somehow, the four different floors of the UP law library has different personalities.

the first floor is where the newspaper-reading, internet-browsing, and lex-using social butterflies all converge. the second floor is holy ground. now, legal bibliography taught me that this is where are the AMJUR and foreign publications are located but the unofficial curriculum of law taught me that this is where you stay if you seriously wanted to study. the third floor is where you stay to study with your classmates, friends, and anyone you wouldn't mind sharing a table with. it's also where the reserve section is, and the photocopying machine. then there's the fourth floor. students who study here are the hardcore law students: read, memorize, read, internalize, read, memorize again, pack-up, go to class and perfect the exam.

now, if you really know me well, you'd know that the library is not the place to look for me. i'd sit on the railing beside the library, on the steps behind the library, even make small talk with classmates in front of the library but not inside the library. once in a while i pop in the library to pick up my readings from ate con, the photocopying princess, and sometimes, i have to venture inside the library to look for some classmates, but i believe i've spent more hours loitering in the fishball stand than studying in the library.

however, one and a half weeks after my supervised legal research ten-page draft was due, i realized that i have to actually spend time in the library. i tentatively used the computer in the first floor to check out the available books and inwardly flinched when i realized that should i want to write a decent paper, i'd have to go up to the fourth floor.

while i admit i am an awful student, i have no plans of not graduating simply because i was too lazy to do my SLR paper. and so i trudged up the stairs and tentatively knocked on the fourth floor door so the librarian would open the door for me.

somehow, i made it through the experience. the librarian was kind enough to teach me how to use the book which contains a list of all the journal articles ever published. i learned that while you cannot bring the books home, you can bring them to the photocopying machine in the third floor and they'll be the one to return it. i learned that UP law has a pretty decent collection, and that there's actually a journal that's called "william and mary law journal" which sounds weird cause it sounds more like a lounge act that a serious publication. i mean come on, william and mary?

maybe this saturday i'd be back. maybe i'd even bring my commercial law review outline and do some hardcore studying.

maybe, the fourth floor is the key to an invitation to the order of the purple feather.

i only wish i didn't realize it when i was already in my last semester.