Moot as a subject

Ola!

If you've read my previous post about my first (and probably be the last) mooting competition ever, you would know how low my self-esteem was as soon as it ended. I felt as if law wasn't meant for me and I am too stupid to read law.

So for this first semester of my second year degree, guess what?!

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 MOOT IS A FREAKING SUBJECT!!!

I spent half of my semester break worrying I might fail this subject. I even cried at night wondering what if no one wants to be my moot partner because everyone knows I sucks??? I mean, everyone probably had had known who's their moot partner's going to be and I was totally lost with what's going on... Sighs. But Allah seems to ease everything for me, when Hana (says hello to my co-counsel!) asked if I want to be her partner. With no doubt or even a slight second thought, I immediately said yes! Haha.

As for this subject, we had two to three lectures where the lecturer told us the do's and don'ts, as well as the rules of mooting. We also practiced mooting during our tutorial classes every once a week. The best part was on the last week of our tutorial class, one of the lecturers had chosen our team as the best mooting team in the class. AND I SWEAR TO GOD THAT WAS THE START OF SOMETHING NEW IN MY JOURNEY IN LAW SCHOOL- The comment made by Raphael gave me hopes that maybe, just maybe I wasn't really that bad in mooting, that I can do it too, like other mooters. I started to feel more confidence to moot. Finally believing again that law is somehow meant for me.

The hardest part of mooting is of course memorial preparation!!! That's when I had to know what law to use, which authority/cases to cite, how to freaking apply it, how to argue on behalf of my client. It took me more than one week to prepare for memorial submission. Sampai terpaksa skipped my softball's training and stayed in the library (for the first time in forever) till it close to do some research. Pheww. I finally knew what it's like to be a law student.

There was this one night when Hana and I stayed at BBG till midnight to sort out our memorial. We had freaking print everything to only notice that there are so many flaws in our memorial. Like we haven't written the pages in each of the memorial, we haven't tabbed them, printed the same cases twice and mooore. It was so exhausting. I legit cried that night because I was so done with it. I mean, I wanted it to be perfect, but we kept on finding flaws in our memorial which made me feel almost close to giving up.

I didn't want to print our memorial on the day of submission because I know if I do, the printing place will be occupied with so many students. It took time to print hundred of pages, and to bind four sets of memorial. BUT what's the point of printing them early if it's not like what we expected it to be???? That night, terpaksalah asked Nisha if she could accompanied me to the nearest printing shop outside UM, which opened till 3.00 a.m. We borrowed Achang's car, and Hana and I settled everything there. We printed our memorial again, especially the ones for Mr Manley and the appellant, we fixed our respondent's number, we tabbed the cases, susun elok-elok, buang cases yang ada dua, etc. I was so grateful that such printing shop exist in KL. Mana nak jumpa wei printing shop buka sampai pukul 3 pagi!!!!!!!!! #blessed

The next day (submission day) we came early to the library to do paging and highlighting... and taadaa, we submitted it on time. Alhamdulillah.

Mooting is fatigue. It played a lot with my emotions and knowing the fact that I'm not a chill person, it freaked me out all the time. As soon as we had submitted our memorial, I rushed back to college to qada' my tidur.

That was part 1 of mooting as a subject.

What happened next was of course oral submission in which we have to present our arguments to the judge a.k.a our mooting lecturer.

Basically, it was ok because all the arguments are based on my memorial and I had pretty much included everything in it so copy paste jelah law and application. I spent two days practicing my oral submission with my friends. I mooted with Nadiah, Nisha, Syazwan (dia ni paling banyak kali dengar aku buat oral submission hahaha), Aishah, Wanda, Zarina (I just have to list their names because they helped me a lot!!!) as well as my partner Hana. THANKS TO ALL THESE HUMANS I THINK I HAD MORE THAN ENOUGH PRACTICED. MUCH LOVE!!!!

I practiced on how to answer questions a lot which I think I sucks so bad at it. Ye ah tak chill, nanti kalau judge tanya gelabah tak tahu macam mana nak jawab haha.

On the day of the oral submission... well I have to be honest even though I did my best, I think I could have done a lot better. I sucks at constructing sentences, so I find it a struggle to answer judge's questions on the spot. But Mr Manley was soooo nice though, it made me feel comfortable enough to tell him what I'm struggling with.

Overall, it was ok? Well... at least the first 12 minutes of the submission was okay before everything went idk, bad at the end? As soon as it ended, I called my parents to take me home. Can't stay in college when you are at your lowest/fragile state. I need my support system to assure me that it will be okay and that I have done my best.

Anyways, let's just hope for the best, shall we? Overall, mooting wasn't actually that bad. Over times, I'm sure I'll improve, it just that I need a lot of practice. But for now, I won't be entering any competition like I did last semester. Just let me breathe for a while.

So so so glad it's over. :)

That's all peeps! Till next time.

Lots of Love, Nurzafira Sabrina.