The deed is done.

I have applied for my first ever pupillage!

Four in fact, through the cunning and imaginitively named Online Pupillage Application Service, or OLPAS as it is snappily abbreviated. Chambers are located in Sheffield, Manchester, Brighton and Canterbury. At least I think I have applied to these places, the confirmatory emails are believable but the general layout of the OLPAS website does rather leave something to be desired.

If the location of these chambers seems a little random, it's because they're the only provincial sets with a criminal practice who are open to offers at the Autumn OLPAS round. To be honest I still have my sights set at Chester, or possibly Exeter but one cannot afford to be cocky or picky in this game. In fact, if a bunch of tax barristers offered me pupillage I'd probably take it!

The course is settling into a rather nice rhythm, hopefully I'll settle with it soon and fraught scribbling at 2.30am will become a thing of the past {to be fair I've only actually had to stay awake that late once and it was my own fault - I'd been boozing at Lincolns Inn}.

One thing I will say for OLPAS is that at least it's free - the BVC application system costs £40 for the privilege of applying to spend over ten grand on a course which doesn't even guarantee you a pupillage let alone tenancy!

Last night was frankly carnage. I cannot remember how on earth I got home, but I'm assuming it was by bus, having found my Oyster card shoved into one of my blazer pockets. I had earlier prophesied that if I ever got plastered I'd have to rely on some kind soul pouring me into a bus.

I had suspected it would get messy on the grounds that I'm still settling in here in London and not all is entirely rosy yet. However, my Criminal Advocacy had gone well and going to the pub at about 2pm without lunch seemed like a good idea at the time.

It wasn't.

I seem to be curiously awake as well, which is irritating because I know I need sleep and I know it will catch up with me - probably on my Court visit on Monday... I can see myself now falling asleep in the middle of a case and being ejected from the Court.

Just a short post to say that coming out of a lecture at 7pm is really quite surreal and is likely to become even more so as the nights draw in...

The amount of reading seems to be stabilising and I'm a lot happier about my prospects on the course, although it is a lot like being a Sixth Former again - prep to do and then a member of my Hall's security team goes round at about 11pm rounding up the smokers and socialites sending us all indoors because it's "quiet time". I mean really... we're all post-grads!

Having recently been issued my full timetable for the course up to the 5th January I am happy to report that Mondays are my "research and professional development" days and that I seem to have a large number of Friday afternoons off as well. Couple this with the fact that I have nothing other than 2 Court visits and an assessment handout happening before 10:30am and I am a lot happier than when I started the course.

As my current Facebook status declares, I am overwhelmed with the astonishing amount of paperwork which has been thrown at us, not to mention the eleven or so manuals, a copy of Blackstone's Civil Practice and, soon to follow, the Criminal version too.

Just about every lecturer is handing out small assignments to be completed for next time along with little quizzes and further reading matter on the school's interactive learning tool, called CitySpace {which runs a lot like Web CT for anyone who is familiar with that}. I have never used a tool like this before in my life, the Law department at Exeter having only just stopped asking for essays to be completed in cursive script with illuminated paragraph headings.

Still, I've nothing to do until Tuesday lunchtime so I suppose I can't really complain, although I do still need to find a decent supermarket... Preferrably with its own bus stop...

What a day. I was very nearly late for my first proper lecture of the whole damn course because the first bus on my route was full to bursting and consequently didn't stop... I'd just decided with a colleague that if the next bus didn't stop we'd share a cab to Highbury & Islington tube and get to Chancery Lane from there. Luckily my bank balance and internal thermostat {not to mention stress levels} were saved by a relatively uncrowded 341 bus.

This was at about 08:15 and the lecture started at 9am. It took nearly 45 minutes to get to Chancery Lane and I had to powerwalk to the lecture hall, where I arrived flustered and generally unhappy with the London experience.

Lectures continued all day with short breaks for chit chat with the very few people I have been able to meet on the course, a short catch up with a couple of old friends from Exeter, lunch and then collection of my final batch of manuals {a further 4 books!} and a copy of Blackstone's Civil Practice, which is simply mammoth.

Anyway, returning home at about half five, complete with water filter for the frankly abismal supply in my room, I had to make a quick turnaround to attempt to meet some friends in Town around 7pm.

The number 73 bus put paid to my idea of arriving more or less on time, as the one I had boarded after waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour {for a service supposedly arriving every 3-6 minutes, HA!} ceased at Kings Cross Thameslink, leaving me to continue my journey by tube and then considerable walking... The journey back was much worse, it having begun to tip down with rain as I waited for over half an hour on Oxford Street for a damn bus which then took nearly an hour to get me no more than 5 miles. Had I not been fed up, tired and beligerent with London Transport, I could probably have paced out a bit and beaten the bloody bus home on foot.

I have only been in London for 3 days and already I loathe Red Ken's Bendy Bus with a burning passion, the crassness of its design is only matched by the shocking schedule... I'm sure Routemasters could carry as many people whilst having the benefit of not having to wait for three changes of a set of traffic lights before turning a sodding corner.

On top of this I still have two more chapters of a manual to read for 11am tomorrow.

OK, so I'm now installed in London Village.

Registration today was an absolute nightmare in the frankly tropical heat which baked the city all day. However, it's all done, even the total embarrassment of having to ring Exeter for a copy of my transcript showing in disgusting detail just how much I fluked my degree!

Anyway, in other news, ResNet here is £100 for a year, and their rules, AUP and registration technique seem to be cribbed from Exeter to such an extent that a thank you is mentioned on one or two documents.

Having now got internet in my Uni accommodation room, and a University address means that I have already got into Facebook {I didn't hear of it until after I'd graduated from Exeter, by which time it was too late...} which I'm hoping will not turn into the full-blown addiction suffered by some people I know...

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Finally, I hope to keep this blog far more regularly from now on, simply so that some sort of record of life as a BVC student can be found on Google or whatever. Hopefully I'll be able to dispel some myths and give a decent picture of what is always likely to be an expensive and intensive course.

Meantime, I must finish unpacking...