Nothing will get your mind off that 1930’s House of Lords decision like some “DJ P-Plus” on the rocks. I’m obviously referring to the Harbourfront Centre’s annual DJ Skate Night which is kicking off its season on Dec 15th. But before making ice contact after a 36-hour study session, please practice your standing-up-and-balancing skills on a carpeted flat surface of your choice. Once you’ve gotten blood flow to all necessary foot phalanges, you should be good to glide. DJ Skate night is so great I just had to add it to my Top Study Stopper list.
Why? My top study stopper list includes the healthiest and most productive study stoppers to boost your next study session. Study Stoppers are also designed to be so amazing and exciting that they will help motivate you to replace every 6 of those 10-minute Facebook visits with a solid hour of good cheap fun.
- No study stopper should even be contemplated (not even DJ Skate Night) without first completing the mother and father of all study stoppers, Sleep and Exercise. Sleep is a study stopper that should be done in intervals of 7 hours and preferably in a fully horizontal position. Casebooks, textbooks and/or other large rectangular objects should not accompany this study stopper. Exercise, on the other hand, is less of a time commitment, and can be completed in a socially-acceptable manner surrounded by all sorts of law paraphernalia, including the most illicit of all legal entertainment: MP3 webcasts of SCC hearings.
- No matter what the malls tell you, the real holiday season starts in December. Which is why it would be healthy to partake in study stoppers that inspire creativity while allowing you to purchase gifts for people you remotely remember communicating with before exams (terms like “parent”, “best friend”, and “spouse” might ring a bell). The Distillery District’s Christmas Market (free, Nov 29-Dec 15) is only a short trek away and will offer plenty of locally-made sensory delights such as Candy Cane Carolers, soy wax candles in antique cups, and classic Quebec poutine. For those who prefer an indoor, artsier, and less gluttonous-sounding experience, I highly recommend the One of a Kind Christmas Show ($12 at www.oneofakindshow.com, Nov 28-Dec 8, Direct Energy Centre). Here, you’ll find handmade designs so remarkable you’ll forget why you enrolled in law school instead of following your passion for millinery.
- Sometimes it takes a really wild and weird photo exhibition to get you to finally step away from your computer. Which is why the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)’s “Wildlife Photography of the Year” exhibition ($5 on Tuesdays with student ID, starting Nov 23) and the Harbourfront Centre’s “WEIRD” exhibition (free, until Dec 29) make great study stoppers. The ROM’s show, brought from the Natural History Museum in London, will feature 100 of the world’s best images of wildlife selected from over 48,000 entries around the world. For those who want to rough it with a freezing walk along the lake, WEIRD will feature some truly bizarre images including one huge photo, called “Untitled”, of a pale man in his underwear floating above a staircase.
- This study stopper is so incredible I’m concerned I may be stating the obvious: Free massages at Hart House on Mondays from 12-3pm. I think I can save you the lengthy comments on this one and just advise that if someone doesn’t already go to these they can no longer use the words “I” and “reasonable person” in the same sentence.
- So for those of us who still eat during exams, here is my food section. These study stoppers are all going to be chocolate-related. I would tell you to go home and cook yourself some kale-salmon with asparagus, but you would ignore me. Which is why I’m recommending you either learn to make your own chocolate at the Chocolate Tales Classic Chocolate Making and Truffle Making Workshops (about $50 for 90 minutes, Dec 3 and Dec 11-12, at the Mad Bean, 519 Eglington Ave W) or sample other people’s chocolate at the Ferrero Rocher Holiday Classics event (free, Dec 6-7 at Yonge-Dundas Square).
I realize that by listing these amazing study stoppers I may have just added stress-inducing commitments to your exam schedule. If that is the case, I sincerely apologize and I recommend going back to sparingly interrupting Lord Denning cases with periodic but brief Facebook visitations.
