no more nonsense.
written: 3:00 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 01, 2007

Post-Personal Property Law paper, I took 855 to Vivo City with the clear and unambiguous intention of cutting my hair. The last time I got it cut was a few days before Tris left for Seattle, which was a couple of months ago (Tris, when I was trying to remember when I last cut my hair, all I could think of was you telling me that my fringe was 'half-fucked' over lunch at Coffee Club with Chloe. Be honoured. Or something), and needless to say, the said fringe had grown very freaking long:

I almost died the past couple of weeks with such disgustingly long fringe, and I couldn't stand to have it in my eyes ALL THE TIME while I did all that I could to prevent myself from causing grievous hurt to self or others over the exams. Hence, because I was at home practically all the time anyway, I swiped my fringe to the side.

At first it was just for convenience's and comfort's sake, but after a while I began thinking, "Actually quite nice ah." And sometimes it was "quite nice":

So I was thinking, maybe I'd get side-parting fringe this time and get rid of my bangs. I was going to do a poll here with the above picture and get opinions on what I should do with my hair because I am vain, narcissist, indecisive and presumptuous like that (presuming that everyone gives half a a fuck about my hair - which they don't, of course; they give a WHOLE fuck! Ok whatever), but it was a couple of days before the Personal Property paper and quite frankly I was too damn lazy to transfer pictures to my laptop, edit them, and upload them.

Simultaneously, I couldn't bear to get rid of my fringe, nevermind that I've spotted this look with modifications to varying degrees for a year. Somehow I feel like it hasn't run its course yet, and that it deserves to be maintained. Sure it's bloody expensive to upkeep; if it weren't for my fringe, I'd cut my hair maybe twice a year, because I'm lazy like that. Now, because of my fringe, I was cutting my hair nearly once a month and each haircut cost $38 - and that was after a 10% discount.

So I went to Vivo's Esprit Salon where my hairstylist worked - or so I thought. Due to the fact that I was too lazy to make an appointment, I only found out the terrible news when I was at the counter asking for my stylist: My sweet, awesome stylist wasn't working there anymore.

Like, OMG, freak out and die. Nearly. Almost. Was about to. Was also about to not cut my hair and go somewhere to cut because I wanted MY STYLIST, dammit, and if I couldn't have my stylist I'd rather cut elsewhere so that I wouldn't have to go all the way to Vivo City to cut my hair anymore.

But I stood in front of the mirror and messed around with my fringe and it kept getting into my eyes and it was damn messy and ugly and I couldn't take it anymore, and so I went back and said, "So, my hair's really long and I need to cut it." And so I cut my hair:

That picture took me about...seven shots to get. I must remember not to tilt my head up while self-taking; it's damn bloody ugly. And I must say that I am terribly vain and I was thinking super narcissistic thoughts to myself on the bus to Vivo which I was going to repeat here but it won't reflect well on me at all and so I shan't.

Anyway, the new stylist told me that his name was Kenneth. When I heard 'Kenneth' I was stunned for like, a second. Because even though I know two Kenneths, I'm really only close to one, and like I told Chloe a while back it's just weird when you meet someone new that shares your friend's name. In fact, when I met the non-law Kenneth in October or somewhere there at a friend's birthday party for the first time since Starhub, which was like, in 2005, it felt damn weird. I was looking at him, thinking, "This is Kenneth." One second later I was like, "Wait, this is not Kenneth. But this is Kenneth. Shit, this is confusing."

I think maybe that's why celebrities give their kids ridiculous names like...I can't think of one off-hand. Apple? Is that Chris Martin's daughter's name? Whatever. But I'd rather have a common name than a ridiculous, laugh-my-ass-off name and the same goes for my kid, if I ever have one, which is highly doubtful.

All in all, I must say that I just simply love my name even though there's some non-famous Taiwanese badminton player with the EXACT SAME NAME as me. Which was upsetting, but I thought, "I'm gonna be more famous than her ONE DAY" and I felt better. The truth of that assertion is, of course, a separate issue in itself, and I bet it's completely illusory and self-deceiving, but a girl's entitled to her delusions, thank you very much.

I didn't shop at Vivo. I had a very nice, relaxing, cosy lunch with my mom at Corduroy Cafe, which was DAMN EXPENSIVE, but my mom paid so, haha. I was going to shop after lunch but my mom wore new shoes and had blisters and wanted to go home so I coerced her into dropping me off at Orchard so that I could shop, and shop I did. And not only did I shop, I bought like two pathetic tops and got damn pissed off by two stupid-ass salesgirls.

First, I was at Mango Shaw Towers. I wanted to buy this blue top which was like damn nice, so I asked the girl manning the dump-unwanted-clothes table for a new piece (I'm not paying good money for DISPLAY PIECES that who knows how many dirty people have tried on, unless I'm really in love with the top). She neither looked at me nor answered me, so I thought she didn't hear me and said, "Excuse me."

But before I could finish, she spoke into her walkie, "I need a new piece for [insert code]." The English, of course, has been nicely cleaned up by yours truly. What she actually said was so offending to the ears that I cannot bear to repeat it or to recall it.

At that point I wasn't annoyed yet. I was in quite a high so anything could've gone...almost. Her colleague came out of the storeroom and saw the top I wanted, and said, "The other customer wants this too but there's no more in the storeroom." (English once again heavily cleaned up.) Naturally I heard, but naturally too, one would expect the salesgirl one approached to formally let one know about the status of one's request. So I stood there for five seconds, waiting for the girl to say something.

Five seconds later, she held up the top, barely glanced at me, and said, "Last piece."

WHAT THE FUCK.

I actually liked that top enough to buy the display, but she was so fucking rude that I just said "nevermind" and left. And all thanks to her disgusting rudeness and complete lack of any sense of service whatsoever, I had to go to three more Mangoes before I hunted down that top: The Mango at Isetan, the Mango at Wisma, and the Mango at Ngee Ann City.

I almost died. But the bright side is, at Ngee Ann I saw an XS which fit better than the S and there was a new piece, AND the salesgirl was very nice. Needless to say, unlike the super rude salesgirl, the nice one wasn't local. She was probably Filipino.

So that was the first encounter with rude salespeople that pissed me off.

Second encounter was at the Body Shop Ngee Ann, where I tried to buy this foot scrub thingy for my mom. Since I had no idea what it looked like or what it was called, I had to ask for help, right? There was like, one salesgirl who wasn't attached to the counter, and that one salesgirl was waiting on two rather good-looking men. They seemed to be taking a while 'cause they were gift-shopping and she was explaining the stuff to them (since when did bath sets need explanation? Retards), the store was super crowded, I wanted to get the stuff and leave, and there was no other salespersons around. So I went up to her and said, "Excuse me, do you have [insert what I wanted]?"

She pointed, "There."

THERE WHERE?

I looked at where she was pointing, saw some stuff that looked like what my mom wanted, but wasn't sure. So I turned back to her and started to say, "Which one?"

But guess what? She wasn't paying attention to me at all. She immediately turned her attention back to the two dudes and did not give a damn at all whether I knew where "there" was.

WHAT A BITCH OMG.

I swear, I was SO PISSED OFF that I'm sure it was written all over my face. I was, in fact, incensed. That...person pissed me off more than the rude Mango salesgirl who could not speak English, and I was close, so damn close, to telling her off. It also didn't help that there was this annoying group of girls blocking the "there" that the chick pointed at, AND I was holding my shopping bags, AND my bag was heavy, AND the store had ten million people in it.

I haven't been that close to yelling at a sales person in a very long time, but I can't even begin to describe how tested my patience was. Okay, so to begin with I'm not a very patient person and neither do I have a high tolerance for bullshit, but seriously, that was just...bloody disgusting. Seriously, where the fuck was "there"? And I chose a moment where she was not talking to the two dudes to ask her where the fuck the damn thing was. And all she could tell me was "there"?

Immensely pissed off, I stormed out of the store and walked to the Wisma one to buy my mom her stuff. Also, I'm pretty sure that the two good-looking men were gay.

People ought to be...ARGH. I need to dig up the relevant law to use against such people, an equivalent of section 14(2) of the Sale of Goods Act. If ever I buy some defective product and bring it back to the store and the store refuses to refund, I'm going to whip out my statute and show them section 14(2) and threaten them with the law. Unfortunately I don't think there's a law saying that sales people cannot be rude to customers. Of course you can always wank something out of nothing; that's what we do in law school (and the profession?) half the time. But that's precisely why I don't do well in law school: I can't wank like that. My brains just can't do it. So probably I'd just resort to very acidic sarcasm that sales people who can't speak English totally wouldn't get, feel justified in my elitist moral high ground, and walk away feeling good for five seconds and then feeling like shit five seconds later.

Strangely, for all my fierceness and impatience and high propensity to getting pissed off and whatnot, I'm not very good at scolding people, which is why I hardly ever do. And if I do scold people, I'd feel damn bad about it after a while. How to be shark like that, right? Oh well. Maybe I'm not meant to be a shark.

ANYWAY, the whole point of being in town wasn't to shop (I eventually bought that Mango top and a top from Esprit). It was to meet Mag for Enchanted! We had a nice time laughing over retarded books in the Orchard Library, then a nice time rushing through our twenty-minute dinner, then a nice time laughing damn hard at the movie. It was too saccharine towards the end and the 'one true love' thing is bullshit if you want my honest opinion, but OMG OMG OMG!! PATRICK DEMPSEY WAS SO CHARMING. Sure he's old, but 1) I've always liked older men; and 2) he's DAMN CHARMING! I was practically drooling over how he looked in a work shirt and work pants, and in a SUIT OMG. He even looked charming in that ridiculous Prince outfit, and when he danced with the girl? OMG!!!!! Totally the reason why fairy tales exist, totally the substance that Prince Charmings are made of. He was so much better in the movie than he usually is in Grey's Anatomy because his character in Grey's has become such a douchebag that it's taking away his charm. But in Enchanted, he was just so...completely...charming.

SIGH.

Having said that, my husband is still David. We're in a very open relationship so I'm free to drool over whomever and he's free to date his girlfriend of three years. HAHAHA. Whatever.

This year's Christmas decorations actually caught my attention. Usually around Christmas I'd walk through Orchard not noticing a thing 'cause they're all the same; but this year's decorations are different, and rather pretty. Mag and I felt really warm and cosy walking down Orchard after the movie, looking at the lights, feeling the cool early night breeze against our skins. So glad to share the night with her. I love Mag much much.

Taking the MRT home (Mag, I eventually decided that I couldn't wait for a crowded bus so I walked to Somerset haha) convinced me that I bloody need to drive. Let's just leave it at that.

***

On a more serious note now.

Personal Prop being the last paper, it means that Year 3 Semester 1 has drawn to a close. It may be Year 3 but in a lot of ways it feels like Year 1, or how Year 1 should have been. No more sleep walking through the reality of the fact that I am a law student, no more angst about my chosen degree, no more crying over spilled milk. Yet, at the same time, some things never change. Last-minute studying, not doing a single tutorial for both Evidence and Personal Property and therefore not knowing how to answer my exam questions, being too lazy to think about the issues before the exam and therefore not having enough time to think during the exam, brain dying on me during the exam. And feeling fatalistic during the lead-up to the exams and giving up on questions during the exam itself because writing and thinking were just too tiring.

I told myself that I wasn't going to graduate with a second lower. It may not make a difference in practical terms; no matter what degree you get, you're gonna get hired. But it's never been about pragmatism for me; it's a matter of pride. After waking up from my two-year dream I realised, so plainly, that it was utterly fucking stupid to have squandered away my first two years like that. It was time for damage control, and at the beginning of the semester I really wanted to do damage control.

But somehow, Evidence was the way it was and I am certain that I'm gonna get a C. And Personal Property...I don't even know, really. Exam was doable but answers were unsatisfactory because there was no consistent work, I did not do a single tutorial, half the materials I read a week before the exam because I am me, and so yes, I suppose I am quite disappointed. The third question was basically the revision seminar rephrased but I didn't do the revision seminar, I barely took down notes, and I didn't read the notes that I did take down. And I did that question 'cause I could spot more issues for that question than question 2. So yeah, could have been so much more, and the same can be said for Evidence too.

Hopefully I would finally learn my lesson. It's no use falling back on the "oh I didn't study" excuse when you don't get what you want; you're 21, you've been saying the same thing since primary school and quite frankly it's getting a bit old. And call me delusional, but I refuse to believe that I lack the intellectual capacity to do well in law school because I believe that I don't. I believe, in fact, that I am exactly as smart as I think I am - and ever since waking up from the two-year dream, how smart I think I am no longer knows any boundaries. The only stumbling block? My incessant laziness. Maybe it's even inherent, but if there's one thing that's I've always been consistent in, it's getting what I want when I want it, when I need it, when I tell myself to get it. And since I'm a spoiled brat, not getting it is not an option.

I don't believe in "at least you've tried"; there's nothing worse in the world than trying at something, doing your best at it, and end up not getting it. I haven't done my best at all. I'm always too lazy to do my best. And that cannot go on anymore; at this rate I'm going to graduate with a second lower and my pride does not allow that.

Additionally, I have other considerations besides pupillage and getting employment in local law firms. I'm not sure anymore I want to stay here, and so it follows that I have to do everything I can to ensure that if I want out, I will have a way out. A second lower isn't going to get me very far out of Singapore, I'm afraid to say. So, there you go - practical slant to my whatever you wanna call it. Aim, goal, whatever. I personally don't like the word 'goal'; too corny and earnest. Therefore, I shall call it my Vendetta Against the Immense Stupidity that I Displayed in My First Two Years of Law School, and the Operation to Mitigate the Damage Done.

Like, totally.

My only problem? I honestly cannot do exams. For one, it's always too early, a problem further compounded by the screwed up bio clock as a result of preparing for exams; for another, I never have enough time to digest the questions which are like, half a page long, and answer the questions in a manner that I would find fit to slap my matriculation number on. It doesn't matter how well I know my shit; as long as I cannot translate my comprehension to the bloody exam answer booklet, I am fucked. And that happens all the time, for Equity (still sore about the B) and for Public Law, and just recently for Personal Property. And Evidence, to a lesser extent. It's rather tragic, really. Of course I can always choose non-exam modules which I fully intend to do, but what if I want to do a module because I am interested in it and it has an exam, like Public International Law? Do I pass on the module which I'm pretty sure I'd find damn stimulating just to avoid the exam? What a dilemma.

Still, if I take research paper modules, at least I'm more or less assured that I won't get C's. I have never got anything less than a B for a do-at-home paper - that is, as far as I know anyway. Tehy isn't returning the assignment and I have no idea how my horrendous Rational Social Choice 100% paper went, so let's just hope that I didn't get C's for them. Because if I get a C for RSC, I will hang myself. I gave up my mid-sem break for that paper and it's HUNDRED PERCENT so I better not get a C. At the same time I don't think it's A quality at all so it'd probably be like, a B- or something. Ugh.

Sometimes I really don't want to find out these things; it's so traumatic when there's so much hinging on one stupid grade. Seriously. I wish grades weren't important to me, but the truth is, they are, and that's just the way it is. Because I can't measure success any other way and I don't want to be a failure anymore.

I don't think it feels surreal, though, that the semester is over. What's surreal is the fact that 2007 is drawing to a close. So many things that I thought would hold, or exist, this time last year are just...gone. I still have unresolved issues and I don't see them going away anytime soon, and I highly doubt that my new resolution (ask me privately) is going to help matters at all. But you gotta do what you gotta do, no matter the cost. We're all just trying to stay afloat and breathe and that is never easy.

At the conclusion of last semester's last paper, Public Law, I found myself in a bar with friends drinking too much for my personal tolerance level. Face flushed, head spinning, rashes all over my body, I stumbled to the toilet where I cried and cried. Then I dried my eyes, pretended everything was swell, and re-joined the friends. Everything was swell, and nothing was right.

At the conclusion of Year 2 Semester 2 I found myself crying on the MRT all the way home. Crying to myself, unabashedly, doing absolutely nothing to hide my tears.

What a sight I must have been, what a mess I must have looked. What a mess I could have become.

What utter fucking bullshit, Yelen.

What was I thinking? Because, seriously, who really cares? I was on the verge of feeling sad when I was left by myself after Mag got on the bus, and I felt sad for the past few days, the night before the Personal Property paper. And maybe I still feel sad, I don't know, considering what was happening this time last year.

But to cry like the way I did, in public? And for what?

What doesn't kill you can only make you stronger. Even if it makes me colder, more withdrawn, less trusting, more cynical, more uncaring, more guarded, I'd take that for the sobbing and humiliating mess I was last semester. You gotta do what you gotta do, no matter the cost.

Because I am the girl who just scored an A+ for her Emergencies term paper and she no longer needs to break herself against a perceived standard that 1) never should have applied to her; and 2) is not who she is.

Cue swelling strings and inspirational woodwinds to mark the starting point of my long-awaited metamorphosis. Or something.

I don't care to talk about emo nonsense so just let me say that I was SHOCKED beyond belief when I saw the A+ on that grading sheet. I wasn't expecting a C, but I wasn't expecting an A either. It was just...OMG, gotta tell my mom! And it's a very good feeling, having your pain and tears and suffering pay off like that. I can't remember how many times I changed my thesis and how I struggled to formulate a thesis and an essay that I could live with. The module was fantastic, but the writing of the paper was more pain than pleasure. I felt like I could die, that I was a half-fucked excuse for a law student or a human being that lays claims to intellectual superiority, that, in short, I bloody sucked.

It is for this reason that I'm not sure if I want to take up Prof's advice and, like, attempt to submit it for publication. While it would be awesome to be Lawnet-able, I don't know if I can go through that process again. It was akin to questioning every single bloody thing you thought you believed in - fundamental rights, humanity, the wrongness of cruelty, the innate goodness of humanity, all these philosophical nonsense, the sort of idealism that goes to the root of who you are. It was THAT mind-bending and painful and I can't be blamed for not wanting to be subjected to that process a second time round.

And yet, at the same time, how often would I get a chance like this, right? And the Prof is damn nice and he said that he "strongly encouraged" me (as in the person that my matriculation represented; not sure if he eventually checked and found out that the number represented me) to beef it up for publication. Which is damn cool and I've always wanted to be published anyway, nevermind that I was thinking more along the lines of, you know, novels and poetry and shit like that.

I am quite set on doing it, I think. I am not looking forward to the process, but I'm sure the eventual pay-off would be worth the pain and the torture and the angst and the identity crises and whatnot.

Laziness, be gone!

***

It's nearly 3 a.m. now and I'm quite tired. I downloaded the episode of CSI Miami in which my husband David guest-starred. Can't wait to watch it soonest!

I'm wondering how I'm gonna get my David fix when Heroes ends next week and if Adam dies or whatever. I tried to buy Alias Season 1 DVDs but couldn't find any, how tragic. I don't like watching clips because I must watch the entire thing in order to stay interested, so I really need Alias DVDs. If anyone feels like buying me a Christmas present, get me Alias Seasons 1 and 2, thank you.

In conclusion, here's a final farewell to Year 3 Semester 1:


Goodbye, Evidence (and Good Riddance!)

No Personal Property pictures because 1) my notes were tabbed halfway 'cause I got lazy; and 2) I was lazy, period.

Sleepy!

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