nightmare.
written: 6:11 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2006

I am absolutely hopeless at driving.

Yesterday's driving lesson was an utter, complete nightmare. I can't even begin to recount the specifics that make up the shitty ninety minutes; all I can remember is that those ninety minutes were a blur of stress, pressure and absolute terror.

And it didn't help that I got this prickly, mumbly and not-very-nice dude as an instructor. Ugh.

I went out to the roads again and I almost died. I don't understand why he kept telling me to change to second gear when I'm trying to make a turn because it's ridiculously tedious to attempt to prevent the fucking engine from stalling and to attempt to prevent the car from hitting the curb at the same time. And he kept going, "Don't hold the gear!" (meaning, Don't grip the gearshift. Funny, I've never driven before in my life and yet I still know the proper name for the device with which one uses to change gears) when no other instructors I've had before ever told me not to grip it. Ugh, what the fuck. I was still under the impression that I'd only get like three different instructors in total, so imagine my surprise when I showed up for lesson yesterday and saw a completely new dude.

And imagine my annoyance when he turned out to be such an ass.

Oh, and the worst part? He totally neglected to ask me if I've ever changed lanes before - because I've never actively and consciously changed lanes before. So I was out on the roads and he was like, "Signal left. Check blindspot", and I was like, "Huh?" Because I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to be doing. And I didn't know how to "check blindspot" 'cause nobody ever showed me how to do it. And nobody would actually read the handbook because it's unreadable.

Okay, yes, I'm aware that I'm bitching, but you have absolutely no idea how relieved and pleased I was when the lesson finally ended. It was a COMPLETE nightmare and it was the first time in quite a bit that I felt that shitty about myself.

Take it from me: Learning to drive a stick is much, much harder than law school. I can get all annoyed by how boring Treitel's chapter on agency is, but at the end of it at least something manages to go in - and all I have to exercise is my brain. That's, like, easy, you know? But driving? Fuck, it's a completely different demon altogether. No matter how much I want to get something right, I just can't.

I left the car without saying 'thank you', which is very uncharacteristic of me. Bitchy, I know, but bleah, who gives a shit.

Anyway, enough about that.

Yesterday was this crazy busy day for me. I had Property tutorial at 11 in the morning and I pretty much said nothing throughout. I wanted to volunteer an answer when we got to the part about inchoate equity but I only wrote "inchoate equity" and some random, irrelevant crap in my tutorial notebook in response to the question, and I knew I wouldn't be able to answer any further questions which I was pretty sure my tutor would ask if I talked, so I didn't say anything - until, for some reason, everyone went off about Binions v Evans which even I know isn't quite relevant, gasp horror surprise, and it felt like a good time to volunteer my answer. But as soon as I opened my mouth and uttered like two syllabus (syllabuses? Dunno), someone else beat me to it.

Damn.

I'm decent at spotting issues, but rubbish at substantiating the issues that I spot. And I'm very much aware of how lazy I am and how little I actually study and how the most I do is the bare minimum. So do I have the right to complain about getting shitty grades? Of course not.

But, try as I might, reading materials on Company Law and things whose point always manage to elude me is quite an Impossible Attempt.

Anyway.

There was a student exchange programme talk immediately after tutorial. I sat through it and uh, I dunno, it was okay I guess. I'm pretty sure my shit-ass grades won't get me past the first round but hey, no harm in trying, and I'm sufficiently prepared mentally for rejections in all shapes and sizes. Besides, my CCA record is pretty much a blank piece of paper so there you go.

The talk ended at 3. My driving lesson was at 3.45. I took a cab down to the centre and that bloody cost me SEVEN DOLLARS. Ohmygod. I so need a boyfriend who drives.

Lesson ended at like, 5.25 p.m. Mel was acting in a play at 6.30 at NUS. So after driving it was another mad dash to another place and I barely had time to stop and buy some crap to fill the stomach.

Basically, what I ate yesterday before 9 p.m.:

1 slice of bread + eggs + cheese
1 small bun thing with tuna spread from the SEP reception
1/2 small packet of Hello Panda

I've never eaten THAT little before in my life.

Thankfully, Pei, Mel, Mel's boyfriend and I went to Gone Fishing after the play for some food. Yeah, it was great.

I have water in my ears. I finally got to swim after a week of inactivity. I'm all tired and happy now; swimming is bloody therapeutic, especially after being assaulted by the sheer stupidity and idiocy of reading eight pages of Treitel on Agency in a pathetic TWO HOURS. Oh my gad, really.

Needless to say I barely absorbed anything.

Is necessity of agency even in the syllabus? I can't believe I wasted my time reading that.

I'm reading Tan Hwee Hwee's (I refuse to call a Chinese person Hwee Hwee Tan) Mammon Inc and I'm 60 pages into the novel and so far I think it's a badly-written piece of tripe. Sorry, Jean. It reads like an elevated tourist guide to Singapore, what with all the lengthy and needless explanations whenever she talks about anything related to Singapore. Seriously, I yearn for the day when I can read a Singaporean novel without being subjected to that kind of preposterousness. Of course, the argument for Tan is that the book was meant to be published overseas; and my counter to that? Why cater so blatantly to the foreigners? Did Nabokov bother to explain every single French expression he peppered throughout Lolita? If the reader is sufficiently interested in knowing what kiasuism is or whatever, he'd find out for himself. The writer's job is not to treat the reader like a retarded pre-schooler.

Hell, I won't even get into this right now. My issues with the book is more than the tour guide thing. Her style, for some reason, reminds me of a secondary school kid's English composition, but with better vocabularly. Her metaphors are obvious, there is no subtlety in her prose, and her satire isn't satirical at all. I get that satires are supposed to be blatant and over-the-top, but satires are also supposed to be funny and provocative. Mammon Inc is neither funny nor provocative, and even if it is, it's for all the wrong reasons (i.e. I'm laughing at her and not with her; I'm provoked into anger by the crappy Asian stereotypes she seems all too happy to further reinforce in the book). And the satire? Oh god. After reading England, England, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, George Orwell, Mammon Inc is just fucking child's play.

But hey, I will finish it, if only just so I can justifiably tear it to shreds. One of the few joys of reading a bad book is the part where I get to criticise it. It's fun.

But seriously, the subway platform gaps as a metaphor for the East/West divide? Wow. So Ingenious.

Will reserve final judgement for after I've finished the book. It's gonna be quite hard though, sad to say. Even Lolita's morally reprehensible content was much easier to swallow than Tan's mediocre prose.

Pei was reading it yesterday and after a few pages she began bitching about it too. Haha.

Lastly, what the hell kind of name is "Vivo City"? What does it even MEAN?

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