Well, my first week of law school is over. I haven't calculated how much reading exactly I have been assigned so far, but I would say it's quite a bit, but not unmanageable. Then again, I haven't actually looked at much of it yet, so I may be pulling my hair out Sunday afternoon.

I have been pretty impressed so far with UBC. We are divided up into small groups of 25; my group seems to be a good mixture of people, some coming from undergrad, many who have worked for a while, some from BC, some who aren't. We are told repeatedly that these people will be our closest friends, and if the group was a bunch of duds, I might be kind of worried. But I've met most of them now, even if briefly, and they all seem pretty cool. The overall atmosphere at the law school seems pretty cooperative and friendly, so that's another positive.

I have also really liked the orientation program. It's been a fairly relaxed week, we've met all of our profs and our TAs, and gone to tonnes of different presentations on things like 'balancing life and law school.' We've also met a couple of practitioners - one who works for a corporate firm and one for a small non-profit. Also UBC has paraded out a number of VIPs, such as someone who I think was a justice at the Supreme Court of BC (didn't catch his name), to MP Stephen Owen.

Also we got a bunch of free stuff, some of which was quite weird: e.g. a screwdriver set and a lip balm with the name of a law firm on it. But apparently law firms give other stuff too; for example yesterday at a reception celebrating the 98th birthday of the founding dean of the law school, they announced that the faculty is trying to raise $250,000 for bursaries and student financial aid. McCarthy Tetrault has already given $30,000.

So anyway, I'm now keen to get started on actually learning law. The orientation week has been fun, but draining. There's a lot of information and a lot of mingling. I want to start sinking my teeth in now and start doing some of the stuff that I haven't had the chance to yet.