With the new de-blocking system in place at the UP College of Law, the traditional block culture may be gone. Starting this year, only freshmen will get to have the same classmates in all their classes. After their first year, UP Law students can choose their professors and classes individually, through a bidding and registration system similar to US law schools, apparently. There are various reasons to this, as explained by the Dean during his talk with Batch 2012 yesterday. Ultimately it is to give the individual student the privilege to take the classes and the schedule that would best suit his needs that would hopefully result to better performance.

Despite the de-blocking policy, however, my blockmates and I coordinated among each other, and along with other blocks in Batch 2012, in order for original blockmates to remain with each other in our classes this first semester of our second year. I guess most of us have become clingy with each other the past year. Undoubtedly, and speaking from experience, one’s blockmates is one of the more reliable support groups in law school a law student can have. Indeed, the bond that uniquely shared experiences can forge among law students can be strong for some.

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Because we know our second semester is going to be more stressful than the first, and that we possibly wouldn’t have any other chance to enjoy carefree leisure afternoons, my law blockmates and I had a lunch and swimming / badminton party the day before registration and enrollment.

It was potluck lunch and I brought the rice. Others brought the usual pork barbecue, hotdogs, chicken pastel, softdrinks, graham cake, and chips. One of my blockmates prepared a special block awards program. It’s hilarious. After lunch, some of us went to play badminton. I had to leave ahead of everyone, though, because of some meetings in the afternoon.