trials and tribulations of the average law student.
written: 6:15 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005

Also, if I'd known that there wasn't a proper LAWR lecture today, and that it was a student panel discussion on study skills, I doubt very much that I would've bothered to go to school at 9 in the morning. Sometimes we need to catch up on sleep; otherwise we'd be suffering a tremendous headache like the one that's virtually killing me right now.

Bright side? The student panel thing was quite funny, especially towards the end when they were talking about take-home exams and this guy went off about how he never read anything for Singapore Legal System and that he spent a few hours out of the 24 hours doing it and how he only read his stuff on the day of the exam and how he got a C+ but he didn't care because it's only 4 credits. Um, yes. That was a long rambling sentence but I'm sure you get my point. It makes me wonder why I stress like a fucker over SLS readings and why I always walk out of SLS lectures feeling like I'm about to flunk out of Law school any minute because half the time I have no idea what's going on in lectures. Last week Prof. B was going off about the Application to/of/whatever English Law Act (see, I can't even get the name of the Act right - what a genius) and since I didn't read the stuff about that Act as it bored me to tears, I sat in my first-row seat and hoped desperately that he never called me.

Luckily for me (and Rui!), he didn't. He never calls on the people in front so yes, now I'm glad we're sitting right in front!

On the subject of failing out of law school, I'd like to announce that I have officially adjusted my prediction of my closed memo grade from a D- to an F-. Why? Because my tutor was talking about it during class today, about how we should spend ten hours working on the first draft after analysing the cases and yadayadayada, and all I could think of was, "Um, I kind of spent five hours working on all three drafts without really touching the cases."

Evidently I'm fucking screwed. Great. Now I wish I'd done more work and put in more effort because it is TWENTY BLOODY PERCENT you stupid girl. She also said something about how we'd find something that'd make us re-think our issue or conclusion or whatever, and I mentally I was like, "Um, I found one issue and a conclusion to that issue and stuck with it." What is wrong with me? I can't believe I was that distracted for the whole of last week and half of the week before last. GOD snap out of it! The world doesn't end just because something didn't happen. I'm behaving like a TOTAL retard right now, like some stupid secondary school girl who whines her days away just because some dude she has a crush on has a girlfriend.

Bleah. I thought I was smarter than that. I guess we learn something new everyday.

I shall do my SLS readings tonight like a good girl until it's time for America's Next Top Model. Yes, I shall. And I shall not enable wireless connection so that I shall not go on MSN and talk my time away, hence neglecting really exciting and stimulating readings on the Singapore Legal System - which, for the record, I don't hold in very high regard because the things I've read about it so far don't go down very well with me in terms of gelling with personal principles and beliefs.

Okay that sounded bloody pretentious. Let's just move on, okay?

I spent two hours stoning like a dead person today. The time in between the end of Tort lecture and start of LAWR tutorial? Yes. 11.45 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. I had lunch with Mel and Khai, they left at around 1 - Mel to meet Alex and Khai to attend tutorial - and from 1 onwards all I did was sit at the forum and stare into space. I attempted to read Neumann but fuck the heat, the headache, the irritation, the lack of heart, everything yelled at me to not even bother for what is the point if your heart isn't in it? So I stared into space and when I got sick of staring into space I went to the co-op and enquired about Acer laptops. After that I went back to the bench and stared into space some more. When Khai came back she was super tired so she slept, and I was thinking about things, and all of a sudden I got an urge to write. So I wrote a bunch of crap on the back of the Acer brochure; after that, I slept.

What an eventful and well-utilised afternoon. I woke up with an ache in the right side of my neck and a very dry left eye that blurred my vision (HELL I took three attempts to write 'blurred my vision' what's wrong with me). Would've been something to oversleep and miss half an hour of LAWR tutorial.

I wish I were still taking the A Levels. That, at least, had a comfortable degree of predictability that won't throw me all out of whack like Law school is doing now. Like Law school isn't stressful and social life-demanding-esque enough, you just HAVE to hear stories about how lawyers never have time to do anything apart from work, how they stay in law firms well after 11 p.m., yadayadayada, things that make me wish I'd chosen another path. Can I really do this? Tutors and lecturers have this fondness of stating, "You're all gonna be lawyers" (of course they don't say 'gonna') and I'm like, "Are you really sure?" How can they be sure if I'm not sure myself?

This is so strange, so curious, even slightly wrong. Before I got my results I was dead set AGAINST studying Law. I've always wanted to major in Lit and it remains very much the one thing that can comfort me when things go wrong, the only constant in my life that has sustained me throughout the more significant half of my life. My cousin kept telling me to do Law last year when he was tutoring me in Maths and my response was always, "Hell no, I want to do Lit." Even when Mrs. Chua told me that I could go for Law on the day I got my results I was like, "Eh, I don't think so, I'm not really interested."

It's funny - even darkly hilarious - how things turn out sometimes. I never thought I'd go to Law school. And now that I'm in Law school, I don't find it hard to understand why that was.

Considering the amount of work I put into my stupid closed memo, all signs are pointing to me flunking out sometime between now and the end of Semester One. And, you know, I just want to laugh and I feel sorry for Jurong Junior, because Arthur Kok was telling me on the day of Mel's birthday gathering that, in short, I still "retain the crown" of being the top GP student. And look, Jurong Junior, your precious top GP student is drowning IRRETRIEVABLY in Law school, she feels like an utter moron, an unwelcomed alien, a newcomer to the English language who's never spoken or written a full sentence in the language before. By logical conclusion, Jurong Junior, you're utter crap, now and forever.

(For the record, I never quite understood just what was so great about my essays, apart from the fact that they were considerably better than 99.99% of the GP essays written by JJC students but that doesn't say a lot because they were JJC STUDENTS, and I still don't.)

Sometimes all of this feels like too damn much for me to deal with.

At other times, thankfully, I'm too proud and arrogant to admit that I'm defeated. I may go off about how I'm gonna fail my assignment (and yes I genuinely believe that, just mark my words that it will happen) and how I'm gonna fail out of law school but 99.99999999% of it should be taken with a pinch of salt, even if that pinch consists of mere two grains of salt. What I'm trying to say is, I'd rather die than to be kicked out so I guess I'll just have to settle for being average.

Ugh, whatever. Sick of thinking about this, definitely sick of school, I want to go shopping.

I'm feeling very itchy and it's disturbing me. I think there's some mosquito nest in my room. I won't be surprised. My notes are dumped in this huge stack behind my laptop atop (hahahahaha how clever) my dictionary. I need files and I've been saying that since matriculation week. Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha. Some things never change, ever.

Also, I'd like to conclude by saying that I'm rather proud of last night's entry, and I'm freaking hungry.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010