i'm sure you've heard it all before.
written: 6:35 p.m. on Saturday, Apr. 28, 2007

For once, I wish the exams would go on forever. The emptiness set in halfway through the Public Law paper, when I was struggling to write something worth putting my matriculation number on for the defamation question (I failed - miserably. And I haven't got over it. And I don't think I'd get over it anytime soon). It settled after the paper ended when I dragged myself out of the exam hall, barely hearing the conversations around me about the paper, what they left out, what they thought the questions wanted, what they could have done better. And it took root insidiously, subconsciously, excruciatingly - waiting for friends in the canteen, walking to the toilet when I didn't need to pee, smiling when I didn't mean it, avoiding the things I should have faced up to.

It's about the people you'd never leave - not in times of life or death, not in dire times of need, not ever. The people you'd be a trustee for, the people whose sides you'd never leave when they're about to undergo a major surgery, the people you message or call when important, exciting things happen to you. The people you want by your side when you fall, the people whom you'd let see you at your ugliest, weakest moments; the people who give substance to the hazy concept of 'unconditional love'.

Year 2 wasn't the only thing that ended yesteday. My familiar routines are over, too - taking trips to the fourth floor toilet, lounging around at the tables outside the Co-op after lectures, chatting to each other on MSN during boring lectures (Company Law, I'm looking at you), hanging out at Island Cremery on Monday late afternoons. Time flies with the blink of the eye and I honestly can't believe two years in law school have passed.

I'm stronger now than I was a year ago. Simultaneously I'm also weaker, I'm more damaged, more confused. It's hard letting go of familiarity that's grown so dear that you don't know really know how you're going to do without it, and so I look ahead at the next three months, the summer break, and the emptiness hits me one more time. It's not going to be the same again; it's never going to be the same again. Maybe it'd be better, or maybe it'd just be different; but the things that you once had, the things that ended yesterday, they're never coming back. The worst part is? Most of the time you don't realise it's gone and what you had until it's really gone.

Two years ago, I thought I had a watershed year. Now I know I was wrong.

**

The battle between what you want to do and what you ought to do and therefore have to do takes place all the time. It took place last night, it took place this morning, it took place even the night before the Public Law paper. Exams distracted me for a while and now that they're over, I'm back once again to this thing I haven't got a name for. It's increasingly harder to control yourself when it really should be getting easier, and despite having seen this coming, you can't honestly say it makes it easier for you to swallow.

I don't know why I keep doing this. I don't know why I couldn't send that SMS last night. It would've been a step forward, but I couldn't do it. I suppose it's like this:

Veronica: Like why bother with something not good just because it's something?
Piz: Especially when you know the difference.

But then again - so what if you do?

**

Anyway.

Yesterday was one hell of a long-ass day. Public Law was atrociously done and I'm hanging my head in shame and I want to cry about it but I'm too tired to do so. It doesn't matter anyway, not in the grander scheme of things...but nothing matters in the grander scheme of things.

It's about pride. I threw that away when I put the final period on my lousy defamation essay, I made sure it couldn't come crawling back when I squandered the last 30 minutes writing a half-hearted answer for the Admin Law question, never mind my half-assed effort at salvaging the pride for the religion question.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

I still kinda think that if I keep telling myself that enough, I'd believe it. So: It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter, right? So I'd get another C. So what. It's only Public Law. It's only two-thirds Constitutional Law. It's only the subject I would've done really well in in a warped alternate universe in which everything was perfect and I was who I want myself to be. So, it doesn't matter. Not at all.

Nothing matters ultimately.

The afternoon was spent talking to law school interviewees from 1 to 5. It was interesting. I didn't lie about anything and I wish I could be in their shoes.

The night was spent with the friends - dinner at Crystal Jade, drinks at Indochine Wisma. I don't know why people drink when they're depressed; alcohol only made me feel worse. Chloe waited with me for fucking 171 which never came, hence prompting me to take the MRT back, which took about a fucking hour. Pissed as hell (angry, not drunk).

For what it's worth, last night was a good night. I actually feel sad that we're not going to be doing it very often anytime soon.

I honestly don't feel equipped to do anything normal and human right now. And I can't bear to throw away my Equity and Pulic Law notes (the ones I did, not the ones I leeched off others).

You know what's really sad? After the law interviews yesterday, Mag, Audrey, Kyle, Yue-En and I were sitting around, talking. Mag and Kyle were debating about love and why people need it or whatever, and for some reason, I can't remember how it happened, we started cracking legal jokes. It was horrifying. Mag got the ball rolling with her Admin Law references, Kyle followed suit, Audrey and Yue-En contributed their fair share, Mag went, "You can only marry her if you love her beyond a reasonable doubt."

I went, "You can only marry her if you love her on a balance of probabilities!"

And I found that hilarious. Oh. My. God.

Audrey said it best when she said, "We're all so sad."

I'm never getting married. Because if I do get married, I'd probably end up marrying a lawyer. Which is tragic as hell.

Seriously now, one of the interviewees asked me if law school would change a person. And I told her this: It does. It changes you radically. You start seeing things from a perspective that only people associated with the profession would understand. You start caring about things that only people associated with the profession would get. When something tragic happens, the first thing you think of isn't, "Oh, I hope everyone is fine", but, "Oh, I wonder who the victim can sue." You get the urge to tell people, "You should always put an agreement down in writing so that you can sue for it to be enforced if the other party wants to back out." You start to wonder if a girl can technically rape a guy, if using a strap-on satisfies the "penetration" requirement for rape in the Penal Code. You do Public Law and you roll your eyes when people say, "The government we have is better than most" because you've been through Constitutional Law, you know your fundamental rights, and you know how the government isn't better than most because there are governments that give shape and substance to their citizens' fundamental rights. You start caring about the Constitution and your constitutional rights and you actually know what you're talking about when the average person probably doesn't even know we have a Constitution, or more optimistically, what his rights are.

You don't think like a normal person anymore, and this happens even to the best of us, even to someone who tried to resist it for most of her time in law school. You realise that you're not on the same page as most people, that sometimes you can't relate to your non-law friends. And it even gets to a point where you think that you can never seriously date a guy who isn't a lawyer/in law school because he wouldn't understand you. Law isn't a lay subject; it's something specialised, something peculiar to itself, and if time isn't spent studying it or trying to make sense of it, it'd only sound like a bunch of unintelligible legal jargon. It's not that you want to be elitist, really; it's just an inevitable result of the nature of the subject of your study/your profession.

It's kind of scary, kind of disturbing, kind of not too bad. It's one of those things that, once you get to know, you can never look back - ever. I don't know. I don't know if I'm really going to settle into this...law thing. We'll see how things go.

Also, I'm uncontactable today. I don't feel like switching on my phone.

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