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And just like that, HALF of my exchange experience is over.

How I've changed...

1. My brain has degenerated to the pits. I can't concentrate on studying or pay attention in class. Hours fly past without me knowing what I did exactly with that time (searching for random recipes maybe?)

2. Injured my left groin muscle and as a result, has damn cui flexibility (which wasn't very good to begin with). I NEED TO PULL A SCORPION.

3. HAS BECOME FAT. I swear, all this happened within the winter break. When before I didn't have a tummy, now it BULGES out as if I've been gorging myself on buffets all day long. Well. I haven't been gorging on buffets, but sweets of all kinds... Shortbread, ginger and chocolate chunk cookies, all butter quadraple belgian chocolate cookies, shortbread rounds with chocolate chunks, mandarin orange cheesecakes. When you have to suck in just to button your jeans, you know for certain that something is up. I swear, I must have put on at least 10kg. That is.

Abominable.

It's like 2 packets of rice.

Therefore I swore to go on a diet. Low carb diet. Atkins diet.

But unfortunately it's been an epic failure so far because I don't have the self-control nor determination to go through with it. I keep coming up with excuses to justify eating.

For example just this past weekend, I was in London. And because I was with friends who specially went out for lunch at places like Goldmine, OF COURSE I had to eat. The roast duck there was sinful in the worst way possible. Oozing with oil and fat (makes me ill to think of it now), but full of flavourful ducky-goodness. And of course you have to have rice with that. So much for low-carb.

And the day after I had my first brush with the most fantastic cookies on earth - Ben's Cookies. They're soft cookies which come in a variety of flavours. The chocolate ones have HUGE chunks of melted chocolate in them. It's like... a mini lava cake of sorts when you eat it warm and the choc inside is still gooey. Sinfully good, and also about 450kcal per cookie to boot. Just THREE of them and you would have satisfied your daily calorie intake for the DAY.

Being cookies, they also contains huge amounts of carbohydrates by themselves. Again epic failure.

I also had a bowl of fantastic prawn noodles and C&R Restaurant in London's Chinatown. Pure carbohydrate indulgence. But THAT was worth it. The serving was big (but nothing which my increased appetite can't deal with), and the soup was sweet sweet sweet. Prawn-goodness galore.

So I return to Leeds, thinking that maybe I can withstand the temptation back home. Noooo.

Because I have the misfortune of having sweet stuff leftover which keeps staring me in the face! I just caved in to the tin of pineapple tarts which Xunqi brought up from Singapore. Now. I don't normally eat pineapple tarts even in Singapore, but there's something about being in the UK which makes you yearn for things that just reminds you of home.

Argh. So just today, I've caved in to a cheese and onion pasty, 5 sticks of hae bee hiam, about 3 pineapple tarts, and 3 cookies. Omg.

I've no idea when I've developed such a sweet tooth. I NEVER snack in Singapore. It was just a joke of a breakfast (ie, one slice of bread), lunch, and dinner. Occasionally, ice cream and potato chips would come to play at night, but not that often. And I don't really get cravings. My cravings are for 'real food' like er, vegetable gyozas, never for cakes and cookies. In fact. I don't eat cookies in Singapore. Period. The family doesn't buy them and I've only koped Amos cookies from my friends twice.

Alright. I need more self-control. NO DESSERTS until CNY itself. That's like less than two weeks. I hope I can do this. :S

I was thinking on the way back home that if I prevent myself from eating, I would be rather sad when I return to Singapore and realise that there was a ton of stuff I wanted to try but didn't allow myself to.

But I don't want to get any fatter! It's really hard to lose weight - easier to maintain or gain. You could walk a mile at moderate pace and probably only lose 35 calories. Bleahz. 3500 calories is one pound of weight. Which is less than 500g. *Faints*

Whatever happened to high metabolism when you need it!

And I really need to start focussing on my work. Finish it up within a few days so I can go play.

Ta.

--- 5.33pm

..........

Yesterday, I experienced the first ever cheer competition in my life.

It was the most awesome thing ever, and I can say very honestly, how truly happy I am that I chose to come to Leeds Uni for exchange, just because the Leeds Celtics are here.

It's only been a short 2 months' worth of training, and perhaps it's difficult to say that I'm really close to any one in particular. In fact, sometimes it may be that I again, don't really have a particular group I can click with. But the thing with Celtics is that I never really felt excluded. Maybe it's the people, or just this country in general. Where asking everyone whether they're "alright" or "ok" is a way of saying hi, and where hugs and affection are a lot more plentiful and open.

It's strange how the competition itself can bond people, especially a team. The meaning of working as a team really comes through when everyone is happy with the performance not because they did their parts well, but more so because EVERYONE did it well. It's not about whether my stunt group went up, but whether everyone went up as well.

As it is, I felt so nervy the day before. And restless. But not so much the next day. Until the run-through the routine right before we appeared on the mat. And I wobbled so much during the libs. I was just. Numb and blank - I didn't know what to think!

And the doors opened and we all ran out to the mat. Something went wrong with my first lib and I went up all wobbly, bent-kneed and arms flailing. Heck, my left foot was CROSSED behind my right! Now THAT has never happened before, and I have no idea why it did. I'm rather sad that I went up like tht because otherwise it would have been so pretty for everyone to go up nice and straight. :(

And I stuck my wrong hand up after the jump sequence! And again. THAT has never happened before! Tianz.

And 2.5 minutes just went past like that. It was so fast it was totally surreal. I can't even remember what happened exactly during the competition, or what I SAW when I'm up in the stunt. I must have been looking at the judges or the audience or something, but seriously I have no recollection of that at all.

Celtics won. :) First place. Thank goodness, otherwise I would blame myself forever for that stupid wobble. Points get deducted for the team if you wobble.

And then there're tons of random photos with the trophies. I could just kill myself for not remembering to set the resolution on my camera higher. It was only set to half the maximum resolution. Which means I can't crop photos and still print them decent-sized. :(

OH and we had secret santa after that! It was SO fun. I was staring at Rosie willing her to open her present. Everyone else was opening theirs and she was just sitting there toying with hers. Probably coz it didn't feel like much. I gave her a personalised yearly calendar thingy stuck on a cork board. She says she likes it :) And everybody went "aw shuuuu" when they saw it. HA. I got a webcam and the RAG calendar. Webcam so that we can stay in touch after I'm home. It's SO sweet. And it's from dear frosty, the ever-powerful base. I love that girl. And I really miss stunting with her and the rest.

I guess I can well and truly say that I'm a Celtic now. :) Although technically I probably was a Celtic the moment I paid my GBP35 membership fee and started going for practices and stuff. But well, it never really hit me until I received my uniform this past Thursday. When Jamie tossed me my uniform in the cheer gym, I looked at the word 'CELTICS' emblazoned across the top, and this indescribable feeling just came over me. I was like. I'm a Celtic. I really am. I'm going to wear this two days ago, and represent them.

And 2 days later, I did.

I love the team so much. I wish I had more years of learning and growing with them. I want to be a better cheerleader, so that I can make the team proud.

As it is, the next semester before Nationals consist of only 8 weeks. 8 weeks = 16 practices. That's countable on my fingers and toes. I only have 2 more months with the Celtics. And I feel so sad when I think about that. I really don't want to leave.

Why is it then when you finally get into things and discover how good they are, that you realise you have such a short period of enjoyment left?

Oh well.

Obviously I'm totally not in the mood to do my work now even though I have a ton of it to do. I probably spent 5h moping about this today. It's terrible. I even cried. I guess it's a post-depression + everything kind of emotional instability that I tend to experience. Except in this case it's worse because I know I'll probably never see these fantastic people again after I board the plane to Singapore.

--- 10.42pm

..........

SHU IS SO HIGH NOWWWWW!!!

:)

I can't decide whether it was the red bull I downed at 6ish earlier this evening, or practice, or the prospect of an upcoming competition (THREE MORE DAYS GIRLS!). Or maybe it's all three.

And I have new shoesssss. Darn, they're a little slippy though. Should have ordered a size 3! Oh well. But I hope they make things easier for my group!

Just loving life guys. And the team of course. Now back to do some stupid research which is SO anticlimatic.

--- 12.07am

..........

It has been an absolutely crazy week and I am now thoroughly exhausted.

Thing is, it could be said that I MAKE myself exhausted. Here's why.

The entire week, I was preparing for my moots and writing my environmental law practice essay, both of which falls on/is due on Friday. It is not fun doing both at the same time. Especially when one of them is a moot. Preparing for a moot takes up SO much time and effort even though I didn't have to write or submit a full memorial!

I couldn't begin to count the number of times I imagined striking out 'moots' from the things I have to do, and then thinking that wow, that makes things SO much easier, and so much more relaxed. I really couldn't wait for the weekend to come so that I can regain some temporary freedom!

So geh kiang right. Sign up for moots, and writing this entirely optional practice essay. Both optional stuff. I'm basically just giving myself more work to do la. Like I don't have enough already.

Looking back, I honestly can't remember what I did before seminars started and everything. I definitely wasn't mugging hard all day - but I remember being very busy as well. I wasn't slacking and watching online shows and shopping (which is really what I should be doing!)... I really think it's the domestic stuff. Oh, and the many hours of sleep :D

But well. At least it's over.

I must blog about my moot experience though.

I was assigned the role of Lead Appellant - I had no idea what that was because we don't have that in SG - but later I found out that it's basically the person who opens the case and speaks the most: I get about 20 minutes of speaking time I believe, as opposed to 10-15 for my learned junior.

Anyway. The moot problem was a Round 3 question from the OUP national moots last year. It was written by Gary Watt, and my conclusion after doing all the research, is that he's the only guy who's interested in that particular point of law, or the only one who thinks that there's really a significant issue in the first place.

It was on a UK statute - the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996. I was like "DARN IT" when I saw the question because obviously, I wouldn't know a single thing about it!

Anyway, there is a complete LACK of authority on the point - seriously, there hasn't been a single instance of litigation on it (which might just be evidence of how much of a non-issue this is).

I only found ONE case whose usefulness was confined to one line in the entire judgment. The facts are unimportant, and that one line wasn't even like, this powerful statement of a legal principle. Desperate times calls for desperate measures. I then asked Aakash and Sam Ng to look up books in the CJ Koh library for me.

(Seriously, CJ Koh has books on a UK statute which the Leeds uni doesn't have?)

And again another desperate measure - I ended up citing from the Law Commission's Reports even though I had no idea what they were and how they worked in practice. Shuyu didn't take a module on "The English Legal System" you know.

I was only beginning to memorise like the 2nd half of my speech on the day of the moot itself. That is how close it was. I didn't even have time (nor do I have the expertise) to iron my brand-new white shirt - anyway, no one can see how horrendously wrinkled it is if you just keep your blazer on :).

When I arrived at the moot venue (which was just an ordinary seminar room), only the junior respondent was there waiting for the group before us to finish. And. He told me that the other two might not show up because they were too drunk at the Careers Dinner the night before.

My eyebrows shot up in my mind. Firstly - Drunk at Careers Dinner? How disgraceful and stupid is that? Secondly - you mean people actually don't turn up for their moot?!

Apparently the

The moot was the most informal thing ever seriously.

I was the most formally-dressed person in that room la. The junior respondent was wearing this striped shirt with waistcoat and pocket watch. No blazer. The judge just wearing everyday clothes.

And we were just in a normal seminar room with those chairs which comes with tables attached. They were like all over the room, then we just pick like 2 that are sort of in front of the judge.

The mannerisms of the junior respondent was also SUPER informal! Like when referring to authorities, he was bending down and looking through paper on the floor, his bag etc etc.

My moot went alright... except that I didn't provide the judge with authorities. The judge was very very very nice. Lovely lady. She kept smiling - what a contrast to the 'creased forehead + frown' kind of look that you get with NUS judges. And very reassuring: "yes, yes I see what you mean". I distinctly recall that I have never seen the judge give such assurances in all the moots I've seen in LAWR.

Quite a good experience, I would say.

When I got back home, I didn't do what any other ordinary person would do and just plop down in their rooms and just enjoy slacking thoroughly. Noooo.

Firstly, I decided to 'treat' myself by really cooking instead of heating up leftovers or cooking instant/readymade stuff like what I've been doing for the past week. I thought well, I finally have the time to do it! And so I made fries (like from real potatoes), and baked a couple of chicken drumsticks wrapped in bacon.

And while waiting for the chicken to finish baking in the oven, I did my laundry, vacuumed my room, AND vacuumed the corridor even though I was under no obligation to do so! My back aches from the constant bending down and I expended so much energy in pushing the vacuuming cleaner vigorously against the carpet in order to suck up every last piece of debris.

So I did all that within 2h. Not bad I would say. After my meal, I cleared my table which was previously looking totally unpresentable. I hung my clothes out (wanted to use the dryer for the first time but the machine didn't accept my 1GBP coin).

I took a shower. And then I suddenly got it into my head that I should clean my toilet! Clean as in squat down and scrub the floor. Which I did. And I just came back from cleaning the two mirrors in my room too.

So instead of a night of relaxation and slacking and time for myself, I was doing domestic chores.

Though part of it was probably motivated by the fact that a few of my friends are coming up to Leeds this weekend, and they are most probably gonna drop by my humble abode - thus the frenzied cleaning to make sure it's at least presentable.

Oh gosh. I had hoped to really relax and live the life of an exchange student JUST FOR ONE DAY before going back to the hustle and bustle. Let's see. I have an Italian assessment next Thursday (languages are damn hard seriously), one seminar to prepare for, and I really need to start writing my Cyberlaw essay because I don't want to chiong it alst minute!

--- 1.30am

..........

Seriously, I have no idea why I’m so ‘busy’. I thought I should have a lot of time to just sit around, watch online shows (totally not doing that), and still do my work and stuff. I mean, ny timetable is rather slack when you compare it to NUS's. First thing you realise is that seminars/tutorials/whatever aren't a weekly thing for each module. I have 11 seminars this semester for three law modules. Four for environmental law, 3 for international law, and 4 for cyberlaw. But the seminars might be intensive one-hour sessions, so we'll see how it goes.

But I'm not taking easy modules in my time at Leeds. At least not to me. All my law modules are open-ended ones; because they deal with evolving areas of law which are still in a state of flux. So there's hardly any black-letter law like that in say, contract or tort, but plenty of areas where you can think critically and analyse. Which is something I'm utterly rubbish at. :S

As it is, I have a ton of household domestic stuff to do (tomorrow’s supposed to be major cleaning day), a mountain of work to do (readings, tutorial, MOOT PREP). Sigh. Maybe I took the wrong modules. In the wrong school. I just take so much longer than usual with open-ended modules such as cyberlaw. Taking a language module might very well have been a mistake as well. The teacher is going so fast – and the other people in the class with prior knowledge of French, Spanish, Portuguese etc are in such an advantageous position because of the similarity between Italian and the other foreign language they are already proficient in. Knowledge of Mandarin, is seriously useless when it comes to picking up a romance language.

Moots, moots, moots. There is this 3rd year guy who is SO arrogant, he hangs around in the common room a lot, and says that he’s there to do his work, and answer any question about mooting. Cannot stand him. A couple of days back, I was asking him whether I can argue outside the stated ground of appeal when my way will still get my ‘client’ what she wants at the end of the day. He said that I could try doing it as an alternative submission, but the judge isn’t a land lawyer etc etc. Firstly, why does the fact that the judge isn’t a land lawyer matter?! Secondly, I think the answer to my question should be that NO you can’t plead anything outside the ground of appeal because that isn’t done in practice, and the whole point of giving you a ground of appeal is to make sure that you argue that particular point of law. Gary Watt said that in his guidebook on mooting. I think he’s more authoritative than this 3rd year guy. Omg. And his attitude is so terrible. Like he couldn’t be bothered to give me the time of the day. -_-

But anyway, if I restrict my argument to the stated ground of appeal, I basically have NOTHING to say/write. I think I can finish my submissions in er 5 minutes. Maybe 8. :S And I have no authority to back myself up except for that tiny paragraph in Megarry and Wade’s The Law of Real Property. Which hardly counts as authority actually. Sigh. I actually dragged myself to the library this morning to do further research. When it was a rare, extremely sunny and awesome day for going out. I thumbed through at least 20 books on either land law or equity and trusts in the library for 3+ hours, and learnt nothing new. Sigh. I’m really afraid that I’ve been looking in the wrong places all this while. *touches wood*

Argh. I’m going to try not to spend too much time on it already. It’s not even part of my compulsory workload. And it’s just that what, 20 minutes of pain. Plus. I’m going to disappear from this place in less than 9 months time. No need to scared about being mauled right.

I went shopping still though! Leeds Primark is SO tiny – all the good stuff gets snatched up pretty fast. Even in the kids section. Yes I shop at the kids section. My size is 11-12 years old btw. The clothes for 13-year olds are too big. I saw this cobalt toga dress on Tuesday which I thought was very pretty, and today there was only ONE hanging on the rack. Wasn’t my size. :S

Really should have shopped with Shun Ting in Bristol!! But spending 40 pounds to go all the way back down again just to shop at the 2nd-largest Primark in UK just isn’t that worth it right. Rawr.

But I still bought stuff! A small bag, two pairs of shoes (yes two), and opaque cotton tights. All for around 12GBP. Heh. I think it’s cheap even after you do the conversion to SGD! I was really deliberating over the two pairs of shoes. They’re just ballet flats with checked patterns on them. One of them was pink plaid – and I immediately arrowed it because I saw similar shoes on F21.com and thought they were really pretty. But next to the pink shoes were the same shoe with purple, yellow, and white checks. Very nice as well. And the funny thing was that I was wearing the exact same shoe in pewter. So now I have 3 pairs of the same shoes in different patterns and colours. I think this is the first time I bought shoes which are so colourful and patterned. All my shoes (and bags) back home are all of neutral colours – silver, black, cream, brown. The only exception is my blue pair of heels – which I seldom wear anyway. Makes me wonder whether I was too impulsive in getting the two pair of shoes today… especially the bright pink ones. I don’t own anything in that colour – it is very not me. :S I would have love the same in say, a greenish-blue plaid pattern. Hmm… should ask Shun to check out her Primark to see whether she has it. Oh well. I can still return them within 28 days if I want to! :)

I just realised HALF the semester has gone past. Seriously WHERE has the time gone?!

--- 9.31pm

..........

I need to break this habit of updating my blog once in every month. I seem to have lost the eagerness to post regularly, like I did in secondary school. Which is too much of a pity, because this probably is going to be the last exciting period of my life before I graduate into the monotonous working society.

I WILL update with a mega monster post on what has happened since I left Singapore for the UK. But as of now, a story of a trip to Bath/Stonehenge will have to do.

So. Time has been flying past like nobody's business, and it has already been a MONTH since I arrived in Leeds. A month and a week of UK because I was in London prior to Leeds.

It's now the fourth week of teaching and I haven't attended any seminars as yet. The first was supposed to be yesteday but I very cleverly booked my train ticket back from Bristol to Leeds at 3.30pm when the seminar starts at 3pm. Remind me to ask the prof whether I can attend the alternative seminar next week.

Anyway. The past weekend, I made my way down to the historic city of Bath. My train was at 5.55am on Saturday. Which I stupidly thought would be bright enough for me to walk the 20mins to the train station. I always thought that western countries had their sunrises earlier than in Singapore – it proved true enough in the US, and even in China. But at 5.30am, it was still VERY dark, and not a single soul was outside. So I took a cab in the end – cost me 3.50GBP and I only had like 5 minutes to catch my train!

It wasn’t a good train ride. There was some cable thingy going on at Huddersfield, resulting in the train being rerouted – this meant that my train arrived at Manchester Piccadilly FOURTY-EIGHT MINUTES later than expected. Which of course meant that I missed my connecting train to Bath Spa, which was scheduled to leave at 7.30am! To think that I purposely booked the 5.55am train to Manchester instead of the 6.25am one so that I would have 40 minutes to make the connecting train instead of 10 minutes. If I had taken the latter, not only would I have been able to wake up later, but I wouldn’t have had to suffer the delay. Thank goodness the train station staff allowed me to board the 8.30am train to Bath Spa. The person at the counter was like “You left Leeds at 5.55??!” I’m like YES. This is so completely not my fault that I’m at Manchester only at 7.45am when the journey was supposed to have taken only 55 minutes!

I travelled through Wales on the train journey to Bath... it was so interesting to see all the station names and instructions in Welsh!

Finally I arrived at Bath... and I was super happy to see Shun Ting waving at me from across the street! It’s so good to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar land! First thing I did was to hug her, and then laugh at her for wearing so many clothes. She had on a long-sleeved turtleneck, jeans, boots, a scarf, and this long beige trenchcoat. Basically she looks extremely cold (and thus dressed for it). I just had ballet flats, t-shirt, jeans and a short white jacket. :D

It was also in Bath where I met Shun’s friends from Bristol, Chee(k) and Alice. Alice’s HK friends from Warwick were also there, as well as two Vietnamese people from Bristol, Daphne and Sam.

Bath is an amazing city. I love the historic buildings and architecture! I had SO many shots of Bath Abbey – just kept snapping away, even at night! The Royal Crescent and the Circus were really pretty as well. Look at Facebook for pictures! :)

Shun and I took tons of photos. We kept trying out jump shots at the Royal Crescent – Cheek and Sam were really accommodating and wasted too much battery life and storage space by taking our photos for us.

We had a lovely dinner at this pub. Cheek had the traditional mixed grill (of which the gammon steak was pure love), the three of us (Shun, Kellyn and I) shared lasagne, fish and chips, and bbq melt. The girls only paid 4 pounds each for our meal because there was an offer for them – 2 for 6.95GBP. Truly, eating out in the UK doesn’t have to be exorbitant. 4 pounds per person translates to about only SGD10! Normally when I eat out in Singapore, I spend about $20 thereabouts. OH the highlight of that dinner has to be the dessert. The dessert was 2 for 1 (offer galore seriously), and I ordered this fantastic and totally sinful chocolate thing. I have grown to love chocolate ALOT ever since my WongP internship.

That night was the first night I’ve ever spent in a hostel! Omg, I really would rather pay more for a clean washrooms. That aspect is SUPER important to me. Especially when I have to bathe there and wash my contact lenses. Hygiene is of paramount importance. The place wasn’t that dirty, but it wasn’t totally clean either. I didn’t dare put my contact lens case on any available surface – so Shun Ting became my temporary table. Haha.

The water temperature was also terrible. It was VERY HOT. Just on the brink of my tolerance level. And I’m the kind who likes to bathe with hot water. Shun Ting was making little squeals here and there and she described the water as ‘boiling’. Ha.

The next day, we went to Stonehenge! It is seriously, just a bunch of stones and you walk around them. You don’t even get to go that close to them – you’re only allowed like, 10 to 20m away from them. I kept taking photos, but realised that they all look around the same in the end. But I think it’s still one of the places you have to visit when you’re in Great Britain. Do it with good company though – otherwise you might get too bored.

Returned to Bristol that day and I finally get to see Shun Ting’s accommodation! Their kitchen is huge as compared to mine – they have like two of everything: stoves, sinks, cupboards to put their food and stuff in. I’ve already filled my allocated cupboard in the kitchen to full capacity. I have things like canned meatballs, prima taste, biscuits, pasta sauce etc crowding my shelf in my room now. Hehe. 9 of them stay in the flat, and there are THREE toilets. It’s super good!! And they’re like really clean and big and white. Just like how a bathroom should be. Mine is like super small and pokey, and the floor is made of rough scratchy grey tiles. :S Plus her shower spray is so much more forceful and can go up to a much higher temperature than mine. Ah well.

I had to go back to Leeds the next day, so the original plan was to wake up real early to see the main attractions of the Clifton suspension bridge and Clifton downs, before shopping for a couple of hours in a city centre. As it happened, none of us managed to wake up in time. We left her place SO late, and by the time we finished the bridge and the downs (which was freaking far away btw), it was already like 1pm. My train was at 3+pm. We decided to have a quick lunch at Cosmos – which is this all-you-can-eat Pan Asian buffet for only 6.50GBP. But when I saw the food laid out there, I told Shun Ting that I’m willing to give up shopping to eat the food. I’ve become SUCH a glutton ever since coming to the UK!!

I didn’t take one of everything – I took a FEW of everything. Omg. And I had like three bowls of soup. The tomyam chicken was superbly tender – it just melted in my mouth! The pad thai was not bad too. But the best must be the dessert. Sadly, I was too full to eat much of it. I ate an entire slice of chocolate cake (which wasn’t that good anyhow), which meant that I could only eat ONE chocolate éclair, and most of the lemon zest cake. Humph. And the chocolate éclair was the best! Oh well.

I love weekend trips! :D

--- 9.29pm

..........

I haven't updated in a very long time.

Have got a huge backlog of posts, which I really should start clearing soon.

But as of this moment in time, I'm really regretting my activities (or lack thereof) in year 2.

I remember completing year 1 and telling myself that I wanted to do many things in the following year. I wanted to run for class committee (even though they don't do anything much), wanted to join the committee for Law Careers Fair, wanted to join the inaugural ICA moot, thought about joining trial advocacy...

And in the end, I did none of that. Semester Two of my second year was really really empty. Looking back, I can't decide whether I was just lazy, or just so afraid of taking new steps. It was probably a mixture of both.

I kept telling myself that I couldn't cope because that semester had a particularly heavy workload. But in the end, I performed the worst I ever did in law school, and had nothing else to show for that semester.

I look at my friends, and there they were, participating in competitions, doing pro-bono work, organising events, writing journals, being research assistants, volunteeering their time for the community - basically experiencing life beyond the schoolroom.

Me? I just stayed at home buried in my books, trying to finish my readings. I didn't even attend the Law Careers Fair because I wanted to stay at home and work on my assignment.

Obviously it didn't work out - and I learnt that the art of balancing is probably one of the most critical skill you can ever have in your life.

So at this juncture (ie, thinking about pupillage applications), I wished that I had the wisdom and far-sightedness that I should have had. Things might be very different now. Alternatively, I wish that there was someone older and more experienced to guide and counsel me when I was (more) foolish and immature.

Well, all that is water under the bridge now.

I am rather confused now as to what I should do now.

--- 12.33am

..........

This week has been a bad one.

First there was the whole exchange thing to Leeds. I started regretting my decision to go for a year’s exchange – if I had opted for only a sem 2 exchange, I could do my pupilage applications early, have a chance to pull up my grades, and maybe have a shot to make something work. And then, I regretted my decision to go to Leeds instead of say, Nottingham. Subsequently, I regretted my decision to stay in Opal 3 instead of the Tannery at Leeds.

I then started an internship with Firm W this past Wednesday. It was alright, the other interns are fun, there was this happening mini party for the July and August birthday babies of the IPC department. BUT. I had come in at a time where my assigned mentor was in the midst of trial preparation. Guess what. I had to go back to the office yesterday. To think that I was so happy at the prospect of a long weekend. So yesterday, I was there from around 11am to 7.30pm. Doing menial tasks like folding cartons and cutting labels. At the end of the day, the lawyer had alluded to staying back everyday next week PLUS coming in on weekends.

Let’s just say that I feel extremely indignant at this. Yes I agree that one of the points of an internship is to get a glimpse of what life as a lawyer in X firm is like. But hey, I know that lawyers’ lives suck – they stay back and slog til the wee hours of morning (heck there’s even shower facilities in the office), come back during the weekends to work, and basically have no life. I know that. I have no delusions about the supposed glamour involved in a lawyer’s life. And, I don’t have to go through it personally now to know that your life sucks! As the recruitment partner told us on the first day of our internship, we should go back on time and not stay back because we have the next 30 years of our lives to do so. I am in complete agreement. Staying back to work is one thing when you’re an associate of the law firm drawing a salary of a few thousand bucks a month, and another when you’re a mere intern who will be there for a paltry 2 weeks and given $25 a day as allowance.

Yes I know the menial tasks are necessary, and since the lawyer happens to be my mentor it’s probably one of my ‘obligations’ to help her out. But staying back everyday plus weekends is too much. I didn’t sign on to experience such stuff. The experience yesterday was enough thank you very much. If I’m not going to get anything else out of my internship, then perhaps I shouldn’t be staying on for the full duration of the 2 weeks! I mean, what is the point of requesting for my grades and subjects taken, and requiring that I wear business attire for internships if all I am going to do is um, manual labour!

Down days, and all I wanted was to talk to you. But you were never there, and when we did finally speak, you sounded so distant and different from just a fortnight ago. And then I’m wondering whether this was fate’s way of telling me that we had nothing in the past, nothing now, and nothing in the future. Whether even after all my wariness and suspicion, I had misread what was never there in the first place and have now allowed myself to fall too far. I can’t decide whether to be angry with myself or with you, but ultimately, I am just very unhappy.

--- 11.05pm

..........

And once again, it is National Day.

It seems to me that the significance of today is fading year after year... To many people, it's just another public holiday to take advantage of.

Maybe it is because I am no longer in schools where national day celebrations were mandatory and took up half of the the eve of National Day. I remember in SN, we had to wear red and white to school. In RJ, I think I skipped the celebrations on both years, but I do recall the PA system blasting the year's NDP theme song before assembly.

But other than that, when I was a lot younger and before the new millenium, National Day seemed to be a more festive affair. Families living in HDB flats hung the national flag out of their windows. You could tell it wasn't the doing of the RCs because they didn't form neat rows down the flats. And all the flags were of different colours - some with the red portion in faded pink due to years of exposure to the sun and elements, some looking worn and old, and others looking relatively new.

Also, one could always hear national songs blasting out on television, together with that year's theme songs. Remember "We Are Singapore", "Count on me Singapore" and "Stand up for Singapore"? Cheesy, but I feel very approprite for National Day. If it's one thing they do, they do stir patriotism, especially if you happen to be watching the parade.

This year, I've only heard the theme song a couple of times. And believe me, it's not because I don't watch television. And all the old national day songs are like banished into oblivion!

So on a sudden urge yesterday, I went to the Sing Singapore website yesterday to watch the music videos of the national songs. But. They didn't have the version I liked. The ones available too upbeat and modern. Haha. To me national songs aren't pop songs. They don't have to be like pop songs to get people to like them!

So anyway, I think National Day has lost a lot of its symbolism. People forget easily that we have a short history and yet has come so far since 1965. We tend to take all that we have for granted, and then grumble incessantly about things that we don't have.

Truth is, we have much to be happy about. The safe and clean environment, for one, is awesome. I only realised this after I read about all the crime in other cities - I've heard tales about break-ins and snatch theft from people studying overseas, to the extent that I'm worried about getting a new camera and bringing my nano to Leeds come this September.

Of course, there are many things about Singapore I'm unhappy with, but when push comes to shove, I'm mighty glad I'm a Singaporean. I might not exactly be proud of everything we represent, but I'm happy I'm here.

Here's wishing Singapore a very happy 44th birthday!!

--- 6.26pm

..........

The human brain is so wondrous. I think it's totally amazing how certain experiences can trigger off memories or create a sense of deja vu.

This evening, I caught Freaky Friday on Channel 5. That was the first movie I remember watching in a cinema - which would be in 2003 with a bunch of SN friends. I still have the movie stub!

Truly, I can't remember the last chick flick I caught. I know I caught a lot of them when I was in secondary school. Either there were more chick flicks then, or it was just the company. Haha. Though not the most intellectual or thought-provoking of cinematic offerings, chick flicks are awesome simply because I think regular life requires too much brains already. They are so feel-good!

Which was exactly the feeling I had when watching the show tonight. I felt so YOUNG and happy watching it. I figure it was probably what I associate with it - that period of 4 years in St Nicks... the freedom, the carefree-ness, how life was so relaxed, the very friendly and close-knit atmosphere of the school, the innocence and open-ness of everyone. Yes that's it.

It's at times like this I really wished I had kept a physical diary of those days... I started a blog in secondary 2 I think, but I lost the entries til sec 4 coz the webhost which stored the pages just crashed and disappeared on me. Since then I make it a point to save everything on hard disk periodically. But still. I think the most awesome days were still those in SN. It would be nice to read the entries again. Maybe on my 21st.

As a sidenote, I've been using the Internet WayBack Machines just now. It's this project by a non-profit entity to create a permanent storage facility for the Internet. So basically they have crawlers to scan the web for pages and take a snapshot of it at specific times, and they'll store that snapshot of it. Thus even if that page was subsequently deleted, that snapshot still remains. They have stuff dating back to 1996! Of course due to the sheer size of the web, not everything is archived.

I managed to dig out some stuff. Like a few pages of my guestbook. You know... in the past there weren't really things as tagboards, but there were guestbooks! And I'm amazed at how many people signed it... It was the era where you sort of cared how many hits your site got, and you actually blogged something when say, you got your 10,000th hit. Haha those days.

I must say I have more friends then. Or rather, more people who were interested in reading about my life. I have SO many entries in my guestbook, all from various people in my life! CO people, seniors, classmates... And we sound so chummy. But I don't talk to them any more... Kinda sad how people just tend to drift apart.

Oh dear. I've digressed terribly. I was talking about certain experiences jarring memories back in place wasn't I? Let's see. Basically right after Freaky Friday, the name "Bowling for Soup" just popped into my head. For no good reason. And when it did, I was like "THAT IS SO FAMILIAR. I think I listened to one of their songs in secondary school". And I was trying to figure out what song it was. Then suddenly a snatch of music floated into my head, together with lyrics - "... Monday night and I'm waiting...". at the same time when I was Googling the band name and spotted "Girl All the Bad Guys want" in Google's list of suggestions. DING DING! Off to Youtube I go. And it's so amazing that when the song started, I can remember the melody and everything. Same with Freaky Friday - I could sing along with the main songs, and I even remember what their guitar solo sounded like.

SO MANY MEMORIES. I shall indulge myself in them one day. Properly.

I just drank a cup of HL milk just now. And even THAT sparked off a sensation of deja vu. Coz it's so dark and well technically early morning. The experience recreated was that of drinking the same kind of milk at 5ams or 6ams in the morning. Again during SN period.

--- 3.35am

..........

It's strange how you think someone is okay, and then later go on to find out that you just don't like that person? It's only when you associate with them for an extended period of time in different places where you get to see how someone reacts and carries himself/herself in different situations.

And at the same time, I THINK I've become so much more tolerant over the years. Of people's shortcomings, because I recognise mine.

Oh wow. Maybe THAT is a sign of the wisdom which comes with age (I AM turning 21 soon after all).

So many things to ponder on nowadays... How to deal with relationships keeping in mind that departure is only about a month away (I've booked my air tickets to London. Will be flying on the 12th September). Should I throw a 21st birthday party? I keep wavering on that particular question. On some occasions I decide that I should, and on (most) others, I decide otherwise - but though probably because I'm simply too lazy to hold one. Laziness is one of my many flaws.

Sometimes it's so hard to remember the difference between what you want, and what you think you want.

On a separate matter, the management has changed and new blood infused into the new committee. I pray that this means a new start for me as well. I'm not sure how much more I can take before my passion (or what's left of it) ebbs away.

I will have faith.

--- 9.50pm

..........

The past few weeks have felt uber busy - so much so that it didn't really occur to me that the bulk of July has passed. *Gasp*

It only seems like yesterday when I had regained my freedom (no matter how temporary) from my most recent internship at Harry Elias Partnership (did I blog about that?)

Let's see... I applied for my UK visa, which probably wasted like several precious hours of my time through waiting and waiting AND waiting and watching the same Mr Bean cartoons FIVE times (gonna pick up my passport tml!), went shopping with Shun Ting at Bugis, shopped for Weilin and Kezia's birthday presents, went for 3 birthday parties (Wei, Kez and the one at law school!), watched transformers 2, met up with the twins, had Crystal Jade steamboat buffet with the rag people, and today had S01C class outing!

Everyone who likes xiao long bao, you ought to go to the Crystal Jade Steamboat Buffet. It's like $23.30 per person, so you probably have to eat 4 long2s of xlb for your money's worth. I have no idea how much I ate... at least 2.5 long2s I think. That, and tonnes of other food (ie, the steamboat). The variety of steamboat stuff was rather sad though. Just some meat (mutton, pork, beef, chicken), a whole lot of balls (the fishballs are super yummy if you eat them with the superb Crystal Jade chilli!), vegetable and meat dumplings, super a lot of mushrooms (Golden, Japanese, Mushroom, etc), beancurd related stuff, and vegetables. I was there with 12 other raggers, and the first thing we did was order 10 longs of xlb. When those 10 longs came, we placed another order for 10 more because it takes super long to come. Haha.

I don't think I ever ate so much in my life!! We were disgusting seriously, looking at the amount of food we polished off. There was a short period of time after the eating where I really really felt sick and wanted to throw up. But that passed relatively quickly thank goodness.

Darn. So much for gymming the past couple of weeks. All the work gone down the drain with a single buffet!

--- 3.27am

..........

As a student in NUS Law, I feel very much obliged to comment on the article "NUS undergrads cry foul over internship", published in the Straits Times this past Sunday.

Basically, some YEAR 2 female undergrad from NUS Law decided to speak to the press about how SMU students are stealing the internship slots and thus unfairly depriving the NUS students of their chances.

I cannot imagine WHO would speak to the press over such a matter. And according to this particular student, she and 10 of her classmates applied for internship spaces at top law firms this JANUARY and were denied spaces.

Assuming that top law firms meant the Big 4, then this student musn't have applied to all 4 firms! Out of the 4, I know one of them does set aside spaces for SMU students (I don't know a single soul who got a place there this sem), 2 of them have fixed deadlines to apply for internships by, and the other one was still accepting interns in March.

And seriously, we students know exactly whether there are arrangements between firms and schools to set aside internship positions for them.

But anyhow. Speaking to the press?? Now it seems like we NUS Law students are a bunch of cowards afraid of competition from SMU - complaining bitterly over a trivial matter such as internships.

Our Dean has advised students not to be fixated on getting internships in the large firms. 'As a law student, I personally did not spend any time as an intern in a Singapore law firm. I valued my precious vacation time and spent it on student activities and sports,'

True true. No one did internships back then. BACK THEN. My friend, if you don't do internships now, it's gonna look terrible on your resume. Happy explaining to your future employer what you were doing during all those 3-month long vacations! And I've heard firsthand from a partner in a mid-sized firm that your internship performance is graded and that interns definitely have higher standing when it comes to applying for pupillage. So in today's declining economy, plus the relaxation of the rules regarding practicing in Singapore with an overseas degree, the bigger NUS cohort (236 students for my batch), additional SMU students (100+), and tadah. You better do more internships, especially at the firms you're interested in man.

--- 11.02pm

..........

It's been raining heavily this afternoon. Still raining... but it's no longer a thunderstorm rampaging through the neighbourhood. Just simple, steady drops of rain.

Not too light, not too heavy, no big bursts of sound and light, no huge gusts of wind to sweep you off your feet.

It's nice, standing at the window looking out. Watching the ripples form on the surface of the swimming pool, the glistening paved walkways reflecting light, the soft haloes around the streetlamps and lights, the cool wind on ur face, the smell of everything nice and fresh, and the soft lullaby of rain pattering down.

It's a peaceful scene. I really wouldn't mind sitting out there under a pavilion with some good company instead of ensconding myself at home with the windows shut.

--- 11.57pm

..........

I am fast becoming a gym addict! It's awesome fun. But only because I don't do cardio. Anyone who knows me in secondary school and JC should know that running is the bane of my life. The complaint disappeared in university simply because there is no more 2.4km run! Muahaha.

But I wouldn't have as much fun if it wasn't for SAM NG, my personal gym trainer. Having someone there to motivate you and spur you on ("TEN MORE!") is super important. On my own, I probably wouldn't do the things I did on my own. Don't have the requisite determination and motivation to physically torture myself. Haha. And of course to act as a spotter when you lift weights. Must protect your head you know... Haha. He's been so patient and nice that a simple "thank you" would be insufficient.

Crashed rag later on... I felt SO OLD. Like I'm a Year 3! They did stunts... and omg, spotting flyers who do not hold their own weights is even more tiring than lifting weights in the gym. And it was also total chaos. Like last year. I'm not sure what I was hoping to gain from crashing rag practice though... Like I'm really the odd one out?

Had an emo moment just now. *See post below*.

And then I happened to take out this on-and-off diary which I kept in sec 4. Some of the entries bring back memories, and it's so hilarious reading about it and sharing them with friends; reminiscing together etc. But I also realised that I was quite insecure in the past. As in, I cared about what people thought of me, whether I did something which caused teachers to dislike me etc etc.

I don't think that insecurity has disappeared... it probably just morphed into hermit-ism. Which was part of reason for the earlier post.

I feel like... I'm so disconnected with the world. I think of going exchange and I'm sad because I'll be leaving friends and family behind and be all alone there, but I'm also sad because I realise that probably very little people would note my absence. And that makes me realise how much of a silent watcher and passer-by I've been on the fringes and in the shadows of converging groups of people and friends.

And sooner or later I just fade into the background and become forgotten. I retreat further back into the comfort of my home.

Maybe there is something just not right with me, that even though I'm not a typical introvert (I'm actually rather noisy I think), but I just can't relate to people or something.

HOW do I survive 10 months on exchange halfway around the globe!

--- 1.43am

..........

I think I always make the same mistake over and over. And it sucks when you realise it.

Not that it's a very "controllable" mistake to make. It either happens or it doesn't.

And when it happens there's nothing left to do but cringe, scold yourself and try to wish it away. And to forget it.

If it even works.

On a more coherent note, I wish I was a friendlier person. I think since I graduated from St Nicks, I've gradually but slowly retreated more and more into myself. Now I find that I don't belong anywhere. Suddenly, I'll realise that everyone has gone ahead with their own groups and I'm left standing alone, unsure of what to do. Maybe that's why I prefer to stay at home. But that's a vicious cycle unto itself...

I need a space to call my own.

--- 6.53pm

..........

I DID MY FIRST PYRAMID YESTERDAYYYYYY. WHOOHOO.

Even though it looks so ugly coz of a 1001 mistakes I made (omg that atrocious dismount)... but first times are always memorable! And exciting. haha

:D

THANK YOU to melvin tan, teck pin, melvin soh, wee leong, and not forgetting jimmy and wei wei for watching and teaching me!

Steamboat + nintendo wii gathering later was tons of fun as well! I'm quite happy I went for it!

--- 8.59pm

..........

I am quite happy today because I got to fly during training!!!

:) :)

That means so much to me - honestly, I have forgotten what it felt like.

Today I probably did more stuff than I ever did in my life. Haha. Double Base, double base extension, double base cupie, pop cradle, SINGLE LIB. Okay, I know I'm omg-ing over super basic things, but OMG.

Though I'm super lousy and it was only by the grace of my two very very strong bases that I manage to stay up, if I get there in the first place. Thank you thank you Teck Pin and Wen Jie, and sorry sorry for shifting around, not staying tight, not holding my own weight, for falling wrongly, and especially to Wen Jie, for kicking you in the face. Ouch.

SO TIRED. But it's worth it.

--- 11.59pm

..........

Shuyu got herself a sprained ankle on her first day back at cheer this past Friday. It's a SIGN I tell you. Gosh. And I got it through such an unglam manner - a haphazard attempt at a backhandspring that I wasn't really ready for anyway!

Gosh. Friday night was so awful, I kept waking up due to the throbbing ache in the ankle, and try as I might, I couldn't find a comfortable position for it. Distress sms-es sent out at 6am+, I feel so blessed and loved because of friends like you who care!

--- 4.21pm

..........

Just finished my internship at the Legal Aid Bureau on Friday.

It was an awesome three weeks - I can honestly say that almost every day was filled with laughter.

There were 4 of us interns, which definitely contributed to the experience.

Work-wise, I learnt quite a lot during my internship. Certainly, I didn't have expectations coming into this internship; I just thought I would do it, see what's it like and move on from there.

The thing that probably struck me the most was that marriage (or more specifically, divorce), can be rather scary. On my second day, I went to the Family Court to witness some divorce proceedings. I was so sad and taken aback at how the couples just walk past one another without even looking at the other - the whole process was so mechanical, it seemed to me like the institution of marriage was somewhat a sham. If it was uncontested, the petitioner would stand there, confirm a few things like his particulars etc, and the judge would just pronounce an interim judgment which would be finalised in 3 months. If the divorce was contested... well it is definitely not a good feeling watching one party being so adamant on the divorce, and the other party thinking that there is a chance of reconciliation. And then you witness hypocrisy... such as when one party cried and broke down in court, and you start sympathising with her, thinking that she must really want to get back together with her husband. But when she exits the courtroom, her entire demeanour changed and she started accusing the other party of telling lies etc etc.

I also get sad and affected when I sit in on interviews between the applicants and their spouses, and witness first-hand things like, suicidal tendencies, the tension between both parties... and of course the indifference. I think if you can't learn to detach yourself from all these, the happenings can really screw with your mind.

When there're so many divorce cases everyday, it's so hard to imagine that once upon a time, the same two people were married so happily with their lives together ahead of them.

But as one of my mentors said, even as there are many divorce cases, there are many many more marriages that endure happily. So I guess the thing to be learnt is that there is no "right one", even when two people get married, because marriage is a continuing process and efforts on both sides will make them the right one for both of them.

Another thing which left an impression was the sheer number of people passed the means test to qualify for legal aid - that means having less than $10,000 disposable income in a year. Some people get by on very little - or even nothing at all, relying on donations etc. I think we all know that there is this sector of people who are not as privileged as us, but as we go on our daily lives, we seldom meet such people and subconsciously, I guess we forgot about them. The internship was a jarring reminder that we should really be grateful and content with what we have, and definitely to expend some effort in helping the less fortunate.

Turning away from the 'proper' stuff, I must say that the internship has been enriching especially because of 2 people who are equally "full of shit" - Sheik and SDD (short of Senior Deputy Director). Every office needs the two of them to lighten up the place and every family should have uncles like them. I wish I had uncles like them!

How does one even BEGIN to describe them! Okay SDD first. My first impression of him was this really fierce eccentric guy, because we were introduced to him in his office, and he basically just dismissed us. Later, after he gave Diyanah and I this ultra big big file to do (we were just doing his file for the entire internship seriously), we found out that he was just this big joker at heart. He started telling us stories about Andrew Phang (coz he was in the same class as him), including the one about the University wanting to award him a Phd for his Masters thesis. Basically the trick is to write things in a very obscure/profound manner so that even the prof can't understand it - the inference would be that it's something brilliant. Haha. Then Sheik came in and oh boy, it became a live comedy show seriously, the two of them bantering back and forth, trading stories about courtroom dramas and stuff. We stood there for more than an hour - until 6.45pm!

The same thing happened on another occasion, but with only Sheik around. Honestly, it's just way fun with them around. :) Everyday is story-telling day! I must must record down here for memories' sake. Hmm. SDD told us one involving VK Rajah JA and Davinder Singh. So the three of them were friends and apparently in law school SDD threw a slipper at VK Rajah once. So one day, VK Rajah and Davinder Singh appeared as counsel before SDD. The trial started getting long and boring and Davinder Singh said, "It may please your Honour to throw a slipper at my learned friend here" - or something along those lines. VK Rajah in reply: "If your Honour would recall, you missed". And the assistants with them who are supposed to take notes just look super bewildered! After a pause, SDD replied, "Gentlemen, I am wearing boots today." OMG and the way SDD tells it makes it super funny!! Hahaha.

[alright shuyu is tired. shall continue tomorrow~!]

--- 1.56am

..........

And just like that, the RJCO concert 2009 was over. Plenty to blog about… since I haven’t done so since forever.

To be very honest, I wasn’t feeling very enthusiastic about the concert. I was even regretting joining in the main orchestra – I wasn’t having as much fun as I was with the alumni CO because I didn’t feel a connection with the main CO. No surprise, since I don’t know any of them, and wasn’t there enough to get to know them better.

Didn’t help that results were released yesterday. Screwed up so badly for 2 out of my 3 modules – and 1 of them was an IMPORTANT 8-credit module k. Thus, I was feeling rather sian.

So. To recap on the past couple of Saturdays, it has been dazu practice in the morning with RJCO, and alumni pracs in the afternoon. I enjoy alumni practices immensely – a lot more than RJCO I must say. It’s awesome watching the antics of KB, JJ, and shunta. The atmosphere is a lot more relaxed, and I get a better vibe from everyone!

So for today, drove to RJC as per normal, and managed to bargain my way to the back past the gantries, although I met with a lot of trouble because the security guard didn’t activate the gantry so I had to reverse all the way back to ask him to do it.

Rehearsals … OH during the alumni rehearsal, I realised I couldn’t see the dots on my strings at all. So I ended up using (or trying to use) my ears (for once in my life right), and just go with intuition/gut feel. Eh. It actually works most of the time. Maybe it really is a psychological dependency. But. I’m still super paranoid. So later I borrowed liquid paper from KB to re-dot my strings. Haha.

And we sounded very good! Far far cry from the very first prac… Maybe I’m biased, I also felt that our alumni piece sounded better than the main orchestral pieces!

The day went past in a flash and before you knew it, we were on stage – red, pink, silver, black, young and old. Honestly, the dazu pieces just went past in a haze. I just remember that Marcus didn’t flip the page to the one with the correct gong fa for mei hua yin. Haha. And of course laozhou’s kicking around of the platform, which was really really strange.

Alumni CO… was very kanchiong and waited outside the PAC before the erhu people were done and just started melting all over the place. It was so so so HOT despite it being nearly close to 8! We started off slightly shaky, but overall I still think we did great!! I really enjoyed myself during the item. Sort of regretting not asking my friends to come and watch so that they could help record/video/photograph the item!

After the last piece, Phantom of the Opera, there were two encores… and again, more weirdness set in. Gloria had to go backstage to retrieve the jun ma score, and there was this long wait whereby laozhou filled in the silence by asking BL to come out and um, share his experience about arranging Phantom of the Opera. It was a rather unusual concert. Very school concert-ish, with many sections of the audience calling out their support for a particular CO member (especially someone called hongbo!); even LAOZHOU had his own supporters!

Post-concert was the usual euphoria and photo-taking dashes and utter utter madness. I like it. It’s probably what fuelled the adrenaline rush in me and made me dance around the house when I got home.

Many many photos taken… but a quick upload into the computer shows that most of them are blur to some extent or the other. The trusty camera is really dying. I knew I should have taken my dad’s camera! Such a rare chance to take nice photos to replace all the ugly ones taken in JC. Oh and of course my fringe looked utterly disgusting because it was too hot (they switched off the air-con halfway), and it started plastering to my forehead in unsightly sections and flattening itself out so that I can’t SEE MY EYES IN THE PHOTOS. Garh. We’ll see how much my limited photoshop skills can do to save the photos.

After this entire process, I find myself hoping that the alumni CO will continue on, become stronger bigger, and more independent. Even if that means having younger and younger members join in. I’ve discovered that personally, performing for the sake of performing isn’t enough. The people whom you do it are equally, if not, more important – it relates directly to your enjoyment of your performance. It’s like… having a nice dinner with near-strangers vs. having a nice dinner with good friends and great conversation.

I’m not sure whether it will happen; I know that it will take many very committed people, and a very well thought-out plan to make it work. The fact that there is actually an alumni CO which has performed on stage today is an achievement by itself. And maybe today will really fade away into memories and history as my last day on stage with my erhu, with my CO friends. And maybe it really marks the day where my erhu goes into retirement, for 3 years, 6 years… 99 years.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from participating in the alumni CO, it’s that such things can only get forgotten among the midst of time, and busying yourself with other matters such as work or study – they don’t vanish. They just lie dormant, waiting for the day where they may awake and remind ourselves of how we had always enjoyed the activity. So, I will try and make it a point to just pick up my erhu occasionally, once in a while, to make sure it doesn’t get forgotten for too long a time.

Thank you all to everyone who contributed to this experience – Zongjin, for having the vision and courage to dream this up and then, the tenacity to make it come true. Xunqi, for being such an awesome conductor (even with all the playing around with tempos). I swear, I probably never paid so much attention to the conductor before! Your enthusiasm bounced off you in waves, and it was very very fun playing under your baton. To KB, the SL who never told me anything, for the constant entertainment throughout CO (yes even the saliva trajectories), for being so patient and neutral when I couldn’t catch up; it was greatly appreciated. To all my old friends from RJCO, it was awesome catching up and seeing you guys again. To the juniors (ie, Joyce and Shunta) I’ve never seen before, I really had a lot of fun getting to know you guys!

--- 11.59pm

..........

Adrenaline is flowing through me right now. I'm so so so ... restless. I feel like I can't breathe properly. That my heart rate is going up.

At first I didn't know why.

And then I realised.

I honestly thought everything was gone, dissipated, and my life could go back to normal, but perhaps it was just forgotten.

Why did I have to see you again?

--- 1.17am

..........

Haha! I bought SO MANY THINGS TODAY. Without intending to. All I had set out to buy were clothes to wear for internships. I hate office wear I tell you. This is where I envy guys. Just the typical shirt + pants + shoes. And all loose and comfy.

Anyhow. I ended up buying um. Shoes, and body shop stuff. Coz there was this amazing sale going on in the Atrium of Compass Point! I think I'm becoming more and more auntie. I was eyeing this tea tree oil toner, and there was this big bottle going for $12.90. Then there were smaller bottles going for 5 for $10. Each smaller bottle is 60ml. One big bottle is 250ml. Do the maths. Might as well get 5 small bottles right - 300ml for $10! Honestly in the past I would have grabbed the big bottle and be done with it.

And ohhh the body butters were only $16.90 each where the usual price is $29.90!! :) So I took the chance to grab the passionfruit one because it smells very awesome. I was so tempted to buy many things simply because they smell super nice. Like one of the fruity fragrances. But I stopped myself because I have um 7 5 ml bottles of perfume at home still waiting for me.

The pink grapefruit lotion smells heavenly. I feel like eating it everytime I smell it!

I got my black slingbacks!!! Haha. They feel soft and nice. Not too high though. But too early to tell. Must test them out on a day out one day.

It's been an amazing 4 days since exams ended. Just full of slacking. I like slacking. I think it's meaningful and I'm not being a useless person by slacking. Haha. I watched 9 episodes of D.I.E yesterday, and today will be the first day I watch wo cai on tv in what, a month?

I feel abit of my soul returning to my body.

Pity internship is just a week away. :S Wouldn't do a single one if it wasn't for peer pressure.

I also got a couple of hair clips and found a silk scarf at home. I'm going to try wrapping my hair because I can't stand it anymore. I hope it works!

--- 8.59pm

..........

And I'm FINALLY FREE!!!

I'm not going to think about how badly I screwed up Equity by having such bad time management, or how I chose the wrong question for public law and wrote out of point.

Went to watch Wolverine today! Hugh Jackson is super super hot! The guys were saying that he took three months to get to where he was - so now they have three months. Just nice til the start of school!

And of course as expected of law students (especially when you have people like sheng rong and timo), there're law jokes made even during the movie. "Pre-emptive strike... that's why the judiciary cannot intervene on national security!"

I thought the movie was pretty enjoyable! Has its ironic lighter moments in heavier times, and very tense moments (like when the anamantium was going to be fused to Logan's skeleton!)

I felt it was very sad that Kayla died and that Logan forgot about her though. The movie really made me see Wolverine in a different light.

And thankfully we stayed til the very end to watch the post-credits scene! For some reason we were just sitting there, 28 of us, and I don't think anyone knew that there was going to be an additional scene - only a few others stayed behind too, but there it was! And of course, as post-credits scenes go, it was pretty unremarkable. Apparently there's an ALTERNATE secret scene!

Ah. I'm going off to slack now. Haha.

--- 10.13am

..........

OMG it's Saturday. NIGHT.

Equity & Trusts is on Thursday.

And I've been sooooooo distracted and unfocussed - I just spent an hour eating crabs for goodness' sake!!!

I'm supposed to have covered a fair bit of the syllabus. But I can't seem to remember anything!!!!!!!!!!!

And that's only Equity.

I have this horrendous feeling about everything.

HOW HOW HOWWWWWWWW.

--- 10.54pm

..........

I can't believe I messed up negotiations in the most stupid way ever.

I switched my phone to ringing mode because I was expecting a call from the Singapore Legal Service, and I didn't want to miss it (as I already did 3 times before). As it turned out, they did not call back as they promised; I called back, and forgot to switch my phone to silent mode.

And yes, it RANG during the beginning of the negotiations.

OMG. I was mortified. As Simon said, he had expected me to be the first to switch my phone to silent mode. And he was absolutely right! I cannot believe that I made such a stupid mistake!!

Oh gosh. I'm so screwed.

Granted that the judges didn't say anything (but I don't know whether they WROTE something), it wasn't as if I acquitted myself brilliantly during the negotiations. As usual, I got caught up in the details at a couple of points during the negotiation - went a bit off.

ARGH.

I've effectively disappointed both myself and my teammates for this.

--- 11.36pm

..........

Exams are in 2 weeks time.

Not really experiencing full blown-out panic, but I sense it lurking somewhere inside of me.

I have a tendency to really want to smack and scold myself when I look at all that I'm supposed to finish, and also all that I've already done - supposedly. Because I realise I can't even remember anything about the topics which I've suppposedly already covered.

HOW HOW HOW to finish everything?! There's so much more material to go through this year, and the subjects are more difficult!!

(and I'm not even done with formal lessons and stuff!)

I must stay focussed.

OMG. HOWWWWWWWW. HELP!

--- 12.26am

..........

I was reading Gn's article about IFG in Law Annual today and just laughed and laughed and laughed. Freaking funny.

So was the Dean's interview! Haha I love our Dean; he's just super awesome.

--- 9.38pm

..........

Going to school really makes me tired. I have no idea why - maybe it's just leaving the house in general. Which is why as much as possible I try to stay at home to do work. I don't subscribe to the whole "I can study better in school" theory.

Though I must say, the library's quieter (and there's the studying VIBE there), table's bigger, and there're tons of reference materials around if you need it. Oh and of course the ever useful photocopy machines and printers.

Law school has indeed made tree-killers out of many. When in doubt, just zap. :S

And while attempting to do some revision, I feel frustrated with the refusal of the Public Law faculty to a. upload their reading lists in Word Documents, and b. upload their powerpoint slides in their original .ppt state instead of converting it to a PDF file.

With regards to (a), I'm quite sure many people use the reading lists as a structure and framework to base their study and notes on. Not providing the lists online is not only a departure form precedent (All the other modules I have done always uploaded the soft copy of the reading lists!), but it also makes no absolute sense at all to not do it. So now, I've got to type out all the things individually. Shall leave such brainless stuff to do when watching TV.

For the second point, only Professor Yvonne Lee had the good sense to upload her slides in ppt format. And even then, it was only for her last lecture on Introduction to Administrative Law. You know, she uploaded her slides promptly when she was lecturing on Company Law. So my guess is that either the course convenor expressly forbade the lecturers not to upload the slides in .ppt format, or, the lecturers are just all following the example laid down by the first lecturer - who uploaded slides in PDF format.

And again, I fail to see the point of this - unless it is to prevent students from altering slides, which to me isn't a logical justification. Even if we do alter the slides, what are they afraid of?? That we'll spread the altered slides around? Doesn't seem very plausible to me. Not only is the PDF format is very inconvenient to read, but it also makes copying and pasting from the slides to actual notes so much harder. The font size gets ballooned with weird formatting and one (or me at least) has to spend extra time making everything readable and neat.

Sigh. Do not understand academics.

--- 10.02pm

..........

I have been SO distracted lately... and obviously, this is the worst time to get distracted because exams are coming in one month's time!!!!!!

AHHHHHH.

And I just spent a LOT of time cruising through VS and fighting with the Ibanking system coz I wanted to get something.

I must stop shopping! Grrr.

After I straighten my hair that is. I just received a notification that Monsoon's having their 49% off chemical services for the entire month of April. -_- So much for wanting to do it immediately after exams so that it'll be nice for concert :). Normally the promotion extends til mid May! Tsk. Now is really not a very good time to spend more than 4h sitting in the salon doing nothing.

But it's 49% off...... K see first. I'll call them up to ask about the price. My hair's ridiculously long now; my friend asked me whether I drank some magic potiion for it to grow so fast. Haha.

Time flies doesn't it... I've been growing it since year 1 - that's almost 2 years already!

And of course this coming month will fly past as well. ARGH! I am so unsure of everything. And I only have TWO exams to sit for. RAWR

--- 11.56pm

..........

I was surfing through Facebook yesterday and I realised that there were actually many things happening which I would have liked to be part of but was not.

I've just drifted too far apart from anyone else, and the links were tenuous in the first place.

It is especially bad this semester because I tend to just chiong home very quickly after classes end, and it's exacerbated by splitting up the cohort into three Equity seminar groups such that there's only so little common time with the rest of the batch.

Oh well. No one to blame but myself.

On another random unrelated note. You know all those drama serials where the guy likes the girl and vice versa but each of them doesn't know or dare to tell the other? And the story drags on and on (until I as the viewer feel so frustrated: "JUST TELL HER LA"), but because it's a drama serial, they end up happily together.

Transpose to real life. Wouldn't it be sad if the same thing happened but the parties involved never dared to tell the other? Maybe they THOUGHT that things wouldn't work out, that their feelings were unreciprocated, that the other party likes someone else. Or perhaps it's the feeling of not knowing how to express yourself, the fear of rejection, and if it's someone you already know, the fear that you would lose him/her as a friend as well.

But if those fears were unfounded, wouldn't it be something to regret? It could have been the start of something new and wonderful. I don't think anyone would want to look back and think, "what if?"...

Well. Maybe that's why they always say, just whack and things will just work out no matter what happens.

--- 9.25am

..........

This is going to be a long complaint post.

I HATE school.

I don't think I've ever felt such venom towards anything in my life. Attacks on lecturers, books, the establishment are running through my head.

I started reading Public Law today and felt my mood start to drop drastically. That subject is utterly horrendous, no thanks to the lecturers and that red-coloured lousy book we're all stuck with.

Everytime I open that book, I feel like slapping someone. No prizes for who that someone is. That book is such a MESS. The binding is lousy (I've already got the start of a crease in the spine and anyone who knows me knows how careful I am in reading my books), and you can't read the first or last portion of the book without using something to press the pages down.

And the content. It's just a bunch of articles stacked on top of one another with no guiding principle whatsoever (the little there is does not count). Yes it's a casebook. Casebooks come with textbooks! Look at Criminal Law and Torts. That's HOW it's done. Lectures are in no way substitutes for textbooks. In fact most of the lectures are so messy that they make things worse.

The amount of readings. They should make Public Law a 16 credit module and scrap the other compulsory modules for the sheer mountain of work we have to read. And we have to complete it in one week along with the other modules. HELLO NUS. We're humans. Not robots. We aren't "intelligentsia" who could probably absorb everything in 2 days. Don't translate passion for the subject into unreasonable workloads for the students.

ARGH. All students who want to study law should go to the UK. Stay far far away from NUS. It's not worth it. Especially with the scrapping of Dipsing. It essentially makes NUS Law School a second-class school. Which it really is considering how slack the UK schools are and how easy it is to get first class/second upper there. And NUS doesn't even have the prestige as a compensatory factor.

Sheesh.

--- 2.24pm

..........

Law School is sadistic and totally unfeeling. WHERE IS THE EQ!!

In the span of one week, I have THREE assignments due. After finishing public law on Friday, I was so totally zonked out, I didn't (and still do not) have the mood to do LCS.

I feel like my soul has been sapped into all those textbooks and law reports and of course, my trusty laptop. I think I really need a true break to recharge. Which was actually what the recess break was for but law school has made it a complete mockery.

Honestly, I don't see the point of having three assignments due one after another. Unless you're sadistic and enjoy seeing people suffer. I'm still in SCHOOL, for goodness sake, shouldn't there be some love and welfare floating around still!

[random note: My lecturer actually thinks I learn French "shuyu you know French right?"] Um. Sorry to disappoint, but no. parle vous anglais? Haha

On a more refreshing note, I went for RJCO alumni practice this past Saturday. And I guess it just revoked many memories - of a free-er and happier time.

It's funny how CO and I work. I was thinking about this last night, chronicling everything CO-related that I encountered in my life. In Sec 4, I was quite determined to call it quits, but Mega Concert changed things. After J2, there was an absence of intention to continue. I don't think I ever specifically thought "okay that's the end", but I didn't think that I wanted to continue either.

So months dragged into years and the erhu was left mostly alone. And when something becomes absent from your life, time makes you think that it's unimportant and that it doesn't matter anymore. I truly truly believed that CO and erhu was just something I dabbled in in my schooldays and nothing but a vague memory.

And then I agreed to join the alumni CO. I have no idea why to be honest. Maybe it was because I was so sick of doing nothing but work all day that I decided I wanted to do something else. Or maybe it sounded fun and I wanted to see my old friends again. I'm not sure myself.

But anyway the deed was done and off to CO prac I went. Without practicing I might add. And during practice, even though I was so rusty I couldn't remmeber what a 0 on top of a note meant, and my gong was appallingly bald (it dropped hair like mad the past two times I took it out), and my yinzhun was worse than ever (which was saying something)... but, I haven't felt so carefree in quite a long while. Maybe it's because of the lack of law school people. So I don't have to talk about law-related stuff at all!

But going deeper than that, I guess it's actually very simple - I've never stopped enjoying playing in an orchestra, merely forgotten what it was like. Can't really describe the feeling but it's like the floodgates has opened and I can feel things coming back.

Surprisingly I still remember how to play most of the slow parts of yubei. Then again, that was probably the only song that I truly learnt, so not that a big surprise actually.

I'm not sure how long it'll last though. But I'm going to enjoy it while it's here to stay. It's going to be my escape whenever I get too stressed. Heh.

--- 11.48am

..........

Just came back from a primary 6 class gathering not too long ago!!

OMG, it was so fun seeing everyone walk in and then fitting the name to the face! I remembered that two random girls came in and we were staring at them for some time thinking whether it was someone who changed really drastically or what. But they were not from our group! Haha

Yes, it was awesome reminiscing about the old days, though it was 8 years ago!! Talking about things like throwing stapler bullets into people's hair, teachers, primary school scandals... it brings back memories, and a lot of laughter.

Ah. I haven't felt that relaxed and happy in quite a while!!! :)

--- 11.58am

..........

Haven't been blogging lately because my life is non-existent.

But had a very interesting experience today! Hence the post...

Anyway, those of us who were on the Dean's List in our first year were invited to a tea with the Legal Service Commission. There would be a talk by the LSOs in a restricted area of the Supreme Court, followed by a tea with Justices VK Rajah, Lee Seiu Kin and the AG Walter Woon.

To cut a long story short, the presentation made the Legal Service (especially the JLC programme) sound really enticing.

The more interesting part was the tea later. We were seated at three separate tables. There was fixed seating and there was this namecard thingy so that the judges and AG would know your name. And I happily got the seat directly opposite where the judge/AG was supposed to sit. But it turned out okay in the end.

All of them were very very nice! In different ways of course. Justice Lee reminds me of a very kind grandfather, like Kevin Gray!! He had such interesting things to share with us, such as how he feels when handing down judgments, and the intellectual stimulation that he gets. It was very inspiring actually. And he stayed on the longest to talk to us!

The food was also quite good! Although we were all trying terribly to be really polite, wincing when the fork dropped onto the table, or when we made too loud a sound cutting through the honeydew, and placing the tongs and stuff very very carefully back into place... it was quite amusing. Everytime the judge/AG left the table for rotation, we would quickly get whatever food we were interested in before the next guest came to our table.

After the tea we went for a little tour around the JLCs' offices. They're huge. And you get one room for yourself! There was also this amazing recreational area and gym which left us suitably impressed, I must say.

So all in all, really fun. Very enriching. :D

--- 11.35pm

..........

It's the first day of school. And it was a long one at that. Didn't help that I wasn't feeling all that well.

Equity and Trusts was a subject I thought I would enjoy, but now I'm not so sure of that anymore. I'm so afraid that I've offended the lecturer by falling asleep a couple of times (and yes, in quite a conspicuous position) such that he is now eternally biased against me (except that class part counts for a hefty 20%).

And there's LCS, where I wandered around being a homeless 'venture capitalist'. Really felt quite alone at that time. But luckily I bumped into a group... which objectively seems really awesome. I hope I can contribute positvely because both of them are quite strong characters.

Public law hasn't really started but alvin has warned time and time again that it is a difficult subject. SLS was never even my strong point. :S

Never mind. I believe I can do it. One day is not representative of anything at all! Whether the tutor is offended or not is now beyond my control, but what happens from now is! Same for everything else.

I think in just the short span of today, I've forgotten one of my more common ideas - not to have a goal, so that you will just do the best that you can, and be satisfied with it. I've become such a paranoid worrywart!!

Time to go back to first principles. I'm sure I can overcome this.

Blogging really helps sort things out sometimes!

--- 4.59pm

..........

I realised I really haven’t been blogging at all the whole of past year. Because I lead a boring life, most of the time I think too lightly of ordinary events I encounter to blog about it. Or else I just procrastinate until any attempt to write it down loses much detail and flavour.

Anyway, have you ever felt like you are unappreciated or that you were treated as being invisible even though you were there? I’ve been feeling that way lately. It makes me wonder whether I had wasted the good part of the past 6 months. It makes me wonder whether I had undertaken a commitment that wasn’t worth my commitment.

I don’t feel enthusiasm anymore; it’s sort of become a chore. I don’t have confidence in them anymore – everything is so unstructured, discipline is non-existent, and the feeling I’m getting is that there are a few warped ‘policies’ and trends which permeate the organisation which I don’t agree with.

So I’m just wondering whether I should hang in there for a while more… or cut my losses now.

And on a random note, I miss having Nanoha on TV already! Haha. I regret not watching the climatic two episodes last week and had to make to with tudou.com. Also regretted not sitting properly in the nice sofa in the living room to watch the final episode and watched the second half standing in front of my smaller TV and cleaning my contact lenses. Oh well.

--- 11.03pm

..........

Well... last day of the year.

Thoughts? None at the moment coz I'm just really sleepy right now. Yearning for the bed really.

Let's see... 2008, tried to do something new, whether that has paid off has yet to be seen, became a real hermit and gotten bangs!

That leaves only about two more years in school. Oh well.

Happy New Year everyone!

--- 10.30am

..........

Woo! It's been about a week since I came back from my trip to the US! :)

It's been a pretty lucky trip, save for a few instances.

Like, when we touched down in San Francisco, the weather was really clear, in contrast to the normally foggy weather, so we could really see the Golden Gate Bridge really clearly. The view of the sunset illuminating the bridge was just so beautiful! I really don't see anything like that in Singapore. Even the moon was a lot larger.

Didn't really eat a lot that day though, because I ate almost everything on the plane and was really really stuffed.

The highlight of the next day was definitely shopping at the Gilroy Factory Outlets. There were stores like Coach, Guess, Nike etc etc (a total of 145 stores!), and the things there were sooooo cheap. The ticketed prices were already lower than retail prices, and if that wasn't enough, there is usually some other further discount/special promotion. Like at Van Heusen there was a 50% off all ticketed prices plus a further 30% off the discounted price. So something which orignally cost US$60 odd ended up costing only US$$20+. And at Coach, this bag caught my eye, and the final price was only around US$100. I would have bought it but I'm not exactly into buying branded stuff (or spending that amount of money on one bag, Coach or not) so I didn't get it. Now that I'm back in Singapore, someone told me that a Coach WALLET costs S$300. OMG. I could have made a cool $200 if I had bought that bag and sold it off or something! GRRR. Little wonder that this family on the tour group ended up buying around US$3000 worth of Coach stuff by the time the tour ended.

Seriously, now sitting here in Singapore, I think that I should have just bought more stuff since I was already there in area. Bleahz. Oh well. At least I got a couple of Guess wallets and a bag! The wallets were only US$17.50 each! Muahahaha. Even my dad, who normally doesn't buy anything for himself when we're on holiday, bought shirts and pants from Van Heusen and also shoes from Clark. Everyone got something :D. If I were into running/still in JC I would have bought some shoes from Nike too. Superrr cheap. Like around US$39.99 thereabouts.

We went to another place with outlet stores at Barstow the next day or so, but it was much much smaller and we didn't have the whole day there.

Hmm what else was memorable about the trip... oh, getting caught in a snowstorm!!

We were in Las Vegas, Nevada, and that day, we were supposed to see the West Rim of the Grand Canyon and go on a helicopter trip. And you know that whole area is like a desert-area with a lot of sand and scrub and just a lot of brown. But when we reached the place, we were told that all helicopter rides were off that day due to strong winds, but we could still continue with the rest of the itinery, ie, go on the Skywalk, which was this glass bridge thingy overlooking the Grand Canyon.

After going on the bridge we had a very simple meal of stew and rice OUTSIDE, and it was freezing because of the wind and everything. And suddenly you could see specks falling down. Initially no one thought anything of it; it really just looked like dust motes or something. And then the specks got more and more and it was SNOWING!!

And while we stood there waiting for the bus to come, the snow just got heavier and heavier until it started to blanket the ground. What was brown just hours ago was now completely white. It was sooooo pretty! I LOVE snow scenes.

And anyway, that snow was to continue for a few days at least. It was quite a major snowstorm to hit many many cities, and the last major snow Las Vegas had was actually in 1967.

The snow was also there when we went to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Everyday the snow was falling and falling and everyone just went crazy taking photos. Lying on the snow, holding snow, making snowballs, snowmen, it was really really a lot of fun. It's like in the morning, even before the tour had even started, our shoes and the hem of our pants would be all wet from the snow. There was just so muc