5 Hot Tips FOR JD STUDENTS On How To Be Less Boring And More Fun

Issue 5, Semester 2

Tyson Holloway-Clarke

Yes, the rumours are true: being a JD student makes you less funny. The other day my class roared with laughter about reports that a student called a judge ‘Your Majesty’ during their moot. This is objectively shit banter. But to law students this is peak comedy - it is Delirious in RMs and a knitted cardigan. This law school can teach you how to communicate effectively and advocate for your client, but good luck soliciting a chuckle out of anyone that doesn’t work for you. Ying was on the money - you are doomed to being flatter than a tack if you keep on trucking this way. But it doesn’t have to be like this! You can be the change you want to see in the world (and on Pelham Street)! Here are 5 Hot Tips On How To Be Less Boring And More Fun for JD Students.

1. Don’t talk to people about doing the JD unless they specifically ask you.
   

As much as your housemate tolerates your existence and will support your condemnation of your other housemate who drinks milk out of the bottle, they really do not give a fuck about how many pages WorkChoices is. Your mum loves you, but not enough to entertain a conversation about how you are structuring the submission of your next moot. Keep it to yourself, and assume no one cares unless they EXPLICITLY ask you. Law school bores law students at times, don’t you put that evil on them Ricky Bobby.

2. Leave the house, and don’t study on weekends.
Yeah, we get it. You spend a lot of time studying. Get a job. Go for walks. Pat a dog. Do something other than sit in the shower crying over your weekend. Yeah we know you are busy, but  being busy isn’t an excuse to be boring. Watching Suits doesn’t make you less boring. Catch a train and see your Aunt in Bendigo. Pull out your rollerblades and go find a skatepark. Go play canoe polo. Have an actual story about something you did over the weekend that doesn’t include the words ‘Netflix’, ‘law’ or ‘not much’.   

3. Have hobbies that involve other people.
This one might be hard now that you burned all your bridges after you got accepted into the JD and all your undergrad friends hate you (read: jealousy). Nonetheless there are plenty of communities desperately vying for young members. Join a bowls club and go gently roll some odd balls down the astroturf with your local octogenarian. You would be surprised about the new friends you make.

4. Make noise in the JD Silent Study Area. Also make noise in the other quiet parts of the library. Just be loud.  
Controversial, but hear me out. The only reason the JD Silent Study Area is silent, tense, and creepy is because you make it so. If we all agree to get over ourselves and lighten up a little, this whole thing will blow over a lot easier. ‘Accidently’ play music through your laptop. Talk about the latest episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians with a friend (not me please). Fart and don’t apologise. If someone calls you out (they won’t, JD students are cowards) just ignore them. If they insist, direct them to this article and tell them that they are part of the problem and continue on your merry way. Life isn’t supposed to trend toward reading silently, it's supposed to be rife with turmoil, laden with passion and verging on the chaotic. Be the storm.

5. Don’t do more than you need to do to get the job done.
These were the parting words of my LMR teacher Shaun McVeigh. As a chronic corner-cutter and terminal procrastinator these words were music to my ears. I had permission to tell myself ‘Yeah, that will probably do the job, time to go do some other shit that has nothing to do with law.’ It sounds like I am lowering my expectations but I am not. I am the last person to start encouraging mediocrity. Instead, I am asking you to trust yourself. Be a human. Doing your best doesn’t mean setting up camp on level 3. Doing your best doesn’t mean rewriting tens of thousands of words of notes just because you think you can do them better. It means doing what you need to do to get through, and get what you want. Self-flagellation is for your home lives, and not up for adoption at MLS.

If all else fails and you are still more boring than test cricket, you can still buy joke books. Treat it just like another text to study. In the end you will at least understand jokes and recite them thanks to your Jokes Hypothetical Structure. Future students might even base their notes off yours as they attempt social interaction. At worst you will get a passing grade and a spot at a mid-tier law firm. Sounds like the life you signed up for.