Occasional cases

If truth be told, I actually finished my internship on 31st August but didn't come to terms with it until, well, yesterday. When I met a friend for dinner on Friday, seeing her in black and white*, I actually felt a qualm that I was not at work being an intern. Luckily, that passed after watching enough explosions to flatten a mountain in Red 2 and life reset itself before my eyes.

Not that it was a bad experience to be an intern. Well, what's not to like, eh? Moments of work interspersed with boredom, being the eager beaver about, well, everything, frankly learning enough fascinating stuff that even my cynicial nature couldn't smother... all that for the fantastic allowance of $400 a month. It's a bargain.

Well, at least I'm still getting paid for my tutoring. Though I've lost count of how many times I've apologised over the last two months for turning up late/almost late for my classes because I was stuck at the office, damn it. I've always had a rather good punctuality record before this! I'm a bit annoyed, especially when that tutoring was the only way I'd had money to eat lunch and y'know, have money for transport to get to the office.

*Court attire is long sleeved white shirt with collar, black skirt/pants/trousers, and then black jacket; same rules for interns. And apparently what's-supposed-to-be-silk-but-feels-like-polyester black robes for lawyers in High Court. I'm always "really? Shakespeare in the Park?" when I see my boss and judges wearing robes. In what universe, aka non-Harry Potter-verse, do people think this is a good idea?

And white shirts: does no one share my opinion that they are a bitch to iron? I suppose I could get by wearing a this little thing but in tropical weather, no one wants to wear a long sleeve black jacket.

The haze did clear up by a lot this afternoon, so despite the unrelenting heat, I stood outside the library and took lots of deep breaths. T'was nice not to feel like you're being smothered.

Although now it has resurged and it's making me cough just a bit. Well, it was a nice little respite. I was starting to forget what a blue sky looked like.

This may be just my singular experience, but the only people who want to take the TOEIC that I've only ever come across are Japanese people. Everyone else (ELT or EFL learners, I mean) take either the IELTS or the TOEFL. Apparently you get career brownie points if your company knows you got a good ranking on the TOEIC. Meanwhile, I'm at the 'but the TOEIC is such a lame test!' stage. (It really is! It has questions that test, lemme see, your ability to match a photograph to spoken descriptions, the same type of question and answer thing for grammer and vocabulary you get on the TOEFL except easier and then reading comprehension on things like mock emails, posters, and the like.)

(Ok, I will concede that it is less lame now that since they've added a speaking and writing section to the test.)

A student came in today so I talked to her about what she wanted to achieve: better general English skills aka all-round improvement, or improved TOEIC scores. Guess what she chose. Look, standardised tests are no doubt very useful to have, but really, isn't it more productive to use your precious time - since you work such long hours (7am to 10pm every day is just crazy) - to improve your English overall rather than drill yourself on test-taking skills? Even business English would be more interesting!

Not to say that you won't learn something whilst doing the preparation for TOEIC as I can see I'm going to have to do a quick run-through on basic grammar, etc, but the starting and ending point is TOEIC. So this necessitated picking up the TOEIC preparation kit at Kinokuniya. Have just been looking through it. (Lame!)

Also stopped by the school library to get a book on bankruptcy law. Because my knowledge of bankruptcy law can be summed up in one scientific term: zero. So basically I ended up lugging a textbook, the TOEIC kit, another novel that caught my eye and another knitting magazine. Lugging books is not an advisable activity in this haze, right? *feeling self-aggrieved, even though it was self-inflicted*

Confirmed, worst ever yucky air in years. I'm not surprised, since I can see it right out of my window. So my theory is that the PSI levels go up at night because whoever is burning up the forests in Indonesia can't control the fires anymore as evening falls - maybe they went home for the day, maybe the change in air temperature makes the wind stronger, etc.

Anyway, my eyes feel really dry. I can't imagine what it'd be like if it gets worse. The weather is already so hot; it feels like something is about to spontaneously combust.

The sitch just now. And then, PSI readings just did a mighty jump to 321. We're officially in hazardous territory!

Hm, this is the first time I felt good about what I'm studying: that it can be helpful, I mean. Not giving legal advice as I'm not qualified, but it felt good to tell a friend that the so-called agreement he'd signed was not worth the paper it was printed on, and that he should tell his "partners" to take a long walk off a cliff. (And it's weird being believed because of what I'm studying when really, anyone of common sense could say the same.) And to say that if his arsehole "partners" threaten to go to a lawyer, you will go to one too, instead of being frightened off. (It's my personal belief that they are too chickenshit to do so.)

***

Checked grades today; only raw scores but I think I'm safely in B territory again. (One last subject remains unveiled still.) Well, considering I'd been having fears of a string of C's, I guess I can't be blamed for feeling blithe. The daydream of A's I'll grant you.

I sort of hate being so grades-fearful. It just goes around and 'round in my head: if only you'd studied more, if only you'd did those extra reading, if you only you had asked more questions, if only you'd read fewer fics, etc, etc. (I actually did ok on my exams; it was my midterms and term paper that I'd bombed, and well, by the time exams came it was too late to hope for better than a B.) So, realist am I. I didn't understand the subject with any sort of, well, insight until well into the term, so that is either due to a lack of intellect or I'm a slow learner. Ugh.

***

I've recently discovered I can buy books on my kindle! It's not supported here, so I'm quite pleased that I can still pay via my (differently-addressed) account and it will go to my kindle. So that's kind of awesome. Previously I'd heard you had to hack it through VPN disguises and a gift card.

Tho' I'm more knitting these couple of weeks.

***

Interning continues to be kind of hectic and kind of hilarious. As I mentioned, I'm the minor-est person in the team that's representing a client in court. (I just sit and take transciption-like notes.) I'm finding it hard to keep a poker face when the cross-examination goes rapidly to pieces. And I keep trying to send mental commands to our side's counsel: "Stand up and say 'objection'!"

I'm using my icons as mood indicators but I don't have one that says "arghhh revision!" Pity.

Was reviewing parts of the Rules of Court online (if printed, about size of telephone directory) and discovered that there are in total 229 different forms for various purposes: issuing a writ, a memo of appearance, possessing property of debtor, etc. And just goes to show, paperwork is the only certainty in life. Although life is supposedly easily with electronic filing, sometimes only hard copy will do. Also learning about costs this term has been something of an eye-opener.

I mean, anecdotally I always knew that legal stuff and going to court was expensive but I did not know exactly that they ran to hundreds of thousands (or even more) instead of just, erm, thousands. Admittedly that kind of expense is for complicated stuff and for commercial stuff and very rich people. But um, legal aid is pretty limited and even that's only for certain categories of criminal matters so if you get into other sorts of trouble you're screwed. Well, you could try to do it yourself but those results have not generally been pretty if the other side is rich and can afford lawyers whilst you can't.

But yeah. I did know this, in the back of my head. Just grumbling.

This is not a nice LNY. I've got a shitload of work coming up in the next week that must be done within next week and then LNY will be over. Not to mention that all the make-up classes this month is cutting into my Saturdays this month. I hate these make-up classes. Or at least, in addition to the fact that they happen in LNY.

Happy LNY, anyway.

***

ETA: Okay, I wanted to blog about this case but kept forgetting. It was for my equity and trusts class and frankly not that significant. It's about a species of trust called a Quistclose trust, which apparently is supposed to be what happens when A lends B money for the purpose of paying B's creditor C. Apparently this means that if B for some reason is unable to pay C (B goes bankrupt or whatever) that money would go back to A since it's in a trust for A. Which is a little weird because you'd think that the money would be for B's many, many other creditors E, F, G, etc, right? In class, we went through a bunch of academic and judicial opinions on the Quistclose trust, which just means no one really knows what to think about it. Just lovely.

Anyway, this case isn't as much about Quistclose trusts (though it was on the reading list for that reason) as it is about a public organisation that is inexplicably gullible and makes me embarrassed to think it represents my country: ( Singapore Tourism Board v Children's Media )

It must be. I tried to log into my school account to check my grades (the heck with being terrified to know what they are, I'm curious as hell!). There I was, psyching myself up, telling myself it's not the end of the world however bad grades those are, and...

I forgot my password. I've been racking my memory trying to recall it, and can't.

Talk about an anti-climax! Will have to go to IT desk tomorrow on my way to guzheng class and get a password reset before I can log in.

Unless I remember it by morning. >_>

I watched the Hobbit movie earlier this week. 'twas all for Martin Freeman. The fight scenes were too long, as were the mountain-climbing parts. But it was still pretty entertaining. Although thank goodness I watched it on a Monday because tickets were cheaper then.

Also watched the Rurounin Kenshin movie last week, which was only a little draggy and wasn't too cheesy. Plotwise was as expected, so not too bad. I kept getting distracting by noticing machine-stitched seams on those supposedly 19th Japanese clothes - made me feel as though I was watching a cosplay rather than a movie.

What's annoying about having a 'big' movie come out is that it's squeezes all the other movies out, besides also depriving people of additional choices they could have had. I mean, after watching the Hobbit, there are no other movies out there. Or if there are, theatres screen them maybe once a day which doesn't necessarily help with scheduling. I wanted to catch Life of Pi and maybe The Guardians but most theatres have already stopped screening them.

The holiday season, it's weird.

Contract law exam over, three more to go.

How much do I want to start knitting now? Very much. The more stressed I get the more I want to make a sweater.

Unfortunately I have an exam on constitutional law on Friday and must revise. I have bad visions of being asked about Malaysia's replacement of the ISA because my level of cynicism about the ISA (Singapore's, which is similar to Malaysia's) is too high for me to examine it objectively. I feel like I'm about to write "ISA, you suck!" all over the exam paper.

I just realised that I lost my shawl (the one in my icon). All this while, I thought I'd left it at work and then today when I went to work ... no shawl! Means I dropped it somewhere and didn't even realise when or where. Boo. I loved that shawl - okay, even tho' it was starting to pill rather badly due to heavy use. But it was still an awesome shawl!

And what's really galling; I started thinking of making a replacement (since it was getting old anyway) and then I realised that I have no time to knit. So sad. The nice thing about making your own stuff is that you can always make more - as opposed to buying from a shop, I mean. So you always have it the way you want it, unlike shop stuff.

***

Tort mid-term tomorrow, which means I should either go to bed now or study some more.

A friend who glanced at this blog said that I was too dispassionate in blogging and sounded very cold. My warm and friendly nature was disputed. I was accused of not even owning a cuddly toy.

Well, you might be happy to know that while studying for tort, I hugged my teddy bear about eight hundred times.

See icon. So much.

Finally got my grades. All B's. Which is averagely... average, and also means I've lost my funding. (It required at least an A to make up a higher grade point average.) So, dammit.

Also have to buy some very expensive textbooks for next term. Ditto.

Not to mention paying more for tuition. Ditto, ditto, ditto.

...It's my own fault for not being as hardworking as I ought to have been, and also shortcomings in my own IQ level, so can't really blame anyone. But still, di... yeah. (ETA: If it sounds like I'm sighing a lot, it's because I'm feeling doubtful about doing the next term. My brain has been having "Look, if you're not smart enough for this then so be it, give up and get a job" vs "Are you just scared about going through with the next term and doing even worse?" vs "What have you got to lose?" arguments with itself all day. >_>)

On a tangentially related note, have been doing volunteer work at pro bono office. Paperwork. Answering phones. And other stuff. But it's pretty interesting, plus it's bracing to be in the company of people who have a mission to help and who are not singlemindedly focused on grades, grades, grades. Only annoyance is, because it's a regular working stint, am feeling tired out at the end of the day; I feel almost too tired to go teach after work, which then makes me feel irritable. And then even more tired by the time it finishes. It's a bit sad to be eating dinner at 10.30. Am using an alarm clock these days because I'm scared of oversleeping. So tired. Used to be that I never used to use alarms in the past -- oh well, better an irritating noise (alarm's set on my phone) and being late, I suppose.

Unrelated note: knitted a shrug. And I look good wearing it! Also received my order of Handmaiden yarn. I also see that my days of ordering yarn online will no longer be, due to budget reasons. (I've only done it twice, tho.) Now, what to make with 400 metres of lovely green silk yarn??? Checking Ravelry just makes me tempted to order more yarn. But must make use of this year-end break to scratch my knitting itch; won't have time when term starts. But it's almost too pretty to knit!