By the beginning of my penultimate term, I'd finally learnt a lesson I should have learnt long before - trying to make sure I had enough time for academic work by not taking on too many other commitments just makes me work far less efficiently, rather than improving the quality of my work. So I applied to be co-chair of one of the OUSU Committees; on the grounds that I'd be good at this and that it wouldn't really take up too much of my time. I was very hurt when not only was I not appointed, but no one had the decency to tell me that before I learnt about it by reading the OUSU Council agenda. This was a mistake, there was no malice involved, but I still felt upset by it. Something good did come of it in the end; I had a whinge at someone I sort of knew in OUSU, and she asked me to go and help a group of people rewriting OUSU's electoral regs. You wouldn't believe the detail we went into over a series of sessions, each around two hours long. That was extremely rewarding, and really made me appreciate my law degree - it made me so much more aware of the meaning of particular words and how altering a word here or there changes the meaning of the clause you're creating. As I recall I also applied to be an OUSU Deputy Returning Officer that term - but that was another of these applications I made and never heard anything back about. I wasn't too bothered by that, because around the time when I ought to have noticed that I hadn't heard anything, I was in a particuarly bad state work wise.
I was really enjoying family law - the reading was manageable and I understood what was going on in the area and I had the confidence to not create essay crises for myself. In earlier days I'd said well 'I don't understand this very well, so I have to work as hard as I possibly can on it, because no one can blame me if I worked' and translated this into 'I must stay up all night writing my essay, because if I don't, how can I have worked hard enough?' This is thoroughly broken thinking and I wish I'd realised this earlier.
What was less good were the collections I did at the beginning of Hilary - I got mid 2.2s on both of them - one of those I'd still (yes, even all these years later) put down to harsh marking. The reasoning behind my collections not being good was that I'd spent 9th Week of Michalemas Term in College doing the collections I should have done at the beginning of MT but didn't do then, because of the state I was in over Joe - collections would have served no purpose whatsoever. Kathryn, Justin and I (IIRC) did them together. That meant that I didn't start relaxing/coming down from the stresses of that term for an extra week. Believe me, you need to relax for a couple of weeks after surviving an Oxford term. I also had an extremely hectic Christmas helping my Mum start her new business, together with usual family Christmas things, so I didn't have anywhere near as much time as I would have liked to revise.
After having our last ever tutes in 8th Week, and a couple of days off to relax, we all embarked on revision. Most of us had arranged to stay in Oxford (the libraries are there, and it's easier to work) for a good portion of the break. I don't really remember all that much about the actual process of revision, other than sitting in my room surrounded by files and books and feeling bored. We met up for lunch in hall and for a general whinge about how slowly things were going in and how bored we all were. Procrastination became an art form. Talking about revision timetables - writing one is a great idea, for any of you about to do exams - but write flexibility and write time off into it, and don't be surprised if you have to alter it as you go along. Going pen shopping - well that is important, most of us didn't do much handwriting during the course because we all had computers/used the college ones, so the prospect of having to write for three hours a day for nine days (approx) was not appealing. Finding comfortable pens to write with was therefore not *just* an excuse to avoid work. The same was true of blouse shopping - we had to do our exams dressed in sub fusc and you can't wear the same clothes every day for more than a week in the middle of summer.
I went home for a couple of weeks - we weren't allowed to stay in College accommodation for around two weeks, since there weren't any College staff there. Besides, a break before starting Trinity is just what one needs.