Izz OVVAAH!

WAHAHAHAHAHA IT'S OVER!!! XD

Okay, Company Law went better than Property Law...still far from perfect though. But ohwell. Exams are over. I'm going to dump thoughts of law out of my mind for a month.

Or maybe i'll just do some light reading...i suppose it's possible to distinguish reading law stuff from law STRESS. Learning the law is actually pretty fun if there's no pressure to take notes for the exams, contribute in class, finish tutorials, assignments, etc...

But, yeah, i need a break. Thanks to property mid-year exams, i didn't even have a break during the mid-semester holidays urgh. From the start of school until now, i've been doing schoolwork in school and going home in the evening with a long list of things to do - all schoolwork related. There is schoolwork to do even on weekends - i suppose that's what happens when you take two days to finish studying a topic and doing a tutorial and you're only afforded one day.

Of course, there're still some chores to handle. I've just gotten a haircut. I've gotta start preparing for my IPPT. I've gotta get one of my ram chips replaced. I've gotta transfer all of my phone contacts to my new phone (a N97 mini!!! XD). I've gotta find a way to extract all my messages from my old phone...i likely won't go through the holidays with a proper peace of mind unless i pay a visit to the Sony Ericsson service centre to see if i can solve the problem.

Yes, i think that's it; if i can't separate/compartmentalise not just work and play but my MENTAL STATES for work and play, i'll never truly study and i'll never truly have fun. But for this holiday, i should endeavour to get ALL my work out of the way so i don't even have to worry about it at all.

Anyway, since it's December...it means my birthday is coming soon! HARHAR. And you know what? I've actually made a list of stuff that people could consider getting for me lol! Yeah, i know...what an arrogant bastard right? Does he really think that people would want to buy birthday presents for him? Does he even think that people read this blog???

So i'll say this first - no, i don't expect anyone to get me a gift. You don't have to avoid tagging my blog for a month because you don't want to feel bad about having read this and not getting me a birthday gift. I don't expect birthday gifts...i just expect angpaos. Nah just kidding about that last bit too.

In fact, PLEASE don't get me anything if i don't give you a birthday treat or invite you my family's new year's eve party (there probably won't be a repeat of last year...too crowded lah) or any birthday parties in general. You'd just make me feel bad.

Just think of this as me listing out my "wants" on my blog so that i can get them for myself later on or something like that. So here's the list, in no particular order of preference:

Another basketball - MUST BE Spalding, leather, and official size & weight; indoor/outdoor is preferable.

Car accessories - i'm not sure what would fit my car (a medium-dark red toyota altis), though i'd recommend that it not be anything that swings about in the car. My car ipod-radio transmitter is working fine, thank you.

An external casing for 3.5" sata harddisks - preferably a reliable brand (Cooler Master? A.C. Ryan? Something along those lines?)...casing ONLY, no need to waste money on a harddisk itself...i've been wanting to make one of my internal harddisks external for a while now, but haven't really got off my butt to get it done. As for harddisks i'm eventually going to get a big and fast one and install Windows 7 in it, but i'd like to enjoy my Windows XP for a while more...

Display pieces for my room - i don't mind stuff that can be put on display in my room. In fact, being quite a compulsive collector of cool stuff, i very much like display pieces if they're really very cool. Cool stuff includes things that i identify with, so you'd have to know me decently well.

An example of a gift in this group? The small Lamborghini Reventon model that Darinne and Mark gave me last year. I'm not a big fan of cars, so the only reason that i loved it was because i identify with the Lamborghini Reventon; it is after all, my favourite car of all time and my dream car too (duh).

Other examples of display pieces would include anime/game figurines and katanas. HAHAHA katanas would really be the clincher. No wait, the clincher would be a Buster Sword. In all it's stainless steel glory LOL. Okay i'm kidding...i don't think my room has space for that.

Four 10kg rubber weights - the type that can be screwed onto Aibi dumbbell bars...oh yeah! ;)

A guitar pick - simple and easy.

A gym bench - Hopefully i can fit this one into my room...and hey, it can double as a bench for people to sit on as well.

Karaoke VCDs - to top up the songs in my house's karaoke system...i think our karaoke system seriously needs updating. Even with the 100 new songs we're getting soon, it might not be enough. Not too sure about Chinese songs...i suppose S.H.E. or Jay Chou's latest karaoke VCDs couldn't hurt. Perhaps also some Jap/Korean VCDs for variety?

Some of the latest dance-pop/crap=pop/hip-hop/RnB nonsense songs would be great too, although those're for the benefit of my guests...you'll never see me singing one of those...i guess "updating" would involve getting *er hem* songs like Beyonce, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, and Lady Gaga's latest stuff...maybe some Highschool Musical tracks...seriously *er hem*. Ohwell.

AND there's also a lack of Lifehouse, Linkin Park, The Script, and Third Eye Blind songs in the karaoke system...i'd really appreciate having some of those ahahaha!! Of course, it'd be better to wait till i confirm the 100 songs that we're going to get for the karaoke system...i'll upload that list once it's confirmed.

A PS3 - lol kidding!!! XD

A pool table - hmm...nah our house has no space for that.

A Razer keyboard (black one with blue lights) - i probably won't use it the proper way, but they look so damn cool and it'll just be so damn cool to own one.

A REAL oven to bake my bread - lol but i don't think the kitchen has the space for this...

Replacement strings for my classical guitar - my guitar's getting old and the strings are getting worn out...i'd like an acoustic guitar too (and an electric one as well, hey hey!) but that is way too expensive and quite unnecessary for someone of my noobish skill level.

Robert Jordan(deceased)'s latest Wheel of Time novel, "The Gathering Storm" - with the help of his son and Brandon Sanderson; this would be Book no. 12, i believe.

A singing coach - ha ha ha.

Third Eye Blind's latest album, Ursa Major - is this even available yet?

An undertaking to help me replace the strap on my cheap but good Casio digital watch - :D

Vouchers - for shops where i often buy stuff from (tech stuff! tech stuff!)

And where all else fails, clothes - since i don't often go out to buy them myself. Don't get me shoes though, i have enough. My sizes are err waist size 30 for pants/shorts and Threadless/Giordano's M size for T-shirts (don't get me baggy t-shirts, i'm pretty much over that phase now)...I'd love a nice vest, btw. Like the one Godot wears in the Nintendo DS game, Phoenix Wright - Trials and Tribulations; it's cool stuff!

And to make it easy for everyone - i know how hard it is to get gifts - i don't mind packs of black office socks, ankle socks, or underwear. Seriously. No real colour preference for the ankle socks and underwear. Socks should be a universal size, and underwear should be errr Byford's L size. Don't get me small, 'cos everything would just spill out if i wear those! >.<

And if you're dead poor, i guess giving me a Good Time should be good enough for me! :)

All these are wants, not really needs, so the best thing is if i don't get them from anyone, i can always get them next year! Cool.

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After exam priorities.

Less than four more days to go. When i get home after the exam, i'm going to grab a bottle of chilled beer and gulp it down all on my own.

Then the next day, i'm going to go get some exercise.

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Sad.

I was so sure that i'd be happy, overjoyed, once the exams were over. But now i don't know...how do you enjoy your holidays when you know that you screwed up in your exams? How do you enjoy it when you study like mad until almost traumatic levels, and people can still quote all these cases on the get-go while you have to spend all that time looking through your notes? When people had prepared the right answers and spotted the right topics but you didn't? When you spend 10% of the exam time mulling over one difficult issue and likely got it wrong? When you gave yourself only 30% of the exam time to finish up half the paper?

Have i reached my limits? Have i OVERreached my limits and gotten burnt as a result?

If i answer no to the above two questions, then i'm NOT going to be able to enjoy my holidays.

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I'm still horrible at it.

It is SO DAMN SHITTY that this event has to be right when exams are just around the corner. Amagad i'm just so freakin stressed out. And it really shows, because when i'm stressed, i start losing hair...literally. In ways people can't imagine LOL...urgh. Serves me right for not thinking a month ahead, i suppose. :\

Anyway after a bit of fretting, i consulted my trusty device, and have come up with a solution. It would take up a day of studying...but hey, prioritising is the name of the game, right? Stuff like this is far more important than getting a half grade better in a few subjects, right? I mean seriously.

Aside from the GODDAMN F*CKIN EXAMS (and to an extent, Winter, everyone's health, and how to earn enough later in life to do this family proud and be able to bring the kids on holiday once a year and retire comfortably and stuff like that), i've only got one worry right now...what the heck am i supposed to do next year? :| Sigh, i've gotta get better at this.

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The sadness of having a pet.

I'm...quite a pessimistic guy, aren't i? We currently have a dog in our house, a nearly all-white jack russel called Winter. He stayed in my old condominium for a few months when i was in JC1, and is actually my cousin's dog. I knew him when he was just a puppy.

Now, he's staying over at our house for the next two months or so. He's moved houses quite a bit, staying with my cousin, then her in-laws when she moved overseas, then with us in the condominium, then back to the in-laws and now back with us.

You could say that this house is the most spacious that he's ever lived in. My dad's also pretty free these days, so he often takes Winter for walks around the neighbourhood.

Yet, i can't help but feel sad for Winter. Back when he stayed with us in the condominium, he was about 4 years old and in the prime of his life. Now, he's approaching 9, and is an old dog - something like 60+ in human years, supposedly. I think it sucks to have to watch anybody and anything you care for grow old, and you tend to notice it more when you haven't seen the person - or the pet - for a very long time (we don't visit my cousin's in-laws much...in fact i don't think i've ever gone to their house; i only hear about Winter from the stories my mother tells me).

And when i think back on the life that Winter has lived, it just seems to me that he hasn't lived a full life. I don't think he's ever "done it" before, and he clearly has never had offspring and will never have them (because he had his testicles removed for medical reasons). He has never truly eaten "good food", and he has never had the chance to run around in the grass (because the adults are afraid he'll get mites). And apart from his early years with Ginger (this other dog that my cousin had but was gifted to a dog-lover friend when she went overseas to live), Winter has never had consistent contact with other dogs for roughly the past 6 years. He lives a sheltered life but has no companionship. In my cousin's in law's place, he doesn't have space to roam around and just sits in one corner lazing around, doing nothing, waiting to die while his days just pass by without incident.

And now, when i look at him, healthy as he might be, i can't help thinking that he only has about 5 years to live at the most. That his days are numbered. That when he goes (touch wood), he'll never have experienced all those things and he'll never have the same amount of attention that was showered on him during the first two years of his life. And, for the most part, we can't do anything about most of it. It's a depressing thought. And it seems that i'm full of such depressing thoughts. Maybe that's why keeping pets ultimately aren't for me.

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. . .

You know what? Arsenal should sign Patrick Vieira during the January transfer window to cover for Alex Song while he's at the African Cup of Nations.

Okay that was totally random. Time to go for a shower and watch a little Ookiku Furikabutte...which is this baseball sports/slice-of-life anime that i currently rate very highly. Tomorrow i'll have to start my hardcore studying (urgh help), and i'm also looking forward to my *er hem* package from the USA and seeing what my parents have brought back from Thailand!

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It really sucks.

You know...it really sucks when someone asks you for help, and you spend hours of your own time (with no benefit to yourself) talking about the problem with that person, and then the "help" becomes a heated debate because that person does not fully agree with or understand what you say, and then that person becomes exasperated and walks away without thanking you.

It's like the person has forgotten that he or she was the one who approached you in the first place. It's as if, by winning the debate or argument, you have somehow gained a benefit and no longer need the thanks. The person comes to you for help, then disagrees with your feedback, without recognising that the act of volunteering feedback - and of sacrificing all that time - in response to the request for help should itself be deserving of thanks.

Which really sucks.

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Arsenal rocks, but Liverpool...kinda sucks...

Today (or rather, last night), i watched two football (i.e. soccer) matches. Arsenal v Tottenham in full and Fulham v Liverpool until Fulham scored their second goal.

The Arsenal match went along smoothly as usual, although i'm starting to think that Arshavin is slipping in form a little bit, and Van Persie and Eduardo also missed a few sitters. Maybe Arshavin and Van Persie are getting tired? They've been playing practically every game, which is something that neither Van Persie (who's usually had plenty of "injury breaks") nor Arshanvin (formerly playing in the slack-ass Russian league) are used to. Eduardo hasn't played a regular match in a very long time too.

But Fabregas was amazing as usual. Lol my mum mispronounced his name as "Fibre-gahs" and both of us started laughing and saying "fibre glass" and stuff. Okay that was totally random. Oh and i don't think i'm the only person to have noticed, but Alex Song is really becoming a MASSIVE defensive midfielder; he was nipping Tottenham attacks at the bud for the whole match. His defensive work was owning Tottenham, and his distribution is pretty solid and consistent too.

As for Liverpool...amagad; i'm sorry to say this, but their squad really really sucks at the moment, especially in attack (their defence may suck too but i think it's just a loss of form...i'm still confident in the abilities of Mascherano, Agger, and Skrtel especially). And no, i'm not just reacting to their loss to Fulham. I've been thinking that way since they sold off Alonso and bought an injured Aquilani, and continued to think as such even after they beat Manchester United.

Torres is a football god (his goal today was kickass as well), but apart from Gerrard and maybe Benayoun, it seems like none of Liverpool's attacking players can compare.

None of them can be trusted to score consistently - Thomas Vermaelen, the Arsenal defender, seems to have more of a predatory instinct compared to Babel, Kuyt, Ngog, etc, etc, etc. None of them have enough pace - Babel was SUPPOSED to be fast (supposed to be the next Henry too) but i hardly see him outrun any defenders. All of them usually need plenty of touches to get the ball under control when they receive a pass - i saw this trait especially in Kuyt and Voronin - meaning that they have poor ball control overall.

And all this affects Liverpool's chances of winning. Because Torres (and to an extent, Benayoun) are the only first-teamers that can trusted to hit the target, defenders just need to focus on those two players whenever they get the ball; the marking on Torres by Fulham was especially tight. In fact, it seems like the other Liverpool players know how badly they shoot and they don't even attempt shots when they are under any kind of pressure, which makes it even more pathetic; Fulham park a bus in front of goal, and because the other players can't curl a shot over that wall, they miserably try to feed a through-ball to Torres which almost always gets cut out.

Because Liverpool's other attacking players lack pace, their attacks lack incisiveness. Because their players need a lot of touches to control the ball, it slows their attack by a lot and the opposing team can easily get back to defend.

Who is to blame? Well...i really can't think of anyone except for Rafa Benitez. A lot of people were flaming his decision to sub out Torres and Benayoun early, but that, to me, is hardly the problem. Benitez's signings have been really suspect; granted that some of them - like the Keane signing - were due to Rick Parry, a lot of them have proven to be duds. His purchase of Babel for 11.5 million pounds was pretty suspect, for one. So were all the millions he's spent on guys like Voronin, Morientes, Crouch, Bellamy, Pennant, Sissoko, Philip Degen (he signed a crappy Spanish fullback in the past as well, besides Arbeloa) Dossena, and Rieira (who is good, but currently not playing at all). It remains to be seen if the 20 million pounds spent on Aquilani is good money, too.

Compare all this to Manchester United's record for the past five years. I haven't really seen them make many signings of players that they end up selling after just one season to another club at a lower price. Either they keep the player until he becomes good, or they sell him off, mostly at a profit. They don't often have purchased rejects (at least since the Kleberson days...and even then, that's when they signed Cristiano Ronaldo); most of the rejects come from the youth academy - which i'd imagine would cost Manchester United less than the usual 5-10 million pounds a player that Benitez spends.

I don't even want to compare Benitez's record to Wenger because there'd be too many things to type. Let's just say that, within the current squad alone (ignoring past basement bargain talents like Henry, Vieira, Ljungberg, etc, etc, etc) i trust Fabregas and Van Persie to hit the target when it really matters. Walcott, Bendtner, Diaby, Denilson, Gallas, Nasri, Arshavin, Rosicky, Eduardo, and Vermaelen are all much more reliable than most of Liverpool's forwards as well - they won't scuff their shots too often (okay maybe i'm a bit optimistic about Bendtner...but he really IS getting better!). Vela, Ramsey, Wilshere and Merida also seem like exciting prospects. And the first seven and last four of the current players i mentioned cost Arsenal an average of about 2.5 million pounds each.

Other things might be blamed for the bad state of Liverpool FC as well.

Liverpool's coaching might be suspect. I haven't seen young players like Babel improve at all since arriving at Liverpool, and i get a feeling that the Liverpool coaches aren't very good at teaching their players how to shoot the ball.

Their tactics might be suspect too. I often see Liverpool forwards bringing the ball to the byline and crossing it into the box. Or their fullbacks, who're less ambitious than in other teams, would often carry the ball until somewhere before the penalty box before crossing it in. But...there's no one there to collect the crosses. Torres isn't exactly the tallest striker around, and with three defenders marking him, not to mention the usually giant goalkeeper, it's quite a tall task for him. Not only that, the other Liverpool forwards are short. Kuyt? Voronin? Please. I'm also not very confident of Kuyt's ability to head the ball, and this is the same for Babel, Ngog, etc, etc, etc.

I also often see Liverpool players passing the ball square to the other player directly, which i think slows their attack a lot since the other player would need to cushion the ball with a touch first and get it under control with another.

It's especially bad with forward passes...during the match earlier, i kept seeing players passing forward and square to forwards like Kuyt and Voronin, who would receive the ball with their backs to the goal. They would cushion the ball, and move a short distance away from the goal to control the ball. A Fulham player would come hounding after them, and they would be forced further back; every time they tried to pass the ball forward, they had to be forced back a bit. And because they could not look towards the direction of the goal, they could only dribble or pass back to a defender or occasionally right or left to someone else, meaning that the attack was always slow moving.

Arsenal and Manchester United players seem to pass it into space more often and let the receiving player run onto it, which i think speeds things up a lot (have you seen Fabregas's super curling pass???). But of course this could also be a question of technique; most of Arsenal's players need just one touch both to collect and control a direct, square pass anyway. Also, i do see Liverpool players sometimes using long range passes for the receiving player to run onto, except that, ever since the departure of Xabi Alonso, most of those long passes have gone wayward.

So, anyway, Liverpool are in a sad state, which is quite unfortunate for fans like my dad and Weiyu. I also feel for talented players like Torres and Gerrard who have to shoulder the club on their own without much reward. I might support Arsenal, but to be honest i feel quite bad for Liverpool's title drought. It'd be good for them to win one as well, for the sake of Gerrard and Torres, and to peg those arrogant United fans back and shut them up.

LOL if you didn't know that i am anti-Manure, this is the moment of truth...i totally detest Sir Alex Ferguson and Wayne Rooney hahaha! I also don't like Darren Fletcher, who seems to have discovered the accursed talent of being able to commit professional fouls without incurring a penalty or a card (or sometimes even the foul itself). I also think that Ferdinand is heavily overrated. I do, however, respect Vidic and Giggs.

Anyway, at the moment, the perfect season for me would be for Liverpool to win the EPL title and for Arsene Wenger to finally get his hands on the Champions League trophy.

And then after that, since Gerrard and Torres would be satisfied enough, Arsenal can win the EPL and Champions League titles for all the seasons after.

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Risen?

Anybody heard of that game? Risen, i mean. I believe it was reviewed on Digital Life on 28 October. I went to check it out on IGN. It seems like a mix of Elder Scrolls and...i dunno...something really old school? Like the first ever Monkey's Island?

Damn...Dragon Age: Origins is already coming out soon though, and the browser game Dragon Age Journeys is already out. I've got so little holiday time, and i don't want to be spending my entire holiday playing computer RPGs...but still, these kinds of awesome escapism are terribly hard to find...

Okay, time to go for CLT class! I wonder if Mr Szetoh is ponning it, that slacker...lol then again, maybe i should relax instead of taking notes like crazy too. That's one thing i hate about Dowdle's classes; he talks interesting stuff but quite a few of us never get to enjoy, listen and digest what he's saying because we're all overwhelmed with note-taking.

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Life is boring.

Gaaaahhh i'm really really damn bored...

Amagad it's horrible...i'm supposed to be studying my Company Law over the weekend, but because it's so damn boring - unless i chance upon an interesting case - i end up finding entertainment to pass my time after every paragraph i read.

Except...there's nothing to do! I've deleted Warcraft III, Puzzle Fighter, and Street Fighter Alpha 3 from my laptop (for the sake of removing distractions, although evidently i end up looking for other sources since law readings are just SOOO boring), so now i find myself playing games like Country Story and Naruto Shippuuden on Facebook and Chess Titans...stuff that i probably wouldn't touch during the holidays.

I end up reading random stuff on Facebook, reading articles (and even the dumbass comments) on Soccernet, and going to the Dragon Age home page in the hopes of seeing an update...all for the sake of escaping from the grim reality of that enormous mass of law readings and homework. Heck, i even just wrote a blog entry on Dragon Age!

Dragon Age Character Creator was supposed to occupy me for longer, but i'm done creating characters already! There's only so much time that i can spend fiddling around with chin heights and depths and nose tip depths, etc...so much for a worthwhile distraction.

Sigh, on the whole, i have nothing much to look forward to, apart from readings and more boring readings. It's like...i dunno. The exams are on the horizon again, and when i get home...there really isn't anything fun or relaxing waiting for me there. Unlike most people, i don't really have that much of an attachment to my bed. I've got my laptop, my PS2, and i just fixed my computer, so there's a whole lot of fun waiting for me, but my conscience is preventing me from starting a new game or starting a new anime series, since i'm at the tail end of my school term. And every time i play anything, i just don't enjoy it (and every time i sit down to read my law stuff, i fall asleep. :|).

Anyway, i need a solution. Not to the problem of not having enough entertainment, but to the problem of needing that entertainment in the first place. Though i wish law was still - for me - something fun, like back when i was searching the internet for laws on intellectual property rights when i was in NS, or during my first lecture on Tort law and Contract law, when lectures weren't just all about note-taking ordeals.

Bleah.

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Dragon Age...Criticisms!!!

I've been fiddling around with the Dragon Age Character Creator for a few of hours over the weekend. Dragon Age is, well...you should just do a search and find out what it is lah. Go find out before coming back to read the rest of this post...and this only applies to people who like single player computer RPGs or have played games like Baldur's Gate 2 and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and would know what i'm talking about.

Anyway, i've got a criticism of the Character Creator...why are there so few customisation options available??? The game creators kept boasting about how the Character Creator would be so great, but i'm sorely disappointed...in terms of customisation, Elders Scrolls 4: Oblivion was better, even though that game came out nearly 4 years ago, when the NVIDIA 7800GT graphic card just got released onto the Singapore market. Oblivion had so many more options...one example would be the option to alter the length of hair, which allowed gamers to obtain precisely the look they wanted for their characters.

On the other hand, Dragon Age gives male characters only about 10 FIXED hair styles...and all of them are ugly!!! They're either bald, G.I. Joe, tribal themed, or medieval English themed. I know the Dragon Age world is backwards, but why can't i have a character with a more modern hairstyle? Or is it simply because the people at Bioware have no sense of style??? I want a character with a long fringe, and i don't want the fringe tied back! Haven't the game creators ever heard of the new age Japanese hairstyles??? Haven't the game creators played Final Fantasy or ANY Japanese RPGs???

Sigh, i should have expected this disappointment though...Bioware kept talking about how Neverwinter Nights 2 and Mass Effect would have great customisation options, but both options sucked big time DESPITE being released after Oblivion. In Oblivion, i could easily create a character (without using any presets) who looked very much like Squall from FFVIII, while in Dragon Age, i can't even make my character's FACE (nevermind the hair) look like Zack from FFVII when i'm referring to his pictures on my laptop while creating the character on my desktop.

Heck, i can't even make a character who doesn't look like some medieval peasant/barbarian/noble or some US Army jock or some Australian Aborigine or some Native American. Sigh, doesn't Bioware understand that we want our main characters to look GOOD??? So many of the options give rise to characters with troll/ogre-like noses and chins and freaked out facial features in general...what's up with that?

On the contrary, female characters have a bit more options and they LOOK better too...for example, i can easily make an attractive female character who looks about 18-20 years old, while the potential male characters on Dragon Age all seem to have a minimum age of 30. Doesn't Bioware know that most of the players will probably be guys, and most of them AREN'T the type who would create female characters and have them make out with male NPCs???

In addition to the Character Creator part, i've got a few concerns as well...

One that i can remember, is the choice of NPCs.

First, there are too few NPCs. For most races, there is only one NPC to recruit, and there are much fewer races in Dragon Age as compared to Baldur's Gate 2. I also think it detracts from the open-endedness of the game a bit when the NPCs are already announced to us way beforehand. This, of course, stems from the problems of over-hyping any game and revealing too much. So now, i won't have a scenario where this person unexpectedly joins my team; i would have seen it coming a long time ago, and would have taken steps not to kill him off, etc.

Also, nearly all the NPCs are outstanding talents in their respective fields...why can't my teammates be normal dudes? Like i want the fifth best healer and just another of the witches to join my team, not the best healer ever known and the daughter of some legendary witch. I'd want my teammates to make a name for themselves under my influence; i'd rather have a group of adventurers starting out small and later joining the big league, instead of having some walking VIP circus troupe. What's the point of leveling up? To be able to start out small first and later become demigods both in skill AND in NAME. Right?

The NPC choices are also too varied, in a way. Given that there are so few NPCs to choose from, why spread them out and give every race a representation? I understand that Bioware might think that we want to try out every race, etc, but it also increases the feeling that this game isn't as open-ended as it seems - like the game's path was already all planned out for you. You have so few NPCs, and - just nice - each race has one! Except for the human race; humans are special, so we will give you one choice per class...one white mage, one black mage, one assassin, and one sword fighter! You don't get players with similar races and similar roles in the team (for eg. Imoen and Nalia, and Minsc, Keldorn, Anomen and Sarevok in BG2), where you could choose who you wanted based SOLELY on who looked better and whose personality you liked, etc.

I probably sound like i'm nitpicking here, BUT Dragon Age is supposed to be - for an open-ended single player fantasy RPG fan like me - the greatest game ever made. So i've got high hopes for it...and exacting standards come with those high hopes! I hope the game itself would alleviate some of my concerns...although my concerns of the Character Creator have certainly been realised. -.-

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Rodent attack!

The school is becoming more and more unhygienic. Jialat. Almost dangerously so. First, there was this huge rat lurking outside one of the classrooms on the first floor; then there was that maggot in my lunch, and today, i saw a small rat in the gym. When i came into the gym at 7.45am today, it scampered underneath one of the treadmills. I could even bend my head below, look underneath the treadmill (from a distance of course) and say hi to it.

Back in the army, i had a lot of experience with rats. There was this rat which stole tissue paper from my bedside chair over a period of time and made a nest with it below my bed. And i only discovered the nest a few months later; guess that's punishment for not doing a thorough area cleaning. I always wondered why my mucus-filled tissue paper kept disappearing from my chair the next morning, nearly every day. The whole time, i thought the fan/wind was blowing my mucus-filled tissue out the window or something. ^_^" Back in signal school, we'd also get rats sneaking into our lockers (despite there being a lock!!!) and tearing up our milo 3-in-1 packets and biting into our toothpaste.

The point of my last statement is that these rats can sneak into really tight spaces VERY EASILY. It's like they're all meat and fat and organs and no bones, so they can flatten their bodies like crazy if they need to. Meaning they can sneak into our classrooms. They can sneak into the gym and hide in all those smelly shoes that people dump into the shelf cubicles.

AND they can sneak into the lounge. As every NUS law student should know, the lounge is a very fun place. It is ALSO a very dusty and messy (and i'd daresay dirty) place, and the carpeted floors and cushions and the flaps covering the space below the cloth/wool sofas make for good hiding places...for rats.

Gulp. I'm not even going to bother looking below the sofas. Unfortunately, as quite a few law students know, there's this year 2 called Gregory who likes to take power naps in the lounge when he's short on sleep...yikes. :|

But ahwell. To be honest, i'm quite used to sleeping among rats already. I had more than a year of that, after all. I'm just being a little dramatic because, otherwise, i really have nothing else to write. But i AM quite worried that those rats would sneak into my bags while i sleep and nibble into my tissue paper, my notes, my computer power cables, etc...just like those rats did with my iPod charger cable back in army.

...I'm still using that charger cable though. 0_o

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Really, really, ridiculously...

I've just realised today that members of the opposite sex tend to look at you more when you dress up and put on contacts, etc. Common sense, i know, but it's just damn amusing to realise it for the first time.

Or wait...maybe it's just that i look so much different since i've been wearing specs and dressing in a heck-care manner for the past few weeks.

Or maybe they were aiming glances at something else the whole time. XD

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School un-success.

Hmm. I think i need to start finding out what kind of jobs i can do with a law degree. I find it hard to be motivated when i'm in a field where i'm not at the front of the pack, or even worse, somewhere in the middle of the rear half of the rat-race.

Which seems to be the case at the moment. I like to think that i'm very good at philosophy, creative thinking, and abstract thinking. But law does not really require much of that. Or at least law school does not. I consistently do well at "bullshitting subjects" like SLS and Legal Theory, but not at the rest.

I used to think i could do much better in law. But it's only after my first year that i realised what a small fish i am. Because the traits that i have don't help much when i'm someone who takes 5 minutes to read a page of my CLT readings, who cannot study for more than 10 minutes at a time before losing focus, and who cannot listen to the lecturer talk and take notes at the same time because, while i'm typing, i can't focus on what he's saying. Maybe i needs to attend workshops to help me acquire these skills.

When i went to law school, i realised that there are a lot of people there with special talents that you don't notice at first. There are people who can speed read pages of complex articles and digest everything. There are people who seem really quiet and shy, only for you to discover that they are experienced school debaters with great skill at impromptu speaking under pressure. There are people who can listen to the lecturer and type down notes at 100+ words per minute at the same time. There are people who can look at the confusing mess of a syllabus and organise a great study plan. There are disciplined people who can play hard for one hour and immediately get into study mode for the next hour. There are people who are so thick-skinned that they can get ready-made essays from their seniors to copy wholesale during open-book exams. There are people who can quickly make friends with professors and who are masters at making conversation. There are people who seem simple or who talk in all sorts of Singlish accents but still write so beautifully.

For those who intend to go law school, or who are interested in taking law, let me tell you this: hard work triumphs over intelligence. You're going to have to read TONS when you enter law school, so people with a lot of physical and mental tolerance tend to do better. It helps if you have a habit of reading as well. If you're still in the habit of reading one novel a day, then good for you (beware of losing the reading habit, soldiers!). And among the hard workers, if you want a rough gauge of how well you're going to do in law school, look no further than at your English scores; in particular, your summary and comprehension sections. Being good at narratives might not be a good thing. Failing at Math all the time does not preclude you from the Dean's List. Literature students do better than most.

Maybe i'm giving up early when i say that i'm probably going to get a 2nd lower honours degree when i graduate. I could practise law in a normal firm, but i'm unsure if i could go far in that field. I'm confident of having a good working relationship in my colleagues, but i can picture myself getting tongue-tied every time i have to say something impromptu to a judge or even to a client.

So, well, i think it's time i started looking into alternative job opportunities. It doesn't have to be something that is not law-related; it could still be related to a particular law topic that i'm interested in. I dunno.

Or i could just keep mugging.

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Goddammit i'm bleeding cash.

My mahjong luck is DAMN BAD. Amagad. I've played four or five times in the past few months and i've lost close to $100 already. Maybe even more. I've lost $55 from the last two times. Even worse, the odds i've been playing are really small; 20-40cents the 2nd last time and 10-20cents today (although today's paying system is different because the money doubles until SIX tai and then another one dollar each is added for 7 tai and 8 tai). Which means i've been losing VERY HEAVILY at CASUAL mahjong.

The thing is, i haven't been able to win any mahjong games with 4 tai and above. When i play smaller than that, i win quite often, but then another player just gets really big one and wipes out all my earnings, and then some. Part of me thinks it's the way i play, and part of me thinks it's just dumb luck. Horrible dumb luck. Like today, i did not get a single cat-mouse/rooster-caterpiller/2 relevant flower combination (for that extra small change) AT ALL, while i had to pay out like $3 worth to the other 3 players, who at least got their flowers and animals at a decent rate. And i only gang-ed once, despite playing pung-pung pretty often. I managed to win over $200 in a single day during Chinese New Year, so maybe it's just that i'm at the lower amplitudes of my luck-wave.

But the worst thing of all is that i've been taking money every now and then from my mum and relying on others. After deciding to be more financially independent after JC, my plans have sidetracked quite considerably. First, there was that car accident which wiped out the money i would have received from that investment deal i have with my dad. Then, during the holidays, i took charge of Rag instead of getting a temporary job, so i incurred a significant opportunity cost, not to mention the transport fees and miscellaneous stuff. And then there are the mahjong losses which adds to the amount i'm regularly bleeding away on food.

I haven't been buying any new clothes, any new electronic gadgets/fun stuff (apart from pre-ordering Dragon Age Origins) and still my expenditure has been rising. The only thing that's keeping me afloat, is that my mother has been slipping me small change occasionally - $50 to $100 every month or so - saying that it's to reimburse me for the food that i buy (which she says she's supposed to compensate, although i disagree), and my dad (via my credit card) has been paying for my petrol (my mum gives the excuse that Citibank gets a further discount at Esso). My mum also reimburses me for everything that i spend on the family (like when i buy back snacks for the family and stuff), which kinda defeats the purpose of why i do it in the first place.

In the past, i would object vehemently and insist that i pay for my own stuff. I'd take pride in my independence. But now, i find it hard to resist the money when my mother "reimburses" me. I haven't given a treat to Coco in a long while; we keep going dutch.

I know, i know, i have great parents, a great family, and a great girlfriend. But i can't help but feel that my morality is disappearing like the superficial imagery it has always been. I like to think that i'm a generous guy, but maybe it's just that i have the money to be generous. Maybe i shouldn't judge people for being selfish with their money or thick-skinned when they insist that their parents have a duty to give them pocket change. Because maybe, if i myself were penniless and had no savings, i'd be the most selfish person on earth.

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New tagboard!

Okay, i've installed a new tagboard.

Flooble had been quite screwed up for me for the past few years...for one thing, i don't think they've gotten any additional servers! So over the years, people had trouble posting stuff on my board, people had to post the same message twice in quick succession just so their message could appear on my tagboard ONCE, AND i never even bothered personalising my tagboard because the home page was so slow (thanks to flooble never upgrading their servers).

And it seemed that my chatterbox was down again. So i've gotten a new tagboard from ShoutMix. So far it seems pretty user-friendly. Makes me wonder how bad my inertia is, that i didn't change my tagboard after all that trouble i've had...

If you're wondering how i selected ShoutMix out of all those tagboard services offered online, well...i just typed tagboard on google, opened the first 5 links i saw, shortlisted the two homepages that loaded the fastest (www.shoutmix.com and tag-board.com) and then picked the neater looking tagboard service!

Okay anyway i've gotta get back to work. Ahhh property law is so troublesome. I think i've learnt a lot, but one week later i've forgotten everything.

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