We’ve all been there. It’s 11:57 pm on a long Tuesday in December. The library attendants have given up on briefly flickering the overhead lights and plunged all of Bora into darkness in hopes of peeling lethargic 1L’s from their plastic chairs and nudging them out into the cold night. You’re muttering a low refrain of disappointing word counts and the choicest of 4-letter words to yourself when suddenly you lock eyes with that sultry-eyed, mysteriously quiet someone from that bird course of a seminar you enrolled in as he/she suddenly thinks, “damn, the luminescent glow of his/her macbook really accentuates those cheekbones.” Next thing you know, the inevitable soundtrack of a low, reverberating baseline has popped into both your minds as you every so subtly nod in sync to mark the unspoken offer, acceptance, and consideration that just took place.
Bora chicka wowww wowwwww…
Let’s just hope one of you remembered a peppercorn.
It goes without saying that December is open season in the all-inclusive hub of [fluorescent] tanning and timbit consumption known as Bora Bora [Laskin.]* And it comes as no surprise: no other 7,000 square foot structure on this earth could possibly be more teeming with young adults at their physical peak. Gym memberships, makeup, eye brow tweezers, pants with an actual waistline, and all clothing regularly subjected to that oppressive regimen known as a “laundry cycle” have been cast aside, leaving nothing but a fresh-faced glow, a natural plumpness and that slightly stirring whiff of bodily odour pheromones caught on a central-heating breeze. A select cohort of your more worldly male peers has even decided to let that pencil-thin Movember tribute linger for one last week of pensive, absent-minded stroking while sat at their mahogany cubicles. Oh baby. Better search for a new locale if you plan to get even a shadow of a course summary accomplished today.
Hoping for a peaceful spot to curl up with the Ontario Labour Relations Act, you casually stroll into the fair-trade, organic, vegan-friendly espresso bar around the corner, but the low, crooning voice of Andrew Bird emanating from their speakers immediately tells you something is amiss. You settle for an armchair by the window, but within minutes, it becomes clear that rocking up to this mellow coffee shop with your alma mater sweatpants and unwashed hair was a palpable and overriding error. Before you know it, your afternoon has descended recklessly into the biggest ogle-and-eye-fuck-fest since that now-notorious Admin study group of February 2012. It doesn’t help that exam period stress has peppered a pleasing layer of blotchy red pimples across your forehead and nothing in this world could so clearly scream “drop that soy latte and come hither you gorgeous bespectacled specimen.”
Don’t fight it; embrace it. From the moment you type that last hurried sentence of class notes till the evening you turn in awaiting Santa’s loot, you have become something more than the average law student modestly selecting a measly “8” on the UV attractiveness survey. You’ve crossed the threshold, and for a fleeting few weeks, you’ll remain Patently Irresistible.
* Full credit to Jacquie Richards, JD/MBA Candidate ’15, for this gem of a library nickname.