Summer Job

For the first time since my first college day, I took on a summer job. The job title is that of a legal researcher. (Is there an illegal researcher?). The job involves, among other things, going to different government agencies, asking for forms and procedures for the transactions handled by said offices. My boss described the tasks involved as the "practical side of the law", at least on these matters. She could not be more correct.

Classroom education teaches the student the "legal" side of things; substantive and procedural law. But the student is left on his or her own as to the translation of these so-called substantive and procedural law into the reality and actuality of their application. Let's take the case of a birth certificate. Not all law students have applied with the National Statistics Office (NSO) of an authenticated certified copy of his or her birth certificate, but every law student who have finished their first semester of law schooling knows of the birth certificate and its indispensability in proving certain legal matters. I myself has applied for and obtained a authenticated certified copy of my birth certificate from the NSO. School will teach the relevance of the birth certificate but it will not teach the student that he or she must be either very early (at least at the NSO located at East Avenue, QC) or, as was my style, almost at closing time at the NSO to avoid the very long queue; and that is only to get the appropriate application form. After filling that up, the applicant still has to fall in line again just to have his or her form submitted, pay, and, if lucky, fall in line again on the same day to receive the said copy of the birth certificate. The unlucky ones has to go back on another day to fall in line again to get his or her copy of the birth certificate. Did I mention that all these have to be done in an unairconditioned open walled structured heated up by the unforgiving rays of the sun coupled with the combined body heat and the accompanying sweaty smell of all the hundreds of people inside?

The job may be tiring but it sure is exciting.