. Stress ball, mixed CD, chocolate, sparklers, $1 scratchie… it was so awesome.
Rylands v Fletcher, Donoghue v Stevenson
I’ve noticed this question tends to have has someone suing someone under one line of cases, and then the person being sued says “It’s not my fault! I’m gonna bring in this other guy as a third party under the other line of cases!”
Also, other questions have tended to make it really obvious who you could sue. This one didn’t, and the people I wanted to sue were bankrupt… Woe!
I really panicked at this point. I chose to do this question first – because it’s really straightforward – and I couldn’t even figure out who was going to sue who… I took longer than I wanted because of it.
The Random Essay
We’re asked to write about some law-related subject. Are criminal lawyers justified in what they do? Things like that. The same questions are asked every year, and everyone just memorises an answer before the exam. The lecturer doesn’t like this (especially since people can memorise essays that aren’t their own, but got good marks in previous years), so I wrote it second. That way it wouldn’t be quite so obvious that I memorised it, haha.
…I memorised my own essay, by the way. “Should there be a parallel legal system for Maori?” The arguments for it are really persuasive, but I hated the whole idea of it anyway so I picked that question to figure out why.
Finders
Tested us on who has the right to a lost object that is found. When should the occupier of a building or the employer get to keep it instead of the person who actually found it?
It was very much like an older question which we had covered in a tutorial at SMC, so it wasn’t too bad… um… yeah.
Entrapment / Confessions
This was about police officers going undercover and getting people to commit crimes, and the fine line between getting people who would have done it anyway, and “seducing non-offenders”… into crime, that is. Dun dun dunnnn.
The second part is when there’s all this drama after the guy gets arrested and he makes a confession. You want to see whether it should be admitted. It’s a combination of using statutes and cases, unlike the other questions.
Whether you’re gonna kick out a confession depends on whether the exclusion would be “proportionate to the impropriety”, so there’s this balancing you have to do. I started this but ran out of time, and threw down a random conclusion in the few remaining seconds. Baahhhh!
Conclusion!
I’ve never ever written so much in an exam before. Legal opinions everywhere. My fingers have ink all over them.
I know I’m going to dwell on not finishing that last part properly, but I’m still hoping that it won’t be that damaging. Also it’s clear that I knew what I was doing for that part anyway, and just ran out of time. I’m also always going to be wondering whether I used enough cases, or explained things well enough… but whatever.
At least I get to sleep in tomorrow. Usually Thursday is when my room gets vacuumed… but they’re not doing that anymore. Yayyyy.
also happy birthday little sister~ ♥
I didn’t forget her even in the morning when I was half-asleep before the exam, or afterwards when we were all “YAY WE FINISHED” (and I was listening to that boy with a nice voice talking about his funny law-related dreams, too!). I’m such a sweetie. Haven’t sent the present in the mail just yet though… And I think Mum should make another birthday cake for when I come back home, so we can actually celebrate together, yus! 
…So my mummy can read my babblings on how the scary thing went. Hiii~
I thought I’d be really pushed for time and panicking the whole way through. I wasn’t stressed by that, since I was so prepared to feel like I wasn’t prepared. I was sleepy the day before, then couldn’t sleep for ages. It was awesome.
At the exam!
English Legal History
You know when you open up your exam booklet, and you think “OH MY GODDDD THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING”?
It was like that.
A question comparing Magna Carta and equity. No one thought he’d ask about equity! No one. It was literally the one thing I didn’t study for, so answering this I relied on some vague memory from the lecture. At least that they didn’t require full sentences (and emphasised this a lot – poor markers!) meant that I could come across a little less clueless.
They wanted us to copy a table. I ruled the lines really loudly. On purpose.
constitution-related stuff
This part was on New Zealand’s constitution. Cos we have one! It’s not like America’s and all written down, but in various locations are the things that should go in a document like that.
The questions were pretty basic and straightforward, but I didn’t like them. It was very much a case of, “How can I talk about ___ without mentioning ____, and what do you mean this is only worth 2 marks?” Hopefully I’m just being too much of a pedantic nerd though…
treaty of waitangi
We spent ten lectures reading an article about the Treaty’s status. It was so in depth, the lectures seemed totally irrelevant to the article. Really abstract. Looking back, I think I secretly loved it. It was an awesome way of thinking.
So this part of the exam was hard. At the most, all I can get is 12 out of 20. It wanted eight events proving why the phrase ‘he iwi tahi tatou’ was no longer true. Waaay harder than it sounds…
legislation: statutory interpretation
I was most terrified about this before the exam. When it comes to writing a legal opinion in test conditions I’ve never managed to finish one on time. That’s why I stopped the Treaty of Waitangi part early to give myself more time on this legal opinion. I have this ability to not suck at legal opinions, so I thought I might as well finish something I know I can do really well, instead of pondering on something ~abstract~ for ages and possibly not coming up with anymore answers.
I didn’t get confused or wrung out by the facts, I threw in a whole lot of brainy things, and finished it. I’m really happy with it. Although… apart from me being amazing, I think we were also given a really easy question, and that’s why it wasn’t that bad, haha.
legislation: essays
This is where you have to write two essays, quarter of an hour for each, on what techniques a judge used when he came to a decision. The questions were just as I wanted them.
……the verdict
I left thinking that I didn’t get the chance to show them all that I could do. I was disappointed in that, and then considering that this is a competitive course made it a little worse…
We got to keep the booklet with all the questions on it, and I’ve tried to calculate what sort of mark I should get (and trying to be harsh, even with my brilliant legal opinion). The cut off grade in the last few years has been consistently 76… Since I’m aware I’ll probably get a lower mark than the one I’ve sort of predicted for myself, I can’t be sure that me getting into second year Law is a sure thing. But I think there’s a fairly good chance.
Although I could regret saying that out loud, haha.
Right now, I’m not really tired, like I usually am after an exam. Well. I probably would be if I decided to do something. Someone may have just knocked on my door juts before, but my music was up too loud on my headphones to hear. Ahaaaa.
…To put it simply.
When I was little, I had a book about Bambi. I’d trace the pictures and stick them on cardboard and play with them. I was pretty cool like that. Until last night though, I’d never watched it. My hall is kinda good in that there are lots of Disney fans, and they hook me up with the good stuff.
So since the movie started started, I hoped the movie would get better. Tried making myself think it’s not that bad.
Nah. Sucked.
It starts off by blatantly ripping off the Lion King, and continues to do so for the rest of the movie. It was ruthless. When I was watching Bambi for the second time that night (but this time with friends, so I could laugh at it), I said, “It’s a pity Disney can’t sue itself”, which was very witty of me.
Then the characters were so flimsy, and not one of them had a soul. I cringed a lot when people talked, the script was so stilted. What’s with Bambi’s parents? They act like the prince of the forest is so wise and amazing, but you know he just drunkenly hooked up with Bambi’s mum one night. Their relationship looked about as meaningful.
And if anyone ever had a laugh like Bambi’s girlfriend’s, who then thought it’d be cute to lick me, there’d be no way I’d like them. Actually, all the girls in Bambi? They were such flirts, no good for any of them. I’ll point out how at the end of the movie Thumper and co were surrounded by baby versions of themselves – the mothers nowhere in sight. Tsk tsk.
Before watching this movie I’d listened to people discussing “What’s sadder? Mufasa dying, or Bambi’s mum dying?“, as if they could actually be compared. Bambi’s mum dying was nothing. Bambi looked pretty worried – but that’s nothing new – and then his dad came out of nowhere (as is his way), so I laughed pretty hard. He says something vague, and then Bambi just understands and cries. Never mind that Bambi struggles to understand the most basic concepts, let alone something like death. Pfft.
I … don’t know how anyone could find that sad.
I can appreciate what Bambi was trying to do artistically. Okay, that’s a lie – but I can acknowledge it at any rate. And I guess hundreds of years ago (when Bambi first came out, of course) this would have been considered a decent movie. I think they had low standards though. I’m just saying.