Appassionato

Academia has taken a toll on my creativity

Categorised as Literature, Personal, Rants, School & tagged with language, law, uni, writing.

Team work, creative solutions… has uni (law school at least) been for­get­ting this? Out of five years’ worth of courses in Law, Finance and Economics, I have come across one class with a strong group work element. It’s true that law lecturers always encour­aged creative thinking, yet did they ever endow us with the skills to properly develop our cre­ativ­ity?¹ Not in my classes. We all know that in the real world we will need to cooperate with one another (even if grudgingly for some of us), but for most of the past four years I’ve gotten nothing but an indi­vidu­al­istic, com­pet­it­ive vibe from my envir­on­ment. 90% of you respons­ible and academic-oriented ones may enjoy this, because all if not most of you would have exper­i­enced having to cover three other group members’ work in the last minute. And I was indeed one of the 90% who stood by indi­vidu­al­ism yet shame­lessly stressed how much of a team worker I am in job applic­a­tions. Was.

The dispute res­ol­u­tion paper I took over January-February involved a group present­a­tion, with seven students in each group. When this course require­ment was intro­duced in the first class, I cringed. By the end of the course, I have made six new friends, allowed my cre­ativ­ity to soar, and exper­i­enced staying so late in law school that we got locked in the building. The group present­a­tion deprived me of a golden A, but was non­ethe­less the most rewarding exper­i­ence I have had through­out my years of uni.

By fifth-year in uni, most law students tend to think of them­selves as working indi­vidu­ally in small cubicles, little to do with other “lowly dumb commoners”. When people are put in groups whether it be during class or in a co-curricular activity, the ambitious ones are fighting to be the only one to present all the ideas for the group (as if they did all the work), the less-ambitious ones are as quiet and non-contributing as they were five years ago, and the “leaders”² are bossing other people around without ‘please’ and ‘thank you’s.³

Creativity-wise, I used to create admirable artworks and designs. Recently, I’ve struggled to create an averagely-attractive blog design for even the simplest blog.

Stories and poetry used to flow out of my head any time, anywhere. These days I’m hitting walls trying to come up with any decent descript­ive language to write average quality fiction. After all, I’ve written five-years’ worth of research essays in a strictly pro­fes­sional tone about nothing but law and economics.

Those studying in the creative fields may not be able to sym­path­ise, but I’m dying to finish this semester so I can escape this rigid cage, con­fine­ment, whatever. Of course, while at work I’ll still be referring to statutes and reg­u­la­tions, but at work I support and am supported by a team of amazing col­leagues and I can once again bring back the daily usage of Adobe Photoshop and flowery adject­ives after 6pm without a trace of guilt.

1. By this I mean not just telling us to think outside the square, but teach or train us how to think outside the square. [↩]
2. Thank you very much for encour­aging this, law firms. [↩]
3. Dis­claimer: these come from my personal exper­i­ences and my obser­va­tions on a general scale. And I said “tend do”. [↩]

A gl0bAl fenomenen: dclin3 in IQ

Categorised as Literature, Rants, Writings & tagged with language, opinions.

If tertiary students these days have dif­fi­culty not abbre­vi­at­ing every one-and-a-half words they type, what type of people do you suppose will even­tu­ally govern our country? Imagine our gov­ern­ment author­it­ies doing just that. Imagine legal rules governing our actions sntnsing theifs 2 3 mths imprisenmt.

We don’t even have to go that far. Just imagining someone who has 1% text abbre­vi­ations in their reports and remaining in a respect­able job position is a joke — at least in the current world.

Don’t try to argue that (immensely) abbre­vi­ated writing is cool, quick, efficient, etc. It simply displays a lower level of your intel­lec­tual capacity.

Don’t try to argue either, that 1337 and immature tYpInG lYk d1s is oh-so-sexy. They simply are nothing but stupid. I don’t need to have to read at three words per minute due to your under-developed brain. And it’s not because I’m the one with a low level of reading ability either. If five year old kids are being taught in primary how to spell words the correct way, then surely you need to upgrade your IQ if you tYp3 L1k3 aN iD10t after a whole decade of schooling.

Feel free to use “standard” abbreviations/acronyms such as uni, HTML, Mr, MSN because they are agreed, con­sen­sual and standard.

I also under­stand how some abbre­vi­ations have grown to exist in our main­stream com­mu­nic­a­tions as a result of instant messaging e.g. lol, lmao, asl. Fine. They’re also standard. (And because I use them too, of course.)

N im nt gona deny d fact tht abbrs sav char usage in txt msgs evn if — I don’t per­son­ally use them.

Bt u srsly mk urslf luk lyk a dUmBaSs in com­par­ison with someone else who can actually type and spell.

If you actually found the annoying abbre­vi­ated writing in this post easier to read than the rest of my writing, you might like to consult a doctor regarding your mental cap­ab­il­it­ies (or lack thereof). And I may have to finally recognise the fact that this powerful wave of back­ward­ness will no doubt take over the world by 2030 and drown out the bare remnants of human intel­li­gence. In which case, Amen.

Aussies are viciouzzzz

Categorised as Literature, Miscellaneous & tagged with aussie, funny, language, law.

They eat paper trees. They spit words like no tomorrow.

The Income Tax Assess­ment Act… now bulges at an unwanted world record of 5,000 pages. It has an unfriendly numbering system. Puzzle over the ponderous s 159ZZZZH.

5,000 pages? Like really, if it was Harry Potter I’d be fine with it. But Income Tax Assess­ment… Well, crazy Aussies certainly love their taxes. Try saying “s 159ZZZZH”:

1. section one five nine quadruple zed eich haych
2. section one five nine zed zed zed zed eich haych
3. section one five nine zzzzzzzzzzzz eich haych

Now imagine judges and politi­cians speaking with reference to that section in court or the parliament.

Try weighting the Cor­por­a­tions Act. It comes in at over 3 kgs… Compare that to the mere 300 gms of the Canadian statute.

For you Imperial people, 3 kg is approx­im­ately 6.61 pounds. I’m weak. I use 1.5 kg dumbbells. I could train myself buff with the Aus­tralian Cor­por­a­tions Act.

An Aus­tralian judge com­plained in the High Court of a sentence that went on for over 450 words of small print, spanning 25 lines. And it had no punc­tu­ation what­so­ever to assist the reader.

*sigh* Aussies.

They are abusing the English language! The paper! The trees! At least we kiwis don’t harm the envir­on­ment so much for what they call “sheep-shagging” in New Zealand.

NZ FTW.

Quoted extracts from Corkery J, Starting Law.