Thursday, October 9, 2008

the other half undercover

Last night I took the train home and started my Thanksgiving weekend a day early. It's Yom Kippur, so I have no class today -- thanks, York! I decided to make good use of this Day of Atonement by catching up on my many, many neglected Intellectual Property readings. With that in mind, I thought I would pay a visit to the University of Western Ontario Faculty of Law and find out what life might be like if I had chosen a different path.

It's worse than I feared. Western Law makes Osgoode look like U-571: Western's walls are painted in muted, elegant hues; the hallways are filled with natural light; the ceilings are high; the library, though smaller (cosier, more intimate) than Osgoode's, is equipped with grand wooden tables and carrels half again as large as ours. There is a triumph of modernity and timelessness here, compared to which my alma matter is a dated 70s monstrosity (true, at least for two more years) and 905 nouveau riche at the same time.

It took me an hour to walk from my girlfriend's house to here, a little more than the amount of time it takes me to get to Osgoode by subway and bus. It's beautiful outside: the leaves are turning, the sun is shining and there's not a cloud in the sky. Western is in a bubble where it's always sweater-and-skirt weather. It's like the town where the Gilmore Girls lived.

I can only presume that the students here enjoy relationships of scholarly camaraderie, that they help one another without a moment's hesitation to consider how such altruism will affect their positions on the grading curve. They're better looking, too.

They don't get Jewish holidays off though, so it balances out.

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