after running an errand and picking things up from king’s cross, i cycled around the russell square area out of nostalgia for commie hall and the russelll rip-off, the greasy spoon(s) and brunswick square.

while mostly everything else has remained the same, brunswick square has changed beyond recognition.

it used to be run-down and dodgy, now it’s all waitrose and carluccio’s, fancyschmancy boutiques and starbucks coffee. it looks nice, but i miss the old place, with it’s 5 pound shoe store, charity shop and little venice and its student discount takeaway pizzas for £3.95.

it’s odd the things we miss.

but it’s really more like i miss my first year of university, when everything was still new and curious, when i was still new and curious. when we’d all troop down before 11 to get takeouts and have all-night poker sessions, when we’d sit in cartwright gardens and while the days away, when we’d go to the greasy spoon for brunch after a heavy night out.

when we’d all go to 5s at the UCL union on saturdays and get smashed on snakebite, then walk unsteadily on to the rocket on euston road for even more cheap alcohol and shite music. when we’d converge onto and into bedrooms and do nothing and everything - the guardian quick crossword every afternoon, tea for 2 or 10, solutions to every existential crisis that existed, guitar picking and electro-rocking. when everything was so easy.

cycling around that area last friday evening, it made me melancholy. it made my heart ache for the people i know and love but don’t see anymore. for all that time we spent together.

so it’s mid-november and it’s finally cold.

cold enough for the leaves to turn bright red and orange and to scatter across the sky and the streets, leaving us wading through drifts of crackle.

cold enough to break out the gloves and scarves and hats leg-warmers and 50-denier tights, and to live almost permanently under 3 layers of clothing.

it’s also cold enough now to start having roasted squashes and other vegetables as staple foods.

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in other news, the cold has reminded me that christmas is coming. oh, okay, i’ve been reminded since sainsbury’s started their christmas aisle at the end of september (full of chocolates in fancy boxes, £5 gifts of tea-sets, spices etc, and baubles and tinsel for decorating your house at halloween).

but i’m worried now because i still haven’t used my christmas present from Matt’s mom from last year. she gave me £50 of book vouchers, and i haven’t used them yet. i know, what am i thinking? what am i doing? but trust me, it’s not so easy to just go out to a bookstore and buy books.

i have a library 5 mins away, and it pains me to buy a book when i can borrow it. and worse, what if i bought a book that i don’t like? or a book that i’d only read once and once only and never more? the waste! not just of money, but of effort and time and my braincells.

bookcovers lie, and the inside sleeves rarely reflect the true tone and manner in which a book carries itself. i know some people have said to flip to a random page and read what’s on it to know if it’s the right book for you, whilst some others read the first and last pages. i haven’t found a surefire way of deducing whether a book will grab me by my collar and plunge me into its depths, or merely bore me until i finish it off.

so, this might just be a futile request, seeing as i usually only get very irregular comments, but are there any books on any of your highly recommended lists that are absolutely to-die-for?

as some indication of my reading habits, here’s a list of books that i’ve written down in my notebook i ought to read again, which i’ve previously borrowed from the library or from friends:

+ foucalt’s pendulum
+ breakfast at tiffany’s
+ kafka on the shore
+ norwegian wood
+ the time-traveller’s wife
+ vile bodies

a book that somehow or other might fit into this strange selection will be considered for purchase, so make your choices known!

i might even give out prizes for the recommender of the book i will eventually buy, as a thank you for making long winter nights a bit less tedious and letting me suspend (dis)belief for the duration of that book.

i was in sainsbury’s buying a copy of the New Scientist from the cigarettes/newsagent counter, and the cashier started chatting to me about me buying the New Scientist, first going ‘oh i didn’t know we sold it’ and then said something about how he thought it used to have a blue heading.

i made mumbling sounds and didn’t really think much of it, nor of him.

and then it hit me. i’m thinking that he isn’t capable of reading the New Scientist because he’s a cashier. i’m being so freaking elitist and horribly disgusting. oh my god.

what if he was a medical student at the royal london hospital? what if he’s some crazy smart physicist that just needs to work to earn his pocket money? what if he’s a law student whose law textbooks have busted his budget? what right do i have to look down my snooty nose on the cashiers working in sainsbury’s when i really ought to be thanking them for working there and making my life so much better?

i try really hard not to discriminate and pre-judge, because i know how it feels like to be on the receiving end of it. the numerous times people have made me repeat myself because they can’t believe i’m actually speaking perfect english in an intelligible accent, that time a bunch of kids chanted ‘dvd-dvd-dvd–dvd’ as i walked past (i think only londoners will understand this phenomenon), and all the other times people think i’m from china or ought to understand cantonese or vietnamese or whatever. i ought to be the last person to think less of anyone because of what they look like or what they do.

but i guess i still have a long long way towards perfection. sigh.

also, with around 18 women out of the 85 members of parliament, you’d think that at least one of them might raise an objection to the continuing subjugation of women within marriage.

and another thing.

perhaps it’s just because i’m a law student and i’m anal about these things and therefore i like reading statutes and finding out weird and wonderful laws that still exist, and also criticising them.

other people who aren’t all that interested in law probably have no idea that such an exception exists. and the only people who’d know about it are the victims themselves, who aren’t exactly going to campaign to remove it due to the traumatic and adversarial way in which many rape trials are handled - if they even get to a trial.

i mean, a woman who has been raped by her husband might be turned away at the police station when she’s drummed up enough courage to actually go and report it because ‘oh, you can’t be raped by your husband. and anyway, it’s not rape. it’s your husband’s right to have sex with you, forced or not’.

she goes away feeling violated, not just by the husband, but the system. and it probably creates a psychological feeling of guilt, that she deserves it and that there is nothing wrong in her husband forcing her to have sex with him even if she really doesn’t want to.

i’m all for sexual equality and sexual freedom. if women want to have sex with various people, they shouldn’t feel disenfranchised or demeaned by their choice to do so. on the other hand, if women do not want to have sex, their decision should be respected and honoured and they shouldn’t be made to feel like prudes, much less be forced into sexual situations that they have no desire to be in.

and, just to go off on a slight tangent, i think that women are as capable of raping men and men are of raping women. to think otherwise is underestimating the female sex, as well as implicitly undermining our abilities and capabilities. we might not have a penis, but who said you need a penis to sexually assault someone?

i think both men and women in singapore need to start becoming more interested in feminist theory and realise that it’s less about bra-burning and unshaved legs than it is about self-realization and mutual respect between and amongst the sexes.

maybe then, then there may begin some real recognition of the changed status of women in singapore - that we’re not just female bodies, that we’re not just childbearing vessels, that we’re not merely this strange and other sex to be owned.

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UPDATE

it’s not very well-written since i basically ctrl-ced and ctrl-ved parts of my last entry, and also it was done in a fit of anger.

but the important thing is that i’ve submitted my feedback to the ministry of home affairs:

the consultation paper on the proposed changes to the marital rape section of the penal code (S374 (4) and (5) of the amended penal code) purports to have made the amendments in response to the ‘changed status of women and the evolving nature of a marital relationship’.

if the status of women in singapore is such that a man can rape a women subject to those very limited exceptions, then women clearly have no rights over their body once they have entered into and remain in a marital relationship.

the amendments do nothing to reflect the changed status of women in singapore, and it does not truly reflect the reality of marital relationships.

i would urge you to abolish the marital rape exception instead of merely amending it, because no man who commits rape ought to feel as if he can get away with it, especially not within a marriage.

please make your thoughts known to them, lest they assume that the singaporean public are pleased as punch about what they’re doing. let your voice be heard, before you become silent through submission.

send them your comments about the amendments here.

here’s another reason why i’m afraid of going back to singapore permanently:

say i married this guy, and things are fine for a couple of years but are gradually going downhill. i’ve lost interest in him and think that i’m much better off being divorced or separated, we don’t really talk much, we don’t have sex much because i’m just no longer attracted to him.

he’s frustrated, obviously. but maybe he feels that the marriage is worth saving. or maybe he doesn’t. i’m just hypothesising here.

one day, maybe intoxicated maybe not, he comes home and initiates sexual intercourse because y’know sometimes we just do have sex. it’s a physical urge that needs to be dealt with, and who else better to do deal with it than someone you share a house with. anyway, i refuse, he gets angry and insists. i refuse some more, he forces himself on to me and has penetrative sexual intercourse with my body.

i haven’t consented at all, and the act of sexual intercourse was done under duress/threat/physical force. but still, i can’t be classified as a rape victim because he’s my husband.

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the consultation paper on the proposed changes to the marital rape section of the penal code purports to have made the amendments in response to the ‘changed status of women and the evolving nature of a marital relationship’.

well, if the status of women in singapore is such that a man can rape a women because they are married and not separated or have protection orders existing or other injunctions pending, then this clearly shows that women have no rights over their body once they have entered into a marital relationship.

do i belong to my husband? am i a will-less chattel whose use is entirely up to my owner? just because i’m married and we have a marriage certificate does that mean i stop being myself and become part of my husband? do i not have rights and independence?

i refuse to be owned or belong to anyone. and i do not see how the act of marriage can imply a continuous consent to sexual intercourse because it clearly doesn’t - just because you agree to have sex with someone today, doesn’t mean you want to or agree to the next. if both parties consent, then go ahead; but if one party doesn’t give consent, then respect that decision and go wank off by yourself. any supposed implied consent is just a false construction of reality.

if they want to make rape within a marriage an exception to the general laws of rape, why don’t they just change all the other laws to do with women and their marital status and their inability to be independent contracting parties. from now on, why don’t they just legislate that women can’t own property unless their husbands are co-owners. and women can’t sign contracts without their husbands. and, oh yeah, women shouldn’t be able to vote either, because we have no mental capacity to think anything apart from what our husbands tell us to.

a very large number of women are raped by people they know or who are close to. and whether or not that person is the women’s husband shouldn’t even figure in the equation as long as there was penetrative sexual intercourse without consent. rape is rape is rape. there shouldn’t be any exceptions to the rule, and to go one step further, it really should be gender neutral.

how can i return to a place that doesn’t legally protect me from what would probably be the most traumatic experience as a woman? rape, not just by a stranger, but by someone you trust and love (in some way), and by someone who shares the same house as you, whom you see everyday, and who knows all your intimate habits. if the law refuses to protect me, who else can i seek protection from? the person who committed the rape?

how am i going to bring up daughters in singapore and teach them self-respect and self-worth, dignity and independence, when i have to tell them as well that the government and the law doesn’t give a rat’s ass about their welfare once they’re married.

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perhaps the best alternative, as a woman, is to not get married and merely live with a partner. cohabitation gets a bad rep, but at least it’ll save you from being classified as a martial rape exception.

okay, i’m not being disrespectful or anything, but this lord mayor’s show is totally pissifying.

they shut off basically the whole of the city/financial district, so the buses were re-routed in such a way that they followed the north bank of the river, then crossed over to the south bank, followed that, and would eventually head across the river again and suddenly you’re in central london.

totally not where i wanted to be.

so i hopped off at blackfriar’s bridge and walked to holborn. totally pissed off at the fucking floats slowly passing me by, and wishing all these freaking tourists would disappear and let me get on with my life with smoothly running public transport and none of these road closure nonsense. and to top it all off, the fireworks, which would have redeemed all this nuisance, is on at 5pm. hello, 5?! c’mon, can’t they have done it at like 7 or something?

so no redemption, i hate the lord mayor’s show for fucking up my journey, for making me walk so far and for making me pissed off.

now that i’m in school, i have no idea how i’m going to get home. and i am NOT going to bow down to the london underground because i hate taking the tube, and it is not a nice experience squished up against the side of the doors on a saturday evening.

and i have this thing to write.

argh.

man, i’ve been on lexisnexisbutterworths so long i’ve forgotten that in all other sites the back button actually works and will not fuck the whole thing up.

and having a cold while it’s cold and while having to to finish this piece of research assignment by monday is just not my idea of lots of fun.

i need a holiday. i want a holiday.

ok, i just want this weekend to be over.

oh, what is this need to distract self from pile of work?

especially since i started off so well, sitting down first thing after waking up and going to the loo and making tea and breakfast to my property tutorial sheet and reviewing lecture 7 like it told me to and answering the self-assessment questions before looking at the answers provided (ok i cheated for the last two questions, but the other 5 were done honestly) and also answering the questions after going through TP1.

and then it said ‘read chapter 40 of the property law and practice manual’ and everything fell to pieces. hello guardian online, tell me what’s up in the world today. hello bookmark bar tagged ‘blogs’, what have all these randoms/strangers/friends been telling everyone else. hello you. hello balcony, all you plants are doing so well for november even after i’ve ignored you for so long.

perhaps it is the fear of finally getting to a piece of work marked ‘Practical Legal Research Assessment 1′. because i’ve done about 4 hours research already, and i still don’t know if i’m in the right direction. and i want to keep putting it off till forever but the deadline is monday and i have all this other work to do in between.

i hate exams.