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editorial
a. Osgoode Hall Law School, 0014G
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
e. [email protected]
web. www.obiter-dicta.ca
T. @obiterdictaoz
“In a world where everyone is a publisher, no one is
an editor and that is the danger we face today.”
- Scott Pelley
Editors-in-Chief: Cass Da Re, Travis Weagant,
Karolina Wisniewski
Business Managers: Adam Cepler, Alvin Qian
Copy Editor: Patricia Wood
News Editor: Citlally Maciel
Arts & Culture Editor: Angie Sheep
Sports Editor: Andrew Cyr
Staff Writers: Geoff Goodson, Luke Johnston,
Evan Ivkovic, Sam Michaels, Dan Mowat-Rose,
Daniel Styler
Contributors: Xi Chen, Sara Hanson, Subban
Jama, Fatema Jivaji, Aneesha Lewis, Jeff Mitchell, Toby Samson, Cassie Stefannuci
Layout Editors: Marie Park, Heather Pringle,
Devin Santos, Wendy Sun
Website Editor: Asad Akhtar
Submissions for the October 28 issue are due at
5PM on October 20, and should be submitted to
the email address above.
Obiter Dicta is the official student newspaper of
Osgoode Hall Law School. The opinions expressed in
the articles contained herein are not necessarily those
of the Obiter staff. The Obiter reserves the right to
refuse any submission that is judged to be libelous or
defamatory, contains personal attacks, or is discriminatory on the basis of sex, race, religion, or sexual orientation. Submissions may be edited for length and/
or content.
An ode to all things analog
It’s no secret that trudging through the more
stressful and overwhelming times in our lives
can encourage escapism, day-dreaming and
basically anything other than attending to
the things that need to be attended to. Case in
point: readings, no; falling down the rabbit hole
of endlessly Googling corgi pictures, yes. It is
in this spirit that we feel particularly inclined
to regale you with musings of how much easier
mid-term and OCI season would be without
email, smartphones and Facebook – in short, if
instead of 2013, this were, say, 1970.
NB: We were researching “life without cellphones” (not that we were at a loss for what to
write, or anything). Google recommended the
following searches: “life without limbs”, “life
without parole” and “life without plastic” – the
world is a dark and…environmentally friendly
(?) place, in case you needed any reminders.
Imagine if we didn’t have to all access the
Toronto OCI portal on MyOsgoode at the same
time on the same day, always awkwardly and
inco nveniently seeming to be during class, to
find out about interview offers. Imagine if we
didn’t have to watch each other obsessively (but
understandably) refreshing our email every five
seconds to see if any of the firms emailed us
before call day. Imagine if we didn’t have to
write thank you notes! (In the alternative, imagine if we had to write them by hand, in which
event, computers don’t seem so bad anymore.)
Imagine if we didn’t have to write midterms
on computers, thus avoiding the insufferable
clacker of MacBook keyboards that makes it
literally impossible to concentrate during an
exam. Imagine if we didn’t have to deal with
moronic auto-formatting when making our
summaries. Imagine if you could never lose a
Word document, because documents were actu-
ally real, tangible things you held in your hand.
Imagine if Jessica White couldn’t hide behind
the anonymity of fake emails, being instead
forced to affix her letter on the door of the
lecture hall like a noble Martin Luther (which
would obviously thwart her anonymity because,
hello – handwriting analysis).
In honour of these simpler times, we recommend taking some time during the next few
weeks to unplug and detox. It’s always important to find some time to relax, but it’s even
better if you can find ways of doing so without relying on technology. Go for a run sans
iPhone. Bake something pumpkin-flavoured.
Have a conversation with someone – like, in
person (no, FaceTime or Skype don’t count).
Read something that has real pages rather than
a screen that you swipe (it can, nay, should be
something mindless). We spend enough of our
time sitting in front of screens doing the things
we have to do – why not extract yourself from
them so you can do some of the things you
want to do?
Before we part, some words of comfort. 1Ls:
midterms don’t matter. No seriously, they really
don’t. If can’t put down the textbooks, spend
your time reading ahead so you can have more
time to prep for the real exam. 2Ls: instead
of scary lawyers sitting across the interview
table from you, pretend they’re your great-aunt
asking about what you’re doing in school. Most
importantly, remember that the OCI craze will
on day (sooner than you think) seem distant
and small and silly. 3Ls: congratulations! Y’all
have jumped through all the law-school hoops
already. Enjoy the cakewalk and go knit an
oven mitt.
In short: as always, Ozzies, hang in there.
The Obiter Dicta is published biweekly during the
school year, and is printed by Weller Publishing Co.
Ltd.
The Obiter Dicta is a member of Canadian
University Press.
tuesday - october 15 - 2013
the obiter dicta