Well. I ended that post because I thought I'd try and go back to get started on studying. But it turns out my head still hurts and I'm flat out of highlighter ink. Can you believe I've gone through four highlighters this semester alone? Studying can be so hard on the environment. Anyway, I am here to babble somemore, so.

#1. Have just watched The Paper Chase - which is, apparently, the movie about Law School; the movie for the lawyer-aspirant. Incidentally, the main character was a Contract Professor - who "didn't just know Contract [but] wrote the book on it"! They started with Damages for the Breach of Contract and fifteen minutes in (or something), were discussing the Carbolic Smoke Ball case. I must say, relating to a movie on that kind of level, was certainly a (very pleasant) first for me. And more importantly, very very motivational. Unfortunately, all sorts of obstacles lay themselves in my way (not least the fact that I do not have a Highlighter).

The exams are hardly over and already, I cannot wait to get started on a clean blank slate in a fresh new semester. In fact, I want to skip over all my holidays just to get there. I am that inspired. I am disgusted with how laidback I was about the first semester. Absolutely...sickened. It's not even that grades suddenly matter to me (really, all I want (and ever wanted) are good-enough grades to slide quietly into second year and still keep my double-degree option thingus open). I really am inspired in the cheesy...carpe-diem sort of way. Let's hope that Brand New Attitude makes up for my completely lacklustre one this past semester eh?

#2. Have also just watched Juno (yes, again.) It is a marvellously quirky film. For example, I am actually watched it...two weeks back! And it feels just like yesterday because I've been replaying it in my head so much. Makes me want to go back to Canada, too.

And I'd say more but I suddenly feel like playing Plants versus Zombies. It's not so much that I like it or that I'm addicted to it. But, there are just so few other things I am so excellent at!

(HAHAHA okaaaay, I should probably dial that humility down a notch).

Hello world.

While everybody's busy mugging for Contract, I'm being all sick and unproductive and...just, generally miserable. I have a throbbing headache that started on Sunday Morning and which literally reduced me to tears Sunday night, and what seems like a cold. I can only thank god the headache let up for the precious two and a half hours of Torts yesterday.

Why the boring blog post? So when I get my results slip back, I'll feel like shit but I'll be able to remind myself that it totally wasn't my fault that I started mugging twenty fours late.

Felt alright about the Torts test - but considering I felt like absolute shit after the previous Torts test and then got an A, that (feeling good) actually is a cause for concern. But really, I am quite past worrying - its over its over its over and if I weren't feeling so damned shitty, I'd be jumping with joy!

Hello Hello!

According to the newspaper, you might actually be able to grow breasts now. I didn't actually go beyond the eye-catching headline, so I'm fuzzy on the details. But really! The thought of like, going through puberty again is just so weird! And does it mean you have to prepare like...four sizes of bras (and *gasp!* training bras?!)? Bizarre stuff - BUT, I conclude, infinitely less weird than being breastless I suppose. (For um, females...anyway.) I used to think that if *touch wood* if and when I got diagnosed with some kind of horrible cancer? I'd bite the bullet and commit suicide before the sickness got to me. Now it seems like there are all sorts of...implements (like breast...seeds? Okay, most probably breast cells) to make your life a little bit more bearable, I'm second-thinking that option. Of course it's best if nothing ever ever happens.

Also, we are getting little Giant panda bears from China! Everybody's really excited about this but I'm really more excited about their enclosures. Which will be maintained at like, liveable temperatures of 18 to 22 degrees celcius. Never thought there'd be a day I said this, but: I WANNA LIVE IN A PANDA ENCLOSURE!!! ...Without the pandas, though - but I don't mind the Bamboo. Still (and on a more serious note), the news reminded me of some article I read in TIME like...three years ago (I know, right? I never remember important things but shitlikethat?! #$#!@#@!!!) Anyway...the article talked about how China's Panda Diplomacy is sneakier and cleverer than most people think because the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species specidies that China can only give pandas to domestic zoos. (no, I didn't actually remember this - GOOGLE is your friend, people!) So you know, by accepting a Giant Panda, you are like, totally, forfeiting your sovereignty and everything. BUT of course this was in the context of Taiwan - Chen Shui Bian's Taiwan. I highly doubt the same considerations apply here. ^^

OH and then they published, like, Record Price Highs of several categories of properties people have bought in the recent years. And, I was thinking, it must have sucked for people who paid those Record Price Highs to see on national news how they all got bad bargains. No, not even bad bargains but like...the Worst Bargains for that Category of Property in the history of Singapore's property market. Here's hoping they still really really really love their homes!

And then, there was this fascinating article by the former Attorney-General of the U.S of A, about how civil/criminal courts aren't adapted to try terrorist convicts. (Haven't gone into Criminal Law and am probably using bad terminology but basically, something about how the Defendant has the (privilege?) of hearing the Prosecutor's arguments and about how this compromises the state's intelligence gathering...stuff). It was a long read but worthwhile. Which scares me that I'm getting boring because I'm not so into Law School that I'm not aware about what is deathly boring to the ordinary person of the streets and when it is just not cool to get geekily excited about something like that.

...The bottom-line is, really, that the newspaper can be quite interesting. If you skip the booooring bits about the APEC summit, that is. Every economic summit/talk/conference sounds more or less the same to me. Affirm the need for (environmentally) sustainable growth, publicly agree with free trade but don't really reduce protectionist barriers, blahblahblah. But it's really not that I'm not being jaded, I'm just being...well, ignorant. (And if I happen to be accurate...well, sadness.)

Hello World.

It is 10.00am and I have just gotten back from submitting my final SLS assignment (EVER!!!...though I didn't actually mind the module too much) and I am sweaty as hell. Because I, forgetting that this is Singapore and thinking that 9.30am might be a swell time for a leisurely morning stroll back, strolled back. It is always, ALWAYS a bad idea to "stroll" back - but I always forget. Alot of times, I decided to walk home to save a few minutes of bad, awkward, stilted conversation at the bus-stop because I am odd and socially inept. And that always turns out to be crappy cost-benefit analysis.

Ooh speaking of...economics(??!), I've finally thought of a (Proper) Good with External Benefits. Forget that example about a woman spritzing on perfume - that is just laaame-o. The proper example really should be about pest control in a private estate - you know, where they fumigate the entire place with absolutely noxious fumes of pesticide? Yeah, but the pesticide kind of...wafts outside of the private estate so that neighbours benefit also. A little. And it is the purrfect example because in the short-term, it is also an example of External Costs. Because I mean...have you smelt that stuff?! Stinks to high heavens - perhaps its not really the poison but the stench that kills those lil' buggers.

Righto. I have to get back to like, contract now? Because I am one-tenth through the case-list. And I know people say not to read all the cases BUT see, I have a secret desire to actually finish them all. This is not because I am ambitious (*eye-roll* God, no.) but because I am actually paranoid. Like, I keep thinking that if I miss just one case out? That will be the case that is directly and perfectly on point with the hypothetical factual matrix. And then I'd just...die. And I think this because I have had a good history of arse luck. This hasn't been obvious yet but that's only because we haven't actually had EXAMS.

Exams are the bane of my existence and I am not whinging about them the way people always do because "god, its such a pain to mug", etc. etc. I actually don't mind working. Just, I'd like my mode of assessment to be an assignment - something I can do at my own pace and time. I'm the sort of person who needs to get inspired to produce anything worth reading (and if you are reading this post, this is obviously not one of those moments, hurrhurr). Or...you know...even projects are good. (even though, most of the time, group work's abit of a drag). Also because somehow, I never do as well as other people at exams - even though my daily work might be consistently better, yadayadayada. (I'm not saying it is...I'm saying it might be...but you know what! It is! And...you know, has been.) And it's been like that all my life! ARGH!

Assignments are...okay. Either that or I am just not taking them seriously enough. While everybody was pulling all-nighters over this latest SLS assignment, I went to sleep at ten thirty pm. Even my 8-year old cousin slept later because he was reading A Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Now I am praying to God this doesn't translate to anything completely disastrous. Please don't let Time Spent on Work = Marks Gotten, please please please!

ANYWAY! EXAMS. EXAMS. EXAMS. MUGMUGMUG. FUCKITYFUCKFUCK.

Goodbye!

Glen Goei's Blue Mansion movie will finally be out tomorrow!

And I have been waiting for like, forever! Ever since I saw the (awesome) trailers before the (not-so-awesome) The Ugly Truth movie, that is. The two page spread on ST's Life! however, seems pretty ominous. The ST people seem to have loved it (not that I care particularly for their opinions), saying how it "plugs a gap in Singapore cinema" and "sets the bar at a new high" (...by the way, three stars is a new high?! Aww, come on!) But they also went on to say: 

It is about the power, opulence and repression of the upper class. (okay, severely paraphrased, I'm sorry)..."The movie has elements of a murder myster, ghost story, slapstick and comedy of manners. Kwek, 30, a former ST journalist says the movie can be read as an allegory of contemporary Singapore: 'Think of Blue Mansion as Singapore and all its goings-on as part of the life of this country.' (At this point, I was like: okay, all goings-on? Now that is A LOT. That is Ambitious. And then...wait for it:) Without giving too much away, the movie touches on racial prejudice and homophobia."

I think it's because Glen Goei sold his house for the movie and its monstrously expensive (for a Singapore film). And when you spend that much on the vehicle, you wanna heap as much Message on it as is possible. Get the most mileage, milk the most worth. I just hope the movie still carries through! But whatever the case, I have seen the trailer and I know it is the most aesthetic thing that's ever come out of Singapore so far. And the actors are awesome theatre heavyweights. And they got a bunch of industry experts to tend to the technical things. Reasons enough for me to go watch the movie. ( :

Hello world.

I have a lot of rubbish I'd like to talk about today, so:

(1) THE LIBRARY

I am a New and Reformed Me. I just spent like, one and a half hours at the library...researching? Well, I kind of was supposed to spend it researching because it is the sort of activity you cannot do anywhere else and hence, the only reason why I'd set foot into the library in the first place. But hmm, spent the time on LawNet instead - what can I say? I'm a product on the INTERNET GENERATION, YO. Wasn't a very clever deicison, I suppose because now I have to go back a second time for the print material I shall have to peruse. In my defence, I fully intended to get to the print material as soon as I finished with my online scouting but the bone-chill got to me unexpectedly quickly. I don't really know why the library's air-conditioners are set to simulate some kind of living morgue - perhaps Ye Olde Lawe Bookes preserve better like that.

ANYWAY, apart from the freezer conditions, I'm happy to report that I have found the perfect campout for the New and Reformed (Mugger) Me!
(Hurrhurr, right after I spent like a whole post refuting how I might possibly be considered a mugger, yeah?) The library is QUITE conducive for studying! You can't talk very much because Fellow Library Users are Overly Competitive Dean's Lister Wannabes and hence, completely vindictive. Like, if it weren't for the fact that your screams would probably disturb the holy sanctity that is the library, they would probably murder you with a very blunt instrument. Like the ALLD. Criminal Reports Volume Kristi and I were giggling so uncontrollably over. (You know! "All THE Criminal Reports?! HAHAHAaa...okay, nevermind. It was funny when we first saw it. (and when we second saw it and third saw it and...)) So yes, you can't talk very much - ergo (YAY I USED 'ERGO'), you don't aren't supposed to get very distracted.

OH and clean toilets! Always important, yes yes.

And I guess I could someday get past the hideous bright blue and orange shelves? Someday. It'd just take a bit of practice but...I could manage. (Seriously though?! Way to ruin a perfectly good piece of colonial architecture?! I mean, okay, I get that those are the NUS school colours and all but that's totally no reason to go about painting everything in orange and blue. I mean, why stop at the library shelves? Why don't we have the horizontal slates...thingies on the outside painted bright orange and blue alternately? Why don't we have bright orange and blue buses ferrying people?! Uh! Okaaay, we already have that. Fugly NUS bus, check!)

(2) MY PENCIL CASE : (

And secondly, I left my pencil case at home! Which means that I will be stationery-less the whole entire week! (Or that I'll finally be forced into restocking my stationery collection. So anyway, I left my thumbdrive and all the important work that was in it in my pencil case. So today, I got my brother to E-mail everything over. And for all the hassle I caused him, I got a very stern reminder to "BRING YOUR THUMBDRIVE BACK NEXT TIME". 

Thoughts - Where's the big picture, brother? I ask for my thumbdrive, which is in my pencil case? And the thing you asked me never to forget again is my thumbdrive?! Okay, but very minor issue.

(3) MY (POOR, UNIRONED) CLOTHES

ARGH! My clothes take forever to get to me! So if I come to school dressed very, very sloppily, you must understand. I simply do not have my full wardrobe at my disposal! And WHY???!  Because the maid has such a warped sense of priorities! No maid can replace me trusty Mummy, I suppose! 

Anyway, I say that because today, I saw her ironing my cousin's punjabi suits! (Or whatever you call them, you must forgive me if I don't really know the names of all the ethnic wear in the world) ANYWAY, HOW OFTEN DO PEOPLE NEED PUNJABI SUITS?! ESPECIALLY WHEN DEEPAVALI IS JUST OVER?! (Okay, yes, I accept that they probably need it "MORE OFTEN THAN THE AVERAGE CHINESE PERSON" but STILL!) I kinda need everyday clothes like...oooh, EVERYDAY?! 

ARGH! And all my clothes are linting like mad/ losing colours thanks to her! And my mum actually gave her a deepavali red/green/blue(???) packet thing this Saturday as a thankyou for doing my laundry. Pfffft.

OH WELL.

In keeping with my New and Reformed Mugger Me...thing, I shall now scoot. And...you know, mug.

HULLO! Okay, so I realise that this must be my billionth post this weekend BUT I really need. to. fangirl about/over (?) this completely awesome movie I watched this Thursday night. (when I was supposed to be preparing for Friday's Torts tutorial but...ladeedaa~! Hm.)

Okay, so this is a movie that will like, blow your minds, people! ...And obviously its haunting (you know, in the melancholic,beautiful way some utterly precious movies are) because I am still mulling over it a few days after I watched it. It is...you might have heard of it, The Professional! Well actually, its offical title is Leon or Leon: The Professional, but that's...not quite a lousy title for it, in my opinion. (Whoa oh, Cheryl, playing the director now eh? Getting over our heads are we?) ANYWAY, I can't even find a suitable video on YouTube for The Blog. This official trailer shall have to suffice for now:



Just...multiply its awesomeness by like, a billion? And mentally edit out that...stupid, goofy, I'm-trying-to-be-intense/sexy fake-husky narration (what's with it, man.) And the...church music (??!) at the end.

...Focus on its...Italian-mafia glamour...thing. And on Natalie Portman's intense performance (first professional appearance - probably sealed the deal for her, too). And on Gary Oldman's deranged-killer act (top ten psycho-killers of all time, yo! Very inspiring. Very Heath Ledger-in-Batman-as-The-Joker cool.) And on Jean Reno's...well, everything. (You know, its not my kind of genre so I don't really have the vocabulary for it.)

The point is, nothing I can say about it will do it justice. So if I can't persuade you, I'm just going to have to bug you into it with all the crude, blunt force with which I rammed He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (which is not a B-grade romcom. As we all know now.) down your throats. (Sigh, these artsy film people, they sure don't make my job easy with all their unenticing titles and trailers...) As in, I'll trap you in some house and MAKE it compulsory viewing for all my vistors/captives.

And why not? You'll love me for it. (-:

P.S. It really really isn't as gratituously, mindlessly violent and gory as it looks in the trailers. Which, I suspect, only panders to the average Joe on the couch with his chip and his beer and his potato sack belly. REALLY.

So I was reading the Straits Times the other day (Ha! Who'd have thought I'd be that bored.) when I came across this pedantic article about the difference between 'enormity' and 'enormousness'. And it appears that like, 90% of the English-speaking world's gone and misapplied the word "enormity" which basically means "outrageous or heinous character" as in "the enormity of war crimes" as some convenient (and far better sounding) substitute for "enormousness" which actually sounds like... a fictional word.

You know, when you don't actually know the noun form of some adjective and you just...attach a -ness suffix willy-nilly? Like, you know, bimboticness. Not a word, people! (Oh! Actually, it appears no other conjugation of "bimbo" exists! According to the all-authoritative...dictionary.com. How's that blow to your realilty? Crushes your spirit, doesn't it.)

Anyway, I am digressing. So I was reading that article and feeling frankly confused about what I should think about it. On the one hand, The New Oxford English Dictionary's incorporated "greatness of size" into its definition. But! The Old Oxford English Dictionary (which is really just...the Oxford English Dictionary because nobody wants to admit they're old) is sticking with the out-of-fashion meaning of it. So I suppose, you have strong argument both ways.

But today, I have decided that a querulous article nitpicking about things like the difference between "enormousness" and "enormity" is absolute... pishposh in the light of problems like...people not using the proper words or phrases. You know, like "self-depreciating" instead of "self-deprecating". I suppose people think its simply..."the opposite of appreciating" but nope, its "deprecating". Actually, dictionary.com (again) says that "deprecating" is technically the same as "depreciating" but I don't know...self-depreciating? It sounds like...auto-depreciating as in...the value of a car self-depreciates even without your going and scratching it.

And it's like... you know, that's the sort of problem we should solve. The enormity (all definitions of that word "enormity") of that sort of problem's far more pressing than quibbling over stupid things like enormity versus enormousness.

...Can you believe that something as puny as the dropping of an 'i' spawned this whole post of absolute...gibberish? Well, I've been reading cases for the past fifteen minutes and I feel like stabbing myself already and so... I can actually believe that I'd just posted what I've just posted.

I'll just have to (someday) accept that I'm more stick-in-the-mud than I'd like to think.

***

By the way, one day I read my cousin's book title: "Man vs. Beast" as "Man and Beast". And she glared at me so witheringly like I was three and mentally retarded. I'm also seeing potential torts of negligence everywhere. It's quite horrible; it's like I've been forever psychologically scarred by school and I shall never be the same person again. And then I suppose, I consented to the education and so I really shouldn't complain. 

But ah! Was I fully aware of the kind of evil enterprise I consented to? Dun dunnn~!!!

(Yes okay, I shall shut up and get back to...Clunis v. Camden.
...As in, Clunis and Camden.)

Hello World!

I have been reenergised in my bold, heroic quest of...scraping by law school! (Yes, isn't that stirring, isn't that just absolutely... inspirational and  wonderfully aspirational and totally ambitious.)

But anyway, I have been in a spiritual dump for weeks on end recently (academics-wise, anyway.) Haven't felt like settling down in a good... uncomfortably silent spot with my books and my handouts and my laptop in overdrive in a very, very long while. Just this Friday, felt like faking a doctor's note to get out of Torts. Just this Thursday, said something in SLS which made me sound like a complete dunce because I couldn't bother to think things through properly. Just this Wednesday, bungled through Contract completely cluelessly (and my Morrocan lunch was doing odd things to my gut all through the marathon two and a half hours worth of tutorial). Only thing I did right was to get myself to Haagen Dazs Tuesday night, for a sinfully gluttonous pig-out. Only thing wrong with that - SLS assignment was due only a few hours away.  

I think its got something to do with the fact that my social life has gone...swimmingly and theres an inherent inverse relationship between the two. Somewhere along the way, I got absolutely horrendous at balancing. Every star has to either burn out or fade away, I suppose and after all that dynamic juggling I managed in Junior College, it is time I actually sucked at something. (Yeaaaap. Okay, who am I kidding.)

But anyway - good to know not all of my life is sucking. I'm only nineteen and its too early to be jaded. Especially when my future looks so...terribly...bleak. Got plenty of years ahead to absolutely hate myself. I already know (1) everybody will hate me because of my profession (and that is if I do scrape through lawschool, otherwise (1a) everybody will know me as the sad wannabe lawyer loser); (2) I won't have much a love life much less a nice supportive family to fall back on and (3) the earth is only going to get warmer because of global warming and shit. (you know, whoopee! for broiling Singapore yeah?)

...Depressing.

SO moving on. This was supposed to be a bright and happy post about how I've refocused my energies on my studies, rediscovered my goals in life and revitalised my seach for brilliance and all that...cheery shit. Ahem. So yes. I shall do well! I shall! Or at least I shan't skip off to play when there are like, lectures going on anymore! And I shall think before I speak...always! And I shall finish my homework! And yeaaah - see, I reaaally don't get why people think I am a mugger.

Or you know, worse - a clubber. Mugger I vaguely understand? It's because I'm reserved and I look like the sort of sad sack with no social life. The sort of creep who camps out at the library. The sort of eager beaver who stalks professors in the hallways! The sort of...shit, have I insulted like, a quarter of the school population or what? See I'm awkward? And I'm not particularly adept socially? But I am not a mugger. *dagger-glares all round*

And neither am I a clubber - nope, nowhere close. It's...odd that people think that. I can't even explain. I don't have porno pictures on facebook and I don't...well, I was going to say - skip the morning lectures, but then...I do skip alot of morning lectures. But anyway, just know that I'm not. I'm waaaay too much of a dork you know. 

Tonight, I just realised that I like Jesse McCartney. That is just...pathetically primary school. And not "hip" like...I dunno, "Lady Gaga" and um... "Flo-Ri-Da" (or however you spell it). I'm a very, very sad person.

Oh hohoho, I'm going through my blog now. How absolutely embarassing!

Have I really, really lived the last nineteen years of my life as a total klutz? WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY STOP ME?! Oh dearie me. I weep for myself. When its time to sit my little grandchildren on my lap next time and tell them about their granny's glorious life? I'll lie the way only a true lawyer can. (And maybe that'll be the only time in my life I get to be anything remotely lawyerly - because surely, I'm not going to have the "kickass intelligence" part of the deal...so i shall settle for the immorality of the profession.) (Whoa oh, what is with the self-loathing. Guess its penance for the truly embarassing things I have said over the past few months.)

Hm, lets see. Why don't we start with my Work Fiascos!

1. Here's how not to get off on the right foot with your colleagues:

"...Also made my first workplace blunder today and it was EMBARASSINGG!!! And like the story of my life, socially awkward.

Teacher X: Welcome! Did you come from NIE?
Me: No, I came from VJC.
Teacher X: Ooh! So everything must be fresh in your head - in fact, your GP is probably better than some of us here.
Me: Uh yeah, I hope so.

And then my heart fell. Obviously, I was referring to the "still fresh in your head part" as opposed to the suggestion that I might be better than some of the teachers there (Good lord, no. Honestly, GP is not exactly my forte.) but but BUT!!! HOW DID I LET THAT HAPPEN!!!"

2. Here's how you make your student's completely hate your vile guts:

"My first GP lesson as a GP teacher crashed and burned like a kamikaze aircraft and died an untimely death. A very untimely death, I might add - a death 1 hour and 30 minutes too early, 1 hour and 30 minutes before the bell went and I could dismiss them. Literally everything that could have gone wrong, went disastrously. First, I walked in without whiteboard markers. (OH! And when I did actually get whiteboard markers - they too didn't work!) And then, on one of Singapore's most disgustingly humid and muggy days, the fan happily died on me. Maybe the fan decided it's spare itself the painful misery of watching me burn like a critter under a magnifying glass under a sun. (What a suitably tortured simile) And then, in a stroke of brilliance and genius, I came up with an idea that is literally record-breaking in its Crappiness.

I told the students to introduce themselves and since they are all reticent teenagers and won't say anything about their personalities, to tell me about their first impressions to GP. I was on a suicide mission, I tell you. An autopilot programme to the darkest depths of hell. After the first five people all gave their two cents worth on how GP SUCKS SHIT, I'd died twenty times inside. And then, I ended my Introduction to General Paper half an hour too early. AND THEN!!! Because I am not supposed to dismiss my classes early, I held them back and shoved FOUR ESSAY QUESTIONS in their face.

FOUR ESSAY QUESTIONS. In an introductory GP class meant to inspire and motivate them to love the subject. FOUR BLOODY ESSAY QUESTIONS. I could see myself as a student squirming and screaming inside.  Worse, I could see me as a teacher from a student's perspective, droning on like a menopausal sixty-year old bitch about technical, abstract things like Thesis Statements, Absolute Propositions and...god, who really cares."

Okay. I thought I could get through more but I don't have the stomach for it.

My life sucks. Goodbye! and have a nice weekend.