32055: Corpus Law Diary TT 4
Reflecting back on my past week of "university", it feels bizarre and detached to even frame it as such. The fourth week of Trinity, as I'd previously planned, was to be an enriching, exciting week spent on the terraced roof of the MBI Al Jaber building and within the Corpus gardens, bathing in the glow of a summer at Oxford while reading over Contract and Tort Law. However, with the tumultuous transpiring of this year, we have all been learning online from home, a unique compromise to adjust to. I live in what one would call a lively household, but while I am book-deep in reading which never seems to end, my family approach with confusion, pondering how the workload is able to keep me busy for such long periods. This is an adjustment for them, just as well as for myself, as I believe their understanding of what a week at Corpus studying Law involves is a week of being behind a desk for long hours, occasionally standing up to get a snack with a vaguely-stressed look on my face.
Main Quad This paints quite a dismal picture, but really, I just miss Oxford. Finding my flow while at home, a place I normally view as a respite from the exciting, thrilling lifestyle of Oxford, is difficult. It has been helped tremendously by the supportive nature of the tutors at Corpus, who are always willing to listen. Although being so far away from Corpus can make me hesitate to get in touch, the constant reminder of a family at Corpus missing all of us, but still being there for us during this time, is very comforting. This was clear in the "Finalists' Lunch" Zoom meeting we had, organised by Professor Liz Fisher, where I was able to reconvene with many Corpus lawyers in order to wish the current finalists good luck in their exams. It was a heartwarming hour of like minded lawyers catching up with one another in this fractured term, instilling a rhetoric of progress and unity which served as a reminder of all of the amazing memories I've made over the year. It served as a time to reflect on how far the finalists had come, and wish them the best for the coming future, while acknowledging that soon, we'll all be back together.
Reinvigorated from the Finalists' lunch, I was able to throw myself back into my Contract reading, working my way through understanding the scope of damages presented in a plethora of different cases and determining what pecuniary or non-pecuniary losses were present and actionable in different circumstances. Before long I was drafting my essay and staying up to the late hours letting my mind flow with the discussion I found myself engaged with, equipped with my notes and a wealth of information on the area of law. There's a certain type of satisfaction one feels when finally completing an essay, a short period of calm before preparation for the upcoming tutorial starts. It's nice to feel that same emotion, whether in the Corpus library or at my bedroom desk; a peak, where the productivity of the past few days finally comes together, and all the frantic notes taken start corresponding with one another. Then it passes. Though it doesn't, really, it lingers on, making the tutorial highly engaging, helping my mind focus solely on the internal workings of contract law and grasp this exciting new aspect of study. I know that the next week will come, as shortly after a tutorial begins the next reading list, and I know my family will knock on the door and ask me if it'll be as busy as the last, but even in a confusing, new situation, I rise to the excitement and challenge that comes with law.
