"Yeah, Hello.

Um. I don't know if this is going to make you feel worse about yourself?

But uh, if I do well, it's (sure as hell) not because I am conscientious."

(...And that totally didn't smack of arrogance - as I (have always) conscientiouslyyy maintained, it's because I am lucky.)

It's damn chicken-shit to post "Retorts you are to Chicken-Shit to Do in Real Life"?
But GOD I can't help it - hate hate hate it when people think I am some kind of no-life mugger.

 ...And I'm not even going to count the ways in which I have more of a life than you.

AND WHY?! Because I'm going uh...CLUBBING.
Yes, you heard me. I have Contract at 4.30pm later and I haven't done my homework.
But I've never let stupid tutorials bother me!
And yes, right now. At 9.19AM on a Wednesday morning.
You know, because Ladies Night starts 14 hours earlier for happening people like me. HURR.

Yes. I'm cool like that.
...yo.

HELLO!

I used to really really like having pitch black hair, but too many people think I'm the same age as my cousin (which is 14, which I am not) so I need to have it coloured. Some people dye gray hair black to look young, some people dye (beautifully) black *sobsob* hair...brown (or something) to look old hahaha the dye industry must be thriving. So anyway, I want to dye my hair but I'm not willing to fork out the $80 it takes to do that.

(OHMYGOD?! WHY DOES A REGULAR DYE EVEN COST THAT MUCH IN THE FIRST PLACE?! It's not like I am asking to goldplate my hair?!) 

Anyway, rant being over, I went to get myself one of those Liese foam dye things - which cost like $20? But I'm really not sure how it's going to turn out. At least now if my hair turns out looking like a cheap hackjob, uh...you will know its because it was a cheap hackjob?!! (Rather than assume I was conned into some $80 hackjob, that is. HAHA scant consolation.)

***

Had a great time Friday night as well as yesterday.

To be honest, I'm so dead tired and busy these days, every social obligation feels like an obligation of any other kind.

BUT I always end up having so much fun and being so rejuvenated and...remoralised(?!) - and I am really thankful for that.  

Met the Aaron, Beatrice, Diane and Yixiang on Friday night; celebrated Kristi's birthday at Teoheng yesterday and then had an A11 Tuan2 Yuan2 Fan4/ Birthday Dinner at ThaiPan last night. All super super super fun!

***

OH YES. I need to do the world a favour and spread the Tokyo Jihen love hahaha.


This is Shiina Ringo.

And my new dream is to sing like her, haha. (:

I PASSED MY JAPANESE TEST!!! YAY YAY YAY!!!

(But like, barely - hahaha but I DON'T CARE!!!)

Waiting around now for my consultation with my Contract tutor now - totally bummed out that I have to wait three-plus hours for a consultation about a subject that I hate hate hate. Wanted to cancel, citing some fictional (Japanese? hahaha) test as an excuse - but that's mean. If she can put in the extra hours seeing us one on one, I can't get off my fat lazy arse and meet her at 4pm in school.

Am really really tired now but feeling rather accomplished!

Actually managed to complete like, 80% of my LAWR readings, 90% of my Legal Theory readings and and and!!! PASS MY JAPANESE TEST!!! (:

Semester Two is crazy hectic compared to Semester One - but (1) I'm doing things I love and (2) somehow the mad rush only makes me feel more motivated than ever about things.

Hence, the daily, weekly, monthly resolutions.

When work comes in in slivery dribs and drabs, its easy to fall into the lull of boredom and lethargy and its hard for things to pick up from there. 

Still, a little time-off would be much appreciated. Am feeling the pressure of juggling work and relationships already...

...and Horses! According to the Chinese Zodiac Horoscope thing at the neighbourhood community centre club (haha, who they kidding!) This will be our main challenge for the year!!! 

(hahaha and the funny - no, actually...horrifying??! - thing is that I find myself being much inclined toward studying rather than going out. I don't think I'll be much fun if I went out anyway. Nothing but school in my head to talk about. Like, hello, just look at this blog?!?!)

Hello All!

I was pretty adamant about finally having a Proper Weekend this week, so I pushed back my Japanese test for the third time! HAHA, it should've only been the second time postponing it but the first time I called to push it from Thursday to Sunday, I said "Saturday" by accident! What a doofus!!!

BUT HEY! Learning the names of the days of the week was a secondary one thing so obviously, I have forgotten everything! So then, I had to call to change from Saturday to Sunday. And then I called again to push it from Sunday to (this coming) Tuesday because I wanted to go out with Diane and Yixiang last night! I felt so terrible for the receptionist people!

Anyway, went to Overeasy last night (when I totally should have been mugging!!!) and spent close to $40 on drinks (WHEN I AM SUPER BROKE!)! OMG! I am so spineless and weedy, I'd hate myself if I weren't also such an egomaniac! Oh well, at least I had fun (finally). Kind of making up for my not studying today! But the weather is disgusting and it's a tad close to impossible trying to cram 36 chapters of Japanese grammar, isn't it?!

Oh well, resolutions for the week (because I need to salvage the mess of this week):
#1. Somehow get through all 36 chapters by Tuesday;
#2. Read at least 60% of my Legal Theory material and
#3. Complete the whole of the Criminal Law seminar sheet

Cannot go into class unprepared again! Need...to...kick...disgusting...slovenly habits!!!

こんにちは！

“もし、自己紹介の必要がありますが、どうすればいいんですか？”

今日，その問題はシャワーをした時、考えっていました。

もし，私はEW 先生になれば、必ずそう言います：

“みんな、私はEW先生です！世界に一番怖い先生です！趣味は学生たちをつぶす！嘘つきは大嫌い、絶対に許さない！
はい！学生たち、ふざけないでくださいよ！私の言ったことは忘れたやろうは全部死ぬ！”

***

HAHAHA OMG.
Translation of what I said (or rather, what I was trying to say):

Hello!

"If asked, what sort of a self-introduction should I give?"

This was the question I pondered while showering.

If I were Ms.EW (haha what unfortunate initials), I'd say:

"Everybody!
I am Ms. EW!
The scariest teacher on earth!
My hobby is to destroy students! 
I hate liars!
I will never forgive them! 
Yes!
Students, don't mess around with me!
The bastards who forget my words shall all die!"

***

How lame is that! I just wanted an excuse to throw out all the awful Japanese words I have picked up watching dramas. HAHA.

Hello World!

Super Hectic Week is almost over!

Or at least, the one thing that has been winding me up in knots (LAWR Presentation) is! I thought it went really well too! But I have to keep reminding myself not to be completely lulled over by a false sense of relief and not to be overly self-congratulatory. While it is true that I have "weathered" most of this horrible week, it has come at some terrible cost - and I ain't too proud of myself.

First! I have only seen my dear friends for a total of like...zero minutes this week! I only passed Jonny and Matthew twice in the corridoors! And once was only to hear Jonny's remark that we haven't seen each other at all this week! And when I met Matthew, it was only to hear that he had to go off to meet his LAWR group. SADNESS - I feel really terrible about having such a radically different timetable from the rest of my friends.

As I once told Kristi, I think somebody in the administrative department is Out to Get Me. First, my Contract Law and Torts Law tutorial groups are entirely different! This makes it hard to get close with either - given there are only that many tutorial sessions. And it's just not fair that I should have one less group of people to be close with! Then, I have to get a timetable that is completely incompatible with the few friends I have! Such nonsense! 

And oh, second is that I only got through the week by...in essence, entirely circumventing some of my obligations. And that is cheating and I know it - went into Contract yesterday without reading even a single question in my tutorial sheet of...three questions; skipped Criminal lecture today and postponed my Japanese test to Sunday. Am also planning to cancel tuition since now I have to have my test. How terrible is that! Only the third week into lessons and I've thrown all my (highly manageable, I must concede) New Year Resolutions into the toilet.

So yes, no reason to be self-congratulatory at all. Tsk.

***
Hypothetical LAWR Presentation Scenario we cooked up while waiting for our turn (and this was to supposedly reflect our personalities, hahaha)

ZH: "Clearly then, the ambiguity in the statute should be resolved in our...oh fuck Tommy, fuck Laurie, fuck transsexualism! What am I even doing in law school?!!!" *dashes out yelling*

SB: "OMG?!!!"

ME: "Ahem...So anyway. Turning to the issue of negligence, we have three sub-issues..."

***

Me: "Would you still be scared of sleeping alone if you left the toilet door open?"
(my cousin shares a connecting toilet with his older brother in the adjacent room, if you know what I mean)

N: !!! Of course!

Me: But why! If anything happens, he can come and protect you!

N: No! The aliens can abduct him first before they come after me! OR they could come from the roof! OR they could come from my window!

Me: OMG?! You believe in aliens?! You know they don't exist right!

N: *all indignation* Not to our knowledge!

HAHAHA OMG, I suppose the right question should have been why he thought I'd be any good in the event an alien invaded.
House Lizards get the better of me.

***

PS. WATCH LIAR GAME. IT IS AMAZING!

Hello!

Woke up feeling tonnes better today - sometimes all you really need is a rejuvenating seven and a half hours of sleep to get going again. I know this might be shortlived because Week Three of Semester Two promises to be yet more trying. I have got something Major due every day of the week:

Monday - LAWR Presentation on Respondent's Best Arguments
(lots and lots of work to do for this)
Tuesday - Legal Theory Presentation on Fuller's Concept of Law... or Positivism
( oh lordy lord. step one: FIGURE OUT WHAT IT IS I AM SUPPOSED TO DO)
Wednesday - Contract Tutorial on Discharge by Breach
Thursday - JLPT 3 TEST!!! and
(okay, I know this is a sort of "serve me right for volunteering" situation so I shan't complain)
Friday - Criminal Law Seminar Questions

But I woke up today, feeling really grateful because life could really be that much worse. I'd tell you anyday that I hate groupwork (because there will always be freeloaders or overly demanding, excessively unforgiving freakos (though that usually tends to be me) or people who just...work on entirely different wavelengths, as Soum pointed out). BUT the two presentation groups I have now are truly awesome!!! And...yeah, hopefully I can cling to that knowledge and somehow find the strength for Week Three.

Somebody once said I was "well-adjusted" and somebody else said I seemed very "blessed".

Those feel like some of the best things anybody has ever said about me!
And hopefully, I can (1) remember how "blessed" I am (though I am not religious) and (2) stay well-adjusted. ( :

Such a cheesy post - but sometimes when you feel as absolutely rundown as I have for the past two weeks or so, you really need a cheesy pickmeup. Okay, and you need to start getting down to work.

So, bye!

hello.

Been in a pretty lousy mood these past two weeks.

First, I've had whole series of nightmares! And not spread out over the two weeks, but within single nights! Whatever have I done to deserve this! And they've been leaving me flat out exhausted and like, haunted with sadness. Thing about nightmares, is that they ruin your day right from your very waking moments. Plus, they've been about my loved ones hating me and abandoning me and such! So, it's not like I can just dismiss them as early as possible! There is not one way my life could get worse...and I don't want that to be my famous last words.

And second, I left my wallet at home yesterday. So I had to walk home. And that is not as awful as it sounds because it's not like I live...hours and hours away by foot. But yesterday was a long day, and one of those days I was left zombified thanks to the nightmares (one of which reduced me to tears. ): ) from the night before and I'd fully intended to take the bus. And then, on my walk in, I saw a dog shitting and its stupid shithead owner left the shit there (I hate it when people don't clean up after their pooches - it makes us as bad as the Shanghainese. And they're the people who use toxic, cancer-causing cadmium in toys and jewelry.) Anyway, that made me feel bad because it was like...a metaphor for how somebody's pissing/shitting all over my Path of Life.

Sigh. I hope this raincloud hanging over my life clears up quick. It is not doing my morale any good.

*The only bright side is my Japanese class on Thursdays!!! (Even though I swear I have never felt as lost or confused or behind everybody in possibly, my entire life and certainly Semester 1 of Law School. Such Sadness!)

HELLO!

Am super excited about starting my JLPT-2 Prep Course tomorrow!!!

Guess what the Sensei said, though, when I went to register.

(And guess who understood all of the rapid-fire Japanese she said it in!!!)
(YOURS TRULY! YAY!)
(SO EXCITED I am answering my own rhetorical questions)

ANYWAY. She said: "The JLPT-2 Prep Course, huh. It's going to require an awful lot of studying. And the test is crazily difficult. And you have a 50% chance of passing. And the course will be intensive. And we won't have time to do anything fun at all. And there will no pictures in your textbook or handouts. Honestly, it will be boring."

How could I not be persuaded by such a hardsell. HAHAHA.

Really hope I'll have the strength to juggle the demands of school and Japanese! (If I were religious, this would be where I *insert prayer*)

School's already pretty taxing! Although I've had two days off already, I'd to spend both researching! Such sadness.

BUT I WON'T BE SAD!

Because now I am excited. :D

HELLO WORLD!

Bit down in the dumps with the start of school but on the bright side, have encountered several lovely quotes!

"It's like this. A dead plaintiff is rarely worth more than a living severely-maimed plaintiff. However, if it's a long slow agonizing death as opposed to a quick drowning or car wreck, the value can rise considerably.

A dead adult in his 20s is generally worth less than one who is middle aged. A dead woman less than a dead man. A single adult less than one who's married. Black less than white. Poor less than rich.

The perfect victim is a white male professional, 40 years old, at the height of his earning power, struck down at his prime.

And the most imperfect, well in the calculus of personal injury law, a dead child is worth the least of all."

- Jan Schlictmann, A Civil Action

...Perhaps not lovely as much as poignant, then.

"Precision is often regarded as a hyper-cautious characteristic. It is importantly the opposite. Vague statements are the hardest to convict of error. Obscurity is the oracle's self-defence. To be precise is to make it as easy as possible for others to prove one wrong.

That is what requires courage."

- Timothy Williamson

These, and the most excellent of articles: the Speluncean Explorers make me so utterly thankful to have gotten Arun for Legal Theory. (Even though it would appear from my SLS grades that I don't meet his standards. :( Sigh.)

"...No superior wants a servant who lacks the capacity to read between the lines. The stupidest housemaid knows that when she is told "to peel the soup and skim the potatoes" her mistress does not mean what she says.

She also knows that when her master tells her to "drop everything and come running" he has overlooked the possibility that she is at the moment in the act of rescuring the baby from the rain barrel."

- Lon L.Fuller, The Speluncean Explorers

hahaha, okay I should stop geeking people out.

...you know! Like, freaking people out?! Except...I'm a geek?

Ha. Well. I gave warning.