Another day in court - hopefully this is going to be a regular thing; it's all good experience and it gives me a bit of cash :-D
Handed in one pupillage application, still got a bit more to do on the other ones before submitting them online. 5 hours till the deadline.
Still got crazy amounts of work to do for the course, there's just so much to read, but in 2 weeks I get a reading week, which I'm really hoping will be slightly easier going than the usual. After that I just have to make it to 1st December without cracking up and we're over the worst. Exams in November and a coursework hand-in on the very last day.

It's been ages since I had time to write anything - there's so much work to do, and pupillage applications have to be in on Friday as well!
I'm starting to feel like a real commuter these days, seeing as I'm on the tube almost every day. Last week somebody jumped under a train on the Picadilly line so I got stuck in a huge crowd for ages trying to get home, and then a few days later a train caught fire at Green Park so all the other trains stopped and I was late for my class. Luckily my tutor didn't make it either so there weren't any consequences. The other thing that's struck me about the tubes is the guy who does all the public announcements at Kings Cross. Every time he has to make an announcement he does it with a tone I can only compare to Neville Chamberlain's declaration of war. This makes him seem deeply concerned about the minor delays on the Victoria line and contrasts sharply with the bubblyl west-country chap at Holborn, who confused us all the other day with a completely untrue announcement that the escalators were not working. My fellow commuters and I rolled our eyes and shook our heads. Obviously this man is a fool.
I've had my first couple of lessons in advocacy and conference skills, which are the best classes we have. They record our performances onto DVDs so we can learn from our mistakes, and there's only six of us in the class so it's quite intensive.
On Friday I spent the day in Hove Crown Court taking notes in a few conferences and hearings. It was an interesting day, especially when one defendant completely lost the plot and began swearing at the judge, the lawyers, the court staff and his mother before finally being carried away by security. Stupidly he did this before he was sentenced, which probably added on about 6 months or so. I imagine he'll regret his outburst, if not now then certainly at some point over the next two years. The delay he caused made him even more unpopular, as everyone was already running late because one of the judges had called in sick after his child had poked him in the eye, so all his cases had to be added onto another list.

Finally! We've got our flat connected to the Internet! The man from Telewest came on Friday, but was quite rude and just left without explaining anything. I then found out our wireless router wouldn't work with the Telewest connection because it's ADSL and we need DSL which seemed a bit fussy to me. But I dutifully trekked over to Tottenham Court Road to find a new router. It all went well until I tried to come home, at which point all the tubes broke and I had to get a train for Petersborough to Finsbury Park, where I was swarmed by disgruntled Arsenal fans who'd just drawn 1-1 with Middlesborough. Finally got the thing working after phoning a man in Toronto who told me to switch it off and on again, and now we're all online :-)
Happily Chelsea were back on form, beating Charlton 2-1 at home despite me checking the results on my mobile, which usually seems to curse it. Saw the Merseyside Derby on MOTD last night, fantastic result for Everton - Sadi will be well pleased. On the other hand, Dave if you're reading this what were Newcastle doing? Just get rid of Titus Bramble and play with 10 men! Anyway, now it's time to get on another train all the way to Kingston to pick up some contact lenses. Still got hundreds of pages to read for the coming week of classes...

We've already had to start working even though the course only started yesterday. We had to read the barrister code of conduct for this morning, and now we have to read a manual about legal research by tomorrow. It's been good though, quite a lot of effort went into helping us all get to know each other. Everyone has been friendly, and most of us drunk. Still no Internet connection in the new flat but apparently that's getting done on Friday, which is my day off. Can't complain about the work when you have a 3 day weekend every week :-)