Satchel, Bucky and John

2008-06-06T01:34:00.003+08:00

this has been a screwed up academic year for me. I definitely won't achieve the highs of last year. firstly, my results werent tat good this year. I think in certain aspects I'm not satisfied with my results, and even feel unfairly done by. I guess though that I have to accept this and work harder in year 4, to achieve my goal. Perhaps, just perhaps, I might want to retreat into a corner and do my own stuff quietly in year 4. I do not want a repeat of this year where at times i help others at the expense of my own preparation.
(the rest has been deleted on advice that its too sensitive)

my exchange application was also rather screwed. first, i have an unpleasant encounter with someone over this. the original post was modified on advice that it was too sensitive too.

After all the application process and all, I thought it was fine and dandy, but Columbia had a nasty surprise for me. They told the deanery that they werent accepting any NUS law students this year, which is really damn screwed. And this came around end may! After a lot of talking with the deanery, I finally managed to have an option of either going to Boston for the entire year, or Boston for 1 sem and NYU for 1 sem. I am most likely going for the latter, seeing how much i wanna stay in NY, even if its for a sem. however, all these have left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I have to resubmit my applications at this time, while everybody more or less have gotten their admissions letters already. I also already had my mind set on certain modules in Columbia that I wanted to do, and they are unique to Columbia. Although I wanted to go NY to stay initially, I think after all my research during term time, I was quite attached to Columbia. It is a little devastating not to be able to go after my expectations were raised. It is also a bit deflating in that I cant help but think that perhaps I'm not good enough for Columbia, and this perhaps tie in with my not so good year academically.

There were also quite a few problems within my CCA itself. It is sufficient to say that the troubles were a bit more than expected. My personal life was also perhaps not as stable as in year 1, though there were signs of increasing stability as time goes on.

In sum, this has been quite a bad year for me. I hope it can only get better.

And if you are still interested to know what i censored out, ask me about it.

2008-05-18T00:02:00.001+08:00

somehow watching cardiff city reminds me of law school. i mean, with names like Mcphail (10) and McNaughton (2) (the McNaughten Rules anybody?), its hard not to.

2008-05-06T03:53:00.002+08:00

arguably, this was one of the more memorable moments of H&K...

I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed

2008-05-04T13:39:00.002+08:00

another lame conversation...

Me: its getting damn hot nowadays.
JQ: yeah because of this thing called "global warming". the earth is heating up.
Me: no shit! u mean the earth is heating up?
JQ: yeah. big corporations are spewing out hot gases, and these hot gases are heating up the earth.
Me: are u serious? we ought to inform everybody! make a film or something and let everybody know.
JQ: yeah! we need to name it. lets call it...
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

i guessed thats the conversation al gore and somebody else had a few years back..

2008-04-29T22:40:00.003+08:00

now this picture is quite freaky. but given that the joker is supposed to be damn freaky, i guess the late heath ledger must have done quite a fine job.

2008-04-29T22:32:00.002+08:00

if u haven been reading the news this week, theres this huge squid that they caught in NZ last year, and they are defrosting it to study it before embalming it. its so huge, they call it a colossal squid!

the story is here

some how i cant help but think of the alien species in Independence Day, where they attempted to dissect it and it came to life and started killing every one in the op room.

2008-04-29T20:26:00.002+08:00

i tot the equity paper today was actually quite tough. tough but doable. haha i dunno why pple thought that the paper was quite easy or ok. to me, the long hypos were quite tough in that they had a lot of hidden issues. the essays were just damn funny. except for qn 1, the 2 essays were those that you probably wouldn't have studied much. I couldnt do the essays today and it was sort of disconcerting. i also didnt have much time on the first essay (1/2 hr to be exact) and i really left out mentioning the tracing cases. sigh. at least i did quote the articles, so i hope thats some consolation.

2008-04-28T00:01:00.002+08:00

just randomly, I think Lord Templeman is a hindu/buddhist/taoist and not a christian, because quite simply, he's not a church (going) man.

Ok, I'm officially going crazy with Equity. One more week to go!

And remember dudes, you can forget everything you learn in public law, but the one thing you must write in your exam, and perhaps in ALL your exam scripts is "the notion of an unfettered discretion is contrary to the rule of law. All powers have legal limits. The rule of law demands that courts be able to examine the exercise of discretionary power"

2008-04-23T00:56:00.002+08:00

After seeing the COI report, I think mrbrown stated it best when commented on the mix up between the Camp Commandant and the Gurkha Unit - "I think you thought, who confirm?"

seems like the conflation of public order and national security doesn't only happen in the cases. The guards probably took a "public order" attitude (meaning they thought they were guarding some shopping centre toilet or what) to somebody of national security importance.

2008-04-19T22:38:00.001+08:00

Another case, another funny quote. This is an equity case that is 194 pages long. and the judge, at the end of the case, said:

"Finally I express again my gratitude to Miss Supriya Saleem. In addition to the tasks which she had to perform before and during the trial she had the difficult task of deciphering my dictation and (more dangerously) deciphering my handwriting on occasions. The judgment is a tribute to her efforts in converting my efforts into a readable form..."

2008-04-17T23:20:00.001+08:00

This is one of the few quotes from cases that made me laugh out loud when i read it... from AG v. Wain

"He also questioned as to why it was necessary to state further down in the article, ‘counsel for the Review will study the judgment to determine what further legal action will be appropriate’, when the only available next step for the Review was to appeal to the Court of Appeal against the decision of the High Court, and this could have been simply said in so many words."

2008-04-10T09:47:00.002+08:00

The news over the past few days was quite amusing. First, we had new ERP gantries in operation from Monday onwards. The newspapers were full of stories of how people forgot abt them and had to stop at the side of the road to insert their cashcards. However, I recall one news bulletin on Ch8 10pm chinese news, that stated that the new ERP gantries had a positive impact, in that it increased the average speed limit from 20km/h to 21-24km/h..

WOW. That is really a BIG increase in the average speed limit, thereby justifying using the ERP gantries. I think at an average rate of $1 for an increase of about 1km/h, we should perhaps charge $30 for each gantry so that we can drive at 50km/h on those roads.

The 2nd amusing piece of news came in the form of the Olympics Torch Relay. Despite China's insistence that the relay must go on etc, anyone who saw the footage of protesters attacking the relay etc can tell that this is a major embarrassment for the Chinese, as well as the IOC. I mean, no amount of positive spin is going to take away from the stark visual images that showed how people feel about China.

2008-04-02T00:45:00.002+08:00

Exam stress again. Funnily, for all we bitched about equity, i'm actually more prepared for equity than anything else. Public law just seemed.. murky, and LCS is, as i remarked to kevin just now, the perfect example of what a Wednesbury unreasonableness/irrationality usage of power is.

When i see my LCS grade at the end of the sem, I will have no idea how i got it. I went to look at the course curriculum, and it says 20% is on some online review, which is supposed to be confidential. guess what? we havent done a single review yet, unless you are talking about the negotiations reports, which isn't really feedback anyway, and its not confidential too.

20% for tutors discretion, which is kinda hard if your tutors only see you 4 times and your class has a showoff who likes to regurgitate all he knows about the law.

and the remaining 60% is on firmer footing, for it relates to the actual negotiations and the written assignments, though the written assignments are really arbitrary in scope, and you have no idea how to go about doing it.

Sigh. exam stress, and exam stress wasted on a subject that is non-examinable (which by the way seemed to mean its excluded from ordinary processes of review...).

2008-03-23T15:17:00.002+08:00

i just read this piece of news on BBC.. its quite interesting actually. i didnt know hypnotism actually works.

'Hypnotist' thief hunted in Italy - Police in Italy have issued footage of a man who is suspected of hypnotising supermarket checkout staff to hand over money from their cash registers.

2008-03-15T23:37:00.002+08:00

I am cranky these days. I think its a combination of stress, uptight-ness, and also being generally tired. But I wonder the stuff tat i'm irritated at these days, are they really corz i'm just more cranky, or whether its corz they really irritate me?

2008-03-12T03:02:00.002+08:00

As usual, law school's oppressive assignments brings out the quirky quotes on MSN:

Gabriel: "WTB (want to buy) 1000 words"

Yuxin: "not a good sign when an alphabet from your alphabet macaroni drops on your public law notes, and the alphabet is "C"."

Douglas: "Future President of Singapore - Get Paid to React"

Junbin: "EP sucks ass. the constitution. Not the man."

and yours truly changed msn msg 2 times in a nite. the first msg was

"I would never walk past the Istana without shuddering at the horror again"

and later it became

"I remember swearing an oath to lay down my life for the President. But i never expect to die while writing ABOUT him."

2008-02-27T20:08:00.003+08:00

oddly enough, i kept thinking of the debentures case that runs into 50 pages, but i just couldnt recall its name. i tink its due to the fact that i have similar 50 page cases waiting for me.

and after searching my harddisk, i found that case - Re Spectrum Plus!

2008-02-27T18:26:00.000+08:00

"Columbia. On the front of the law school building at Columbia, you will notice a huge sculpture of a man who has put a noose around the neck of a horse and is throttling it to death. You will not be able to understand the true significance of this sculpture until several days into your first year at Columbia."

erm... doesnt bode well..

2008-02-06T08:21:00.000+08:00

I'm going to columbia! (the uni, not the country)

2008-01-29T01:20:00.000+08:00

Just heard that there were still people mugging in sch at 12am when my frens left. Seriously, this is only the third week and it seems like exam season. sometimes, we just gotta chill and remember that this is only the third week. burning it so early will get you burnt out easily.

2008-01-16T00:08:00.000+08:00

当别人误解我的时候
我总是沉默
沉默对我来说其实是一种反驳
当世界遗忘我的时候
我一个人过
幸福对我来说其实是一种传说
当敌人越来越多
朋友都离开我
当爱情变成一种负担却无法解脱

我不是沉默的羔羊
我有话要讲
给我一点酒
让我有勇气
向你吐露我的悲伤
我不是沈默的羔羊
我也有梦想
当明天太阳升起
照在我的脸上
我一样能散发光芒

2008-01-07T00:03:00.001+08:00

And randomly, you know you are getting old when you go to ur sec sch cca chalet, and when they start playing games you exclaimed "that's damn fun! we played that 10 years ago!", and only to get a whole group of stunned faces...

2008-01-06T23:54:00.001+08:00

a new year calls for new resolutions. And mine are:

1. I shall gain more perspective. All those times when i'm down? Screw it. As Boris Becker famously said when he lost a 2nd round Wimbledon match after winning it the previous year, he lost only a tennis match. Its not like anyone died or anything.

2. I shall hope that i can go to new york for exchange. Is it a resolution when you cannot control the outcome? haha but nevertheless, I hope to be able to make it to Times Square and say (in the Hiro way): HELLLLLLLLLOOOOOO NEW YORK-E! (though i think tat would be far too great an embarrassment).

3. I shall quarrel with my gf less. Hopefully, the longer u stay together, the more u understand each other, and the less frequent the quarrels will be.

4. I shall lose my lousy losing streak in mahjong. Wait, that is already taken care of when auntie PY took over my "good" luck =)

5. I shall work harder. Contrary to belief, I haven't worked as hard as i would like last year. I could be more systematic and get my schedule back on track earlier. And therefore, I shall work harder (sounds like the old horse in Animal Farm isnt it?)

6. I shall attempt to be more concerned with my future career path and apply for internships. Kinda feeling lazy about internships, but that has got to change.

tats all i guess. haha Happy 2008 to everyone!

2008-01-06T18:14:00.000+08:00

I was rearranging my personal folder (the one with real paper, not the one on my laptop) when i came across a printout detailing my choice of schools for the JC admissions exercise. I was quite amused to see that the reverse was a photocopy of 2 pages from Alcock v. Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, specifically, from the speech of Lord Keith of Kinkel. I must have used my sister's pile of discarded paper as a printing paper.

2007-11-29T22:33:00.000+08:00

this is not shaping up to be a good exam season. Screw ups here and there, and pressure keeps increasing. I think it will take more than the christmas season to recover. sigh.

2007-11-22T14:13:00.000+08:00

and so england couldnt draw against croatia, thus ensuring that they arent going to Euro 2008. I stayed up the watch the first half, and seriously England was abysmal.

Firstly, why did McClaren play wright-philips on the right flank instead of beckham? I'm sure Christine would agree with me on this. wright-philips is fast, but his crossing is really bad. With a single man strikeforce, and its peter crouch at that, what you need is a good crosser of the ball. whats the use in being speedy and tricky when you cannot put in a decent cross for a 2m striker? I remember seeing a good through-ball to wright-philips in the first half; its a pity that he hesitated and took 1 extra touch before trying for the shot, which got parried. I'm sure beckham would have put that away, and equalised for England.

Secondly, why did he play scott carson? granted that Robinson was really off form, but he could have played david james instead! between choosing a veteran and a keeper who only previously turned out for England in a friendly against Austria for a do or die match, I would go with the veteran any day. there's simply no substitute for experience, esp in a high pressure match. and scott carson did let the ball slip for the first goal.

Thirdly, why gareth barry instead of hargreaves? I remember the commentator saying that hargreaves is perhaps the most disciplined player in the team in terms of tactics, and that if he was out there england would definitely retain possession better. that is definitely true, considering that barry is really short of form outside the england squad.

Fourthly, why wayne bridge instead of ashley cole? cole was on the bench, and if he's on the bench surely he would be fit to play at least some part in the game. its undeniable that cole is the better left back of the two. If you look at the 2nd goal carefully, you will realise that the defence was in shambles, that while the 3 defenders tried to play the guy offside, bridge at the far end played him onside! his play down the left flanks were also not effective at all.

Finally, why 4-5-1 and the insistence on lampard and gerrard together? It was proven in the last few matches that england was much better at a 4-4-2, and that gerrard doesnt play with lampard. This game surely would be another shining example of why both of them are ill suited to play with each other.

I think england needs a new manager. haha maybe they should come look for me! in the meantime, i shall start prepping for the england job by undergoing intensive Football Manager 08 training after the exams =)

2007-11-21T14:23:00.000+08:00

I feel miserable these days. I'm alternating between feeling confident that I will be able to cover what I want to cover for the exams, and panicking at the thought that I won't be able to finish revision. The weather is of no comfort too. It alternates between hot and cold, and creates an environment conducive for taking afternoon naps. This also led to me feeling under the weather, and even feverish at times. My dad and sis are also at home recovering from flu and fever, so it seems like the season is upon us again.

On another note, Lust Caution is really quite nice. The pacing was slow, but the story was engaging. And the sex is really quite explicit. But it helps to develop the story. I dare say that people who caught the NC16 version missed out quite a bit, because you are TOLD how their r/s developed, instead of seeing the nuances yourself.

2007-11-07T08:15:00.000+08:00

Our air force recently bought quite a number of F15s from Boeing, after a long and lengthy tender. The reason given for rejecting other tenders, including the joint strike fighter (JSF) was because the F15s were tried and tested, and they were very reliable. Guess what? the USA just grounded its entire fleet of F15s. Makes you wonder whether we just wasted a huge amount of money with this.

2007-11-05T22:52:00.000+08:00

CLT seems like my personal halloween. I've been stuck reading how Mao's revolution is incompatible with the rule of law for the past 2 days, even when i'm supposed to have finished it by Sun. This sorta brings the quote by Steve Wynn about Mao and his "imbecilic revolution" to mind. All this too, at the expense of reading about dentures (or is it debentures?) and charges that actually float. I guess Muhammad Ali was talking abt charges when he mentioned something that "floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee". I mean, its kinda painful when they try to crystalise charges against you, much like a bee sting isnt it? and talking about crystalising charges, i bet my friend would think this topic is weird, because it would remind her of herself every time she reads about it.

I'm facing a brick wall nowadays when its comes to mugging. Bad news too, as this is the season to really mug. I will read a bit and then go off to play Winning Eleven. I think i seriously should start considering going to sch and join Amardeep in the library. There isnt much time left and I'm still procrastinating. Sigh.

2007-11-05T01:28:00.000+08:00

trial's over and done with. could be better though, but i guess i cant complain, or else crystal will say i'm whining excessively again.

Been rediscovering CLT recently. I think its a euphemism though, corz in truth i'm forced to study for it. But its fascinating, even if Glenn's textbook is obtuse and boring at times. But i'm lagging behind and the exam's only 1.5 weeks away. Sigh..

i went to Laila's house on sunday for hari raya dinner. Her mum cooked up a storm for us. the beef rendang and fried chicken was seriously nice. I'm so gonna steal her recipe just before i go on exchange, so at least i learn how to cook something.

and the conversation of the day came when we were discussing about Islamic legal tradition (and thus marrying our studies with the hari raya celebration). Zhang Rui asked whether the bible or the koran was more binding. Someone made a remark to the effect that if you cannot find the answer in the Koran, u perhaps can then look to the bible or something else, just like judges looking at other jurisdictions for persuasive authority.

law students are really such nerds at times.

Add-on: I met this exchange dude from NZ yesterday, and surprise surprise! he listens to jay chou too! we already agreed to go Kbox one day after exams! hahaz

2007-10-25T21:58:00.000+08:00

I dunno how to describe this week. Is it bad or just bizarre?

First, i got notified on tues nite that my trial is next mon, which means less than 7 days to read a 32 page murder case and try to pick up a case theory. Which also means lots of apologising for dumping the testimony and marking it "urgent" on my witness who has to memorise stuff amidst her binder prep.

Then, I had to turn down Winston and Yuchou on presenting during the Waseda video conference.

After that, i collected my property assignment, only to find out that i got cheated because the marker's comments showed that he didnt read my script properly at all. And yeah i didnt do well. Quite sick of people asking me how i did, then say that i am being false modest, and then turn all silent when i reveal my actual grade.

And oh, i managed to take a wrong turn while running in Woodbridge Hospital on wed nite and end up in front of a mortuary. Well at least it "spurred" me on to run faster during that stretch.

But, of all things, my day perked up due to my prop tutor. He is seriously a damn nice guy. I asked to meet him and he told me "do come" and later explained why he can only meet me on thurs. And from his schedule, he is really busy. haha that is a weird way to get cheered up, but i guess i just like it how he makes the effort to address my concerns.

So i still cant decide whether this week is bad or just bizarre.

2007-10-06T22:21:00.000+08:00

I realise I haven't posted any pix on my hokkaido trip.. so here are some pix! Will prob post more pix when i have time, but now here's the rather interesting stuff in Japan!

I went crazy over Kit Kat in Japan. They had the wildest flavours that you can imagine! Clockwise from the top, Yubari melon (rock melon), Kiwi, Pineapple, Orange, Cherry. The Yubari Melon kit kat tastes the best, follow by Kiwi. Cherry is available in Singapore but I don't think its that great. Missing from the picture is the Green Tea Kit Kat, which is also damn good.

Now this wasn't bought in Japan, but rather in KL by my parents. Rather appropriate to post this though, since we are talking about Kit Kat. This is not really nice actually, but makes for another picture into my Kit Kat photo collection.

Man Utd! I got this photo in a Sport Shop thats like 5 stories tall. It has 1 entire section devoted to the Japanese Team. Lots of autographed jerseys too. Its almost like a tourist attraction in itself.

Had fresh abalone for dinner one night, together with Kobe Beef. It sounds really decadent, but then you gotta consider that its actually cheaper to eat such stuff in Japan than in Singapore. Of course, its even cheaper NOT to eat such stuff at all, but thats not the point. That, in the picture, are live abalones being grilled. Not a pretty sight, if you ask me.

But this is a pretty sight! Miwa Asao, the damn pretty beach volleyball player! She came to Singapore in May I think. She's really a big hit in Japan, for obvious reasons. This was taken in an Adidas store thats again 4 or 5 stories high. The Japanese really love their mega stores.

Wanted picture taken in Hokkaido. These dudes are wanted for murder, if you can make out the jap characters. The picture below shows their likely appearance while on the run.

And this is taken to show to joanna. This is actually a sign board outside a curry shop. The japanese love their curry rice. In fact, some crazy ass tried to patent curry! The animals (and 1 turbaned indian) stand for how hot your curry is. The rabbit is of course harmless, while the dragon... well it spits out fire, so order at your own peril.

Well more photos of scenery next time! and of course more photos of the big crabs and raw tuna and hotsprings and pretty gals and greenery too!

2007-09-17T00:08:00.000+08:00

Another post about our beloved judges.

Judges in the past used to talk alot. Even when they agree, they must tell the whole world something they already know from the previous judge's opinion.

In Ashbury Railway Carriage & Iron Co v Riche, a 1875 case, the following judges did this:

LORD HATHERLEY: My Lords, I am of the same opinion. (and then goes on for another 5 pages)

LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I am clearly of the same opinion (and since he's "clearly" of the same opinion, he only went on for another 3 pages)

But now, in the present day, we have our lovable Baroness Hale of Richmond, who said this in OBG v. Allen:

My Lords, I have read your Lordships' opinions with admiration.. On the first two issues, Lord Hoffmann's view is shared by a majority. The least said by the rest of us who take the same view, therefore, the better. There should be no doubt, and no room for argument, about what has been decided and why. Any perceived inconsistency between what I say and what he says is to be resolved in favour of the latter. Indeed, there would be much to be said for our adopting the practice of other supreme courts in having a single majority opinion to which all have contributed and all can subscribe without further qualification or explanation. There would be less grist to the advocates' and academics' mills, but future litigants might thank us for that.

And on the subject of Baroness Hale, she really is quite funny. In Campbell v. MGN, a case about Naomi Campbell and her druggie meeting being exposed, this was what she said:

"Even the judges know who Naomi Campbell is."

"Put crudely, it is a prima donna celebrity against a celebrity-exploiting tabloid newspaper."

"One reason why press freedom is so important is that we need newspapers to sell in order to ensure that we still have newspapers at all."

And yes, I'm getting quite bored from reading cases to post this up.

2007-09-13T22:13:00.000+08:00

This is the photo thats worth 5 beers.. spot what is so funny abt this pix..

And this is me!

2007-09-05T23:57:00.000+08:00

so mallals is over, at least for me. I wasnt that surprised that i didnt get in, seeing that the judge didnt buy my policy argument, asked me to slow down, and cut me off during rebuttal. But i get the sian diao feeling, esp when i went to time keep and later see who got in. I think its got more to do with your style and your luck as to which room you get, than the strength of your arguments. I cant help but feel that jgan, fangyi and I wasted countless hours prepping for the moots, bouncing arguments off each other and generally left our other halves and schwork cold and lonely, when my judge asked me rather inane questions and later confess to us that she read the judgment 5 mins before coming in. I mean, its really alright because they are busy people who cant be expected to prep for a prelim round, but then they should have at least be given a "cheat sheet" telling them what to expect and what questions to ask. And the judges in the other rooms actually ask better questions.

So in a sense, i think i feel cheated, especially when i think that its the strength of your argument thats ultimately important and not ur style.

2007-09-03T11:11:00.000+08:00

Now this is why i love walter woon:

" Now, may I say, Sir, that as a matter of drafting technique, it is unwise, and I think undesirable, to draft the section so wide that everybody commits an offence, and the Police decide who to prosecute. This is a driftnet. It is a legal equivalent of a driftnet. You put it out 200 miles into the ocean, and catch everything, and then decide which fish you want, which fish you throw back. That as a drafting technique, I would say, should not be adopted."

"Anybody could go into your house and use your phone. It could be your maid. It could be your parents. It could be a lodger. It could be a house guest. Anybody. Are we going to turn ourselves into something that George Orwell did not envisage in 1984 - a nation of big brother overlooking the phone? This is the point."

"As far as the point on abetment is concerned, may I correct, with respect, the Senior Parliamentary Secretary. You are guilty of abetment if you instigate or if you assist. "Knowingly permit" is not abetment. It was not when I last looked at it."

2007-08-30T08:43:00.000+08:00

Has anyone noticed that when players get disgruntled at Man Utd, they will eventually make a transfer to Real Madrid? It started with Beckham, then the great RVN (who we sorely miss), and now Heinze. Any more players and we can really start to call Real the Man Utd of Spain.

2007-08-26T12:49:00.000+08:00

I had:

38.5 deg worth of fever
16 hours of sleep yesterday
half a bowl of prawn noodles as food for the entire day
spoken less than 15 sentences due to the horribly inflamed sore throat
countless cups of water
2 cups of barley
1 cup of chinese bitter medication (which tasted like crap)
a few concerned smses and msgs on msn from friends yesterday
none of the aforementioned from someone

but i'm recovering, and hopefully in time for mallals.

2007-07-23T18:44:00.000+08:00

The following conversation is damn stupid.. For those of you who dun get it, pls think "transformers"..

zz said:
I AM OPTIMUS PRIME
.jq said:
hahaha. i am MEGAWATI.
zz said:
FUCK U
zz said:
no wonder indonesia damn chui
zz said:
taken over by the decepticons
.jq said:
haha ya lor.
.jq said:
but got autobots also! Bambang Yugoyohno bee.

2007-07-17T15:17:00.000+08:00

The Jacky Cheung concert was damn nice, especially on the 2nd nite. It tells alot when i watch the concert a 2nd time and i didnt feel bored throughout. Maybe it had to do with the fact that i sat at different ends of the stadium. Sorry to Yuling though as i couldnt make it for her birthday dinner. And surprisingly on the first nite, my buddy actually whined to me when i wanted to make her take the bus home.. haha well by her standards thats considered whining already..

I really laughed out loud when i received a random sms from Crystal about how the taxi driver was hounding her on chinese su yus and how it sounded like me. So i guess my name is associated with taxi uncles and old chinese sayings..

Flag last nite was good, though poor Laila kept getting hit on by the boys, not to mention being teased for having a name thats similar to the teletubbies (lala!).

The hols are ending soon, but i havent really had a chance to slack yet. sigh...

2007-07-11T23:49:00.000+08:00

random question... what does a yoga guru like to eat?

2007-06-29T01:16:00.000+08:00

and now its HELLO JAPAN! be back in 8 days!

2007-06-23T17:45:00.000+08:00

law camp is over. didnt had as much fun as i tot i would have, possibly due to not having a fixed OG and getting heavily involved in the logs stuff. while pple were playing and screaming their heads off, i was off driving the lorry to another location to load/unload stores. I think i feel more attachment to the lorry than to any OG or OGL or freshie for this camp.

Not having a fixed OG sucks too, when no one considered you part of an OG. little things like going for supper and wat not just adds up to the frustration. this is especially so when u arrive back after clearing stores only to find pple going off without informing you. Worse still, pple are unsympathetic to your grumblings, and find you petty instead. Yeah it pretty much sucks. For a while, the lorry became more impt, as pple would ask whether i had the lorry and whether i can send them back anywhere, instead of "how abt joining us instead".

the events were pretty fun though, like being an abducter and scaring the freshies, and being an enforcer while shooting at the freshies with the waterguns. but in all, this was really hugely unsatisfying. dun get me wrong, the camp itself was great, its just tat i feel that i didnt have as much fun as i tot i would have.

2007-06-14T15:01:00.000+08:00

Realised i haven blogged in ages. haha a summary of what i've been doing since the hols started would look like this:

Work, Sleep, Work, Sleep, Law Camp prep, Sleep, More work.

I realised i havent had a single week to slack at home. Most of my time is spent earning money by doing useless things at a law firm, then law camp prep. Now i'm in the midst of doing research for my prof, pretty stressful corz i'm in the middle of yet another major headache. Like what crystal said "Busy busy busy. Just the way you like it!"

Major events include finally breaking my half year losing streak in mahjong (sorry sam!), spending loads of time with my gf, and night cycling.

Night cycling was really fun, though i suspect we overdid it. I wasnt really abt to walk on sat at all. We basically did the entire eastern part of Singapore, in between supper stops and taking photos of roadkill and SMU-sque pictures in the middle of the road. Great food, great company, great time, but lousy bikes. the chain fell off a few times, and of all persons it was caitlin to the rescue. Brute force (ie guys) cannot compare to years of experience in cycling and skill (ie Caitlin). Photos will be up when I get the time to upload here.

Did the reverse bungy with Auntie Ng too. It was ok la, not really that fun corz the adrenaline rush wasnt that high. u can really anticipate the rush because u feel nothing when u go up. the rush comes when u go down. again, videos will be up when i get the time to upload stuff.

Working at a law firm was pretty fun actually though boring at times. I'm not interning, primarily because i'm doing shit work, and i get paid higher than ur typical intern. But, i get to go to court, and (major cheap thrill here) i got a mention on court transcripts.

Blockbusters this season have left me a bit disappointed. Pirates was too draggy, Spiderman was too emo, and Shrek.. well somehow Shrek doesnt feel as funny as before.

Was quite nervy when grades were released, primarily corz i gambled and wrote something down for the exams, and i kept thinking abt it. Huge relief when the grades are out, though if u ask me, i'm still sore over moots. My ranking though, was beyond what i expected. To be honest, i did expect, or rather hope, to get the subject prize for crim, esp after seeing my crim grade. What i didnt expect is the whole slew of other prizes. Thank you to everybody for their congratulatory smses and msgs, which include Jo, Christine the hot-Tee, Crystal, Auntie Ng, J-Kwek, Emily, Zhengxi, Ruizi, Clarisse, Ben Smith, Laila, Yu Chou and the rest (meaning i cant recall as of now).. And surprisingly, Sumy too. haha its kinda nice to hear from the tutor who tortured u the most during the entire year. And the good thing is, she shortlisted me as a judge next year. haha so that means i will have fun torturing the year 1s on the stand next year..

Law camp next week, and its going to be great fun! hahaz and after tat i finally can meet up with my mo ni! hahaz

2007-05-06T19:56:00.000+08:00

U know that theres been an overdose of criminal law when, nearing the end of spiderman 3, where the sandman was telling spiderman why he killed his uncle ben, ur gf leaned over to u and whispered... "in furtherance of the common intention..."

haha the end of exams signify the unleashing of wild beasts. Whatever we have been missing out during the past one month has been regained within the last 2 days. boozing, birthdays, shopping, gossiping about foreign talent (and some local talent as well), movies, more shopping, winning eleven and mahjong has dominated my waking hours. And when i shuffled the tiles again, its like i never let off mahjong at all. I was losing when i stopped for the exams, and i'm still losing.. a sense of deja vu perhaps.

About the funniest line i heard all nite was when dennis told mich "i'm protecting u, but u gonna have to try and protect urself too." Oh, that and michelle's constant refrain of "Pu-x*!"

Now that exams are over, gonna try and work and earn some money first before thinking up of ways and means to torture the year 1s for law camp =)

2007-05-03T14:48:00.000+08:00

haha an interesting battle is shaping up at the ST forum. At last count, there 3 contributors who quoted Hart, Mills, some Federal Court judge, and Tan Seow Hon. Its as if we didnt get enough of legal theory! hahaz stay tune and keep ur eyes on the forum for more name dropping action.. hahaz

2007-04-30T22:25:00.000+08:00

moot grades are out. pretty depressing to see that grade on the screen, though it wasnt really unexpected. I sorta expected a slightly higher grade though. Equally shocking to find that the other 2 genuises did pretty badly by their standards too. In my opinion, they should have gotten much better. Herein lies one of the problems. One of the geniuses told me that she got hit really hard with questions by one of the judges, and yet you hear that they only ask tough questions if they think you can handle it. But what happens if you cant handle it, that the questions are just slightly beyond you? Who then is better? the one who got asked and can answer simple questions because the judge didnt want to embarrass her, or the one who got asked really tough questions in the belief that she could cope, but then later turns out to be slightly beyond her? haha i'm not bitching abt my predicament because i tink my flop was not due to questions but rather to external factors, but then i really felt a bit sorry for one of the geniuses.

It was really an unsatisfying moot, the kind where u leave the room thinking "i could have done much much better". It might be due to external factors, or that you were down on luck that day, or you just got too nervous, or you simply missed something out, all these are just excuses because at the end of the day, you just didnt perform. I guess my plea that pple keep interupting me during my opening statement will not stand before the judge on an actual court appearance.

Funny why i let this moot grade get me down, when i'm supposed to be damn happy at completing contract with only crim to go. I guess among all the assignments and grades so far in law sch, i treat moots as a personal milestone, and its disappointing to fall short of the target set.

Contract today was pretty ok i guess. It wasnt that hard (i've seen worse hypos), but neither was it a walk in the park. the essay question was a bit of a kelong (along the same lines of the phil neville own goal), when ur contract tutor went throught that specific scenario in revision tutorial. Or maybe its just so glaringly obvious that somebody has to set a question on it.

Lunch today was spent with brudder caitlin and jo. Is it just me, or is there a real lack in testosterone among the pple i hang out with nowadays? I realise i always have lunch with brudder and jo, and more often than not caitlin will come along too. So its 3 gals to 1 guy... junbin, u should really join us for lunch more often to even out the Y chromosomes.

2007-04-28T03:14:00.000+08:00

hahaha and another piece of useless trivia.. just to add on to the list of online shops that you can go to, u can now shop for ur favourite "carbolic smokeball company" poster at... where else? www.carbolicsmokeball.com! haha yes thats right! you can go and order stuff like the reprint of the famous poster, or the print of the famous ginger beer bottle in Donoghue v. Stevenson.. haha

Oh and another piece of useless trivia (i seem to have loads of these).. the carbolic smokeball company folded as a result of mrs carlill winning the suit.. and ironically, mrs carlill died of influenza in the end..

Re: Carbolic smokeball company

2007-04-25T16:01:00.000+08:00

haha this is quite funny, and quite sad for England. The 2 maths questions (yeah i noe, the horror.. law students dunno how to do math) are from entrance exams from China and England. Give it a try if you have time. Its really quite hard, especially the English one.. haha

Full story here on BBC: Mathematicians set Chinese test

2007-04-25T00:20:00.000+08:00

For all you online shoppers out there, heres another place worth going! I bet you never know that u can order ur statutes online! delivery charges start at only $6! Where else can you find officially printed "Companies Act" ($46), "Penal Code" ($22), and the lovely red binder holding the statutes as seen in our very own library ($46)? Don't hesitate! nows the time to start ordering and get your very own complete set of Singapore Statutes!

Re: SNP website

2007-04-23T01:20:00.000+08:00

haha this is getting hilarious. I wonder whether Mourinho will blame Man Utd if his mother fall sick, or his cat (if he has one) ate the wrong fish or something.

Re: Mourinho rails against United penalty decisions

2007-04-22T00:09:00.000+08:00

From PP v Teo Eng Chan [1988] 1 MLJ 156:

"The surrounding circumstances show that she is extremely unlikely to have consented. On Monday, 2 September, she put up strenuous resistance and successfully prevented Teo from having sexual intercourse with her or of making major advances preliminary to sexual intercourse with her on a bed in the privacy of a bedroom in a Beauty World Centre flat. Not merely that, her conduct was such that except for her breast being caressed and her panties being pulled down a short distance, she was able for half an hour to resist any further advances towards sexual intercourse by a single man, Teo, with no other males around. I find it impossible to believe that a girl who did this on Monday could, two days later, consent to four persons, the first of whom was Sim, a total stranger, having sex with her across three seats in the cabin of a lorry in a dark and deserted quarry. Any contrary view goes against the grain of logic and common sense."

And i totally agree. I wonder why people would bother running such a line of argument in the first place, when its plainly obvious that this defies common sense. And then they perpentuate such a case, which in turn gets onto the reading lists for modules, and then in turn waste my time reading it. haha

2007-04-18T23:13:00.000+08:00

I think my fren put it succintly when he said that Uni life is really akin to taking O or A levels every 6 months. I wonder whether academics are at higher risk of heart attacks; i mean, sudden bouts of intense concentration and nerve wrecking assignments together with long periods of slackness, only for the cycle to repeat again cant be good for your heart right?

well exams are truly the great leveller of life. No matter how atas you are, you still groan the same groan when the exam period is here.

2007-04-16T22:42:00.000+08:00

BREAKING NEWS!

haha this is the first ever scoop for my blog!

In case you haven heard it, the Qs are together! yes you read it right, the Qs (as in the above) are together! haha more details, pls go interrogate the two of them =)

PS: photo taken from clarisse's blog! thanks clarisse and sorry for taking without permission =)

2007-04-15T20:35:00.000+08:00

haha last friday was a day of favours received. First, Jgan came all the way down to fetch me and Jo up the hill corz of the pouring rain. Later, i got successfully elected by the grace of the yr 1s. Much much later, Fangyi helped me print stuff from her com, and even went to the extent of counting the documents to see if she left out any. And finally, Nick, upon hearing tat i was printing the gross article which spanned 100 over pages, volunteered to give me his analysis of the article!

haha and i'm damn thankful for all the favours received on friday =)

Addendum: Auntie Ng Pei Yin wants me to add that she lend me $10 for dinner on Fri, or else i would have no money to pay the caifan uncle then. haha thanks Auntie!

Re-addendum: Auntie Ng just said that she's shy and that i really dun need to use the "big red hand" to highlight her generosity. haha

2007-04-15T20:32:00.000+08:00

"If objectivity is the epistemological sense of which objectification is the social process, the way the perceptual posture of a material position is embodied as a social form of power, the most sexually potent depictions and descriptions would be the most objective blow-by-blow representations" - Catherine MacKinnon

WTF? Can someone tell me if thats english or plain gibberish? This was really what i meant when i said that coherent words can form incoherent sentences..

2007-04-12T13:57:00.000+08:00

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

2007-04-05T22:51:00.000+08:00

Haha i decided to post random pictures again..

Remember when my msn nick was "my sister went to taiwan and all i got was a lousy pair of furry animal claw slippers"? those are the furry animal claw slippers. Its really quite comfortable, but its sorta squeaky and drives pple crazy, not to mention its damn hot to wear too.

My legs and the slippers on me! haha

And really randomly, the BTC map! spot the 2 outlines of 2 idiots taking a photo of this =)

2007-04-03T22:24:00.000+08:00

Random photos of law sch

Traffic Light!

My Co-counsel Mr. Andre Teo in his court attire

Patrick and Zhengs during Matric week

And of corz, my lawr TG mates being pressed against the wall by the logic of opposing counsels..

And finally, the mafia photo at law ball..

2007-04-03T22:12:00.000+08:00

Havent blogged anything fun in a while... blogs tend to get angsty during high stress periods, so i thought i should "redeem" myself and lay off the bitching abt work.. haha so behold, the many faces of Joanna Chew.. hahaha =)

2007-03-26T19:51:00.000+08:00

Its ironic that i read an article in the Straits Times on Monday blues, and here i am suffering from a very bad mon. First up, i dropped my contact lens and couldnt find it. new pair somemore. Damn sian. Then the rain and subsequent jam meant that i reached sch much much later. the aircon in the classroom was down so everybody was suffocating. Moots later was really bad. First, LLT made a weird comment abt how my first sub-heading in my memorial didnt have any application (how the hell do u do application on duty when application is really about breach, which was in the 2nd heading?). This of course meant my confidence went down already. Next, I false started 3 times (not my fault; nobody was paying attention when i made my opening statement), which lead to a bundle of nerves for the first few mins, and screwed my opening. I prep 15 cases and she managed to ask me one that i didnt read. I smoked my way through and didnt really got caught, but then she said she could tell i didnt really read the case. But on hindsight, that line of reasoning in the case was rejected by me last time, so i wouldnt have used it anyway. Just peeved that I didnt really pursue that line of reasoning and then failed to read that particular case. My case theory was, in Sumy's words, "lacking a common thread", so it wasnt linked. Then, my rebuttal was on a few pts, but LLT made me go back on 1 pt, when during my opponent's submissions she demolished it rather well that i thought there was no need to address it. its really all my moots nightmare coming together at once. Sumy's words to me were "you could have done better". and i agree too, if there wasnt so many stupid demoralising events before i utter the first word. Well she did say it was still very good, but then i think it doesnt count for much. its really a fucking case of monday blues.

2007-03-19T08:13:00.000+08:00

Dumb and Dumber.. I lost my CHR Crim Textbook.. damnmit its 80 plus bucks and i only need it for legal theory.. damn damn damn

2007-03-17T23:49:00.000+08:00

Now this is the dumbest thing i've done so far.. submitted my memorial, only to discover i submitted the wrong one.. resend an email to Sumy.. on the way home i decided that 1 paragraph wasnt satisfactory, so i redo that para and submit my memorial again, only to discover once again that i submitted the wrong version again... 4 emails to Sumy in 1 nite on my memorial. I tink i need to find her on mon to explain, or rather to let her laugh at my himbotic moment.. hahaz

2007-03-15T18:25:00.000+08:00

Today is the ides of march! and we've rewritten Julius Caesar! "we" being JQ and I, and "rewritten" being just the 2 most famous lines in that play:

Old version:
"et tut, brute?
Then fall Caesar!"

New version by joel:
Caesar: What the fuck, u too Brute?
Then Hong Gan i surely die liao

or

JQ :
Caesar: What the fuck, u too Brute?
Brutus: i'mma stick this muthafucking shank up ur roman ass, hoe!
Caesar: then i fucking die lor

Oh and yesterday is Pi day! u read it rite, its not PIE day, but PI day, the day where maths geeks celebrate pi, or what ur math teacher always say as "the ratio between the area and circumference of the circle". So why is yesterday Pi day? corz of the date! (Mar 14 or 3.14). BBC reported that there are even pple who planned to gather at the canteen to eat pie at 3.14pm yesterday.. hahah the mad buggers..

And as a final note, Shakespeare must have been a lawyer in training doing some ancient legal skills programme when he wrote this, or why else would he write "beware the ides of march"?

2007-03-08T22:04:00.000+08:00

The funniest moment in moots pract came when Kox, under relentless questioning by one of the judges went "with respect your honour, its common sense."

People were visibly tired at the marathon 5 hr session. Thanks to my dear tutor, who saboed me too by agreeing that i need not do the 2nd time round, and then suddenly tell me to go up on the stand again. And you noe ur arguments or structure isnt correct when she gives u those "wide" eyes of hers.. hahaz

2007-03-08T00:35:00.000+08:00

Random trivia...

Kakadu is actually a name of a national park in Australia. Check it out here

Bininj is actually an aboriginal term meaning "people". It stands for the aboriginal pple of Australia. Check it out here

And i learnt about it only in the latest issue of 8days, when Darren Tan said enthusiastically that he would like to go back to Darwin again, corz he shot lots of photos at Kakadu National Park. The reminders never end... they just manifest themselves in different forms.. First the Tembusu tree resort, then this.. hahaz

2007-03-07T17:18:00.000+08:00

The circular logic in my case goes, that you are a volunteer and thus an employee if u are at work, but you can only be at work if you are an employee. Ooo i would love to argue that in the moots and see the judges' reactions..

And SOMEBODY is just right in front of me now, looking very deep (or lost?) in thought at criminal law. Good luck to SOMEBODY for her essay on fri =)

2007-03-05T09:19:00.000+08:00

The NBA Slamdunk contest this year. Watch it! its insane! There's this guy who dunked and pasted a sticker on the backboard at the same time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuAD3buXDzU

2007-03-01T17:58:00.000+08:00

"The path of true love never did run smooth"

Its amazing how pple can chat merrily to one another and then turn into silent couples all of a sudden. The complexities of relationships makes it a big blessing if u can find pple to get along with. Its much harder when you elevate a relationship into a higher level, where parties expect more from each other. Worse still, when you have to deal with the fallout from an implosion. It can get ugly. Everybody is stressed up nowadays, and it really doesnt give anybody the right though to flare up at other pple. But, it also doesnt mean that the other party is flaring up unreasonably because he's stressed. What if, it was really a sorept in the first place, and stress only exacerbates the reaction (Binny, the sensitive claimant, and defences of reasonableness comes to mind at this moment)? The old adage "one man's meat is another man's poison" can be given a twist; what appears as an innocent comment to one can be a spiked barb to another.

And, if A gets angry with B, B gets angry with A for his anger, and A gets angry with B for her reaction, and so on, when will it stop? Both should really just take 1 step back, for this is really a case of an irritating comment to one, a joke to another, thats blown out of proportion. But B is quite tired at the moment, so A will just have to wait until this blows over.

Quite why am i writing this i dunno, esp with a crim essay due tmr. But it seems apt to talk about negligent reactions when i'm writing about negligent acts.

And i probably should have gone to watch Iwo Jima by myself instead.

2007-02-28T23:21:00.000+08:00

Today must be the contract tutorial session where we had the most no. of memorable quotes.. This will prob make no sense to you unless you are a law student and have seen the privity tutorial... haha and this is just for self-amusement..

__________________________________________________________________

Winston: Does the fact that the company knew of the arrangement affect the analysis? (I cant remember the exact quote)

Burton: So what do you think? come on..

Winston: erm...

Burton: Come on, you are on to something here. Dun fail me now..
___________________________________________________________________

Burton: can you categorise it as a loss of his performance interest? Can he claim on behalf of the third party? Does anybody even care at this time now? (it was 6pm already)..
__________________________________________________________________

Jianni: therefore, the third party was privy to the contract

Burton: HUH?!

Jianni: Opps! its "not privy"!

Burton: Thats one of those missing words that can get you a big fat zero! Like "what is the gal writing about?!"
_________________________________________________________________

Burton: so can the third party enforce the contract due to this frustrating event? trust ur gut feeling!

Me: NO!

Burton: why?

Me: corz she can have the roof, but she wun haf the house to fit it over with

(cue silence from burton...)
Burton: ok i think we need to refine the gut feeling a bit..
__________________________________________________________________

2007-02-26T23:49:00.000+08:00

what's worse than having pple tell you that ur work is all wrong? that the ans that is supposedly staring at you in the face is the one you gave up on when you were at the cross-junction, trying to decide which argument to pursue. Oh wells, LAWR has a way of making pple feel like dumb asses once in a while. What i'm afraid of is that after using our one chance to screw up in memorial 1, we screw up again in memorial 2, or even worse, like wat jo said, "in moots i say A and u say Z". this is entirely possible given the many possible outcomes of this hypo. Like i said, LAWR has a way of making you feel like a dumb ass once in a while =) hahaz

2007-02-23T19:51:00.000+08:00

Another quote, this time from Diplock LJ in Morris v Martin:

I agree that this appeal should be allowed although the legal route which has led me to this conclusion is not at all points identical with that traversed by the Master of the Rolls. After all. that is the beauty of the common law; it is a maze and not a motorway.

I'm going crazy reading privity cases..

2007-02-23T11:19:00.000+08:00

This is now my new fav latin phrase:

reipublicae ut sit finis litigium -- there should be an end of useless litigation

2007-02-21T21:49:00.000+08:00

I had an outing to the supreme court today. We met at 9 for breakfast before sauntering over to the Supreme Court, and who do we see but 2 other law yr 1s as well! haha Ben Liew and Joshua were there, for the same purpose as us; we all just wanted to see the appeal case and see how our SG appear before the court. However, we didnt anticipate the CA being full; apparently the pensioners were more anxious to see if they can get their pensions after all. We got chased out of the court, but not before seeing the justices taking their seats. They even had 1 baliff each to help them with their seats!

with our plan thwarted, we decided to head over to the sub courts, and promptly found ourselves in a sentencing court. This is when you really see the drawbacks of our criminal justice system. We saw this young punk appearing for a fighting and staring incident, and he was remanded until mar 14 corz the court wanted a probation report. We saw this foreign worker who fought with another person and got 4 months in jail; his mitigation plea was that he had a sickly mother back home and still had to pay 4500 out of his 6000 debt. all the sorrowful pleas were contrasted with the DPP who was reading off her script; something you will get slaughtered for if u try as much in LAWR. the foreign worker's lawyer also didnt do much of a job helping him to mitigate.

The funniest thing though, was to see the police asking all the accused whether they had cigs with them, and to give them to their family members first. I think it has got to do with them not being able to keep the cigs with them if they got remanded.

The next sentencing court is even more sad. we saw 3 accused who were sentenced to abt a year in jail, for they were repeated offenders. they had to do their mitigation in person, and each of them had their own sob story abt how they got out of jail and now hold steady jobs, and that they did not intend to commit the crime. At least the judge let them have their say in court, but ultimately he crushed their hopes for a minimum fine with the words, "your request for a minimum fine cannot be acceded to". The second accused tried to further mitigate his case, only for the judge to say "next case". As we left, i was wondering how many of them appearing before the judge today can actually go back home for dinner? I guess not many of them at all.

2007-02-17T23:38:00.000+08:00

Funny memo quotes frm law students in the eve of CNY..

Ruizi - THREE THOUSAND WORDS, YOU FAT ARBORIST
Andrew - Dinner sux because of a fat woman (You mean 2 didnt you?)
Andre - This is dumb i forgot to include debates in content
Fangyi - You are not as impt as my memo
Clarisse - This is the rest of my life, omg

and the rest of them just isnt online now.

2007-02-17T21:06:00.000+08:00

KUNGFU MEMORIAL - The Movie

The story begins in a 3 storey castle, where the princess chew of woodlands was busy at work doing her memorial. This memorial is the top secret manual to crushing the "evil" organisation known as "Moonbeam". Moonbeam created face creams that, once applied, devastates your face to the point of no return (Tan Yen Juan v. Moonbeam, [2007] 1 Sing. L.R. 1 at para. 1). Though the court found for Moonbeam, the princess knew she had the upper hand and would severely crush Moonbeam in the Court of Appeal.

However, the princess was still gloomy at the tonnes of information she had to gather before going to court. "What's the use of Pt Headings?" she asked, when its clear that Moonbeam was liable as hell. But, Moonbeam, being the devious company that they are, was silently hatching a plan...

When we next return to the castle, we find the princess gone! Evidently, there was a struggle going on because the table was so so messy. But, amidst the signs of struggle, lies a clue that is pointed out so clearly its as if a "big red hand" pointed to it, but for the fact that the author did not know how to draw a big red hand using mspaint. The princess wanted us to "Save the Planet", which means we have to destroy moonbeam!

We finally found the hideout of moonbeam, which was the room that spanned 3 levels and its approximately as big as Borat's room back home. The room is in the background. We had to fight it out with moonbeam. The fight certainly wasnt easy, as the evil enemy was able to dodge every single sweeping kick. And on and on the fight goes...

The fight lasted till night, where the enemy finally got defeated. Peace reigned once again. The princess is finally able to see her beloved Tembusu tree again, and trim its leaves... But, will the princess fall out of the tree? thats a story for another time.

THE END

2007-02-15T09:47:00.000+08:00

An introduction to yr 1 law sch:

Contract: Learn how the lecturers closely mirror their topics eg How Prof CTY is a mistake.

Tort: A study into how many different ways pple can rip money off you in civil suits.

Criminal Law: Come learn how many different ways you can hang in Singapore! And how defences are generally not defences (I mean, a defence is supposed to help you get off the crime rite?)

Legal Theory: A fascinating study into how coherent words transform into incoherent sentences.

LAWR I and II: Come see how your hard work NEVER pays off!

Singapore Legal System: A bitchfest into why everything in Singapore is bad.

2007-02-12T00:10:00.000+08:00

Sometimes the best way to relieve stress is to go out for drinks, and then systematically work the niggling troubles away.

Cafe Iguna is pretty good, and pretty cheap too during happy hour. Warning though, its housepour margaritas are pretty weak. they taste like orange julius with a bit of alcohol inside.

And then, sometimes its best to be cruel so as to be kind to urself. Being blunt too can save u alot of trouble next time.

2007-02-10T16:02:00.000+08:00

I'm getting irritated at organising this event. The year 2s just like to sit back and savaged every single proposal that we made. Its not helped by the fact that 1 yr 1 is too busy, and the other likes to tai-chi everything elsewhere. (note: pple who went through NS DO NOT LIKE TO GET ARROWED BY OTHER PPLE.) This is exacerbated by the memorial situation, where the research is still getting pretty confusing, and not helped too by the fact that pple keep asking me like i know the answer already. I'm so near the point of snapping at the next person who ask me to tell him how to advance the argument, for this memorial should be your bloody own work! and the irony of this is that rite at this moment, there's somebody trying to fish info from me again, asking questions whose answers are clearly in the research last sem. bloody irritating.

2007-02-04T19:40:00.000+08:00

These few weeks are gonna be soooo hectic (damn i tink i've contracted the "repeating letters" disease from peiyin). The usual demands of CNY is mixed with contract tutorials, the wonderful memorial, plus we r going to start mooting prac before CNY itself.

Brudder sang at PS yesterday. Though she didnt get into the semis, but its alrite; she can always return to her daytime job as a lawyer. I have the video of her performance, and will prob upload it on youtube soon. haha thats called REVENGE.

Been on the receiving end for quite a few times this week, which certainly isnt pleasant. But, it should be fine as long as the communication lines stay open.

Timbre last nite was pretty good. The guys were drinking like there's no tomorrow. JQ, in particular, seems unlikely to fulfil his new year resolution. Or maybe he's gonna upgrade from beer-aholic to winoholic.

Lastly, pple r getting rather scandalous nowadays. The scandalous disease is contagious, but it has a particular target; mainly 21 year old males with names starting with "Ju". Will they make it in time for vday? haha =)

2007-01-30T22:01:00.000+08:00

Lets all say goodbye to Lord Bridge of Harwich, 12 years on. As quoted from Ruxley Electronics v. Forsyth:

My Lords, since the populist image of the geriatric judge, out of touch with the real world, is now reflected in the statutory presumption of judicial incompetence at the age of 75, this is the last time I shall speak judicially in your Lordships' House. I am happy that the occasion is one when I can agree with your Lordships still in the prime of judicial life who demonstrate so convincingly that common sense and the common law here go hand in hand. For the reasons given in the speeches of my noble and learned friends, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle and Lord Mustill, I, too, would allow the appeal and restore the judgment of Judge Diamond Q.C.

2007-01-27T23:25:00.000+08:00

haha this is a post on losing weight.

haha this is possibly the greatest way to lose weight - by playing the nintendo wii for 30 mins everyday!
check this link out!

and this is prob the best way for joanna to lose weight, not that u need any, but just that if u ever need to, this combines ur fav food place with it too.. subway!
check this out!

2007-01-25T22:30:00.000+08:00

1 month of * and *. -censored-. Wouldnt it be nice if this 1 month gets replicated endlessly (stat memo deadline notwithstanding)?

Update: Following complaints that this post offends pple's morality (mainly lord teo and brudder and JB), this post is now censored. haha i wouldnt wan pple to die of diabetes because of this.

2007-01-23T09:21:00.000+08:00

some asshole is at it again, trying to spam me on my blog. but i think its real cowardice at work here. and i'm not going to stop blogging just because of these assholes.

2007-01-22T12:10:00.000+08:00

The score last nite..

But its still 6 points! and Arsenal is still 12 pts behind!

2007-01-18T22:08:00.000+08:00

I had a medical review today at MMI at Kent Ridge. Kinda weird seeing so many pple in uniform again. Weirder still to have to write my name as "CPL(NS) Chng Zi Zhao Joel". Seeing all the clerks running ard using phrases like "if they dun wan to do that, not my pasar" and stuff liddat reminded me of the NS days, where covering ur ass is of paramount importance.

Anyway, the doctor i met told me that his ORD is in 2008. It feels like talking to my GP, but then again my GP didnt have a clerk kiwi-ing his boots in the background. This doctor also certified me as 16% permanantly disabled. Now that is just a number used to claim disability compensation. It really has nothing to do whether I'm disabled in the ordinary sense of the word (see how i'm using law related language again... damn..). The only loss, so far as i can ascertain, is in that i cant squat like an ah beng again, and whistle at pretty gals walking by, though i bet SOMEONE will beat me up for this. My dreams of days with golden hair, driving a WRX with a pretty gal hanging off me, and the "Tokyo Drift" soundtrack endlessly looping is gone. How sad.

I wonder if you know
How they live in Tokyo
If you've seen it then you mean it
Then you know you have to go
Fast and furious (Drift, Drift, Drift)
Fast and furious (Drift, Drift, Drift)

2007-01-18T00:28:00.000+08:00

hahaha this a post to SOMEONE out there..

I like canto soups, esp chicken soup, lotus root/peanut/pork ribs soup and winter melon soup.

I like eggs, done in any way.

I like roast duck.

I like yam paste for dessert, or basically anything thats sweet too.

I'm not a fan of vegetables, esp TOMATOES (though i'm not sure if it counts as a vegetable).

hahaha i guess SOMEONE should really start learning how to cook =)

2007-01-14T20:57:00.000+08:00

How long has it been since u last read a book? by that, i meant any book other than that related to your field of study. My last non law related book was just before law sch, so that means i went like half a year without reading a single book. i guess this sad state of affairs has got to do with the fact that i already read alot of law stuff during term time, that when i have any spare time, i prefer NOT to read at all.

But, the reading bug came back to haunt me again. i went to the library with jo on fri, and promptly checked out Jeffery Archer's False Impression, and guess what? i've finished reading the book already. the book's not bad i guess, but its just the feeling of lazing around at home, reading a book, while the rain's out that i miss. anyhow, it beats curling up in bed and reading Introduction to Jurispudence, or CHR.

2007-01-13T23:55:00.000+08:00

2007-01-10T20:30:00.000+08:00

Its getting rather depressing when u stare at the behemoth that is 1526 pages, and realise that its called INTRODUCTION to jurispudence.. whatever happened to introductions being short and sweet?

2007-01-08T22:32:00.000+08:00

Sch started today and i finally got back contract. I'm so going to get killed here, but i was quite disheartened by it. Thats rather irrational, as i expected to screw up 1 question and getting an average grade for another, and i really just mope around after torts instead of mugging straight as per the original plan. But still, that grade just reminds me of how much work needs to be done to achieve my desired grade, and this is probably not helped by the fact that i have a sister who got straight As in all her assignments for contract. The expectation of measuring up to her is stressful only in the modules where she got As. my torts grade, no matter how good other pple think it is, only equalled my sis's, who just nonchalently asked me whether i knew it was a comfortable or "barely there" grade.

U know the pressures of law sch is building when pple are declaring themselves to enter into "mugger mode" on the first day of sch, and the usual crackpots going ard agonising over 1 mark lost which may ultimately lead them away from the road to salvation, condemning them to a life of always pushing papers ard little cases, nv hitting big time, and eventually running away with some client's money, however little it may be. but really, the pple who will eventually graduate alive and top of the pile r pple like this certain fren of mine, who has more CCAs than examinable modules in sem 1, yet still manage to get 3As at the end of it, and pick up a gal in thailand on the way. These pple really are frens and role models in living ur life to the max, or as another fren puts it, the "Trietels" in contract. In the greater scheme of things, I'm at Ansons (though i wonder if its due to my grades or maybe the fact that i talk nonsensically most of the time, like Ansons).

But of corz, going back also entails seeing familiar faces, (addition) pple who i havent seen much in the hols, that got me through sem 1, like the duchess Toh, the stupid brudder, "small mcKendrick" Teo, Ms "body" heng, and a litany of characters.. (pple like JQ dun count.. i've seen them throughout the hols playing mj, going for supper, and other activities (disclaimer: not that you guys dun count, but u guys dun count as pple i HAVENT seen MUCH in the hols.. haha)).. and of corz, having someone to save a seat for u in lectures is really quite a nice thing to have =)

And quite why am i rambling over here when i have 60 page article to read, i'm not too sure. But i will just end here.

2007-01-03T11:22:00.000+08:00

I'm now in an internet cafe blogging while waiting for the rest of them to wake up. Its pretty fine over here actually. A bit surreal though, with news of bombs going out and everybody still going around looking for bargains.

And of course, joanna just went crazy over shopping. i had small blisters on my hands by just carrying caitlin's and her bags on the first day alone..

2006-12-31T00:20:00.000+08:00

i'm flying off to bangkok in abt 10 hrs time. Happy new year to everybody! 2006 has been rather kind to me. In chronological order:

1. ORD!
2. NZ trip with team NZ. lots of memories!
3. law camp, where i meet the bunch of crazy pple in OG7.. incidentally we swept all awards, including mr NUS and erm.. drag queen... haha
4. start of law sch. honestly uni life is really fun and drudgery in equal measures. we kinda like law sch life outside sch, but within it we just groan and moan and bitch..
5. exam results.. i tink i did rather well.. and brudder relax i'm NOT going to appeal my results :)

and of corz, i met u.

something random and unrelated, but i just tot of memorable movie quotes frm 2006:

1. Casino Royale: "Do i look like i give a damn?" (when bond was asked how he liked his martini prepared)

2. 黄金甲：“天下万物，朕给你，才是你的。朕不给，你不能抢”（by chow yuen fatt)

3. Nite at the musuem: "Dum Dum, I want gum gum." (by the easter island statue, to ben stiller)

oh well short term memory.. i can only remember these few lines.. or maybe i havent been watching enough movies..

2006-12-30T17:54:00.000+08:00

"Indeed, an even cursory perusal of the formulation with respect to the "two-stage process" set out in the quotation in the preceding paragraph – together with a comparison with the "two stage test" (set out at [45] above) – will confirm that the tests are, in substance and effect, the same. If so, then, in the famous words of William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet (Act 2, Scene 2) (also quoted in the Singapore High Court decision of Chua Kwee Chen, Lim Kah Nee and Lim Chah In (as Westlake Eating House) v Koh Choon Chin [2006] 3 SLR 469 at [20]):

What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet."

Random trivia.. i didnt noe they quote shakespeare in judgments too. and they even pinpoint the scene!

2006-12-26T02:28:00.000+08:00

Northies go to supper

Today marks the inaugural "Northies go to supper" event. Ask Andre why he likes to divide pple up according to where they live though.

Supper with JQ and Fats is interesting, to say in the least. Andre too, when he's actually physically with us (half the time he was talking on the phone with "Winnie"). JQ sort of made a resolution (or rather i made it for him) to quit his obsession with anything starting with a C, like Cussing, Clubbing, Cabbing, Ch**yls.. Fats as usual, was the subject of our jacking. Me? i was just thinking how funny it would be if we replay this, plus all the usual stuff we do in my car in law camp next year.

2006-12-24T22:39:00.000+08:00

this is the first christmas eve in a while that i've spent at home instead of meeting frens or going to town, but then i dun feel alone at all :)

christmas eve's eve dinner last nite was a hoot. there were a total of 7 pple, 6 guys and a gal, and they bought 2 roast chickens, 1 turkey, 1 5kg log of ham, lotsa lettuce, and a log cake. its small wonder that we couldnt finish the food at all! and we made a mess of the kitchen. what started as trying to heat up the turkey in the oven ended in dislodging the door of the oven. luckily the kitchen had other apparatus to heat up the food. we felt mightily guilty abt "destroying" the oven, until the host assured us that his sis and her frens managed to destroy the entire cooking hood many years ago!

its funny how we finally managed to have regular gatherings 5 years after we graduated frm DHS. our unlikely combination of a class, with subject combinations as diverse as history e-lit and bio c-lit, worked out pretty well in the end. thats y christmas makes u happy, to be able to meet up with old frens and tok cok and play mahjong into the nite. of corz, my brudders r going to say again that playing mahjong is damn ah pek behaviour, but well, its the conversations between games that count. i've finally managed to unravel the "mystery" behind my fren's relationship, 2 years after she got together with her other half. and its pretty surreal too, to listen to my female frens' woes abt leaving university in half a year's time and working when i've only started 1 sem of law sch.

bangkok is in a week's time!

2006-12-19T15:14:00.000+08:00

This has been a holiday of extremes.. great first sem in more ways than 1, a record high mj win, followed straight by a record high mj loss.. if the first sem is an accurate indication of what law sch is like, then really, law sch is equal parts of pure terror (when burton asks qns in tutorials), fun (all the mj and Kboxing sessions, not to mention shopping with my bimbotic brudder and you), and decadence (corduroy and finch! and not to mention the party at jo-joy's bali-sque house)..

and of corz, i'm getting light headed recently, so pls bear with me =)

2006-12-15T14:39:00.000+08:00

i havent been updating since end of exams.. hmm let me see if i can recall wat happened in the space of a week..

Fri
ok fri was quite a killer. the contract paper was not too easy, not too hard, but i got a feeling that its pretty screwed up. but aniwae, u worry abt it only when its 26th dec, and not earlier..

the law pple went to timbre after that for a nite of erdinger and music.. and JQ just proved that he can really enter next year's muscle wars, when he cracked my pint of beer by merely TOASTING IT.. i will upload the pix later as proof..

Sat
after a late nite supper geylang, we had to drag ourselves up to go to sch for the christmas charity briefing, which actually turned out to be a time for sai gang.. went to vivocity later and was amazed again by how big the place is, and how expensive GAP turned out to be.. haha

Mahjong at nite was damn fun, when i conducted my own "massacre at woodlands".. tats the first time i won so much in a session, only to be upended by auntie Ng's 3 "xiao xiang gong" in the same session..

Sun
had 2 birthday parties in a nite... first off was the one for cheryl, where the food was good and the cake was superb. was quite sian to find out that pple have been working for 2 weeks already when i just barely ended exams.. and of corz, zhiming's reaction when i asked him a qn was priceless..

If there's a word to sum up the 2nd party, it had to be "decadent". i tot i had arrived at bali when i reached jo joy's place, and the champagne and roast beef was good too (or at least i heard they were good, for i nv actually drank/ate them).. the roast chicken was good though, i tried it on my way out.. and if it was good cold, it gotta be good when its piping hot! throwing pple in the pool became a new pasttime for law students, while it was hilarious to see zhengxi's "trying not to show disappointment" reaction when sam gave him pens instead of his oakleys. we shuld haf bought the disney sunglasses we saw tat day at vivocity and put it in the pouch. that will really make him damn sian diao..

Mon
Mon was christmas charity day, where everybody brought kids to the zoo while having only 4 hrs of sleep last nite.. the kids in our grp were adorable, and i tink pak weng and dennis would really haf fond memories of tippi.. haha.. the 3 guys under our care were really cute, and Fats was quite sad when the youngest one said he didnt like her.. hahaha

Sand art later back at sch was quite funny.. my kid insisted on filling santa's beard with pink sand, and santa's hat with purple.. i tink his secret favourite colours were pink and purple.. everybody ard us gave incredulous looks when zhengxi and i praised him and said the sand art was very pretty.. haha

Dinner later was good.. esp JQ's recommendation, some green spinach thingy that looks like baby shit but turns out good.. and i finally got tempted and went to book my air tix, so i'm flying off to bangkok with them on the 31st! haha luckily there were still air tix out..

Tues
This is where my memory starts to get a bit fuzzy.. i tink i basically slacked at home on tues.. oh and my digital set top box spoiled, which is a very very big blow to a tv addict like me.. JQ even suggested that i enroll into "TVB annoymous" or something..

Wed
i went out to watch happy feet, and the ending is just incredulous.. i mean, saving the earth from global warming just by dancing?? it will really be good if the solution was so simple. but aniwae, its a great movie, and little mumble is especially cute..

Thurs
The scv repairman finally came and my tv's back in working order.. watched casino royale at nite with a fren, who made me feel damn underdressed (what with her wearing a dress when i was only in jeans and t shirt).. casino was real good, although i still dun really noe wat M's real name is.. and EVA GREEN IS HOT.. but james bond here seemed really noob, being so brash and all.. and if this is supposed to be starting pt for james bond, then y the hell are the dates in the movie "2006"? u mean he started in 2006 and travelled back in time or something?

Supper late at geylang was good, though i bet the old uncles had a feast for their eyes when my fren walked past.. and best of all, she's oblivious to it..

I think thats abt as much as i can remember.. pix will be up soon if i can just organise them..

2006-12-06T14:19:00.000+08:00

i am so screwed for contract.. and i just finished offer and acceptance.. damn.. and i'm sick too.. oh well i hope i wun screw this up badly..

2006-12-05T10:49:00.000+08:00

I went out to Chinatown with my family for dinner yesterday.. funny how they treat it like i'm on hol already when i still have contract hell...

And surprise! see wat i saw on my way the restaurant.. for the uninitiated, "精武" (jing wu) martial arts hall was the name of the sch that 霍元甲 (huo yuan jia) founded way back in China (go watch the movie to find out!).. perhaps he started a branch here in Singapore? that would mean like he's one of the first few to embrace globalisation before schs like HC or Raffles international actually did so!

The dinner was some scrumptious meal at some shanghainese restaurant.. and the highlight of the meal was 大闸蟹 or hairy crab! the roe is seriously creamy and nice.. haha and once again its all thanks to my sis who treated the whole family.. so nice to have a lawyer in the family who has no time to spend her salary eh? the family gets the benefit in the end..