27.11.10


Okay, so it turns out i woke up after all.
I don't understand how come i woke up 3 hours later and then couldn't go back to sleep even after an hour of trying. It's not like i'm awake or anything; when i try to study, i feel this faint headache and i just can't concentrate.

Argh. After the exams are over, i'm going to have to start exercising again. My six-pack is faintly visible in the mirror when i stand up and flex just a little bit, but they go missing completely when i sit down. Lol. It's no wonder, when all i do is sit at my laptop and sleep...even with my shrinking and irregular diet (i've been losing appetite of late), i don't seem to lose weight; instead, my body is having a blast as it slowly converts all my hard-earned muscles into fat...

Hey, but give me credit for not turning to smoking and binge-drinking yet. I'm sufficiently risk-averse. :)

Unfortunately, going for a run is not an option unless it's at night, because i don't want to lose my fairer complexion. Ahahaha i'm so vain now. 300 reps a day with a skipping rope, and 100 reps of push ups and crunches a day - all in 2 sets in the morning and late afternoon...think that's sufficient?
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*Ack*...
Personal Property Law is going to be the death of me. Argh. The course isn't THAT difficult, but for the first time, i'm dealing with a substantive 8 credit open-book exam module without any muggers...and without Coco's help too. Which means that my lousy note-taking skills are coming back to haunt me.

Since i have no muggers and stuff to help me, i must depend on the Professor to be organised and not jump from point to point. But he jumps about a lot. And he must give me a clear impression on what is important for us to know and what isn't. He doesn't...in fact he goes off on so many flights of fancy and pointless side-points that i wonder if he's in it to teach us or to just show off. His examples help, but there are just too many of them...and i need to internalise the examples and bring only the bare notes into the exam hall but now my notes are voluminous and i really don't know how i'm going to refer to case names and stuff like that when my notes are 25 pages long and not 3 pages long per chapter. I just record everything and i can't help but think that everything is important. Yup, i'm just a perfectionist in a very bad way.

I was planning to organise my notes at the end of each lesson, but then i just got flooded by readings and only gave myself this short period of 4 days to study AND tidy up my notes AND create exam-worthy quick-reference notes. And after two days, i've only done ONE chapter out of seven. Yup, you heard it right...ONE.

And i didn't even tidy up my notes or create those quick-reference notes, all i did was study the material and add in all the things that the Prof missed out on. Actually, now that i think about it, the course IS very difficult - the topic that killed me for two days, on Negotiable Instruments, has so many statutory rules that i can barely remember a third of them. He tells us to just flip through the readings, but THERE IS NO WAY I CAN FLIP THROUGH THE READINGS AND ABSORB ANYTHING. There are only about 75-100 pages per chapter, but i usually have to stare at a sentence for 10 seconds each (and important and complicated sentences take me over a minute) before i process the sentence. Are there people who can rush through readings and still absorb? Well, maybe that's why i just deserve to suck forever as a student and as a lawyer?

And if the professor had his way, i shouldn't even be doing law. He tells us that he "flattens the bell-curve", so that more students get As and even more students get Cs (B-/B is the average). He noted expressly that this is because it'll let us know early on if we're cut out for practice, so that the weaker students can "quit earlier"...after all, "who wants to be a lawyer working in Chinatown, doing small claims, defending petty crime suspects, and having trouble earning money?" All lawyers get jobs after graduating my ass.

I'd actually accept what he says, except that i really don't see how being bad at summarising sentences and organising notes is going to hamper my law career much. When i interned at Wong P and A&G, i did fine at my tasks and got on well with my bosses. I never had to do any summarising and when i had to take notes i was always given time to get them in order. And the notes didn't have to be so damn short because i was working in the corporate department and my notes were FINE. Legible, easy to understand, and most of all THOROUGH.

Even litigators don't use cue cards anyway, when i worked for a Senior Counsel, she read verbatim from a printed page for her submissions...did she need to use summarised notes and get all dramatic? No. I saw myself doing a lot of reasoning and problem solving (mostly practical problems, not legal ones) while interning, however. And using my EQ and being sensitive, polite, and occasionally funny too. And, after all this time at law school, i still like to think that i'm above average at those skills. I DO admit, however, that speed-reading skills are very important.

Closed-book exams are said to be bad because then the exam becomes a memorising exercise. But honestly, open-book is no better. Because in the bell-curve setting, the competition heats up so much that, to do well, you have to summarise and organise like crazy to make your notes easily referable. And to write a high-quality essay in your exam, you have to spot the question and type the whole damn thing out beforehand to have a shot at an A. I'd have trouble doing all that even if i get another week to study.

And although not having note-taking and summarising skills isn't going to hamper my legal career (in my opinion), my GRADES definitely are going to influence where i end up. Oh yeah, and despite impressing a senior partner at A&G enough that she told me via email that i was "good" and "should have no problem getting a pupillage position (at A&G)"...no, i'm not going to get into A&G because i'm not going to graduate with 2nd upper honours. And, unless i have some special connections (which i do not have), i'm not going to get into any of the big firms anyway. My only A so far in law school has been for a mock paper at closed-book Legal Theory (which degraded to a B+ at the actual exam) and i really don't see myself getting the B/B+ average that i need to mount a credible push for 2nd upper honours in this semester or the next.

Well, i'm so dead. Don't ever do this module unless you don't care about how your grades turn out. Or unless you're one of those students whose can spend all day in the library speed-reading and summarising. I'm going to to sleep now; part of me hopes that i don't wake up.
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21.11.10


One f*cked up semester
This has been one disaster-filled semester. Take-home paper tragedies and the torture of wearing braces aside; i'm talking about real, personal disasters here.

First, the issue with my sister. Shan't say too much.

Second, when i finally get over my take-home papers and crawl into the study break, my grandfather passes away. (Oops, i let the cat out of the bag. But i still don't intend to say anymore on this issue).

And now, just 2 days after my grandfather's cremation, my aunt - a very close aunt to our family, i might add - has been admitted to hospital for what is very likely lung cancer. I can't even spare much time to visit her since my exams aren't over yet, and i'm hopelessly behind schedule in my studies thanks to the wake and my usual slowness. This has been such a horrible semester period.

Why oh why did did she come down with such an ailment when she doesn't even smoke or work in the mines or whatever? This is truly horrible. I don't really have a God to pray to, since i believe, with the least of conviction - and unless proven otherwise - that our God is at most just a passive Creator who won't listen to our pleas. But i do sincerely pray to whatever may be out there for my aunt to only be suffering from something less minor than cancer. And if it has to be cancer, please let it only be benign and not malignant, so that she has a chance to live a good, long life.
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Call me 끄 래 꼬 리, please.
Amagad. I never thought it would happen (at least so soon), but i've become thoroughly korean-ified (FYI my girlfriend's half-korean, so well...you know the source of my korean-ification). I can more or less read Hangul, i love kimchi stew (and kimchi of course), and i know almost all of SHINee's melodies from start to end (and i'd probably know the entire songs' lyrics by heart by now if the songs were in English...now i only know vaguely what the general lyrics sound like).

Not only that, i watch quite a lot of korean reality TV, like days' worth. From watching the Hello Baby series, i also know all the members of SHINee and SNSD well enough; i know all their names and can rank them from my most favourite to least favourite member. Furthermore, i know the other K-Pop people enough to identify all the members from 2AM, 2PM, MBLAQ, U-Kiss, KARA, and f(x) and have favourite members from each group (no Super Junior though, unfortunately, and i don't know all the members from those other pop groups by name either, some are only by face).

By the end of this year, i also plan to learn the lyrics to one song from start to end (tentatively either SHINee's Romantic or In My Room...or maybe even Lucifer) so that i can sing it from start to end (duh). I don't think that makes me a Shawol though; i like their music and i watch their TV shows, but i don't stare at the members for hours, neither did i have any JongKey fantasies that were crushed by Jong Hyun's announced relationship with Shin Se Kyung (so straight guys can't qualify as Shawols? Well, i shan't comment; it depends on what standard we use).

But does this make me korean-ified? Oh yes, i'm afraid so.
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18.11.10


Shopping List
There're some rather expensive stuff that i wanna buy. At first, a PS3 was probably the most expensive buy that was imminent, but since Final Fantasy XIII Versus is taking its own sweet time to get released, other relatively expensive buys have taken precedence.

1. A laptop. I was actually quite hesitant on getting a new one, since my old one was still functioning fine (contrary to what my parents think). But now, it gets overheating problems whenever it runs intensive programs. For example, it overheats and shuts down from running "intensive" programs like BEJEWELED BLITZ, streaming movie files, and doing prolonged file transfers. All in a 25 degrees celsius air-conditioned room, with my laptop on stands.

My laptop's touchpad and clicking button have also gotten screwy; they register a click&hold when all i'm doing is clicking, and sometimes they do not register anything at all, with the effect that sometimes i double click on a folder and it doesn't open, and then when i move my pointer to do something else i end up dragging the folder with me. Weird stuff.

I'm eyeing a lightweight laptop with a discrete graphics card and long battery life. Something like an Acer TimelineX 4820TG. Except that i would prefer my laptop to at least have either a USB 3.0 port or an e-SATA port. The Acer laptop also retails at about $1,800 now, which is a little steep for me. I shall have to wait till SITEX 2010 to see if there are any better offers.

2. An electric guitar. I was looking at some guitars at a Singapore website. I think i can get a good guitar with a $350 budget. Ibanez or Smash. Whatever lah, i'm a noob at shopping for guitars.

3. A digital piano. Well, actually, i don't think i'll ever buy one unless there's a 2nd-hand one on offer. Even Yamaha's cheapest P series retails for $1,100. Why are digital pianos so bloody expensive?? Is there some kind of crazy technology involved in making digital pianos? Are the piano keys still made of elephant tusks or something?? Or are they inflating the price in order to keep the regular pianos competitive?? This really sucks.

4. Dragon Age 2: Signature Edition. This one shouldn't cost me more than $100...unless Singapore stores don't offer the Signature Edition to early bird purchasers, which would mean that i'd need to pre-order from an overseas shop. Then it would cost me over $100.

5. Guitar or piano lessons. Which would definitely cost me a few hundred in a month or two.

6. LASIK surgery. Well...i'll wait till law school is over first because my degree is still in the process of getting worse thanks to all that reading.


There are also some less expensive items that i either need or want at the moment.

1. More shorts. I'll get them from Giordano at hopefully $20-30 each. I only have three pairs, and despite wearing them for 3-4 days each, the laundry is somehow so slow that there are times that i don't have any shorts available. And my black pair's zipper is now loose and has a tendency of unzipping on its own, which might lead to some future embarrassment.

2. BB Cream. Okay, this is my vainness at its worst. It's just that i've noticed how BB Cream can help to hide my eyebags a little bit, which can come in handy. XD

3. A black cloth headband. Useful in holding my hair up. Something like the one Taemin wears in the Lucifer MV, which is wider than the one i always use (and which also seems to be missing at the moment) but much thinner than the black shirt sleeve that i sometimes wear on my head.

3. Hair conditioner. My sister and i have been going without it for the past 2 weeks. I told my mother about it 2 weeks ago but nothing was done; i suspect she forgot. And i keep forgetting to either remind her again or go and buy some myself. It's so weird that we have 3 bottles of shampoo in the toilet right now, but no conditioner. Argh curses.

4. Hill Street fried kway teow, teppenyaki, home-made Famous Amos no-nuts cookies, kimchi and/or cabbage to make kimchi. Okay, these are foods, but...what's wrong with needing foods lol! Damn my food cravings are acting up again.
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Lol my dreams kinda suck.
My dreams are really weird. All the time. I've had friends who've told me before that they could fly in their dreams and do all sorts of wonderful and silly things, but my own dreams always seem constrained in a very weird manner.

For one thing, i'm usually the only one in my dreams WITHOUT any special powers (well, i DID dream yesterday that i could drive a motorbike). Instead, i tend to get chased around by weird forces. And i either rely on the powers of others or on "sheer luck" to survive. Or, just before i get killed or whatever, the dream just ends abruptly and begins at another location. Weird.

For another, i'm always vaguely accountable for what i do in my dreams, in a very weird fashion. If i were to *er hem* do embarrassing things in the dream, i WILL get caught by someone. If i see a pen in a shop that i like and try to filch it, the police WILL catch me doing it and they WILL try to kill me. On the other hand, if a policeman likes a pen that i own, he WILL try to kill me for it. And his buddies will join in the chase too. And usually, when i get caught, my dream will either shift about abruptly or it'll end and i'll just wake up early. (Like i just did...i've only slept 4+ freakin hours!)

It's so odd. I can never get away with doing anything bad in my dreams even though people (and monsters) try to kill me all the time. Whenever i'm doing anything that i shouldn't be doing in the real world, i get interrupted. Or if i'm trying to do something i shouldn't, i'd encounter so many obstacles that i'd usually wake up before i do anything. Or i'd just get caught and i'd wake up in a panic. (Yep, like i just did.) I wonder what that says about me. :|
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Law is killing me softly.
I'm feeling hopelessly shitty right now. Something bad just happened recently; i don't want to say what it is, because otherwise i think i'll want to say more things about it and i don't have the time for much elaboration. Anyway it was good to meet my close relatives again, despite the depressing situation.

Now, it's back to my interrupted study break, where i've lost like five days' worth of studying time because i wasn't selfish or hardworking enough to cram my studying time into the whole proceeding. I seem to have lost a lot of motivation to study as well, because somewhere in that interruption i seem to have lost contact with the law and forgotten half the things about goddamn personal property that i used to know. Just thinking of the possibility that i'll flunk my exams, or at least the certainty that i won't do as well as i could have with a few more days and with my studying mode still intact makes me even more depressed. I'm on the verge of tears again. Sigh.

I wonder why it seems like i'd be a failure if i don't end up getting 2nd upper. It's like for every person who thinks that just getting into law school is great, there's someone who didn't have problems making it in law school or in society telling me that a 2nd upper is the bare minimum. (Heck, it IS the bare minimum in order to enter the legal service - a.k.a. civil service.)

Every time i get asked about how law school is (which seems to be the number one topic when someone tries to make some conversation with me), i just want to say how hard i think it is, how take-home papers are killing my sleep time, and how i'm just so lost when it comes to preparing for exams. I want to tell them how i wish studying was like triple science memorisation and TYS practicing again (where i can get the right answers at the back page without having to bug the professor repeatedly via email and risk asking "stupid" questions), how the competition in school is driving me crazy, and how i just don't see myself catching up to students in school who seem to read and make notes so much faster than i do.

So i lie instead, and tell them how i'm just doing OK, and how law school is "tough" but "i think i'll do alright" or something like that. Which just makes things worse, because inevitably i'm not going to hit 2nd upper, i don't know what kind of law firm i'll end up in, and this whole house of cards is just going to come crashing down on me.

But there're so many things that i just can't tell people. I can't tell them that all i want is a mid-level salary, because it won't be deserving of the house i live in and the life i've led and should give to my future wife and children. I can't tell them that, after a law degree, i might want to start anew with a new faculty or (since i'm such a bad student) perhaps joining some company in a minor role (not a law-related one) and working my way up like i know i can. I can't tell them that i'd like to make music, draw manga, or even do theatre. I can't tell them that i'd like to find out what i'd actually enjoy doing in life and make that my occupation. I can't tell them that i value a job with working hours STRICTLY from 9 to 6 much higher than a legal job with twice the pay.

I'm just a victim of my own pride, their expectations, and my own ambition. If i don't end up at a big firm, or at least a well-known one or one that i joined out of choice and not out of desperation, people that i care about (i.e. all those other goddamn lawyers) won't see me as a first-rate lawyer or a first-rate person. If i end up not doing law, i'd be seen as a 3rd-rate member of society, and worse still, a liability to my parents who wasted all that money and effort taking care of me and paying my tuition fees. And since i cannot tolerate being worse than mediocre in my occupational field, i somehow cannot tolerate not being considered a "first-rate person" in the law fraternity. So i must get my 2nd upper, because somehow one goes with the other. But i know i'll most likely not get it, because every other law student is aiming for that top half as well, and somehow most of them seem much more studious and much more articulate than i'll ever be.

And so i must risk being a 3rd-rate person and consider another occupation...and then i don't know what to do. Because most people that i know just cannot contemplate a respectable occupation that is not law-related that i can sign up for while toting around a 2nd lower law degree. Maybe i should take up some guitar/piano classes or go back to practicing my manga-drawing again. Argh...the problem is that an occupation in such a field is so uncertain - it'll be the biggest risk that i've ever taken in my entire life.

This may seem like a very trivial difficulty to some; hey, i'm going to get a job for sure that'll pay at least a couple thousand and i don't have to worry about food and water and a place to sleep...what's the worry? But i can assure you that, while the pressure may be of a different kind, it certainly is there. It's the pressure that comes with the fear of losing what i already have and being unable to reciprocate for what i've received.

And even as i moan about all this nonsense and think about a better way to phrase this huge jumbled pile of crap, more of my study time is evaporating into thin air. I feel so dead.
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16.11.10


Beware the Dominatrix.
Let me just say for the record that i cannot STAND those types of arrogant, competitive, self-centered girls who always want to win or be right or have things their way with few compromises, and who give little to no thought about the feelings or preferences of other people whenever their own interests are affected. When they "give in", it's actually because they don't really care too much either way, and when they TELL me what to do, it's secretly or unconsciously for their benefit and never for mine. I especially cannot STAND the types that are always provoking me into an "argumentative debate" with taunts or getting easily provoked when they feel slighted in the least (and then they get personal and all the rage comes flying out); it's like they're itching for a fight where they must always win and i'll either have to give in completely or become the big jerk when they run crying or complaining to their friends or whoever.

I've always had this habit of running away from girls who exhibit such traits. Of course, first impressions can be deceiving, and some nice girls have proven me wrong in the past, but i usually like playing safe. Call me weak or whatever, but i really do hate having to interact with such types. I like my peace and quiet. And i've already got enough shit to deal with. I also have an ego. So i like it when people listen seriously to what i say before taking a measured approach in asserting their points of view, instead of simply going "No, no, but..." or "No, no, how about we do this instead..." when a different idea/argument/theory/suggestion pops up in their head; and the fact that their idea or whatever is different from mine presupposes that mine is wrong. I also prefer it if people give some thought to my expressed and implied feelings and preferences before deciding what to do; that way, i can focus on reciprocating instead of getting into disgusting and relationship-damaging wars while trying to assert my ignored preferences. Thankfully, these types of scary girls are rare. But then i entered law school, which is probably more likely to have more of these types than not. I'm an idiot i guess.

Why only girls? Because they can get away with it; sometimes they're even fondly labelled "strong" or "independent"...which actually doesn't make sense because most of these girls can't even take care of themselves. How do you measure "independence"? Your ability to make money? Heck, i think i know a guy who even thinks that such behaviour is "cute"! He'd probably raise a spoilt monster of a daughter, thinking that padding her ego by giving in to her all the time is like some kind of affirmative action to help the feminist movement (or maybe he just thinks that he's "doting" on her). There's a difference between being proud and being an arrogant bitch! What about guys with similar personalities? They usually DO get labelled as arrogant or as chauvinist pigs and chucked into the "jerk heap" by the general populace and ESPECIALLY by girls with similar personalities who had clashed with those guys before.

So, are you a girl? Was the first thing you thought of when you started reading the intentionally sweeping assertions in my rant "No, but..."? Are you really pissed off with me right now and wish to go complain to your family and friends? Do you wish to post a comment to me and have an "argumentative debate" with me in order to persuade me that my opinion is totally incorrect? And do you think that my incorrectness has something to do with me being a jerk or some kind of idiot?

If so, please do let me know who you are, so that i can make a note of it. :)


PS: Dominatrix is the wrong word to use, by the way. It has sexual connotations, and i can imagine a dominatrix who "dominates" not for her own pleasure but for the pleasure of the masochist. I just used "Dominatrix" in my post's title because it grabs attention, seems quite funny, and sounds kind of catchy too. XD
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About Me...


Gregory Ang
{♠gRêCkÖ♠}
31st December
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NUS Law


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DISCLAIMER: This blog is copyrighted by Gregory Ang, blah blah blah...if you wanna quote something from this blog for some reason (i can't even begin to imagine what), please at least say Greg said "..." instead of just "..."

IN ADDITION, i am not liable for any damages if, after reading my posts, you start to go crazy/doubt God/feel depressed, OR if you decide to believe my supposed "facts" or listen to my advice or any advice written in this blog AT YOUR OWN RISK and end up getting screwed/fired from your job, etc.

HOWEVER, if you are aggrieved by something that i wrote in my blog - something that damages your reputation or whatever - please feel free to send an email (with your REASONS) to greckoboy@hotmail.com, and i'll edit my posts...ONCE i've read the email (please be warned that i don't read my emails THAT regularly).

TERMS OF AGREEMENT: By reading this blog, you agree that this website is just a simple collection of opinions. I will erase this part when i start harbouring ambitions to change the world or take down the PAP or whatever. Furthermore, you agree to abide by the terms stated (rather crudely) in the disclaimer above.

REMEMBER, it is YOUR duty to read all of the above, for i have already written a post to direct your attention here. And if you feel the disclaimer is not "properly defined" and/or not clear, then i'm very sorry, but i kinda thought that you had this thing called "common sense". I know you have common sense...you do, don't you?

Finally, sorry for all that self-protection crap...it was quite fun though LOL. Just enjoy reading lah! :)


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