See you later.

Garlic, finely chopped
Onions, sliced and/or quartered

Carrots, chopped
Potatoes, chopped and parboiled
(any other root vegetable you fancy)
Celery, chopped

Couple of sprigs of thyme and rosemary tied together (or not)
2-3 bay leaves

Meat (beef, chicken, lamb, etc)

Stock/water
Wine

Directions for a stew:

1. Heat up some oil in a large-enough pot and brown the meat once oil is sizzling.

2. Transfer meat to a plate for the moment.

3. Heat up more oil if desired. Throw the chopped garlic into hot pot, wait till fragrant then add the onions.

4. When onions are soft, put meat back into the pot along with the vegetables, thyme and rosemary. Stir everything around so that it’s all mixed up, then stick bay leaves in.

5. Add enough stock/water and wine to about half the level of contents of pot, cover pot and let stew on low heat, stirring occasionally. Top up liquid with stock/water or wine, as you wish. I find the higher the wine to stock/water ratio the better, but that’s just me.

6. When everything is soft and tender, the stew is ready for eating. Serve with bread, rice or on its own.

There’s just so little time to fit everything in and have some to spare to write about it. It’s also probably not so great that I’ve been averaging somewhere around 55-hour-weeks for the last month.

Still, it’s Summer and things are always amazing in Summer. There are bbqs to attend, garden parties to go to, babies to play with, beaches to sit by, etc. Quite a lot to do when I’ve only got the weekends to do them, plus do all the boring stuff like housework.

Which probably explains the state of my flat.

Have Beijing blog - travels with my barang-barang.

Am hungover.

Till next time.

three more weeks before I move to Beijing. Have I packed? No. Have I thought about what to bring? Nope. Am i getting freaked out? Not yet.

there’s too much going on right here right now.

2. Sitting on my sofa in my coat and scarf and everything.

3. Tonnes of thoughts running through my mind, but they’re intersecting at high speed and I can’t untangle them.

4. I am still loving my job, even if the hours are shit.

So, better sex and better relationships through entitlement: this, at least, is true for me, and it is what I’m exploring right now with by fucking around. With someone who I am not married to, who I do not have to deal with next week, next month, next year, I can feel free to try something embarrassing; I can feel free to be, frankly, as whorish as I like; I can feel free to be entitled, goddamnit. This includes entitled to say no: no, I won’t do that, no, I won’t pretend to believe that your wife is just frigid. With my partner, I am afraid–not to say no, I am halfway to feminist perfection–but to say yes. What if I do something that he thinks is freaky, or that he finds so very titillating and erotic that I have to do it from here on out, forever? So, sticking strictly to sex, what one gets out of it is a chance to explore things in a less-fraught environment; ideally, one then processes that shit and brings it home and expands one’s sex life with one’s partner.

Nothing much has changed since, and yet something in the air has. Just slightly.

I can’t put my finger on it. But I’ll let you know when I find out.

all i do is sleep till a disgusting hour (usually lunchtime), go shopping or have long leisurely lunches at various places, wander around in a heat-induced semi-consciousness till sundown, have dinner at delicious dining places with delectable dates, and then stay up watching cable television till 3 or 4 in the morning.

i’ve also come to quite a few conclusions (all on my own!):

1) it’s not worth it trying to become a singapore-qualified lawyer –
dipSing + pupillage + plc = too much time ;

2) some people don’t deserve my attention –
unappreciativeness + lack of effort + idiocy = waste of my time ;

3) i must seriously stop ordering red bull mixers as a fallback position.

will be back in good ‘ol blighty on saturday. yippeeboohooray?

it reminded me of the night i spent at R’s place, sitting up watching episodes back to back through till morning, leaving just as the sky turned a light blue-grey and the air smelt of dawn.

it also made me think of other things. and other people.

but yes, just like bunking off school. except it was work, and i had permission to leave the building since no work was going to be done while the lights were flickering on and off and the data connections were on the blink.

so i went shopping – a new pair of shoes, some new shirts and a pair of wide-legged trousers for SS08. all done in under an hour. impressive, non?

and then there was the picking-up of lunch from carluccio;s and delivering them to a man who was laid up in bed with ‘general grottyness’. eating lunch and reading the newspapers in bed, chatting and doing things on the internet (him) and reading a book rather unsuccessfully (me). very decadent indeed. and also so much fun.

it was a stolen afternoon. so many free hours plucked out of the air so suddenly, and so coincidental a matching of free time.

parisian plans, berliner plans, moving in together plans.

but the best plans we’ve made so far are the ones involving red wine and good food. oh, and endless cups of machiato made by real italian men.

Easter weekend in Paris on my own was liberating, although after a day or two, I started to feel as if my throat was getting rusty and I couldn’t enunciate properly anymore. It didn’t help, of course, that I didn’t speak any French and was therefore relegated to observation-only, rather than being involved in any exciting conversation.

My hotel was on the rue lepic, on Montmartre just up the road from Pigalle and on the same stretch as the café de deux moulins (i.e. where Amélie worked in that eponymous film). Montmartre was beautiful, and I loved how a 5 minute walk transported me into a completely different world where the swarming hordes of tourists vanished and I could peek into windows watching artisans doing antique furniture restoration and painters and sculptors in their workshops.

Of course I did all the touristy things as well - Tour Eiffel, Louvre, Jardin des Tuilieries etc. But half-way up the Champs-Elysees I got bored and turned my back on the Arc de Triomphe. I could see it from where I was, but I lost all interest in seeing it up close, so I went to have a café crème instead. Jim Morrison’s grave at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise was similarly disappointing - I was more excited that I’d chanced upon Balzac than the cheesy circus that was Jim Morrison’s.

And obviously, all the best patisseries and cafés were to be found on the back streets, hidden away from the main boulevards and tourist attractions, through doors that stick and with menus written on the chalkboard behind the counter. And the tiny bars filled with parisians, huddled around tiny tables drinking wine and beer and sharing hunks of bread and pate, cold meats and cheese served on wooden platters resembling a chopping board.

Next time I go (yes, I’m already planning a next time), I’m going to try the credit-card-operated bicycle rental scheme, and also do some clothes shopping. Thinking back now, I was ill-prepared to confront the boutiques of le Marais, but now that I’ve got some experience of the area and of the stores, I know exactly which brands I like and where they are. So now the plan is to start budgeting for those 100% cashmere jumpers by Zadig et Voltaire and the linen-and-silk dresses by Ba&Sh.

this evening i popped in on the way back to buy some food to supplement my dinner and she popped her head out and ran towards me and gave me a high-five exclaiming that they’d found the PERFECT flat in highbury islington. i was genuinely happy for her, and we stood around the counter chatting about this place she’d found.

it made me smile, as i walked out, thinking how amazing it really is, this intersection of our lives - we’re not complete strangers, we can talk about her new flat, and yet i still don’t know her name. or she mine.

but tomorrow i go back to work and routine returns, at least until friday night.

as much as i think i like excitement and adventure, maybe all i really want is a hot chocolate and a lie-in under the duvet with a good book.

maybe.

or maybe i’m just not sure about myself outside of work, where there are clear boundaries and where i know i’m perfectly capable of carrying out the tasks given to me. or even if i’m not, it’s okay because i’m not expected to be good at anything.

people are much harder to be certain about.

- + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -

but anyway, i was sitting on top of my duvet on my bed with the papers spread out all around me and the sun just hitting the top of my head.

and it appears out of the blue, this memory of rob, his friend who is an actor (matt?), and i on primrose hill sledging down the slopes with canteen trays on our bums. we’d stolen the trays from our halls of residence, took the bus and walked through regents park and climbed that hill with those trays in our hands, like so much armour against the cold. when we reached the top, the kids all had way cooler stuff than we had. but it was fun, and we had a snowball fight and then took the bus back again when it got too dark to see. that was my first winter in london.

how far we’ve all come since.

i love this series. photography and dark humour. honestly, what else could be better?

2. it’s in peckham

3. i’m not dissatisfied with life at the moment

4. work starts soon - i am woefully unprepared for its reality

5. banoffee pie is still one of the best things to cheer me up on a winter’s day. especially after a night out in the company of too much rum and dancing. yum.

you go around thinking it’s okay and everything’s fine, and that it’ll take much more than this to reduce you to tears.

and then something happens, completely unrelated, and it all comes down like a sledgehammer.

but i guess it’s about getting used to it.

partly inevitability, partly understanding. realisation takes many forms, and enlightenment comes only from stepping away from the minute details.

but they’ve (it’s?) fallen into place, just, while i was playing pool with the boys strangely enough. i’m not even sure what it is. i just know that i felt a calmness settle, and a sudden feeling of knowing. although i don’t know yet what i know.

it might be a new year thing, anticipating the resolutions i’ll be thinking about while on the flight back to london. but then again, it might just be a leaving thing.

doesn’t matter, though. it’s all a means to an end, and the end right now is very clear. it’s the path there that’s obscured.

i woke up the other day with that thought in my head. i didn’t know why, it must have been my sub-conscious telling me what i’m only consciously discovering several days later.

it’s time to get on with it, time to begin the next phase of my life.

the problems here (and there), they’ll remain unresolved and probably will for a long time more. but then again, i’ve lived with them for a long time now, so there’s no real rush to force a solution when there are other much more important things to deal with.

like housing, work and my future.

i feel like i’ve done what i can, and there’s not much more i can do without giving it up completely. so, right now i’m perfecting my handover procedure and everything will be complete.

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你那天讲对了 －－ 有时辛福比快乐重要。

从今我会用心寻找辛福，若辛福能与快乐合濒那当然最完美。
若之内没你，我就也得接受这一切只是上天安排的一场长绵游戏。

但她也说得对啊 －－ 快乐不也是一种辛福？

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

i’m doing my hardest to sort things out but everything’s still all up in the air and i realise that new year’s is only 2 weeks away and honestly, i’m already starting to miss singapore. that familiar achy feeling of loss and loneliness that begins every time i leave somewhere for an extended period of time.

i guess everything just takes getting used to. but after 4 years of impermanence, i still find it difficult to say goodbye to [ ] and [ ] and [ ] and [ ]. and this time around,it’s going to be even harder.

it’s funny how our lives intersect at various stages, and how we’re all part of the same web.

there aren’t very many people who i feel this comfortable with.

they remind me of london times. of winter, of sitting in living rooms, of snow. with different people, at different times.

and reading through the blog archives of S, i feel guilty for having been such a bitch. and yet, where does one begin to apologize for disappearing without any explanations? [obviously this is going to need a lot more substantiation, but i will do that another time. in another post]

singapore makes me nostalgic. there are too many memories, good and bad, of past lives and past loves and old old times when nothing mattered. but it also makes me think a lot harder about the future.

london, at the moment, just seems like a parallel universe away.

and i think the motherload of redbull i had is preventing me from getting the sleep i ought to be having.

but tis alright, really.

as much as i can deal with bureaucratic bullshit, form filling is definitely not my forte. especially when the forms are in a stupid format and doesn’t transfer very well from a pc to a mac to a pc again.

and, gov-bots are scary.

there’s been progress and things have been moving forward, if not by leaps and bounds, certainly in great strides. i’m really enjoying all this, and i will be terribly sad when i have to leave.

i think perhaps everything will work out once i plunge myself headlong into the corporate whorehouse.

whichever, i’m still confused.

or so i’d like to think.

but unfortunately it’s difficult to differentiate the complicated situations from the simple explanations.

Griffin

Foolish man. You cannot turn me
into a phantom because you are
frightened. You do not dismiss a muse
at whim.

If you do not join me -
then i will come to you.

Sabine

i’ve fallen into a role that seemingly takes up a lot of time. it’s like A JOB. but it’s not really WORK so, i guess i’m still on holiday.

i’ve also begun a ceramics course, and have made half a dozen ugly pots/flasks/things that i can’t wait to glaze. that’s the best part of the course, i think. the glazing. i like the ‘making pretty’ bits. the other technical bits i’m not so good at. but, practice makes perfect - or so they say.

i’m tired. it’s too hot.

there have been days sitting in ‘meetings’ and visiting sites and wondering why i ever agreed to help. but there have also been other days of sitting around and reading and writing (although much fewer). and other evenings of catching up and chatting about all the inconsequential and yet all-important things. karaoke and drum n bass too.

i still sleep till noon, which doesn’t help the jetlag much, but i don’t really have to be up anyway. the food’s good, although some have been disappointments. the mythology of singaporean food probably grew into a over-sized totally delicious monster in my head, either that or my friends are failing in their duties to bring me to the best places.

photography’s fallen off the radar. it’s just too hot to be standing around in the day trying to take photos of the things i see. i really want to photograph it all, but the heat! the humidity! i can’t balance a bag in one hand, an umbrella in the other, a bottle of water as well as a camera. it’s all too complicated.

it’s been a week and a half of history and the future.

jetlagged.

over and out.

we’re staying at some friends’, and trying to cram in as many social meetings as possible before i leave on tuesday. which is kinda hard work considering we have a 30th birthday party tonight that will most definitely leave me with a hangover tomorrow morning. but, y’know, noblesse oblige. and anyway, it looks like it’s going to be a lovely bank holiday weekend, so it makes everything go down so much easier. like a spoonful of sugar.

all this travelling has gotten me really excited. places to go, people to see, opportunities for adventure. i’m going to spend a lot of my flight back to sg dreaming about the cities i’m going to visit while in south-east asia.

i’ll have to sort out phone numbers etc when i get back.

all is good in the world.

berlin is still hot, but i’ve invested in a cap to protect my face from being burnt off in the midday sun. arms i can’t do anything about, unfortunately. long sleeves are not an option - there is no airconditioning while cycling, unlike sitting in a car during the 2pm traffic jam on the cte/pie when long gloves are a necessity.

the other day we attempted to visit the hamburger bahnhof museum for contemporary art and the neue national galerie, but our attempts were thwarted by the €10 entreipreis. while i understand that museums do need money to carry on the good work that they do, and that without my support they might very well just give up, and also that the federal government recently decided against giving Berlin anymore money therefore forcing Berlin to support itself (or something similar)… still, €10 to see even the permanent exhibits that are there every single day, for the last few years? you have got to be kidding me.

gradient entry fees are acceptable, not a big flat rate that just puts me off.

anyway, that was how our opportunity to finally do something high-cultural disappeared. so now we’re back to just cycling around and feeling Berlin. it’s great and it’s free.

now that i can say ‘ein cappucino/latte mit sojamilch, bitte’ without hemming or hawing, t’s all systems go mein freund.

and she told me so. everytime i was about to step out of the house to go somewhere fun and exciting, while justifying her harsh criticism with this:

it’s only because i love you and i care about you that i tell you the truth. do you think anyone else cares?

and so that was my introduction to a new aspect of my traditional harsh-love upbringing. the previous examples being caning, scaring by threats of being given away to [monsters/bad men/foreigners], expressions of affection conditional upon exam results, etc.

anyway, my upbringing isn’t the point. the point is this:

while i may be highly critical about singapore, its people, its society, its government, its politics, its policies, my criticism doesn’t stem from a superiority complex or a hatred of the country. instead it stems from my love of a place i know could be much better that it already is.

the changes i hope for Singapore are not for the purposes of making it up to par with other countries. i don’t really care about how Singapore compares to the rest of the world. i care about making Singapore better for Singaporeans. if it happens that in that process, the adoption of methods and policies already used by other countries is necessary, then so be it - what matters is that the people of Singapore benefit from it.

i feel that way because i care about the future of singapore and care about the future of singaporeans, because i’m a singaporean. and i’m sure many people feel the same way that i do. it’s never been about ‘us vs them’, ‘you’re with us or against us, or ‘if you’re not PAP you must be in the opposition’.

i do it because i love singapore and want to be proud of singapore and want to be proud to be singaporean. it’s always going to be where i call home. it’s my place of birth, where my childhood memories lie, where my instinctive language was formed. it’s where my loyalties lie, where my grandparents are buried, where my family still is and most of my friends are. and because of that, i can see the faults more clearly, feel the mistakes with greater depths, empathise with those that have fallen by the wayside in this race to the top.

and if trying to better this place i love makes me seem like a dissident, at least i’m not apathetic.

happy birthday singapore, here’s to our brilliant future.

but after the rains and floods of the english summer this year, this is probably a good interim location to get me used to the heat and humidity of singapore. i can’t wait.

anyway, we haven’t actually done much sightseeing at all. that’s the one drawback of visiting a city that is a sometime-residence of one’s travel companion: there are other things to be sorted out like bills and taxes and buying furniture. so, until all that gets done, i’ll just have to be content myself with reading the guidebooks and taking note of the places that i’d like to visit once all this boring administrative stuff gets done. on the other hand, it’s quite nice to not be doing touristy things since it’s much too hot to be running around in the midday sun, and i’ve already seen a lot of the landmarks the last two times i’ve been here.

on that note, i’ll continue sitting here at karvana on gabriel-max strasse in friedrichshain, trinken meines eis tiger spice chai mit sojamilch, watching berliners pass us by.

People tend to think they break up because they get tired of the person they’ve been with — that it’s someone’s decision, either yours or theirs. But this isn’t really true. Periods in our lives end the way seasons change. That’s all there is to it. Human willpower can’t change that — which means, if you look at it another way, that we might as well enjoy ourselves until that day arrives.

- Hardboiled, Banana Yoshimoto

i’ve been watching VB’s Coming to America and it is HILARIOUS!

i admit that i always thought she was a bit of a bitch. and the boobs! robo-boobs.

but it’s weird seeing her in a video rather than just paparazzi shots, and she is seriously funny. laugh out loud funny. MAJOR!

this is like MTV Cribs on a whole new level.

this is my new hobby.

it’s all a bit free-style and whimsical, and i don’t think neat crochet is my forte. i’m kinda just going with the flow and exploring how many knots in a loop i can make, how linking this loop to that knot and that loop to that other weird sticking out thing can make some other thing. i can’t be bothered to learn from a book, so gut instinct is all that’s guiding me.

it’s not bad, though. i’m pretty impressed by my productiveness. i mean, i only started 2 days ago and i already have enough crochet flowers to fill a crochet basket (not that i’d actually a crochet a basket - that would be much too twee even for me).

and telling the cardholder to call collect when its a machine operated phone-in system.

and having the SAME NUMBER for local and overseas calls.

and having a website that tells you nothing. nothing about transaction limits, nothing about the card in question, nothing nothing nothing.

i am so going to change banks when i get back to singapore.

apart from packing up the flat (it’s a neverending task), i want to knit and sew and alter and garden and write and shop and read and make things and and and …

but looking at my calendar, 3 weeks to go in london is not very much time at all and things have to put away in boxes so bye bye sewing machine and knitting needles and books and comics and card paper and cameras and film.

it’s rather annoying that this is probably the last stretch of looooong holiday i’ll ever have for the rest of my life but i’m spending a whole month organising a pack-up-and-move. but then again, i have got too much stuff and downsizing is damn difficult. kudos to those minimalist people who live on a capsule wardrobe and have a capsule lifestyle. i’m not made of that stuff - i’m all stuff and things and more squirrelled away in whatever corner i can find.

i’m going to have to make time to visit all the museums and galleries i’ve been eyeing.

tonight all the big furniture is going off to a garage in east sussex, and so everything that was once contained in drawers, shelves, rails, etc are now in boxes, some sorted and others unsorted.

the flat’s suddenly become much more spacious, even if it does look like we live in a refugee camp.

i’m not even sure why i’m doing this. i have a sewing machine! oh, right, i forgot. the sewing machine isn’t the best on earth and sputters and rips cloth up when i’m not looking.

i need better sewing equipment.

and it’s been raining and blustering and being generally un-summerlike. which is fine by me, except that i’m on holiday now dammit. i don’t mind the weather being shit while havign exams, in fact i revel in the fact that no one else is having a great time either.

but now that serious holiday time has begun, i expect a lot more sunshine that this crap we’ve been having.

got very ill on day of last exam. went for exam completely spaced out on home pharmaceuticals, went straight home and slept for next 18 hours.

would’ve stayed in bed longer if my sister weren’t coming back from york to come and sleep on my living room floor. so got up, went to the supermarket to stock up on food, tidied up the flat and downed lots of painkillers to try and deaden the headache.

effectiveness of painkillers meant i actually felt well enough to go to lahore kebab house for dinner, get stuck in a torrential downpour on the way to the bus-stop from said kebab house, and then get on a bus to go to guanabara to attend a classmate’s birthday party but we left after a couple of drinks.

yesterday was much more relaxed, although i keep forgetting that borough market is NOT OPEN on sundays. but still, it meant that we had more time than expected to traipse around tate modern and being overwhelmed, as usual, by all the art and all the concentration required to appreciate the art.

so, now the headache’s gone away but my sinuses still hurt and i’ve got a tickle at the back of my throat. we’re off to try and get through both the natural history museum and the V&A today. and even drop by harrod’s for a quick look-in.

i like doing touristy things.

of course i’ve read through my notes, once. and i’ve skimmed through the past year’s paper, once. and there’s a mcquestionnaire open on word which i really ought to get started on. but, y’know, tax isn’t my strong point and this exam is a whole lotta tax. and a whole lotta employment law as well. i mean, TUPE? what the hell is that? and more precisely, why is it making my life hell?

the only really interesting thing on the whole 3 month slapdashcrash-course in private acquisitions is actually coming to understand what private equity funds are about, and how the acquisitions are structured. and of course, it also gives me muchos kudos when i can explain to all my non-lawyer friends why exactly that man from KKR or whatever pays less tax than his cleaner. it’s to do with income profit vs capital gains tax, plus a bit of business asset taper relief on the side and an annual exemption. and it’s actually all about percentages, so while this Private (In)equity Gazillionaire pays less tax in percentage terms than his cleaner, in absolute terms, he probably pays a lot more. see, easypeasylemonsqueezy!

(in my opinion, what the government needs to do is to make the whole tax system more finely variegated, so that there are more tax brackets with smaller ranges and maybe a 2% - 5% difference in tax rate between them - but that’s just me, and i’m not the chancellor or a tax lawyer even, so whatever)

anyway, to the real crux of the matter: because tomorrow i shall finish my last exam in a long while, holiday plans are afoot today. and to motivate me further, i received my travel scholarship from the kind folks at my future employer this morning. yes, they’re giving me money to go on holuday, how cool is that? (i also think the cheques that come with spaces for 7 or 8 figures are amazing, but moving on swiftly…)

while i’ve already got july and august mapped out (london-hampshire for wedding-berlin for august-london-singapore), i don’t have any concrete plans for the duration of my south east asian holiday, which is troubling because i can’t stay/live in singapore/parent’s home for more than 2 or 3 weeks at a stretch without feeling like scratching my eyes out.

so, these are the places that i’m going to pencil into my calendar and hopefully some, if not all, will materialise:

• perth, to see my cousin
• krabi
• bangkok
• hong kong + shenzen/guangzhou
• shanghai
• laos
• vietnam
• pulau ubin/other offshore island

it’s not that many places to cover in the space of 3 months, so it’s definitely possible. now it’s just a matter of convincing friends and family to skip school / take leave / sacrifice weekends to come along with me. it’s probably going to take a charm offensive, but i’s gotta do what i’s gotta do, y’know?

right, now that i’ve gotten that out of my system, it’s time to get back to grafting. i’ve not got much hope for the exam tomorrow, but as i repeatedly tell myself, i just have to pass it and everything’s gravy.

it wasn’t a particularly long jog, or an intense jog. but it’s remarkable because i haven’t jogged for years, literally. the last time i remember going jogging was when i first started still living in elephant and castle, around september 2004.

anyway, i went jogging because i needed to clear my head and think about nothing for a while. it helped, i ran to stepney green, past stepney city farm and did a bit of a roundabout near the church, repeated the route backwards and then did a lot of stretching to try and alleviate the inevitable muscle ache i know will plague me.

it was fun, and i think i might do it again. sometime. i don’t know if it’s going to beccome a habit, but for now it’s still got some novelty value.

all this going out and staying out till late before exams is becoming a bad habit.

it doesn’t help that i just can’t be arsed to revise security and credit support. i’ve read it so many times i’m so sick of it. but then, at the same time, do i really know it? do i give up now and take the plunge on monday, crossing my fingers and hoping for the best?

i don’t think so.

i’m too much of a scaredy cat to ever not revise for an exam.

they’d just finished their a-levels, so they were about 18 or so.

it was fun, just shooting the breeze and talking crap while drunk (obviously, it was 1 in the morning and a birthday party to boot). but weird, so weird, as well.

it was difficult not to sound cynical and bitter, and i had a really hard time trying not to burst their perfect fantasy bubbles of what ‘keeping it real’ entails. although, perhaps, up in north london where they were from, keeping it real is slightly harder to do when your friends’ parents are judges and drive jaguars and drink cognacs.

i cringe now at what i must have been like when i was 18. or 20. or 21. i must have been such a pain, and rather amusing as well in my cocksureness and ignorance. and the language! words like ‘paradigm shifts’ and ‘dialectic’, they dropped out of my vocabulary long ago.

although, to be fair, even now, i’m probably amusing to someone older than i am and who’s listening to my (probably) half-baked ideas on changing the world and getting to the top of my game.

anyway, the point is, i miss the idealism of my youth. and the black/white-ness of most things, the grey being a tiny sliver in between. now, the grey is everywhere, and the black and white non-existent but for around the far edges of existence. now, nothing is so easy anymore. everything has to be weighed up against its myriad consequences, and indecision is my middle name. things were so easy back then, when i knew fuckall and couldn’t care less about it.

but, still, in all my idealism, i never wanted to live in a squat.

i’ve checked the blogger forums, and there doesn’t seem to be a problem, so i’m thinking it might be my isp. which is weird, because why the hell would my ips have a compatability problem with blogspot? i don’t freakin’ live in burma (or singapore for that matter).

it’s all very very strange….

the other is not being there for the day-to-day boring stuff, like drinking teh peng and watching the street lamps pass by in a blur through the car windows as we drive around aimlessly through the night.

even though most days it’s a no-brainer, being in london or back at home, it’s times like these that i would much prefer being a 30 minute cte-pie ride away.

it’s been a long hard slog so far.

people never tell you this, but becoming a lawyer takes as long as it does an architect and a doctor. so, kids, if people tell you that studying medicine takes ages, let me tell you right now that it takes at least 6 years to be a qualified solicitor. 3 years of undergrad, 1 year of GDL (if you didn’t do a law degree), 1 year of LPC, and 2 years of training. count them. but at least in the last two you might get rather highly paid, plus one or two years of subsidisation by the law firm.

snyway, i have to remind myself that it’s not over. yet. and that there really IS a point in doing revision, even though all i seem to be reading about is tax implications of a share sale and/or an asset sale. or reps and warranties, and disclosures, and how to limit the liability of the seller. and how to protect the lender and borrower. and what the issuer needs to know before they can issue bonds/shares, buy another company, hire a director, take a dump etc. pretty useless but useful stuff (i know that seems to be an oxymoron, but it isn’t. trust me).

maybe i think there isn’t a point because i just want to pass, and all i need to do is pass. i’m not going to get a £500 bonus even if i get distinctions in everything, so what’s the point, really? i’m really just going through the motions. although some of the things taht i’ve learnt this term have been pretty interesting. things about takeovers and private equity funds and management buy-outs etc. riveting stuff. but not riveting enough to make me want to wake up at 7am every morning and get revising for 6 to 8 hours a day.

i probably need to get some sort of system going. i’ll start by getting new batteries for my alarm clock. tomorrow.

dammit.

rain, please stop before 6pm so i can ride my bicycle instead of having to brave the snarly traffic around holborn/covent garden to get to the seemingly yummy portuguese cafe.

also, my sister is in town for now. she’s such a jet-setter, going off to nottingham and then to paris and nice and madrid and barcelona and then back to london again. and, she just returned from cambodia. pfft.

i’d better start making real travel plans for my 3 month south east asian holiday.

so, things have been in a bit of a rut. i think bad feng shui caused by laziness was to blame. now that i’ve tidied up the flat, the fog seems to be lifting. although that might just be because i can actually see the floor now.

i’ve been planning my holiday plans whilst trying to co-ordinate exams and revision and projects.

showing off my flat to potential future tenants is weird. i probably do a better job than the agent in showing them around the place. i am not looking forward to hunting down a place in december - winter, wet, snow, christmas, argh.

in other news, i’m 24!

“Anonymity may give free reign to spluttering buffoons to write without being held to account for their words, but it also allows police officers and NHS doctors to describe the faults of the public sector without the fear of their bosses firing them. The medium’s unlimited space allows millions to drone on in blogs that no one but their friends will read, but the same lack of constraint allows professors to bring their knowledge to a general audience without adhering to the stultifying styles of academia.”

i knew where it’d end up, but where will it end, really?

i’ve never sat on buses from one end to the other before, much less in london where they travel pretty faraways either way. although i do remember being on a feeder bus when i was in primary school, and taking it from the wrong end, and almost going a whole cycle around before getting to my stop.

i miss the feeder buses, with their dirty scratched windows and red vinyl/plastic/mock-leather seats, the shiny handbars rising out the sides of the seats, the mock-wood veneer. the grooved floors of the bus, the coin collecting machine, the feel of the afternoon sun heating up the bus, making schoolshirts stick.

they don’t exist anymore, do they? even the other type of buses that run only during peak hours and are orange and beige. they’re all gone now. everything’s air-conditioned and nice. clean and sanitised.

it’s the dirt and the grime and the unique way in which only that place can produce that out-dated, out-moded, not nice and shiny and new anymore junk and garbage that makes somewhere somewhere.

isn’t it ironic that singapore imports vintage things from places like bangkok and japan, when honestly, there is the same shit there as well? but then again, singapore IS a very ironic place.

one day all the colonial and pre-colonial buildings will be bulldozed, no more moulded archways and shuttered windows. and when that day comes, the government will probably try to buy the 5 or 6 malaccan streets from malaysia, install it somewhere in the outer reaches of the island and turn it into a theme park. for tourists.

especially when the best laid plans for doing homework over the weekend (i know, so boring, how geeky, etc) are scuppered by text messages saying ‘i’m in east london, come for a drink or something’. and so, dutifully, we go for drinks and find out about art festival/exhibition in sweden in the summer, and then obviously i went ‘i’ve never been to sweden! let’s go and eat roll mops and meatballs and look at ikea hq! oh, and look at art too, of course.’

but that was sunday.

friday was results day. everyone was pleased with what they got, so celebrations were in order post lecture. after that, there was crtiical mass, cycling around london with police escorts. i got tired of it somewhere around hyde park corner and so we headed down to town for a drink, but really just to use the pub’s toilet. fish and chips at the fryer’s delight was weird. the food was good, but it was like being in a time warp, all 70s wood panelling walls and formica tabletops, cabbies talking politics.

saturday we went to the kinetica museum in spitalfields market, then looked around the other galleries on vyner street. the show at the kinetica museum was alright, but not great. i think there were just too many small displays that made it seem more like a toyshop than a curated show. they were all very intricate and interesting, but i would have much rather preferred fewer pieces, but each piece able to sustain my attention for a longer time. there was great embroidered art at one and another, and very funny portraits that made you look twice and stare hard at the david risley gallery.

so, i guess it was all pretty good going. weekends, i can see how much i’m going to love them when i start work. food poisoning i probably never will, by the way.

in summary:

1. invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

2. create a prison system outside the rule of law

3. maintain a body of spies/thugs/mercenaries to terrify the population

4. set up an internal surveillance system

5. harass citizen’s groups

6. engage in arbitrary detention and release

7. target key individuals, threatening civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don’t toe the line

8. control the press

9. dissent equals treason

10. suspend the rule of law

whilst the article is discussing the state of America, what flashed through my mind while reading it was how much it applied to singapore as well.

just a few examples.

dissent equals treason. obviously, since if you’re not with them you’re against them. i mean, no one in their right mind could ever possibly think that the PAP is wrong, and if you do, then you must be a traitor. because PAP is singapore, and if you’re not in complete support of the PAP, then ergo you are not in complete support of singapore, and consequentially, must be annihilated, humiliated, exiled, jailed, etc. because there cannot be more than one way of doing things, and the PAP way is the only way. capisce?

our terrifying internal and external enemy? internally –> terrorists, racial/religious riots, economic slowdown/crash, non-PAP government. externally –> just about every neighbouring country that singapore has the (mis)fortune of sharing the seabed/airspace/waterpipes with.

control of the press? enough said.

harass citizens’ groups, and threatening key individuals. well. to fully explore this would require a week-long exposition, and there’s enough out there to google. let’s just say that it’s clear these things happen in singapore, and no one could dare deny it. if in doubt, please remove the wool over your eyes and take a look around the real world. i bet THE MAN himself would probably gleefully admit it to the public, and probably say something like ‘of course we do, how else do you think we have been able to stay in power for so long?'’

so, is singapore a fascist state? or about to be a fascist state?

i would say that it might have been, but currently it isn’t and it probably won’t descend into a fascist state in the near future. i think, deficient as it is, there is still some substance (however lip-service only it may be) to the democratic processes in singapore. on the other hand, it is obvious that there is still a very long way to go before singapore enjoys the open and civil society that it ought to be aiming for.

it’s already got the skeleton of a democracy in place, now all it needs is the fleshing out of the body.

the only thing more awesome than that right now would be beef satay and ketupat hot off the satay grill.

also, song que on kingsland road is THE PLACE for vietnamese food. mmmmm

Said Zahari says of Lee Kuan Yew, that whoever is not with him is his enemy.

and somewhere in the middle of the film, Said Zahari says “i’m still a singapore citizen. i was born in singapore, i grew up in singapore. i love singapore, singapore is my country“.

and perhaps that is what the government has to understand. i might not agree with everything that they do, and i will continue to critically assess their actions. but this is not because i’m communist or i’m anti-singapore. in fact, it’s because i love singapore so damn bloody much that i’m doing it. who else, if not singaporeans, have a right to question the way in which we are governed? who else, if not singaporeans, have a vested interest in the governance of singapore? who else, if not singaporeans, should speak up?

it’s not about the government, it’s about singaporeans.

but y’know, i don’t think they care. they’re in power, and they’ll do whatever it takes to stay in power, and reap all the benefits that come with it.

the other day kim and i were talking, and we were saying what makes a successful politician: is it one who does what he/she says in his/her mandate that got he/she elected, or one who is in power term after term. obviously, if you ask the electorate they’d say the former, but if you ask a politician, it’s the latter. and never the twain shall meet.

anyway, it all makes me feel so very pathetic and wishing that i had the guts to do something. really really do something. but instead, here are pictures of pretty things.

obviously i have no money to buy metres and metres of beautiful fabric, which they had in abundance. rolls and rolls and rolls, and big wooden cutting tables, and sales assistants dressed up like they’ve walked out of a 1940s vogue magazine. but i could afford the scrappy bits, which weren’t that scrappy really. they were pretty good sized and because they were offcuts, were half-price.

so now i’ve got chocolate pinstripe material and a shiny blue pattern on dove grey base material, and i’m all ready to make something on my gratis sewing machine i got off freecycle.

on the body, and also on the bank balance. especially if there are birthday drinks and dinners in gastropubs and then more drinks and things in seedy dives. okay okay, there was just one expensive birthday do, but it was expensive enough to have swallowed up my grocery budget for next week, so guess who’s embarking on an austerity drive? it’s chickpeas and butterbeans and tuna from a can for now.

but, apart from making my wallet twitch and cower in fear, the food at the fox was hearty and full-flavoured and absolutely delicious. and the food alone was pretty reasonably priced, it was the copious amounts of alcohol ordered that did us in. after dinner, some of us headed to Uncle Sam’s for bluesyjazzyreggae, where they had a great big cheeseplant in a corner and served drinks on a cash-only basis. so, after all that dancing and drinking, i got home and dropped into bed, woke up with a hangover and then got ready to go out and sit in tooting common for another birthday celebration.

this time it was much much much cheaper, extremely relaxed and very appropriately sunny. we brought our own picnic and booze, and there was guava jelly which is like guava fudge, surprisingly delicious and very good with cheese. a tiny fair was set up nearby broadcasting michael jackson’s entire back catalogue and enticing children and adults to partake in its juddering gyrating orbiting rides. then the sun went down and the evening insects threatened to invade the cider, and so it was off to an old-man’s pub for the rest of the night.

today is for the papers and laziness. even gardening is looking like too much hard work. although, perhaps, i should at least do some watering before everything dies in this april heatwave we seem to be labouring under. and tomorrow, well, tomorrow is a drafting exam somewhere in westminster. but it’s just drafting, right? i’ll revise tonight.

well… london to berlin is closer than cologne to berlin, i think. and i wasn’t rung up and told they were around when they were in london. so there.

anyway, the point i was trying to make is this: so what if we’re in the same country, or city?

considering that germany is REALLY BIG, and london is 2 or 3 times the size of singapore, is it really no wonder that i don’t see some people even when they’re around? i mean, the best friend lives 10 minutes away and i see him once a week at best.

although, to be fair, i don’t really see many people when i’m back in singapore either, and it’s tiny. although since zouk is the capital of singapore, i meet most of the people i want to meet within a couple of visits to that mecca of lychee martini (it’s like this, i sit at home and wonder how i’m going to get into contact with all these people whose numbers have gone the way of my stolen phone. and then *lightbulb* i’ll go down to zouk! confirm 100% chop stamp guarantee will see people one).

ok, maybe the REAL point i’m trying to make is this: if you’re going to be in london, TELL ME, otherwise how would i know?

couple more berlin photos are here.

p/s: there you go, dolly!

usually, i carry 2 cameras around with me. one film one digital, just in case one or the other dies, runs out of batteries, film, memory space, or just refuses to co-operate. this makes my bag doubly heavy, but there’s no substitute for the chemical smell of a new roll of film popping out of its cylinder, or the shiny brown plasticky look that’s slightly sticky. i use the digital camera for documentary, and the film camera for the romance of photography.

and when i return from a holiday, i absolutely love sending my film off to the developers - i use a mail-order film processing service, i send the film off and they send my photos back. they’re much better than the film processing counters available in chemists, and i don’t trust the high street shops because i’ve seen how they use shoddy paper and are generally just rubbish at working the machines. anyway, i like the whole process of waiting. the build-up of excitement and anticipation, will they come out alright? did i get the light just right? was my choice in setting the camera at ISO 200 but using 400 film right? were the images overexposed? did i manage to GET IT? the feel, the location, the smell, the mood?

and when the pictures come back, i like picking out the ones i think best represent my vision of the holiday, then putting them together in a photo-album. although photo-album isn’t perhaps the right word. it’s really just a scrap book, pictures stuck on black card paper with pritt stick (like UHU stick, but with a sickeningly sweet smell), and bound together by punching holes along one side and weaving string or yarn or twine through the holes. or, in a pinch, stapling them together, and then hiding the staples with a strip of colourful paper/fabric.

so, this time, because there aren’t any photos from my lc-a, there won’t be a photoscrapbook. and my memories will only be partially supplemented by the photos taken on my digital camera. which is a shame, because i enjoy the process of it all. and it’s also annoying because when i went through the rigmarole of loading it with film on the last day, just for fun, it decided to work again the damned thing.

matt suggested i could print the digital photos and put them together, but i know i’ll never do that. whilst it would result in the same product, it’s just not the same thing. y’know?

i’d like to describe it in touristy detail, but unfortunately i spent a lot of the week in ikea and bauhaus (literally, buildhouse, a monstrous hardware store). and also trekking around the junk shops filled to the gills with salvaged furniture, clothes and kitsch from dead granny’s flats. they were great.

we decided on a new game while out there. in august, when i’ll be there for a month, we’ll play the alphabet game where we have to eat at places according to the letters of the alphabet without repetition. 26 different places, that’ll take aorund 2 weeks if we include breakfasts and lunches into the game. but perhaps it’ll only be dinners. we’ll see.

coming back to london is always a relief, but i hold my breath (not literally, though) until i swing the door of the flat open and see that everything is still there. one of my greatest fears is to arrive back at the flat and see nothing.

anyway, as i’m still on holiday till next week, it’s been catching up with reading and pottering on the balcony. salads are in sprout, as are tomatoes. the herbs have been divided/re-potted, and the chillies are rallying round to the warm weather. i’ve managed to finish i capture the castle by dodie smith, and am three-quarters of the way through the mandarins by simone de beauvoir.

next up: a second reading of the magus by john fowles, or finishing the naked lunch by william s. burroughs which i’ve left languishing for the past year or so.

she’s quite a lot older than i am, and a trained architect, but she floats around doing crafty things and going for dance classes and living out of a big box that she takes along with her each time she moves to another one of her many friends’ living room.

some days i think, i want to be just like that. carefree, to some extent, doing whatever i want to do, who cares if i don’t have a permanent job or a toilet i can call my own.

but then, on other days, it just seems so pointless. i’m sure she sees some larger picture that i can’t, but from my perch i see a lost girl trying to find her way still. i guess in some ways, it’s very difficult to escape from the very long shadows of an extremely successful and filthy rich mother who can and will provide you houses in london and paris, amongst other things. how does one differentiate themselves from their parents except by rebellion, in a multitude of subtle and/or evident ways?

maybe that’s the point, though. perhaps the process of trying to be different is courageous. it would be so easy, and it IS so easy, to continue in the footsteps of those that have gone before. and it doesn’t matter why, the fact of making that effort is enough. strength in adversity, etc. it would be so boring if we all listened to our parents and depended upon them for everything.

and perhaps after i’ve chalked up enough experience points, when i’ve squirrelled away enough money, i can be however and wherever i want to be as well. i hear consultancy work is very very lucrative.

in some ways, i’m reverting to childhood.

i remember sitting on cold granite floors and opening dusty rosewood cupboards that smelt sweet and mysterious, and looking at stamps from places i’d never heard of.

i also like the pictures.

but it’s been very dry, dry as a bone in fact, after the weeks of sopping wetness.

and having gotten rid of the cat, for now, i’ve been busy shoving peas into the soil and scattering rocket and basil seeds wherever i can.

this is lazy gardening, aided by the lack of a large and limitless supply of soil/potting compost. i really really must get a sack of compost soon, or else i’ll be growing nothing this year. but it’s difficult to fit a 40l bag of soil onto the back of a bicycle. i shall have to make a day out of it and make use of M’s car.

and once that’s achieved, i can start putting to work the echinacea and verbena, the tomatoes and the mixed salad, and other things i can’t think of right now, but are sitting pretty in their packets in a box at the bottom of the cupboard. i’ve been collecting yoghurt pots, plastic containers, soup cans and vegetable trays in preparation.

- + - + - + - + - + -

phase 2 of school has started,
and it is hell.

no one needs to know so much about debt finance, equity finance and private acquisitions. and they all seem to merge together into this department called corporate and banking, so i’m probably not going to be totally clear where the decarcation lines are drawn until the exams, perhaps. on the other hand, whilst bits of it are as boring as can be, it’s fun to be doing ‘research’ on the FT when really all we’re doing is sussing out the richest and best private equity firms to jump ship to.

and 5 tutorials in a week is somewhat overdoing it, don’t you think? considering that they are 2 hours each, and we’re supposed to be doing 3 hours pre-tutorial preparation per tutorial. and what is this 6pm-8pm class?! i know it’s an elective, but there’s no need to take the piss.

and a drafting exam right after the easter holidays as well. they have no heart.

if my friend’s got cats, oh i love. they’re so cute and furry and funny and silly.

but when it’s some stranger’s cat that keeps shitting in the pots on my balcony, let’s just say it’s a long way from love.

it’s annoying, and it stinks, and i am not interested in allowing some thoughtless and careless cat owner get away with not training their own cats. why should i let them use my balcony as their litter box? cat, fuck off.

so i bought a whole bunch of bamboo skewers (satay sticks to you and me) and stuck them pointy side skywards into my pots. it’s like war out there on my balcony, i tell ya. those sticks are vicious, injuring even me while i was doing the deed.

they’d better work, or else i’m going to have to resort to more violent measures.

it is dark grey, and has a ribbed band about an inch tall (high? long? what?).

it’s not the most beautiful thing in the world, nor is it at any sort of real standard. i started it too big, and had to sew the bottom in to make it fit, rather than just fall over his face. i’m also lacking in double pointed needles, so i basically just decreased the crown till i couldn’t stretch it across my circular needles any more, then sewed the top of the round together.

for a short and quick project i thought i did pretty good.

i think i might now try and make a beret for myself. hopefully i might incorporate a cable pattern or two, but i’m not placing any bets on how they’re gonna turn out.

everyone i invited,bar one or two, turned up. the food turned out perfectly, and there was just enough alcohol to keep the party going without leaving casualties on the sofa at 3 in the morning.

so after all that excitement, today is being spent quietly and on the sofa, reading the weekend papers and eating the leftovers from last night. oh, and watching grey’s anatomy as well.

i think one of the reasons why i like watching grey’s anatomy and house is because they let me see how ‘the other side’ lives, in a way. i mean, perhaps this is what i’d be doing right now if only i’d gotten my act together in sec 2 and got good enough results to do triple-science for o-levels. i liked biology and chemistry, but physics was eurgh. so, if it were possible to have done bio-chem and get into medicine, perhaps i wouldn’t be here today.

but then again, i like where i am. or rather, i know where i am and where i’m going. and i’m not about to get off this particular train as yet.

obviously naturre abhors a vacuum, but sleep alcohol and food fills that hole up pretty good. as does just pottering around in my pyjamas till 4 in the afternoon.

now it’s off into town to get, amongst other things, sesame oil, dried mushrooms, tau kee, tau hu and tau pok. oh, and maybe peanut sauce too if they have it (because i’m too lazy to make my own). i’m very excited about what i’m going to do with it all.

there shall be celebrating this weekend, squeezed in just before the 15 day window is up. i’ve told everyone to bring food or wine and mandarin oranges, so even if we run out of food, at least we’ll be drunk and our hands have something to do peeling oranges.

chocolate flavoured vitasoy here i come!

so yesterday i had my property law and practice exam, and i blitzed through it like a house on fire and finished with half an hour to spare. half an hour. i thought i’d missed out a 25mark question so i had a full-on panic-flip attack, and then realised that i’m just much too intelligent for the exam. *smirk*

right.

and then we had hainanese chicken rice for dinner at the best friend’s. maaaaan i missed chicken rice. no one believed me when i said wee nam kee sells great chicken rice. everyone can tell you about boon tong kee, but that is so populist. i prefer my wee nam kee, thankyouverymuch. we had to make do with sambal oelek (from tesco’s no less, impressed c’est moi) with garlic and lime as a stand-in for real chicken rice chilli. like my grandma makes, a bottle of which is living in my fridge for special occasions. mmmmm…

and we made the chicken from scratch. none of that prima chicken rice paste nonsense. ok, well, not exactly we. i was sous chef, chopping up the garlic and ginger and eating goat’s cheese on jacob’s crackers in-between soaking the chicken in ice-cold water and giving them the best massage ever in sesame oil. but, without my assistance, it would never have happened. i am/was integral to the process, okayyy.

it’s such a shame that my boyfriend doesn’t eat meat. most of the great stuff i remember from my grandmother’s kitchen involves meat in one form or another, so you can say that it rather cramps my style. no matter, meat is not essential to south-east asian cooking. it’s time to find a recipe for kick-ass sayur lodeh.

and can someone explain why all the banana cakes i’ve ever had in singapore have those little black bits in them, while the one i have here is just disappointingly greyish-yellow?

now that i’ve finished a a third of my exams, my brain just can’t seem to want to function. i have TRIED to revise, but wah lau eh it’s damn difficult. but at least i got 18 out of 24 mcq questions right, so that must count for something. i think. and hope.

i shall now go have some cake and eat it too. and try not to think about ang zhao chicken and yu sheng.

i think it’s the fact that this is actually what i’m going to be doing and applying in real life in the near future that’s exciting. but the rote learning right now is so boring. practice makes for instinctive responses and sub-conscious reactions. not having done this for the past X number of years, this is just hard graft.

but still, at least i can tell you all the deadlines to avoid a judgment in default and how to negotiate a better lease with your landlord and what to do to avoid liability as a director.

the thing is, i know all this. getting marks for them on an exam is a whole different matter.

so now i have a great big ball of 100% acrylic yarn sitting on my desk. it’s only saving grace is that it was so cheap (£1.50) for so much (500g), and so it shall be used for all my test stitches and my beginner learning lessons like how to increase/decrease, how to make a buttonhole, how to create weird patterns etc.

knitting’s been pretty easy so far. the hardest part was casting on and getting my needles and fingers in the right position. once i realised that it was merely a really complicated system of looping and knotting, everything became so much clearer and the mystique of the knit dissipated. but it really is quite fun, and watching a lousy piece of string become an actual piece of fabric, woah that’s crazy dude.

i’ve already made a mobile phone cover/sock whilst learning to perfect a garter (knit) stitch, and last night i made a finger-glove/finger-puppet whilst learning to purl and then making a stockinette stitch. so now that i have learnt to both knit and purl, i can go out and buy nice woollen yarn in beautiful colours and start creating a scarf. yay!

and i have to say, learning kniting from a book is dead easy. but maybe it’s the book that i use that makes it so simple. if you ever want to learn to knit, i highly recommend Stitch ‘n Bitch. it’s amazing what a bit of common sense and a lot of sass can do.

and once i’ve done that, i might move on to crochet. because i absolutely love crocheted flower brooches and accessories, but am too skint to fork out the £5 or more they go for.

or maybe i’ll just scrap the knitting and jump straight into crocheting.

hmm.

but then again, stranger and/or worse things have happened to Man.

i’ve begun taking my own lunch to school, which is a slightly alien concept because even in primary school i never brought a lunch box - my school’s canteen had an amazing array of food that catered to every taste at relatively cheap prices. but planning my lunch has become an obsession, and the various tupperware shapes and sizes have taken on new significance.

i’ve also had friends around for dinner this weekend past, and that was very nice. we all sat around and ate south african lychees, cheese on baguettes and young leaf salad, with bloody mary’s for kicks. it was a living-room picnic. we were meant to go watch Perfume at the cinema, but after the 2nd bloody mary we decided against moving from our places on the sofa.

the wild rocket seeds have been sown. hopefully i can start picking at them in a few weeks and add them to my lunchbox repertoire.

initially, it was because the summer drought had started to abate, and so i didn’t have to spend half to three-quarters of an hour watering the plants. then it was because as autumn began, the only things i could pick were the cherry tomatoes that kept on giving all the way up to october. and then the rains came and i didn’t want to do anything in the cold and wet.

but today, bright and sunny morning that it was, i got out there for the first time in months and immediately remembered how much i like gardening and pottering about.

i got down to some serious tidying-up, cutting away the skeletons of the verbena and the mint, clearing away the remains of the borage and tomato plants, as well as the husks of the sweet peas, spaghetti squash and marigolds. i pruned the mini-rose topiary, the sage, the gardenia and begonias, and cut away the dead and dying leaves of the stock and the salad box.

i also hunted down as many slugs as i could, depositing them in a plastic bottle and leaving it out by the bins with the rest of my garden waste. slug eggs (at least i think they’re slug eggs) look like frog spawn, and are alarmingly identical-looking to sago - which of course means that i will never be able to enjoy honey-dew sago again.

while i’d fretted about the parsley dying in the summer, i found out today that the seeds it cast off prior to its death had germinated in and amongst its neighbouring pots, and the plants are now about 2-inches tall. so i gathered the stray plants from their various landing places and re-potted them together, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. the anemones that i’d been dismissive of in the summer are thriving. this is, i think, in part due to them thinking it’s spring rather than the supposed dead of winter (hello, global warming!), and also because they’re lack of performance earlier this year has given the bulbs/corms tremendous stores of energy to throw out frond after frond of beautiful foliage and the occasional stunning flower.

the cyclamen i’d rescued from the garden when we moved out of elephant and castle is putting out cute fuschia flowers, and the jasmine has finally started to produce little flower buds that i hope will proceed to burst into white clouds of perfume. several of the seeds i’d planted really late in the season are still going strong, albeit rather slowly, but at least they’ll be well-established by the time the growing season begins in earnest and hopefully avoid being devoured by aphids and slugs. the daffodils are beginning to shove up from their hiding place in the planter box, and the hydrangea has started to produce leaf-buds after the rather severe pruning i gave it.

i also discovered that a potato i’d half-heartedly buried in some soil because it was no longer fit for eating. having sprouted leaves and whatnot, had actually gone and produced a bunch of tiny potatoes! while i knew the technicalities of how it reproduced, i’d never grown potatoes before, and to somehow manage to do it without even having to try very hard led first to astonishment, and then to a warm glow of awe at nature’s abilities to just get on with it.

by the end of it, my hands were scratched up and my nails were filthy, my thighs were burning from the squatting i’d been doing, and i’d broken a pair of scissors (must remember to buy secateurs). but i was feeling very relaxed and satisfied, and very at-one with the world - gardening is seriously therapeutic. now all i need is for the lavender to grow like crazy.

most people don’t understand what gluten is, and so i simplify matters by telling them that i can’t eat wheat or flour. then they sort of blink really slowly and ask me to repeat myself.

but it’s not just wheat. it’s oats and barley and rye and a great big number of other grains that are suspect. gluten is the protein in grains that make the dough springy and spongy, so highly tensile bread products like bagels are basically gluten factories. even when it’s not in bread or bread-products, gluten still gets into everything somehow or other. even corn flakes and soya sauce.

and even though being lactose-intolerant is a much easier concept for people to understand, apart from big coffee chains and/or more upmarket places that cater to a more upmarket crowd, non-dairy milk is hard to come by if i’m thinking of drinking some coffee. furthermore, i’m not too big a fan of soy milk anymore, which makes the hunt for a cup of coffee with rice milk not made by me and which i’d be willing to pay good money for even harder.

it also makes being invited to dinner parties a nightmare, because i have no idea what they’re going to make. pasta? pizza? cous cous? falafel? noodles? gravy? sauce? cake? biscuits? custard? cream? ice cream? and i don’t think it’s polite to refuse food that someone’s cooked for me. and it makes me feel like a twat calling someone up the day before and telling them that i’m gluten- and lactose-intolerant and expect a special meal for myself.

it’s hard enough at my dinner parties to make separate dishes for non-/meat-eating guests and it’s just one ingredient. can you imagine if someone was making pasta in a cream sauce, with a chocolate cake for dessert, for 7 other people and i was the only one who had to eat something else?

anyway, as hard as it is, i’m rather thankful that up till now i’m only still intolerant of gluten and lactose, and not allergic. i won’t die or break out in hives or have a severe physically manifested reaction if i do eat things that contain gluten or lactose. i indulge in ice-cream sometimes, and i eat sandwiches for lunch when there’s nothing else available, and i really love pasta. it also means that whilst i might not be doing the best thing to my body and my hosts toilets, i don’t absolutely have to eat a special meal by myself when i go to dinner parties.

and i’m really lucky to be chinese and have a natural tendency towards the eating of rice and non-creamy things. the things i can do with rice. i eat it steamed, cold, warm, in salads, with other dishes, baked, in soup, as porridge, etc. i can eat rice for all 3 meals in a day.

it’s also probably a good thing that supermarkets are realising the potential (financially) of gluten- and lactose-free foods, and so i can get things like rice spaghetti, rice milk and gluten-free breads and flour quite easily. the organic shop round the corner also has a wide range of things that are gluten-/lactose-free.

but probably the best thing that comes out of all this is the fact that with these special dietary requirements, almost all convenience foods are no longer attractive to me because whilst they may look real pretty on the box, the ingredients list just makes me go ‘eurgh’ at the wheat flour and ‘eurgh’ at the milk and then ‘eeeurgh’ at the nutritional information panel. as a result, out of necessity, i buy lots of fresh ingredients and cook most of my own meals and end up eating pretty healthily incidentally.

the post-christmas/january sales are upon us and the consuming crowds are cuckoo in the head for it. lining up from 1am in the morning, round the block queues, elbowing and shoving and grabbing? not my scene.

i’ve been sitting out the sales, and in its stead have been watching American Dad, Family Guy, Wong Kar Wai films and lots of bad christmas/new year tv specials.

i’ve also been eating constantly.

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tomorrow we go to battersea to crash a probably-horrifyingly-expensive-otherwise media-types party because it will be fun to be the only ones not in the industry, and also because it will have a good range of alcohol available, amongst other things.

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the lack of snowfall has been disappointing. i was really looking forward to making snowmen again.

the bare skeletons of trees scratching against the sky, the misty-grey sky lifting barely showing some blue, the smell of the air, smelling of rain and mulching leaves and 6am.

the quiet streets, the shops closed up with chairs stacked on tables, the bags of green and blue and pink waiting for the garbage truck to pick them up, the milk float doing its rounds, the occasional fitness fanatic plodding away.

and me, saying goodbye to the hosts at the door, stepping out from the dim smoke-filled belly of the house, heels clicking rhythmically as i walk down the street, joining the early morning commuters waiting at the bus-stop, then falling asleep as my head rests on the windows of the near-empty bus, as the sun starts blazing through the chimney stacks.

so i just had my last lecture and lesson of term, and i’ve never been so happy to finish term. honestly, this whole past 3 months has just been one great big SLOG. boring as hell, and totally non-intellectually challenging. argh.

anyway, i’m apparently having mock exams next week, but the score so far is PARTY/DRINKS/FUN - 2, REVISION - 0. can you tell i’m not going to score very well on the three papers we’re having next week?

but then again, our results aren’t going to count towards our final exam scores, so no harm in bombing them completely. my classmate is planning to sit there for 10 mins, then take the question paper and leave. brilliant plan, but i’m not built for leaving exams early. if i’m there, i’ll just do it whatever.

house party to attend in a few hours. i need to practice some self-control and stay away from the 20th glass of gin&tonic or the 4th bottle of wine. a hangover tomorrow is not going to do me any favours for when monday comes around.

christmas is coming! *excited* i hope it snows like it did last year.

i’m still waiting for my rice to finish steaming, and for my pork-ribs to get tenderer, but i’ve had some sneaky sips and ohmygod i love love love!

the ribs are the biggest i’ve bought so far EVAR - they’re longer than my 15cm ruler - and i only just about managed to manipulate them into my cast-iron pot (i figured since i didn’t have a claypot, cast-iron would be an adequate replacement). i bought these ribs from a butcher at broadway market, and it’s highly likely that these are from a much older pig than those from the supermarkets. i’m quite pleased about that - not just because i get more rib, but i just like the thought of a more developed pig.

i scoured all the fruit and veg stalls at the market, but none of them stocked watercress (i know they’re not in season, not particularly popular in england, but still, a girl could hope.). that was a terrible disappointment, and a great gaping hole in my perfect pork-rib soup dish.

so i went to the toilets in The Dove and had a good cry.

no. i didn’t. instead i walked into broadway books and bought (1) my name is red, by orhan pamuk, (2) the mandarins, by simone de beauvoir and (3) freakonomics, by steven d. levitt and stephen j. dubner. half my book tokens used up, another £20 worth of books to go!

i really like broadway market on cold and bright saturdays. i like it even more with a cup of coffee, croissants and a paper.

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.

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 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.

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.

send them your comments about the amendments here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

now they’re no longer in hackney. and i miss them muchos.

especially when i have to hand it in by tomorrow morning even though i’ve got to go for dinner tonight. i don’t think BPP does extensions.

double entry book-keeping is incredibly confusing, although i think i’m getting the hang of a profit and loss account and the balance sheet thingies. except for the provision for doubtful debts part. that makes my brain go into meltdown mode.

anyway. back to my homework before i get to go out for the last supper with the best friend and friends till december.

*update - have actually finished my accounting homework. although creative accounting means i shall put off reading chapter 3 till before my tutorial (it wasn’t necessary to have read it to do my homework. yay!)

am actually also at home after friends decided to watch season 2 or 3 of Lost. i was reminded, once again, of how annoying the audio is on the series, and made my excuses soon after they began their viewing.

but the more i think about it, the more the question bugs me. not because i doubt that i want to be a lawyer, that isn’t in question at all.

what bothered me about the question was that it assumed that anyone who could talk about art and/or the creative industry ought to be involved in it. or rather, and i think this is the crux of the matter, that anyone who wasn’t involved in the artistic/creative industry is assumed to be incapable of talking intelligently about the arts and creativity.

it’s slightly insulting, really. don’t you think? it’s a bit like saying that if you’re not a musician, you’re not really qualified to talk about music. or if you’re not a writer, you can’t talk about books. or if you’re not a film-maker, you can’t talk about films.

maybe he was confusing being creative with being appreciative of creativity.

on my part, i don’t find that my lack of creativity hinders my appreciation of art, neither does it prevent me from critically appraising any exhibition that i view. my lack of art-schooling means that i tend not to go into shows with a pre-formed idea of how the works should be like, but it also means that i don’t always pick up on the influences or artistic asides that the work might display.

and because i’m not creative, i envy those who are, and who can produce works that invoke physical and/or emotional reactions, that engage my intellect and make me want to think about it for a while and then discuss it with someone else. it makes me less likely to dismiss a piece of work, and more likely to judge a piece on its own merits.

obviously not everyone might agree with my opinion, but that doesn’t matter because its art and its creative and there isn’t a right or wrong answer, just a visceral/cerebral response. and since everyone is different, everyone takes to a piece of work differently.

it doesn’t take 3 or 5 or a lifetime of art-school to make you capable of talking about art. neither does all that art-schooling make one an artist. it all depends on desire, intellect, curiousity, fate, luck and millions of other variables.

also, apparently, and this was in the papers so it must be true, bankers are one of the the largest collectors of contemporary art. so there you are, another group of people who look at a lot of boring numbers and information, but who appreciate art. (or they might just be buying it for investments sake, but then again, contemporary art isn’t really a very safe investment.) more people than just artists and creatives appreciate art and know about art and can talk intelligently about art. anyone with a curious mind will know more than is necessary for his or her occupational requirements - how boring will the world be if all we could talk about was what we did for our dayjobs? and how boring would the world be if we were only allowed to talk about our own industries?

anyway, i didn’t mind him making that statement. i might be making a mountain out of a molehill, and he probably didn’t mean anything by it.

it just makes me feel aggrieved that we stick labels onto people so easily, and we make judgements about people so quickly without even getting to know them better. if this teaches me anything, it’s that there is no ‘type’ and so if i don’t want to be ‘typified’ i ought to stop doing it to others as well. cos, y’know, it’s all karmic and come-back-to-bite-you-in-the-ass-dom.

i arrived first, and so sat in the basement eavesdropping on some guys talking about music and people they knew whilst i pretended to read the FT. the waitress was ever patient, even after 3 visits down the stairs and 3 refusals to order yet because i was waiting for my friend.

between the two of us, we managed to have 3 cups of tea, 1 cappucino, 1 orange juice, a chili con carne jacket potato and a eggmayonaise and crispy bacon sandwich, and a storyline that gave me a headache thinking about the links between the 8 characters and the overarching/underlying conspiracy theory plot.

tonight we’ll go to the pub.

but the time taken to deal with my LPC stuff and the time needed to trawl through my images and adjust each and every one of them on photoshop is just too much time altogether. i can either do one or the other, and one of them is going to finance all the rest of the other one sometime in future. it will also finance more cameras i have no need for, or have no idea how to use. oh, and film too.

anyway, because i’m feeling like i ought to put up some visuals, here’s one i took in september at COLLISION - an art, music, performance extravaganza that took place at Area 10 in peckham.

there will be more, eventually.

i know. it’s terrible. i really ought to be thinking OM and doing asanas even though i’m not in the class, instead of vegging out at home and doing completely toxic things.

oh well.

i’m tired. i’ve only been in school two days this week, but it’s feels like i haven’t had a break since school started in september. it’s a lucky thing we’re having reading week next week, even if it’s already chock-a-block with assignments and assessments i have to finish by the time school starts up again.

i’ve also been thinking of just buying a ticket for an exorbitant amount to get me home over christmas break. thinking hard. it does not help that my dad is guilt-tripping me over my grandmother and her age and me not being back home for chinese new year etc. so, christmas, chinese new year, same same but different but close enough, eh?

ok, my pork chops are almost done. i must go make a salad etc to go along with it now. dragon’s den is really quite funny.

back home for a short respite from the pub, and then off to brixton for a houseparty tonight and another one tomorrow. we’re going to be temporary ’saath’ londoners for the weekend.

i’m too tired to be doing all this drinking and partying and socialising. i just really want to be curled up in bed with a book and have an early night.

oh well. duty calls. what’s that thing they say? noblesse oblige.

it’s going to be carnage.

like, hello, why are there such unnecessary things in there?

why is there ‘background’, which basically says that the claimants have had great successes in bringing defamation claims against other people? what purpose does this serve to show and/or support the proposition that the words found in the publication are in fact libellous and defamatory? seriously now. save the earth and stop wasting paper and ink on these irrelevant paragraphs.

And, what’s up with all the NKF stuff? Yeah, so it’s somehow relevant, but not so relevant that you spend a page detailing what exactly went on.

And also, the supposedly libellous article merely said that there was a NKF scandal, and that it raises questions of how the government uses the money that we ‘deposit’ with them. FAIR COMMENT. I asked myself that very question when the NKF issue arose, and it was directed at the government itself and not anyone in particular.

anyway, does it refer to the claimants? maybe. Did it defame them? i don’t think so. like i said before, FEER didn’t actually categorically state that these people are corrupt. yes they were pointed questions, but it was up to the reader to make up their own mind about it.

these people (D&N, LHL, LKY, et al) make me tired. and incredulous.

it’s so boring. i mean, if you wanted to defame them, at least make it saucy and say they like going to nightclubs and have affairs and that they have bastard children everywhere. or that they use our CPF money to build villas in the canary islands, or that they don’t pay any tax at all because all their money goes to off-shore accounts in tax havens. stuff like that. it makes it so much more entertaining.

this whole ‘you are trying to say that i am a corrupt official so i’m going to sue you because i am too big and powerful to bother to explain to you how incorrupt i actually am’ is just too boring.

*UPDATE*

Check this out: Libel Law Overhauled in Landmark UK Ruling

Basically, if it is in the public interest and there has been responsible journalism (i.e. not wildly inaccurate and completely facetious/nonsensical statements), then libel claims cannot be brought against the publishers and/or writers.

“The key test was whether a media organisation or newspaper acted fairly and responsibly in gathering and publishing the information, the judges said.

If the reporter and editor did so, and the information was of public importance, then the fact that it contained relevant but defamatory allegations against prominent people would not permit them to recover libel damages.”

As a law student who has just gone through several classes of legal writing, I must comment that the language used in the Drew & Napier letters is… well… not as nice as it could be. I’m not saying that the content ought to be nicer, it could be downright nasty for all i care, but the manipulation of the language was unsatisfactory. More elegance and class, please!

I mean, why use the words ‘cynically profit’? Why put a moralistic twist to the issue when speaking to FEER’s legal counsel? Do you really think he will feel threatened by moralistic overtones? He’s a solicitor for god’s sake. Logic, not morality.

Also, the constant jumping between ‘defamation’ and ‘libel’. Is it one, or the other? They do mean different things in law, with defamation being the broader tort and libel being the narrower (limited to written and published works).

But perhaps I’m just nit-picking.

Another thing that really gets to me - jurisdiction.

I’m not terribly clear about the rules in Singapore and/or Hong Kong, but I do know the UK/EU ones (because we’ve just gone through them in Civil Litigation, hurrah!). So here’s what i think:

If the libel is published in Hong Kong, then the injury would technically have occurred in Hong Kong. The main domicile of FEER is also Hong Kong since that’s where its offices are and where it is published, or New York since its holding company is there.

So, the correct jurisdiction would be in Hong Kong, unless FEER has instructed solicitors to accept service of legal claims in singapore, or has responded in Singapore to the claim. They are under no obligation at all to respond or to appoint solicitors in Singapore, so D&N will either have to serve it outside the jurisdiction (requiring the permission of the courts) or wait for FEER to do something in Singapore. But now that the claims have been issued, the staff of FEER are probably going to avoid Singapore like the plague, so no chance of personal service there.

And D&N can’t get a judgment in default if they never even served the damn thing.

Interesting, eh?

From the correspondence, it seems that D&N are rather used to having their letters scare the pants off the other side’s solicitors. And they’re not afraid of being condescending towards the other side’s solicitors either, although they do so object to them being condescending to their clients. wankers.

In my opinion, FEER could just stand back and do absolutely nothing. They could prepare their defences and all that, just in case, but doing nothing would mean that D&N would have to work like dogs to get the claims served in Hong Kong. And even then, FEER could dispute the jurisdiction, and have the claims moved to Hong Kong - which D&N would probably hate.

Anyway, all this is assuming that there is a valid claim (which i suspect might not be the case). Assuming that there isn’t a claim because the judge in the matter is completely unbiased and uninfluenced by the men bringing the claim thinks there isn’t, then there really isn’t anything more to talk about is there?

Apart from costs, that is.

Now the Lees, the government and everything else is being slammed by FEER in their october issue. ‘Kenna-bang’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.

I need to ask my mother if she’s got a copy, and to send it to me when she’s done with it. Also note my secret glee that FEER is taking no nonsense from these Lees.

Check out these articles:
Editor’s Letter
Singapore’s Founding Myths vs Freedom
The Charade of Meritocracy
Financial Centre Pipedreams

4 articles in one issue devoted to singapore. my god, aren’t we popular these days.

It’s a bit difficult to say, really, who the underdog is in this fight since one’s owned by the Dow Jones and has the Wall Street Journal as a sister-paper, while the other’s a political juggernaut in singapore. but looking at the history of legal victories the Lees have had over international publications, i know who i’m rooting for.

GO FEER!

it’s not the fault of tomorrow.sg. and it’s really only the posts about the government, the arts & culture and education.

i was reading a post on the government’s banning of Far Eastern Economic Review, because they published an interview with Chee Soon Juan that included some apparently libellous statements. i’ve read the interview, and honestly, all Chee has done is express his opinion. He hasn’t said that it’s the definitive truth, he just says that this is what he thinks is going on. And all FEER has done was include his opinions - the journal never stated that they though those statements were true, merely reproduced the words of another in the form of an interview, not an editiorial comment piece. and anyway, it’s highly likely that there is a fair comment defence on this issue since it is of public interest for the interview to have been published, unless of course the supposed public interest just happens to be the private interest of the Lees.

Over-reaction can only mean some sort of underlying guilt, no? if it were not true, or if it was a complete pack of lies (which it technically isn’t because it was only an opinion and wasn’t put across as fact. mistaken opinions are to be corrected, not denied and met with a libel suit. but anyway.) then why was the offer of an interview with FEER rejected? i would’ve thought that the interview would be the perfect platform for denying Chee’s allegations, as well as being an incredibly intelligent PR tactic - LKY or LHL (whichever was to be interviewed) would be showing that they were magnanimous and graceful enough to be interviewed by a journal they obviously detest, all in the name of openness, honesty and democracy.

shame they didn’t take up the offer. and shame they decided to ban it. because now all i want to do is get a hard copy subscription and get it delivered to my parent’s home in singapore for the reading pleasure of my parents and my siblings. i don’t care if i never get to read it, it’s just the thrill of knowing i’ve done it that will please me to no end.

it’s like smoking on the balcony of my secondary school classroom, knowing that teachers could walk in at any moment, and that anyone walking to the carpark could look up and see our frank and open disrespect of the school rules and of our underage buying of cigarettes.

but i digress.

I like the FEER. like i like the New Statesman, and the Spectator, and the Economist. i like writing that isn’t afraid of annoying the bigwigs, that isn’t afraid of criticism, that isn’t going to compromise on their journalistic ideals because some guy halfway across the world thinks his integrity is being sullied (even if it is, he can write to the editor and complain, and have his version of events published in apologia). i like a certain playing with fire, a sense of danger and a sense of irreverence. why should we kowtow?

so, this banning of FEER in singapore is only going to be counterproductive. because not many people read the FEER in singapore anyway. most of the readers are high up in management and/or expatriate executives (i think, based on my completely unscientific and unreliable beliefs), since most ‘normal’ singporeans wouldn’t think of touching it with a ten foot pole because it’s so intellectual and talks about such intellectually stimulating things that their brains would explode if they ever thoguht about the issues brought up in a copy of FEER. ok i’m being terribly mean, but most singaporeans read the ST and 8days and herworld. not the financial times, not the business times and definitely not FEER.

this ban will merely reinforce the idea in our beloved foreign talents’ minds that whilst singapore is a great place to work and eat and shop, it isn’t somewhere they want to carry on living in when they retire or move jobs. take, for example, Indian foreign talent. India is the world’s greatest democracy, with hundreds, HUNDREDS, of news and current affairs publications. do you really think they’d be impressed by our clampdown on FEER and our paltry selection of newspapers? and a teacher of mine used to bristle at the thought of us having only the ST as intellectual/political sustenance - he felt compelled to make copies of English newspapers (the guardian weekly, to be precise) for us to read and analyse for our GP lessons.

it will also reinforce, internationally, the idea that singapore is ‘painfully strait-laced’ and that certain individuals are pulling the strings in front and behind the scenes. it will also most probably create an even greater divide between the singaporean citizen’s view of the world and it’s view of singapore and of them, and the reality of it all.

if the FEER has struck FEAR into their hearts, i would stop to think and question why.

that’s great excuse!

now everytime anyone asks me to go over some contract or do something vaguely legal or give them a legal opinion, i can say

’sorry, i’d like to help but it’d be a criminal offence for me to tell you anything, and i’m sure you wouldn’t want to be guilty of conspiracy to commit a criminal offence now, would you?’

or

‘if i tell you, i’d have to kill you, because either way it’s a crime.’

sometimes professional development and conduct lectures can be so crap. but other times, they actually impart useful and practical knowledge.

and the tension between it being a formal headshot and a smiley see-me-as-you-do-everyday picture is overwhelming. and of course the desire to just go apeshit and look like a hobo or a dragqueen with feather boa and all.

the FLR(S) form - that’s the extension of student visa form to everyone else - advises that i must be content with the photograph because it’s going to be stuck in my passport on my visa extension thingie. good advice, and stops me from wearing a spiderman mask in the photobooth.

but then it also tells me to attach 2 photographs to one photo-square - do i glue them together and then onto the paper? but then how would they be able to remove one to put in my passport? or do i glue 1 of them, and slip the other into some sort of plastic baggie and staple that to the paper? or do i blu-tack them to the form? or what?! no guidance on that anywhere, not even on the internet.

right.

so off to the photobooth now, change jangling in my pocket to be changed into one-pound coins.

i miss the photobooth in berlin, with its black and white strips, a real glass lens and that rotten-egg smell of developer wafting out the collection hole.

on the question of whether the coup will help the progress of democracy in thailand, jonathan fenby writes:

If, on the other hand, the Thai generals conform to the habitual military pattern, south-east Asia would find itself with army-ruled Thailand sitting next to army-ruled Burma and nearby to Singapore, dominated by one party.

it’s always lovely to see our island country quoted in the press, and even better to know that it’s cheek by jowl with burma.

at least singapore still has elections and parliament and all that wayang stuff so we’re definitely one up on burma (nyah nyah) since it doesn’t even pretend to give anyone democratic freedoms. elections? what’s that?

but seriously, i hope singaporean politicians realise that this ought to signal substantive reform and change, and not the easier tightening of the already uncomfortable noose around freedom’s neck.

+ + + + + 2141hrs edit + + + + +

i think i’d like to add further that whilst there are a lot of countries calling for the ‘return to democracy’ in thailand, it is my opinion that the democracy that existed in the period before the coup was a false democracy.

thaksin, although democratically elected once upon a time, has failed to act like a defender of freedom and democracy for quite a while. the reports of alleged nepotism, cronyism and other under-hand dealings are for the public record.

coups get a bad name, mostly deservedly. however, if this coup does actually achieve its aims, a new prime minister is in place in two weeks, and the elections take place when they are supposed to, then this glitch in the democratic machine is perfectly okay by me.

i could go on for hours about the things that prick my heart, about the things that get under my skin like a bad splinter, when we talk about singapore (the state), singapore (the people) and singapore (the place), but i shan’t because i’m not really in the mood.

why is the choice between labelled defiant, rebellious, a leaver, or integration into mindless homogeneity? and why is being different a bad thing?

over the weekend, after many drinks in a hot and sweaty pub, we played games and one of them was to state our age and our biggest accomplishment so far. (not that we were being arse-y or anything, we were just slightly depressed and needed joyous perspective)

i am 23. my most important accomplishment so far has been to leave singapore behind physically, if still not yet completely mentally.

i’m not burning my bridges or abandoning my heritage or snubbing my nose at my roots. i’m merely trying to become a citizen of the world, a world that is much bigger than one country and one ideology and one dominant mentality.

a world in which difference is as valued as sameness, and where individuals are allowed to be.

these are interest groups that are, generally, non-violent but very outspoken. the majority of them are just going to wave placards and make a lot of boo-ing and hiss-ing noises when they see a delegate they have a dislike for.

treating them like would-be criminals is not only stupid, but way overreacting. i mean, seriously, ‘high security alert’? they’re demonstrators and interest groups, not rioters.

the police here in london, when faced with demonstrators, generally just let them do their thing, set up road blocks so the demonstrators don’t get run over, break up fights between demonstrators, etc. sure, some of them are armed, but most of the time they are looking out for the welfare of the demonstrators, the people, they’re own.

maybe a mounted policeman or two, police vans with reinforced windscreens and lots of walkie-talkie-ing, but no submachine-guns, no tall spiked fences.

i’m not looking forward, at all, to the explaining i’m going to have to do when my friends read about it, because i don’t feel in the least inclined to defend what singapore has done.

it’s shameful, it’s transgressing on human and civil rights, and it’s just downright embarrassing that as a supposedly developed and first-world nation the government behaves like some backwater fiefdom/junta/pre-89 soviet satellite, and has no respect for other non-governmental, non-diplomatic, non-financial-connected opinions.

do we not all have a right to be heard?

it’s like bad-parenting style gone wrong - telling one’s own kids to shut up, and then leaning over to tell someone else’s kid to mind their business and shut up as well whilst that kid’s amazed parent looks on in horror at one’s audacity and rudeness.

waylaid by the evil-internet, google and email. also, by the sudden realisation that it hasn’t rained for a week, and i haven’t watered my plants, and that they’re all looking slightly sad and forlorn out there on the balcony.

anyway, i went to the brighton speed trials yesterday - for cars and motorcycles and vintage automobiles. it rocked! i love all the vintage cars and want all of them for christmas. i especially loved M’s dad’s lotus. it is tres fantastique! photos will come shortly, i promise. for now, just imagine the smell of burning rubber and exhaust, combined with sea salt spray, and the warmth of the afternoon sun beating down your back, with the drone of engines and the surf in your ears.

and, school has started. have i mentioned this already? it’s started, and it’s HARDCORE i tell ya. seriously, this LPC shit is not some main-main, masak-masak thing, it is for real dude. not only are we told how long we’re expected to spend preparing for each small group session (3 hours), but we also have business simulations, interview and advising simulations, constant assessments and all that kind of other stuff. even the one day a week we don’t have school is meant for studying, revision and catching up with reading.

so, i was being good today, and i’ve done my readings, and was about to type out a table of different business media and other stuff for a compare and contrast exercise before all that other stuff interrupted my diligence. i think now, though, that i shall have to continue with my intentions, and stop faffing around, otherwise i’m never going to finish the rest of it. it’s a crying shame, but that’s life, eh.

i’ve known about the ability of soya to mimic hormones for a long time, but it never really registered as a health risk because i’m chinese and we eat tofu and drink tau huay and dip everything in soya sauce.

but fermented soy and non-fermented soy are two different things, eh? like wine and vinegar, potato and vodka, etc.

so, yeah. lactose- and gluten- intolerant as i am, i have had to switch to rice milk. and it’s surprisingly good. not as chalky as soy milk, and very light and easy to digest. i might have to try other brands, but so far i’ve been drinking Rice Dream Original, and it’s been pretty good-going for the last month or so.

the difficult thing is finding cafes and coffeeshops that serve rice milk, and also finding rice milk substitutes for cream and yoghurt, because there isn’t that big a market for such stuff (as compared to soy ones) since most people immediately choose soy over milk if they’re lactose-intolerant, and so most coffee places have the soy option, but nothing else. same story with cream and custard and yoghurt.

i think i’ll have to visit the organic shop to check out their full rice milk selection, and if their collection seems paltry, the internet is my next best friend.

but after sending off one email with subject line as is the title of this post, i had 3 separate, and methodologically different, inquiries into where i was at this very moment. email and friendster and myspace all make me visible, but invisible as well. i’m easy enough to find online, but who knows where i am in real-life.

i might be in barbados for all you know.

+ are you going to be a solicitor or a barrister? (solicitor)

+ are you going to practice? (yeah)

+ which type/area/kind of law are you going to specialise in? (don’t know yet)

+ do you have any advice for me? (read the fine print)

+ can you be my lawyer? (if you pay me)

+ do you like law? (yeah)

+ why are you studying law? (can we talk about this another time?)

and then there are also those people who’ve teased me relentlessly throughout my undergraduate days about doing law because it’s apparently as cop-out a degree as business or finance or accountacy, in that it is ‘vocational’ and that it almost guarantees a job upon graduation, and implying that i’ve got no intellectual curiousity and/or i’m playing it safe.

those people, they’re all doing law conversion courses now, and want my notes. tag-alongs. and, also, why do some people insist on pretending that law degrees are non-intellectual? they know that it’s very demanding, and they know that it’s not just regurgitation, so why do they carry on slagging it off? if they had to sit through some of the classes i took, they’d realise that it’s as intellectually high-falutin’ as international relations or philosophy.

idiots like these piss me off.

but anyway, having (almost) finished going through my pre-course reading for my LPC, i don’t think i’m going to like the course very much. it’s all very boring and ‘what does regulation 97459 say?’, all very practical and rote-learning. oh well, just one more year of hypothesising and then i can get down and dirty with reality.

and i just found out why. it’s fixed now, so comment away my friends.

sorry to those who’ve been desperate to tell me their opinions and are now resolute non-commentors but, really, you could’ve emailed me, y’know?

i recommend my hairdresser for
- working in a salon that’s got a brilliant name
- that also offers you a choice of coffee, tea, beer, wine or water
- for being very handsome
- and also very patient
- for being willing to listen to what i wanted
- for being chatty,
- but not overeager to chat, thus allowing me to read and distract myself from the lengths of hair hitting the salon floor

everyone, please enter Tim from Pimps and Pin-ups into your hairdresser-of-note list.

++++

you know you’ve reached semi-adultdom when you go to a housewarming party,
and you come across strollers,
booties, bottles and babes in arms.

and so i have decided to finally upload my holiday pictures, just to remind myself that it was once swelteringly hot, and that the sun was out almost constantly for the best part of the last two months.

which also means that i will be posting pictures here. watch for it.

phunkedelico says: (14:50:54)
write it on your hand NOW

phunkedelico says: (14:51:12)
write ‘E - drinks @ ten bells 5.30′

m-a says: (14:51:49)
E drinks ten bells - wow u got a big mouth

phunkedelico says: (14:52:57)
yeah

and even then, the bastard only got there at 6. and the girls, they turned up sometime around then too, but i hadn’t told them to write it down on their hands, see.

so there was drinking and gossiping and watching a boy fall off his bike in front of the pub, more laughing (not at the boy that fell of his bike, mind. he was embarassed enough as it was, bless him), chatting about our ‘future plans’ and holiday plans and about cheap rental in bristol.

then it was off to tottenham court road where miko was tutoring someone (in microeconomics, of all things), and the plan was to go to seville a mia but we ended up at the fitzroy tavern instead and stayed till closing time. so it was there that we chatted somemore, about what i can’t really tell anymore, and then mika turned up. (oh i like this miko - mika thing, it’s so sickeningly sweet and cute) she was very nice and genteel in the way only chinese girls can be, you know, delicate features, wispy voices and flyaway hair and thin like they’d blow away in a gust of london wind. obviously incredibly intelligent as well. but then, only the best for miko because he deserves it, really.

and then i’d left my little-bicycle chained to the fence of the spitalfields church, because tottenham court road is still too far for me to cycle to, and anyway mark was driving. which is why i’ve got to go get it now, and hope that it’s still in one piece and that no thieving asshole has taken it to pieces to sell for scrap metal to fund his drug habit. the bastards.

have i spoken of the heat?

or of my memories of darkness, when the cool set in and the orange streetlamps glowered? of riding in cars with my favourite boys, staring out windows watching the world pass by in a blur? of air-conditioning and the lazy twirling fans, watching dvds till the early morning, stumbing home as the sky turned light? or of sitting by the poolside, watching them throw each other into the cool blue water, deflecting questions? of eating laksa in the shade, and wanton mee and roast duck rice? accompanied, as always, by teh-peng?

have i spoken of the heart? and how i miss all of you? have i spoken of the heat, that reminds me of certain places and certain faces?

we, too, make noises when we laugh or weep,
words are for those with promises to keep.

so, hurray to me. send me my graduation congratulations and presents now, y’all.

apart from that, i have had a hell of a holiday (in both the positive and negative sense). let’s just say that spending 10 days in almost 10 different places and beds is NOT ideal. from now on, i am refusing to spend less than 2 nights in any one place whilst on holiday.

but still, wales was cool. brecon beacons, the pembrokeshire coast, the great orme and snowdonia. ireland was all green and guinness, cork, limerick and dublin. i am now on the hunt for a recipe for cawl.

before all this, there was scotland, on an island called islay where we spent a week in isolated drunken merrriment. what did you expect, living in a converted church between two of the most famous scotch whisky distilleries? there was also oysters at 50p a pop, lots of technicolour seaweed, and just too many sheep.

right-o. that’s all i can get in now as my bum is starting to melt into my chair. iced lemon tea is calling.

but it’s been hot hot hot.

and have you tried going on holiday with your parent(s) and realising that your parent(s) are such bad holiday-mates that you swear never ever to go on holiday with him/her/them again?

anyway, now that i’m going to be sleeping in the same bed for more than a week, and have non-stop broadband availability, i’ll probably try and fill you in on the stuff that’s gone on between whenever it was and right about now or later.

because at this very very right this minute now moment i’m going to take a long cold bath, and pretend that i’m actually in a swimming pool with a poolside bar and cabana boys in tangerine speedos.

i’m feeling very bookish, and i’m reading a lot, but i’m just not capable of writing very much down in any coherent sense.

perhaps i will wait till i get my photos developed and/or uploaded before i write. or just wait until my muse returns with my writing.

for now, i’ve gotta pay my dues and rid myself of a library fine. and maybe buy a new pair of shoes.

so saint-remy was beautiful like i expected it to be. we stayed in ‘the garden house’, at the bottom of the garden from the main house, that is usually rented out as a self-catering chalet-type thing, but more classy than a chalet - a self-catering cottage.

the party was at les baux in a quarry, and the rock is just amazing. great huge cavernous space, a really creamy white stone, terrible acoustics but hey who’s minding when there’s 250 litres of red wine to go.

the pre- and post-party stuff was definitely more enjoyable than the party itself, with brilliant conversations over luncheons and dinners with the expat community in saint-remy and the alpilles region. it’s a bit like how i’d like to be when i get to 50 - free to do whatever i want, and live wherever i want, after soliciting my ass for a couple of decades.

but anyway, we also went to see les antiques - a roman relic - and more disused quarries, there was a walk around a lake, a lot of lavender and olive plantations, and a lot of swimming and jacuzzi-ing, sitting on deckchairs and suntanning. oh, and so much eating and drinking.

great trip, shame about short length of time. i hope we go back soon and spend at least a week, because only that will truly do it justice.

it’ll be all sunshine and croissants, pastis and cafe au lait. oh, and a birthday party too.

the weather in london’s turned muckyickypoo after a week of gloriously hot weather - 30.7degC at its hottest, averaging 26-28degC most days. just like back home, but without the 90% humidity.

now it’s all grey and eurgh, and even torrential rain. good for my plants while i’m away, bad for me if i stayed. i’d been starting to get worried about my plants and the heat, but now i think they’ll be okay. although if they do die, there’s nothing really much i can do about it. *shrug*

oh well.

saint-remy, oh how i look forward to thee ~

shopping was a joy, although the crowds were not. lunch in the churchyard off covent garden was amazing - not the lunch, the churchyard.

it’s been so hot and sunny i can kind of imagine that i’m back in singapore. but it’s silly, because in singapore, i only come out at night. daylight hours are spent at home asleep. ok, so maybe i do go for lunch sometimes away from the confines of my air-conditioned room, but i head out in my air-conditioned car and insist on lunch in an air-conditioned venue.

until i get used to the weather, or until the delights of amoy market, jalan leban, roti prata, simpang bedok and maxwell road are too much to resist.

but anyway, back to this heat. i’m hoping that it’s going to hold over the weekend, for we are having a petanque picnic party (also known as boule, bites and beer) in ford square. it’s going to be fun!

i have about 3 months to do absolutely fuck all except sit in the sun, get drunk, read a lot of fiction, take a lot of photographs, go to a lot of places, have a couple of barbecues and oh, also attend my graduation ceremony.

now i just need to recalibrate my body clock so i can stop waking up at 8am. it’s too early for a bummer’s lifestyle.

i miss holland village and teh tarik ais. do you think hokkien mee can survive a 13hour plane journey?

only a complete idiot like me will wake up at half-six all excited to take her last exam and then discover at 7, after downing a huge cup of coffee, that her exam is at 2.30pm. not 10am as previously thought.

so what else is there to do but to go back to bed and try to get an hour or two more sleep.

and like, you always think it’s something that happens to other people. oh well, haha not funny anymore, it’s happened to me. how ego-deflating, to realise that i’m one of those people who mix up their exam timetables, those bimbos! those idiots! those clueless people!

but hey, at least it wasn’t the other way around, and i’d gotten up at 10 and then found out that my exam was taking place without me.

ok now for more coffee to wake me up again.

and it is also why one ends up in the school bar knocking back 3 gin&tonics in a row (only because they ran out of the ginger ale required for a whisky&gingerale) on an empty stomach after having been up since half-five supposedly to cram in case names and statutory provisions, but really just watching the sun rise.

i’ve made plans for next friday already (already, i know!), and have been derided for my post-exam activity choice (shopping), and have also had one of the best catch-up conversations i’ve had with dear friends whom i see too little of in a long time (topics of which included sativa, hong kong, maybelline, gut rot and a rave in an irish castle).

discovery of the day: wasabi up the nose completely clears a drunken head. true that.

no wonder them jappies drink so much and still walk into the office the next day as if the night before never happened.

i was thinking about the last place i’d remembered seeing the email address of an old friend of mine, whom i haven’t seen in a couple of years, nor spoken to in the same while, and i figured that it would be on my ICQ contact list. and i thought, hey that’s great! i’ll find out the email address and then write an email saying hi are you still alive how’s it going i’m doing fine am in london right now don’t know when i’ll be back but what’s your mobile number anyway i’ll call you whenever i’m in town and we can go for drinks.

so i go and check out my icq list, but first have to download icq, then remember my password - which i can’t. so, to get the password, i have to remember the email address that i registered my original icq account with - which i can’t. i’ve tried really hard, tried all the possible combinations of passwords that i remember ever having, tried all the email accounts that i’ve possibly maybe owned, but nope, nothing.

sigh.

and it’s just going to sound really dodgy and demented if i email the icq people telling them my sob-story. so, for now, the email will just have to sit in my draft-of-a-draft folder (i.e. just in my head) and hope that my friend is actually a tea-leaf-reading psychic who can sense that i’m trying to get in touch and pre-empt me by sending me an email instead, saying it’s weird but i’ve been having dreams of you trying to contact me but you forgot my email address so i decided to see if it was true.

i knew all this identity switching and email account hopping would come back and bite me in the ass one day.

maybe if i spent less time thinking about my plants, i might have had enough time to revise for some firsts. but, y’know, what’s a first as compared to looking at lush greenery and vivid blooms. i’d much rather be eating them veggies than a piece of paper.

“Some may well find Brian Haw and his activities irritating, but being an irritant is a pretty fundamental part of our democracy.”

Brian Haw is an anti-Iraq War demonstrator and has been demonstrating outside the Houses of Parliament for the past couple of years.

The government passed a new piece of legislature recently in order to prevent people like Brian Haw from demonstrating within a designated distance from the Houses of Parliament.

The Courts had no choice but to find that Brian Haw had indeed broken the law (but only because the government had enacted that law to make his actions illegal) and so ordered him to move or be removed.

Shame, really. It made me feel better about the world everytime I passed Brian Haw on the bus while it went around the roundabout at the end of Westminster Bridge. It made me feel as if there were people out there who cared.

And it just doesn’t seem fair for laws to be enacted just to penalise people who were previously carrying out perfectly lawful acts. It’s like they could suddenly say all the pavements in the UK are now off-limits and we all have to walk on the roads.

I hate all this anti-terror legislation and its bastard children and grandchildren.

[update: Londonist has written a very funny entry on the Brian Haw eviction.]

perhaps it’s the constant drizzle, putting me off revision and tumbling headlong into reminiscence, reminding me of monsoon season and long car rides in the rain, street lamps glowing orange and strange shadows casted on the wall.

we were one of those people, we only came out at night. we stayed awake till dawn and watched the sky turn grey then pink then blue. the soundtrack was old-skool hip-hop. and jazzy loungey house tunes.

and then life got in the way, as it does. and time marches on, never ending.

i wonder if we’ll stop and say hello if we pass each other by in the street sometime. actually, i’ll stop and say hello, but i wonder if you’ll stick around and we’ll go for a coffee and catch up on events between whenever and then, or if you’ll make your best excuses and leave as soon as the formalities are over.

i also wonder what i’ll feel like, if i never see you and you and you again.

i know, i ought to be shot. or put in a straightjacket. but i do.

i like writing out notes and revision thingies about corporate groups and corporate insolvency law, i like thinking about rescue procedures and how the law has changed since the Enterprise Act 2002, and i especially like the fact that i understand what i’m doing and i know what i’m talking about, even if it’s really not all that sophisticated and cross-referenced to 38279 other sources.

and its a shame that the way the education system works doesn’t allow for much more. it’s good enough as a basic bare bones send you on your way education, and it’s definitely good training in analytical and critical thinking, but sometimes i’d like to ask my tutors out for a drink and discuss feminist legal theory, or kelsen, or what really is the problem with insolvency law/trademark law/political and legal anthropology.

maybe it’s just that i’m studying much more interesting things this year as compared to the last few. and maybe it’s because i’ve actually kept up with the readings, and i’m not finding myself completely out of my depth. whatever it is, i’m lovin it. pah-dup-pah-pah-paaah.

as they say, it’s always so much easier at the end if one is consistently diligent throughout the year.

dammit. i hate it when they’re right.

Always.

It’s nice to know people remember, but at the same time so embarassing because the scatter-brain that I am, I never remember theirs. Or even when I do, it slips my mind on the day itself to pick up my phone to type a message or give them a call.

I am a bad person.

But anyway, it went fine. The exam made it not brilliant, I caught a cold wearing inappropriate clothes for windy-sunny-then drizzling-then really windy-then rain somemore weather, but managed to haul my ass down to Notting Hill Gate for a housewarming party (and pretended that it was actually held in my honour).

Today I’ve done absolutely nothing apart from lie in bed and listen to the Beatles (Revolver), eat fish fingers and read the saturday papers. What a great way to spend a saturday - if only everyday were a Saturday, and if everyday were not a pre-exam-I’m-supposed-to-be-revising day.

So it’s nose back to the grindstone tomorrow. The sabbath is over, and hard graft shall once again resume in its never-endingness. yay.

I’m already heading to Saint-Remy-de-Provence in the south of France for a birthday party in mid-june, and I have a punting expedition in Oxford sometime in july, I will probably be spending a week in Devon/Cornwall trying to get out of any attempt to make me go surfing (i’m very happy on the beach, and if i do want to get wet i’ll go snorkeling or diving, thank you very much) and going in search of a long lost friend of M’s. I might head up to the Isle of Islay for a weekend, and stand on a square foot of land that we ‘own’ on the grounds of the Laphroaig Scotch Whisky distillery.

And then maybe my parents are coming in July. They are so wishy-washy about their decision that i’ve actually almost given up on them attending my presentation ceremony. Like girls, they are. But if they do, i’ll make them bring me to Wales, and eat Welsh Rarebit and other Welsh-y things. I think Leeks are their national vegetable (or regional, however you decide).

So, now the most important question is, what new clothes should I buy for my potentially super-exciting summer?

The thought of shopping is making me very excited right now. Exams make my life so sad.

[p/s: I prefer Rawls to Nozick. Nozick seems so conceited and annoying that I want to punch his face in. Who do you prefer?]

He is, I think, also pretty loaded since he has not one, but two rental properties apart from the one he stays in with his wife.

Dammit.

I want to be a landlord/lady too. Or rather, I just want to own property. Paying rent so someone else can pay off their mortgage? Why not pay off my own instead?

Pfssh.

But I have to pass my exams first before I can get to the money. Argh.

(and, just in case anyone gets the wrong idea, no i do not fancy my landlord. his cuteness was merely an observation.)

And then throughout the day, I’ll reminisce about the times we spent together, the time we spent together, the time together.

Maybe I’ll remember the way he/she would walk and talk. Maybe I’ll remember the way his/her laughter would ring out. Maybe I’ll remember the way we took to reach the end.

And then I’ll try really hard to remember the last time we spoke, the last time we met. The last lingering shadow of our lives overlapping. And then I try really hard not to feel a hollowing tightness in my chest.

Today is one of those days.

Where are you now? I hope you’re happy there.

Stephen Colbert Roasts Bush at Media Gala:

I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of FOX News. FOX News gives you both sides of every story: the President’s side, and the Vice President’s side.

But the rest of you [liberal media], what are you thinking?

. . .

But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The President makes decisions. He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ‘em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know, fiction!

And this too:

I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

Can you just hear the sarcasm drippping?

I LOVE IT!

No, not because I am thinking about joining any political party, but because of something my sister said, and because i used to live there.

We lived there, in Hougang, since before i was born. We moved away after i finished my PSLE, which was quite a while ago.

And, y’know, for all the upgrading nonsense, I can tell you that it was a great place to stay in. We lived right behind the community centre, and I remember playing in and around it with my brother and cousins. We also had a huge churchfield nearby that we used to catch butterflies in.

The wet market was amazing, and my grandma knew all the stallholders. There were shops that sold all and sundry and more, there were strange eerie semi-industrial parks that were home to car repair workshops, noodle-makers and coffin-makers.

My whole childhood was spent there in Hougang.

I have memories that probably can never be made again by any other child. I remember the otah-woman that used to sit by the edge of the concrete badminton court and chat with whoever came up, and sold otah for 20cents a piece. There was a coffeeshop with the most amazing chicken rice stall, and the roast duck stall we sometimes still go back to just to buy roast duck. Whenever there was some taoist festival, the temple across from the coffeeshop would have a stage set up for wayangs and the smoke from the giant carved candlesticks would spill over on to the walkway.

We used to know the man who ran the provisions/grocer’s shop. I even remember the name of his shop - Kong Hwa. He might still be alive, but more probably than not, he’s already passed on. We’d extort money from our parents on Saturday nights, and us band of cousins would troop over to Kong Hwa to buy amongst other things, crisps, chocolates, icicle-tubes, soft drinks and bubble solution.

After the shopping expedition, we’d sit on the tiled benches that were a semi-circle surrounding a circular table topped with a chessboard. Or we’d go to the dragon playground. Or we’d just walk around, making fools of ourselves as only children can. We’d sit and talk, and laugh and sing. We’d tell ghost-stories and watch the stars.

There was a tree across the road that my mother taught me was called the pong-pong tree, with sickly sweet-scented flowers. After a rain, the flowers would like smooshed on the ground and turn brown then black and then disappear into the rough concrete pavement.

I learnt to make and shoot with cherry guns on that street, and fished in the monsoon drains with my brother. I bought my first cassette-tape from an open tray set up outside a shop that also sold plastic footballs and children’s sand-buckets wrapped in netting and raffia and hung from hooks in the ceiling.

If it was to be upgraded to the point where I no longer recognise its bones, then i’d rather never see it again, so my dreams don’t change. Upkeeping and upgrading are two very different matters altogether.

But then again, i no longer live there, so what right do i have to say anything about the issue? I’m not the one having to struggle climbing up and down stairs because the lifts don’t stop at every floor, i’m not the one that has to live without an extra utility room.

Still, it pains me greatly to think that my childhood may exist purely in the abstract; that there will, one day, be nothing still standing that can prove to me i was not merely making it up in my imagination. That I was once there. That at one time, this was who I was and where i was, and the only place I knew I belonged.

Reading things like Dissent Magazine, New Statesman and The Spectator, that’s what.

I ought to burn in hell for liberal thoughts.

WP’s Low Thia Khiang keeps Hougang seat, and

SDA’s Chiam See Tong retains Potong Pasir seat

but

PM Lee leads PAP team to Ang Mo Kio GRC victory?

Since when was Ang Mo Kio ever an opposition ward? What’s so victorious about winning it? And anyway, it’s not that big a victory anyway.

And why not celebrate Chiam and Low’s successful campaigns? Or at least put it in a more congratulatory manner. The PAP header is filled with ACTION, and the opposition one is so passive and non-commital.

It’s so biased, lor. But also don’t need to be so obvious, right?

if the system that has been created is so brilliant, and so geared towards bringing continues economic success and (apparently) benefits for singaporeans, why are they so afraid of letting other people into the system.

individuals don’t break systems unless the system is unsustainable in the first place. positions are permanent. the people in those positions are replaceable.

Just look at any factory, does it matter, really, who is the line manager, who is on the conveyor belt, who is doing the supervising, who is in the accounts office, who is the general manager? As long as everyone knows what their position is within the system, everything runs smoothly.

And, how will anyone know that anything is wrong unless someone with no vested interests is watching and challenging and questioning their motives? It’s like, going along with the factory analogy, who is going to tell you that your machinery needs replacing except the repairman or the engineer who is an outsider coming in to make routine checks?

And, if the system is so perfect, then what’s a little controlled chaos?

Another analogy: shareholders in a publicly listed company. the shareholders give up much of their rights of control because there are directors, and they only make decisions when those decisions are legally required to be taken. the directors, on the other hand, are limited by law and by corporate governance codes.

But directors still face sanctions if they act out of their role, or if they are neglectful, or if they do not act in the best interests of the shareholders. Also, non-executive directors are expected, EXPECTED, to reign in the directors by questioning them, and rocking the boat when they sense something amiss. (in some cases, non-exec directors who have played safe and not questioned the directors have actually been disqualified.)

In this analogy, singaporeans are the shareholders (we are singapore, stand together hear the lion roar, blah blah blah), the majority party are the directors and the opposition party are the non-executive directors.

It is the duty of the opposition members to make trouble for the majority party, but not in a negative sense. By making trouble, the opposition is in fact creating opportunities for the majority party to justify their decisions, to explain to the public their motives, to give us an insight into their thought processes. They are trying their best to represent Singaporean interests, our interests, as well, you know.

It’s constructive criticism, take it and work with it.

I find it hypocritical that we are told that we are constantly told to think outside the box when there are so many minds in the majority party that are so very narrow and/or closed. And those who do think outside of the box, who think in circles, triangles, tetrahedrons, cartons, envelopes, string and bubble-wrap, get disregarded as being ‘too avant-garde’ or ‘too forward for asian values’ or ‘not fitting in with the rest of society’ or get told that ‘the society is not ready for it yet’. Ideas are only radical when there is fear of its implementation, and the best way of getting used to dealing with something new is to jump in the deep end - sink or swim.

And, just to get this off my chest, there is no such thing as a public morality, and there is no such thing as ‘asian values’ - if morality is based on religion or some inner sense of right and wrong, then everyone will have different ideas on morality because it is such an intensely personal and individual matter; and values are merely symbols for action, to seem to be protecting the masses by promoting a comforting (and self-serving) myth in this time of enormous technological and social change.

If every asian country has had a different history and a different path to development, if each asian country has a very different culture, if they were ruled by various overlords and emperors and colonists, and influenced by very different religions, if Asia consists of all the countries that it does, how is it possible for a co-ordinated set of values to represent all of them? The only Asian value that is true for all Asian countries, at this moment, is the value of a capitalist economy.

Just because not everybody went to Cambridge doesn’t mean we’re all stupid and/or ignorant. Don’t look down on us, and don’t treat us like little children. You may be old and wise, but remember you are old and you will die.

The post-65ers (to use the common parlance) may not make up the majority of the voters now, but what about in 5 years, or 10, or 15?

If they think that the heart and stomach issues are going to serve them in good stead for a long while yet, they’ve got it wrong. Listen to General Templer:

Templer coined the phrase of “winning the hearts and minds” of the people. With respect to the people of Malaya, this was to be achieved by governing effectively and justly, and to be seen to be doing so (emphasis mine).

He won Malaya back from the communists, so he must know what he’s talking about. And his biography is on the MINDEF site, so they must know what they’re writing about.

H E A R T S A N D M I N D S, yo.

Engage the intellect. I know you have it in you somehow.

The post-65ers have had post-secondary education (some of us have even studied at Cambridge, for real!), we’ve watched television, we’ve travelled, we’ve got the internet, we know how other countries and economies work, and we can sniff out bullshit from a 100miles.

We’re literate and we’re not about to go down silently.

To garble Dylan Thomas,

[I refuse to] go gentle into that good night.
[What I will do, is ]
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

It’s so sad, but true. But it’s also really funny - Germaine Greer cracks me up.

Sometimes I wish Singapore had had the suffragettes, the civil rights movement and the feminist movement. Even a little one. Even a tiny mini one would’ve done.

Then we probably wouldn’t have men in parliament who assume that gender equality is privileging women as opposed to giving them what they are entitled to, that men are still the breadwinners, that women would really stay at home all day long if they could, that women should stay in the kitchen, that women shouldn’t be allowed to speak up on important national issues because we’re so emotional and irrational and we don’t know what we’re talking about, that men shouldn’t have paternity leave because men don’t do childcare.

I swear, these people are dinosaurs - or rather, rich old dinosaurs who would’ve left childcare to their maids.

It’s also very easy to forget that a lot of women in Singapore, and around the world, still feel that their only purpose is to live vicariously through their husband. even though they may deny it themselves, and even though it seems as though they are empowered financially just because they hold down jobs.

I know too many Singaporean parents who’ve told their daughters, in mandarin, ‘why work so hard? all you have to do is get married’ (zhe me yong gong gan shen me, jia le jiu suan le) (and it’s always in mandarin. why? i don’t know, but it just is).

hello, auntie and uncle, which parallel universe do you inhabit?

Ignorance breeds complacency and stupidity. It’s a blinkered society filled with stereotypical views of ‘Others’, us/them dichotomies, and the pretence of ‘values’ which are merely constructed so as to legitimise and elicit support and tolerance for what is in actual fact unsupportable and intolerable.

And one wonders why I have doubts about going back permanently.

Choice quotes include:

Most Singaporeans have been denied the opportunity to make an informed choice about what they want. Expression is tightly controlled, as are rights of association and assembly.

Fear of the unknown is used to stifle dissent and opposition

The senior statesman, who is still in government with the odd title of minister mentor…

Registering opposition by boycotting the polls is not really an option since those who don’t cast ballots face fines and having their right to vote suspended.

The mainstream media is virtually entirely controlled by the government, resulting in a massive imbalance in coverage between the PAP and the rest and the election commission is a department in the prime minister’s office.

Virtually everyone who is anyone likes to be seen to be associated with PAP so the party has no problem recruiting candidates, volunteers or cash.

Still, over tea and coffee today, I concluded that I am always very embarrased whilst trying to defend Singapore, because the best (and probably the only) line I can use to retort their criticisms is that ‘it’s economically successful’.

What a lame-ass answer, huh?

nor a sound as pure as the clicking of fingers over keyboards, and the flicking of pages through textbooks.

but above all, there is no pain worse than a papercut -
except that long cold lonely march into the exam hall.

there is no rest, they say,
for the wicked;
i say bollocks,
there’s my mattress and my blanket.

if i had my way,
i’d sleep all day -
no black on white,
no goddamned effing reading light.

aight, enough’s enough,
this poetry thing is tough.
i must get back to reading,
‘fore the fire of guilt gets burning.

because at the start of the course, i think to myself ‘hmm… do i really need that? maybe i don’t need that, really… i’ll survive with the basics, i’m sure’. and then now, a month before exams it dawns on me that i seriously have to get that book.

last year it was the statute book for EU law. the year previous, it was another statute book, some revision guide to public and constitutional law, and an extra book on criminal law.

This year i’m too lazy to go into school, or even to walk to the bus-stop, so amazon.co.uk is my new best friend. say hello to amazon everyone, it’s been providing me with endless book recommendations and a free trial for their dvd rental service.

but of course i’m ignoring all of it, bceause i don’t have the time nor the money, to get down to the bowels of its stock, to get my hands on some Hart. The Concept of Law, by HLA Hart. damn these law books are expensive *gulp* charge it to my credit card please.

and, seriously, even if it’s not going to be of any use at all, if i don’t do an exam question on that topic, and i never read it ever again, at least it’ll look good on my bookshelf and bump up my intelligent-intellectual quotient.

this is how one spends the days - potting and re-potting, watering and admiring. i’m still deciding whether i’m going to stick to my 2 baskets and fill them with tomato plants whilst everything else goes into pots, or buy less groceries to save money for more and baskets to fill up with flowers and things so i can hang them all along the roof of the balcony. OR, i could ask the corner store for the woven baskets that they use to store/display fruit in and throw away at the end of the week, and try lining them and then stringing them up to make hanging baskets - i’m only worried they won’t be strong enough or that they may rot away.

this gardening thing is obsessive, i tell you. i think about where to put which plants all day long, i scour gardening boards and forums, i spend hours in garden centres, and i keep buying more and more plants and seeds. but, y’know, it’s pretty and it takes my mind off things, and i get to chill out on the balcony and listen to the kids from downstairs play.

i’d rather get dirt under my nails and pick slugs out of the soil than have to study for exams. maybe i’ll open a nursery or a florists when i’ve made my millions bleeding clients dry with billable hours and legal-babble, which brings me back to the fact that i have a very hot date with bentham, austin, hart and kelsen. argh!

we all dressed up in our best fancy clothes, and i dug out my stilletos for good measure. thank god we drove, i wouldn’t have survived the london bus system with ankles elevated that much higher than my toes. we ate great food, and all drank too much wine for our own good - but what’s new.

apparently i’d been ‘cooped up’, and i’d been ’staying indoors all day’, and so had to be put in the car and driven to the southeast.

obviously it was easter and all that, but there weren’t any egg hunts or rabbits or much chocolate. what there was was a bonfire, trips to the garden centres, and having tea and cake in the backyard/field.

and there wasn’t any studying that i said i’d do. there were lots of newspapers and magazines and plant buying, which have resulted in the addition of 2 geraniums, 2 ranunculus (ranunculi?), 1 mint and 1 gardenia to my balconygarden.

now i’m going to repot my new purchases and water some plants. (but i’m going to watch the simpsons first).

The judiciary — a bulwark between citizen and state — plays a consequential role in the affairs of a nation, and often sets the ultimate seal of legitimacy on controversial policies and actions of the state by its decisions. Governments, therefore, try to ensure those persons, who are called upon to make these weighty decisions, understand the purpose of controverted legislative acts and policies. The PAP government is no exception. It also tries to ensure that judicial aspirants are screened for loyalty and political correctness. Although the PAP government recognizes the role of the judiciary in the body politic, it no longer sees it as a check on the balance of power in the traditional sense but rather as an important instrument for the prolongation of its political longevity.

High court judges are appointed from within the legal and judicial service and among qualified members of the bar by the president on the advice of the prime minister after consultation with the chief justice. Judges hold their appointment until the age of 65 years and thereafter at the will of the president. For many years, retiring high court judges have had their appointments extended on contract for short periods at a time and, in some cases, from month to month. Judicial commissioners are employed on time contract. Some do, indeed, make the grade to the high court bench. Needless to say, judges on contract, renewable at the will of the prime minister, is not conducive to judicial independence.

Judgments of the appellate court have to be unanimous, and are delivered by a single judge detailed by the chief justice beforehand. No dissension is countenanced lest a perception is created of disunity within the judicial ranks. Cases are allocated to judges by the registrar of the supreme court, on chief justice’s instructions, and not rotated, or drawn by lots, or channelled to special divisions of the court. Thus, it is not uncommon to find a particular judge, like T.S. Sinnathuray, being commonly assigned sensitive cases with predictable results. Judges known for impartiality, independence and strength of character are never assigned them.

I knew i’d never be appointed judge.

But, jokes aside, I can’t describe, really, how i feel about the whole issue.

It’s stomach-churning fear, amazement and despair mixed in with a little loathing. And more. On top of it all, though, i feel sad and ashamed, sad and ashamed that we are supposedly one of the most incorruptible states in the world, and yet this happens.

Corruption isn’t just about exchanging money for favours, corruption is also about patron-client relationships. It’s about the lack of independence to make decisions because one feels indebted to, and obligated to, someone else for one’s position. It’s about not being able to make a decision free from any other consideration apart from what is ‘just, equitable and conscionable’.

I wonder if the judges realise how they’ve been implicated into this scheme. Do they actively know, and pretend to be ignorant; Or, are they truly unaware of their role in this?

But most of all, I wonder if they even care.

[Lord Steyn] said ministers did not always understand the principle of the separation of powers as it affected the judiciary. The home secretary, Charles Clarke, had complained in a recent interview that he was “frustrated” that the law lords would not meet him for discussions “because of their sense of propriety”.

Mr Clarke “apparently fails to understand that the law lords and cabinet ministers are not on the same side,” said Lord Steyn. “A cosy relationship between ministers and law lords would be a worrying development.”

And apparently the Singaporean judiciary fails to understand their role as an independent, unbiased, public-serving body whose role is to protect the constitutional rights of Singaporeans and promoting the causes of democracy.

The judiciary is not supposed to be the government’s personal adjudicator.

the person who came up with the idea of exams in may and june must have been one very sick and perverted dude indeed. if all exams were in, say…. december, then i WOULD study because it’s so much warmer indoors and there’s nothing else to do in winter.

i wouldn’t even mind going to school in summer. at least the days are long, and there’s still light when i leave, and i can have lunch in the park in the sunshine.

anyway, basically, exams in spring/summer are stupid. they should re-adjust our term times. or give us take home exams. i’d seriously have 4 assessed essays over the year than exams at the end. but i’m just being a ninny and complaining for the sake of complaining - after this, no more university exams forever!

and in other news that many of you will fail to appreciate, i have plants! my seeds have sprouted, and my plan to boycott store-bought salad this summer is under way.

i only put them in on saturday, but already my tuscan salad mix is coming up nicely. i’ll be sowing the californian leaf mix this weekend so that i’ll have some variety and continuity in my veggie supply.

the sugar snap peas are doing strange things like growing out the bottom of a 500ml Evian water bottle whose top i cut off to make a long pot. i hear that peas had long tap roots, but i didn’t expect them to be this long this quick, especially since they’ve only just sprouted.

basil and thyme are doing fine (oh, oh, the rhyme the rhyme!); the rosemary twigs i stuck in water have suddenly decided to root themselves all over the bottom the jar. my chilli seeds are also showing signs of life, and the seed-leaves have a slightly purple tinge to them - purple tiger, rawhr!

i’ve also stuck a sweet potato in some water in vain hope that it will start sprouting leaves, because they are so pretty in a vine and i just like the magical-ness of watching things grow.

now, i’m waiting for my tomatoes, stock and night-scented stock, anemones and peony to surprise me by shooting and leaving (leaf-ing. ok, not funny. whatever). and also more seeds to put into boxes and pots and containers of compost, like choy sum and borage and tansy and more lettuce.

okay. enough of this gardening banter. i have (marginally) more important things to do, like writing an essay on trademark dilution. here’s a choice quote on what i’m up against,

“[it is] a phenomenon that cannot be seen, measured or otherwise perceived or detected and… for sixty-five years, has proven wholly resistant to analysis” (Jonathon E. Moskin)

i know. isn’t it such an exciting thing to be writing about? so elusive and mysterious, so attractive a character you’d expect johnny depp to play the role if intellectual property law were ever a movie.

i can just feel the envy emanating from all of you, from the tips of my toes to the end of my nose. but don’t be jealous, i’d give it to you to write any time. i’m generous like that.

revision schmivision.

all i do is stare at the flats across the view from my window, and long for sunshine in the afternoon like they have. and watch the trees sway in the wind, and the clouds in their varied formations drift across the sky.

hurrah.

it’s also the first of my last set of university exams.

hurrah again.

so now my birthday celebrations will have to be deferred by 3 weeks, by which time it will be june. and june means it’s summer, and there’ll be sunshine. which means that i could very well have a birthday party picnic in the park.

hot weather and ice-cream trucks. cute boys showing off their lily-white calves in board shorts, cute girls in tank tops and bikinis. sandwiches, salads, sodas and spritzers. pimms! gin&tonics and whiskey&gingerales. plastic cups and paper plates. balloons!

now, how awesome will that be? very very very awesome, i tell ya.

hurrah!

by the political i mean the political theory, the political science, the ideology, the systems and the functions. that is infinitely more thought provoking than being caught up in the politicking.

i wonder if it really ought to be that any potential political candidate be forced to read an introduction to political theory and philosophy, and then participate in a public forum where they have to answer questions based on those philosophies. perhaps then the politicking in singapore would not seem so juvenile and pointless.

and it might be me being a snob, but i find that many of the ministers, they don’t seem intellectual. the intellectuals, those that write academic articles, those that contibute to international journals, those that parry arguments so successfully that you are floored by their brainpower - they are either in the opposition, or in academia. it’s as if being part of the majority party gives them the go-ahead to stop thinking or expressing themselves intelligently, and become yet another cog in the machine.

it’s a shame, really. the independence period seemed to be so conducive to new thoughts and new ideology, new governance and freedom, a situation born of the dissolution of the empire. now it seems as though we’ve exchanged the chains of imperialism and colonialism with political insouciance. where is the excitement of the 60s and 70s? where is the genuine joy and feeling of triumph when the election results are announced? where is that ideological one-upmanship? where are the smooth, polished, but tremendously moving and powerful speeches that caused the tightening of chests and the clenching of fists? where is the self-made man?

maybe that’s why there are claims that the youth are politically passive, and apathetic. we aren’t, really. we’re just bored of the petty squabbles and obvious threats - why resort to these things if you can always deliver what you’ve promised? and why, despite international criticism, does the bad behaviour continue?

and why are we bored? because there is no real choice, and because there is no real challenge to our intellect and because there doesn’t seem to be a real effort made in engaging our minds (and hearts, and votes).

i think what’s needed to remedy the situation are politicians. not pencil-pushers, paper-feeders, and walk-about-ers. Politicians. individuals that can rouse the people through ideas, visions and discourse. individuals that have souls, that have thoughts, that have dreams.

individuals that have experienced living in 2 or 3 bedroom flats in a HDB estate (or who are not averse to trying it out for a year or so), who know what taking the MRT and the bus feels like, who can tell me that despite not having gone to the top schools, or being sent to fancy universities on scholarships, he or she managed to succeed through intelligence and determination.

real people.

like how we all prefer slightly bruised but so much more delicious organic fruit that have personality and quirks. not bland, tasteless, perfect-and-identical-looking cultivars.

i could talk about a lot of things, especially about politicians and their selection criteria. also, the link between cultural citizenship, forms of government and managerial style, and a very interesting article by an Indian writer on ‘values’.

but i have to read about anthropology and colonialism.

which brings to mind why there is a gap in the singapore history books of the time between 1819 and the japanese occupation during world war II. i concede that there were topics such as tin-mining, and triads, and the ‘hearts and minds campaign’, but what else? i’m sure singapore wasn’t just full of gang members and tin miners and communists.

it’s like how japanese students didn’t (until recently) learn of their involvement in world war II.

do we distance ourselves from colonialism because we’re ashamed at being a former colony, or because we do not want to admit that a lot of the institutions in singapore are the remains colonialism? what’s wrong with admitting that we are a direct result of our colonial past?

and another thing, why does our supposed history start in 1819 with the ‘founding’ of singapore by raffles? singapore was already a well-known port, and had long been used as a trading post by the chinese, indians and arabs. why not go into that history? why do we simultaneously applaud and detract from colonial history?

i have a lot of grief within me regarding the education system, yes. it’s a good thing my mother instilled in me the habit of reading at an early age and the possession of a library membership card. it was also probably a very good thing that i decided early on to question everything.

how else would i have gained real knowledge (as opposed to facts)? the textbooks certainly weren’t handing it out on a platter, spoon-fed or not.

why???

because i’m greedy, that’s why. and because i never ever remember how badly i can feel after all that gluten stockpiles in my system.

right now it’s all headache, stomach flip-flops, lethargy and general bleagh-ness. not too clever, huh.

i’d really like to just crawl back into bed and pretend all that eating never happened. but alas, corporate failure and alternative rescue procedures are on the agenda today, so i’ll just limp along and hope some of the revision goes in and stays in.

and hope all that gluten-induced disgustingness goes away soon. or that by some magical spell, everything that contains gluten in it disappears and is replaced by gluten-free alternatives.

oh how i’d love to live in a gluten-free world.

*note: over the course of two days, not all at the same time. i might be greedy, but not that greedy.

VW Unpimp your Ride I

VW Unpimp your Ride II

VW Unpimp your Ride III

it’s time to un-pimp your auto

i might be mistaken.

but if it does, i’m assuming that it does so on account of the trees and greenery one sees on either side and down the middle of the ECP. and also, presumably, because we have a lot of greenery?

on the other hand, what else is so garden-like about singapore? and how is it more garden-like a city than say malaysia or vietnam?

or is it because we’re pretty and cultivated to the hilt, and completely unnatural? hybridised, cross-bred and cross-pollinated. and because it is such a controlled environment that without constant supervision by the gardeners (read ruling party), the garden will burst into its own, unheeding and unwilling to cooperate?

that’s the problem, you see, with these highly cultivated specimens. they’re so delicate and prone to failure without someone watching them all the time. and most of them don’t grow on, and their seeds don’t produce the same quality plants as they do, so you have to repeat the whole process every year using freshly-bought seed.

wouldn’t it be so much easier if it was a woodland, or field? let everything grow as they like, let nature take over for a long while. whatever happens, the land takes it in and makes do. the plants either flourish or die, in the end only the strongest and fastest evolving survive.

and all without anyone having to keep vigil. just let nature do its thing, and voila great variety of plantlife and low mortality rates, low maintenance too.

now, wouldn’t that be nice.

who knew that doing nothing in particular would lead to saturday, and then sunday, and then monday and the start of revision?

i never got down to being touristy. i spent a lot of the time just hanging out with the best friend, eating good home-made food and grocery shopping - because we’re completely in love with veg+fruit stalls, pound shops and giant supermarkets. i spent some time in my balcony, potting things and replanting others, sowing seeds for summer crops. i finished reading the library books i got out on monday by thursday, and have to go back for more tomorrow. i’ve also learnt how to roast pumpkins.

i don’t thnk i’m going to make it to st.pauls cathedral tomorrow either. apparently we have a dim sum appointment in chinatown at 1pm, which will take up most of the day, and probably the evening too if you include the post-lunch pub trip.

there’s a brick lane documentary that clashes with csi: new york later this evening, but seeing as i’ve missed so many episodes of it already, i think the documentary will go well with vegetable curry for dinner.

the best friend reveals many things to me, some of which surprise me. most, however, are the usual things that come with not seeing each other for most part of the year, and are heart-warmingly normal and boring and everyday.

because, really, it’s the normal, boring, everyday things that i missed the most.

but this year.

moving house and setting up house and arrival of best friend means that (1) i have no money to go anywhere even if i wanted to, and (2) i don’t really want to since i have company (for a while, at least).

but still, things like free entry to all the museums and galleries on a particular weekend in april in amsterdam make me long for a ticket out there. and stories from friends about their impending trips to new york, florence, south of france, etc etc give me little twinges of envy.

ah well.

spending a week as a tourist in london will be as good as taking that budget airline flight. it’ll be great fun to go exploring the places i frequently walk by without a second glance, taking pictures of everyday occurrences, writing things down in my travel journal. it’s about recreating that initial sense of awe and wonder, at the beautiful architecture one finds spotted about the city, at the english eccentricities, about cobblestone paths and weekend markets, about the london-ness of london.

all i need to do is chant a little mantra in my head for the next hour, while planning things to do:

exoticise the familiar, fetishise the banal;
exoticise the familiar, fetishise the banal;
exoticise the familiar, fetishise the banal;
exoticise the familiar, fetishise the banal. . .

i might even attempt to attend sunday mass at st.paul’s cathedral.

but then maybe it’s just my style, to cut myself loose. and yours, to stick it out till the arguments and the fights give you more than enough reason.

your seemingly- petty irritations belie graver concerns, i know this. i also know that there are other issues afoot, not to mention self-interest.

and i also know that you know that i know that there are problems. but i won’t mention it till i’m asked, and i won’t give you my opinion until you need it. you know this. unwarranted and unsolicited analysis will only lead to conflict, and ever greater complications in an already delicate situation. i know that.

we haven’t been friends for so long just to be strangers.

At that time I was sceptical, but now I’m convinced – although I do have to interpret ‘our part of the world’ to mean United Kingdom and sometimes Europe, or anywhere within convenient weekend-trip travelling distance.

So, the best friend arrives tomorrow with plans to conquer the world through creativity, and also start an experiment in domestic familiarity with his legal-eagle. Another friend of ours is already here and was showing her work at London Fashion Week, and has had her heart conquered by an architect ex-neighbour residing in London. Someone I’ve known for a long time, but have never met up with properly, is going to settle in the Midlands with her boy.

Do you see a recurring theme? Apparently, from my small control group, anyone above 25 who comes to my part of the world does so either for work or love, or both, but they may not occur simultaneously. And also, sometimes life imitates art imitating life (case in point, our fashion designer and her ex-neighbour and the Taiwanese film Turn Left, Turn Right).

But still, I’m delighted to have more people around. It means I’ll have a greater variety of people to talk to, and invite to dinner parties (conversations with other students usually leaves me with a great desire to talk to someone more interesting, but maybe I’m just being conceited). It also means that I get to speak singlish more often, because sometimes it’s just really tiring to speak proper English all the time and all I want to do is slip into my patois, except of course, I can’t because it is quite unintelligible to anyone else.

Anyway, what all this means, really, is that I will be having the best friend round for dinner tomorrow, and I will be making grilled salmon with julienne vegetables and rice. But in the meantime, it also means that I really ought to get started on that damned essay which has to be finished by 3pm tomorrow or I’ll never get it in by Tuesday morning.

public urban spaces in London are horrid. they are big and grey and look like the droppings of some huge stone pigeon. i hate them. and no one respects the ‘no littering’ signs too, so you get cans and bottles and needles and other assorted rubbish strewn around. the grass is usually half-dead, and the flowers are pathetic.

so, guerrilla gardening is great. make these places greener! i think maybe i’ll buy a huge can of grass seed and divide them up into portions for friends to scatter around, and to have grass is greener on the other side competitions with.

viva la révolution verte!

but here i am in the basement of the LSE, in a room that smells like it hasn’t seen the right side of a mop and a squeeze of lemon-scented detergent for a while, typing away. i blame 2 classes with 3 hours between them on thursdays. have no fear, though - i will go home and enjoy the wonders of this borderless world from the ease and comfort of my twirly chair.

so anyway, other discoveries i’ve made in the internet-less interim:

• gluten-free muesli is good and tasty, but seriously expensive.
• spring means rain, and soggy socks and shoes. thank god for knee-high leather boots and water-proofing spray.
• remembering to eat 3 vitamin pills 3 times a day is quite difficult. especially when they smell slightly strange, like a mixture of seaweed and soyasauce.
• my next-door-neighbour is maybe having an affair, and i allege this from my overhearing loud statements of ‘you selfish bastard’ repeated ad nauseum ad infinitum on sunday afternoon, and also from the presence a woman standing downstairs and shouting all sorts of abuse to someone(s) in that flat (e.g. ‘you f*cking c*nt’, ‘you blackman’s wh*re’, ‘oh you f*cking sl*t’ etc etc).
• living in a block with old people means that seeing ambulances parked downstairs is quite common.
• moneyplants are disgustingly easy to grow, but my supposedly invincible spiderplant has suddenly lost the will to live and is sitting on the balcony looking pale and forlorn. i think it got frostbitten.

uhm. yeah. so that’s it for now. essays (boring and uninspiring ones, at that) are apparently higher on the priority list than seeking knowledge though blog-reading. sigh.

because even the best-laid plans and all that. i can draw up lists and diagrams and graphs, prepare for contingencies and plans B - Z, but i can’t coerce a free/artistic/bohemian/hippie-aspiring-and-also-otherwise-occupied spirit to remember to call up companies one month in advance to arrange things - because, like, it’s one month in advance.

anyway. so no internet, and i can’t even leech off someone else’s passwordless wireless network because most of the people living around me are old folks, and as such, not very technologically advanced. also, it’s a relatively poor area, therefore, even the young people probably can’t afford fancy new gadgets like wireless routers - but of course they can still afford their alcohol and drugs. priorities, my friend.

things are looking up, though. our local pub is the george tavern, which has fantastically fascinating interiors and a cool-hip-young urban crowd. there is whitechapel high street with its market stalls selling anything from onions to mattresses, and Indo - a bar - with great trestle tables and comfy sofa. there’s also the hospital nearby, just in case, y’know. there’s also, obviously, the wonders of brick lane and spitalfields. also, but not that obviously, the colours and sense-assaulting-ness of broadway market and columbia flowermarket. indian food, thai food and chinese.

oh, and my term is ending soon too. so hurrah for the easter holidays, but boo-poo-poo to the revision that’s expected to take place.

i just wish the sun would come out soon.

i’ve so far already missed two of my morning lectures and i really can’t be arsed to go for the seminar at 2.

perhaps it’s the third-year boredom setting in - i know what they want, it’s so predictable, and i also already know what i’m gonna get so just let me get on with all the other things in my life.

in other news, i think spring is finally about to arrive. there have been showers. not drizzle, but proper rain, though not proper proper like monsoon season kind of rain. but still, shan’t complain.

i think to celebrate my skiving, i will go to the supermarket and buy ingredients to make me a pot of beef/lamb stew.

the last ever house party at searles road

and the not-yet-but-close-to-last one at torrens road

this weekend there was funk, there was gabba, there was drum n bass. there were west african drummers and animation video projections. there was much too much alcohol. there was a door busted out of its hinges and frame, there was general disorientation and a kid swinging from a sarong-hammock hung from the beams of the ceiling. there was also waking up to a quiet house and holding hands, and gardening. and lots of tea, orange juice, the weekend papers and laughter to soothe our befrazzled hungover nerves.

the ride is quite scenic, especially over the bridge, but can be rather built-up and concrete-jungly for a lot of the rest. i’m rather enjoying the whole act of cycling, getting the wind in my hair and swooshing down the roads, realising how much faster i am on a bicycle as opposed to on my feet (i dawdle, apparently), and jostling with the rumbling cars and trucks for lane space.

it’s also nice to actually get some form of exercise every once in a (very long) while, although my thighs are killing me right now.

but anyway. not everyone’s interested or vaguely excited about me and my cycling escapades in central london, so i’ll leave it at that.

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more media-friendly a topic would be: how i spent valentine’s day.

if you really really must know, it was spent mostly reading about secured creditors and bypassing the principle of pari passu with regards to an insolvent estate, and about civil society and its incarnations in different contexts.

there weren’t any flowers or candles. dinner was delivered by a man in a michelin-man suit (but in black), and was rather good chinese zhr char (cook-fry?). dessert was strawberry cheesecake that wasn’t for me, and the best gift i got the whole day was a free 1.5L bottle of 7-Up from the place we got dinner delivered from.

i also watched CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, and Prison Break. and then i read ‘hideous kinky‘ by Esther Freud, and fell asleep.

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i had thought about posting a poem that was particularly fitting for the day, but my excitement over going cycling got in the way.

my excitement also caused me to forget to bring several important things like the tv aerial wire, so in order to watch tv we had to dismantle an old aerial that was stuck on the balcony, cut the plastic cover off the end of the cable and stick directly into the wall socket - i’ve never watched tv with such clear reception ever.

but i’ll put the poem i had in mind up anyway. because it’s not only for lovers. because it can be recited to so many different people at so many different times of the year. because it’s funny and sweet. and because this is my party and i’ll write whatever i want to.

Giving Up Smoking
There’s not a Shakespeare sonnet
Or a Beethoven quartet
That’s easier to like than you
Or harder to forget.

You think that sounds extravagant?
I haven’t finished yet -
I like you more than I would like
To have a cigarette.

- Wendy Cope

see, i told you. i bet you at least smiled when you read that. don’t you just love good poetry that causes physical and/or emotional reaction? it’s so primal, really, even though poetry is about the most rarefied literary form one can hope to achieve.

hope you all had a good one yesterday, and remember the rebel that was st.valentine.

or maybe i’ll be better off writing it as ‘tau hway chwi’.

i think i’ve missed the chalky sweet taste of it, which explains my sudden conversion.

all those childhood memories of pouring tau hway chwi out of a plastic bag bought from the market, still warm to the touch. and the big plastic containers with green borders at hawker centers, half creamy white and the other black-brown and slithering with grassjelly. and those white and blue packets of vitasoy.

some of my cartons say soy milk. others say soya milk.

right now, i think ’soya milk’ looks more aesthetically pleasing.

• voluntarily called my mother up for a chat, that ended up lasting something like 2 hours;
• switched to soy milk instead of cow milk for coffees, teas and other milk-requiring foods;
• sent away 3 rolls of films in the post to be developed and printed and then sent back to me;
• skipped a class and made up excuses to the teacher for not attending because I couldn’t face giving a presentation on an incoherent and really lousy lecture topic that I chose at random (I know, I’m such a saddo in so many different ways); and
• begun arranging a holiday for myself on my own to somewhere only I (and perhaps 2 others, just in case I go missing etc) will know.

Yes, it’s been interesting the things I’ve been getting up to (or not).

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I think reading week is installed only because we would lose our sanity otherwise.

I know last term I was desperately craving a break 5 weeks into the whole routine, but didn’t get it. This term, I’ve got it, but somehow I don’t feel as if I’ve been putting in as much effort – perhaps it’s the skipping presentations, and the fact that we do have a break now, mitigating the stress.

But it does give the law students a nice stop-gap to let us come up for air and take in some surrounding views of the land beyond our textbooks. Only law students get reading week at the LSE, but also only because we are the only course that has 2 lectures per subject per week and at least 1 class per subject per week – all other classes get 1 lecture, 1 class, and reading lists about half the length of ours.

So anyway, reading week is fabulous. It’s an extended weekend right smack in the middle of our ten-week terms, given to us by the grace of those above so that they can take a break from our blank faces, distant gaze and slack jaws. It’s also a week where most of us will do anything but reading – except the minority (like me) who have essays due on the Monday after.

Barring that fact, though, reading week means I get to wake up later than usual, potter around the kitchen and in my room, finish reading Weight by Jeanette Winterson, and dismantle my room in bits for transportation to Whitechapel.

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Everyone should grow chives in cans. Or even grass.

It’s exciting watching little green things sprout and grow and lean towards my ultra-bright daylight-simulating fluorescent tubed desk lamp. And they look very silly while doing it as well, providing me endless pleasure and distraction.

The hyacinths no longer hold any appeal for me. Having burst into pinkish-purple blooms, their sickly-sweet cloying scent has resulted in their banishment to the kitchen and also into the cold cold cold outdoors.

Chives and grass are much better.

and everytime i start typing, i get distracted by the hundred thousand other things that are relevant to the topic i’m writing on in general, but absolutely useless to the essay question i’m writing on in particular.

but this is only because i’ve had 2 months mental preparation of an essay deadline that is today, and because i’ve spent the last 2 days doing mostly nothing but lying in bed with a hangover, a glass of water and several nurofen.

and then i blog somemore, and halfway through writing this i realise that my essay question is so philosophical it can be about everything and nothing at all.

But I can’t remember the rest of it, and it wouldn’t make a very good story either. All rise and fall, ascendance and gradual decline and stagnation type of thing. Typical historical example.

So anyway, it’s Chinese New Year weekend.

And I’m planning on my own not-so-little reunion dinner feast with friends on Saturday. No steamboat because some of the people coming are vegetarians (damn them!), so it’s going to be a dinner of at least 5 different dishes as I attempt to do my best Chinese-style cooking.

So far, I’ve already bought 4 packs of dumpling and wanton skins, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, dried mushrooms, towgay, straw mushrooms, chye sim, plum sauce, and wood ear. And I’m not done yet! I still have to buy mince pork, chicken, more vegetables and truckloads of tofu.

I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to coordinate all this cooking and all this shopping, and I’m seriously completely amazed at how my grandmother has been doing it for the past few decades. I mean, for our reunion dinner she cooks for about 25 or so people, and on chor yat itself she prepares enough food for about 50. That is some amazing logistics, I tell ya.

But I’m excited, even though I can foresee a whole day in the kitchen chopping, slicing, stirring, boiling, dicing, mincing, mixing, frying.

I just hope everyone turns up on time and that there’s enough food to go round.

FOR a small island state eager to take its place among the most successful nations in the free world of practising democracies, one would have expected to see a steady increase in political freedom, an ascending line from its virtual non-existence in the rough early years of brute survival, to the emergence of incomplete but distinct forms in a still evolving ethos, to an end point of full functioning in a mature society.

But there has been no such clear path. Instead, we see only a thin ragged line, rather like a small weakly meandering stream that sometimes disappears into the ground.

This sputtering along of the political process is in sharp contrast to the smooth steep trajectories of other areas of development, notably in the economic area, where growth can only be described in breathless superlatives; and even in those areas where the Government has been traditionally conservative, for instance, education and the arts.
Hence while the winds of change are sweeping everywhere, while the clarion call to be creative, to think outside the box, is heard everywhere, the political domain remains a backwater, with every sign of drying up altogether.

- Catherine Lim, Managing Political Dissent, Straits Times 20th January 2006

Apart from being an author, Catherine Lim has also been one of the most outspoken critics of the present government in Singapore to be published in the national press. And for that, I salute her. It’s not often you read such eloquent articles, and especially not when one is talking about the government.

However, although her article speaks of Singaporeans being too comfortable and too fearful as reasons for their continued silence, I would suggest that those are not all the reasons.

Having been thinking for a while about the Singaporean society’s collective morality, I came to certain conclusions as to why it languishes in the era of 1950s post-war colonialism. These conclusions seem also to apply to the lack of a viable channel for dissenting voices to be heard.

The first is that although Singapore is a democracy, it is a socialist democratic state. This is far from the democratic ideal in the minds of most people, who are actually really thinking about liberal democracy. So, rather than a hands-off approach, allowing persons rights to develop their own freedoms through social and political means, the socialist democratic state is ‘’[willing] to restrict the political and legal rights of the individual in favour of a perceived social good’.

Secondly, the ‘early years of brute survival’ mentioned by Catherine Lim is, I imagine, referring to the years following Singapore’s independence from British rule. These early years of strict political control and absolute intolerance of dissent coincided with several extremely important socio-political developments in the already-developed states of that time: the hippie movement, and the feminist movement.

These movements were large scale demonstrations by large numbers of people, supported by intellectuals and politicians. They were also extremely powerful in their promotion of rights and freedoms and individualistic thinking. Apart from some tangential references like the Beatles and other musical groups, the movements and their accompanying ethos completely passed the Singaporean society by.

Lastly, the Cold War that persisted between the Western Democracies and the Communist Bloc helped to develop political freedom and liberal rights in the Western Democracies as a reaction toward the heavy-handed quashing of dissent in the Communist Bloc. By demonstrating their lack of fear of dissent, the Western Democracies attempted to one-up the Communist Bloc and in turn gain favour with the world at large.

Singapore, however, stayed largely aloof from the ideological issue, choosing to emphasise its capitalist free markets first, and its draconian laws against supposed commie anti-government interlopers second. This meant that the outside world saw in Singapore what they wanted to see - a friend of Western-style democracy – but neglected to look beyond that to discover the oppressive political environment which continues today, albeit in a slightly diluted form. As such, political freedom was sacrificed for economic progress, because anyone that was thought to even slightly disagree was liable to be branded a communist and sent to prison without trial.

These factors contributed to the lack of awareness amongst Singaporeans of alternative methods of governance, and even less support for them. They also created a society where one is not made aware of the rights one has, but is highly aware of the consequences of transgressing the governments’ rule. And it has also created a society whereby one can speak vehemently about being anti-government, but only whilst drinking Guinness Stout at the coffeeshop or whilst driving a taxicab.

Also, because the government has had such efficient and effective policies regarding the economy, a large proportion of Singaporeans, especially those that grew up in the post-colonial years, feel indebted to the government for their current success. And because economic comfort breeds passivity, there is no motivation for change, nor is there desire to actively pursue one’s rights or freedoms which one did not realize one was entitled to anyway.

Resultantly, not only has there never been a culture of speaking up in the modern state, many Singaporeans either feel grateful to the government, or have been brought up to be grateful by their parents, because anything else would be biting the hand that feeds you.

This lack of a public political forum is non-threatening to the Singaporean society, but only as long as the government in power has only the welfare of its citizens at heart, uncorrupt, substantially and procedurally fair, a follower of the rule of law, and not given to abuse of power – in other words, perfection.

Anything less would require an active dissenting sector to be the voice of those who are lacking it, to create opportunities for feedback and dialogue, and to allow social and political progression.

No government is perfect, and it is only through dissent can a government look outside its own self-constructed box to view things from another perspective. Without dissent, there can be no improvements. Without dissent, there is no check or balance. Without dissent, there is no liberty.

‘i am afraid of not being successful’.

and i agreed with Mr Cut-Out Korean then, and i agree with him still now.

it’s not failure that’s a problem. failure is good, failure is spectacular and hyperbole. failure is the bang, not the whimper. you can bounce back from failure. failure is the extreme which there is no other choice but up.

mediocrity, on the other hand, is that indescribable chill that runs down the back of my spine. it is boring. it is stagnant. it is arachnophobia where the tarantulas are merely furry animification of my darkest nightmare - of being merely mediocre. it’s a black hole that absorbs everything around it, a vortex of empty invisibility.

where else can one go when one is mediocre? it’s ‘good enough’. it’s not failure in any sense, but it sure ain’t success either. and yet, it is the no man’s land of achievement, and this land is vast and plain. one may travel their whole life in this land of mediocrity and never reach the ends of this sierra of plainness. and although one may have many companions in this journey, one is always alone in their individually personalised mediocrity.

and so it is, with this fear in me, that i scale doggedly up the mountain that is a career, with a bright red flag in hand ready to stake my claim and base camps at convenient intervals to restore regroup and reinvigorate.

because, at the end of the day, i’d like to be able to swan in and out of my job without fear of my financial bearings. i’d like to be able to decide where and when and how. i’d like to call the shots, as they say, and not worry about my next mortgage repayment.

and because i don’t want to find myself in my forties hoping my boss will give out bonuses at the end of the year because i could really do with some extra cash.

in my history list of sites visited in the past few days, all i see is martha stewart, digs magazine and BBC Gardening.

all this domesticity is beginning to scare me.

i mean, how am i supposed to find the time to make new slipcovers when i’m supposed to be out in the garden pruning back the rose bushes or repainting my walls in some visually-arresting colour to make my room seem more interesting?

and all that on top of going to school and doing my readings and attempting to write essays.

no wonder women are going to take 200 years to break the glass ceiling - we’re more concerned with what type of glass it is, whether it lets enough light in, and how clean and shiny it is.

Before we left you’d said, ‘you’re going to have to keep me entertained’.

So I’m curled up in my seat, watching the different shades of darkness and the red-orange-pink glow of lights in the distance. And I’m trying to remember a song. It starts with ‘if only’ but I can’t remember anything else. And I have a ghost of a tune running in my head, but when I try and catch it, it becomes another song.

And then I give up, and we start reciting bits of poems. You tell me a few lines of Robert Frost, and I tell you how much I dislike Blake. And then I tell you how I want to put chaos into 14 lines, and also how they have lied about time.

But most important of all, I told you about the vegetables and the birds, and about how words are for those with promises to keep.

Although much of Singaporean legislation is inherited and/or copied wholesale from the UK, the cultural bias is not merely due to the inheritance of the UK’s cultural reasons as well because the UK copyright provisions no longer differentiate photographs from other artistic works - they are artistic works full-stop. No exception, no ifs buts maybes or perhaps.

If Singaporean legislators thought that photography was a valid and valuable art form, they could very well have amended the legislation similarly so as to give the same protection to photographs as they do to artistic works in general.

And also note that the NAC and other arts-related governmental bodies or government-related organisations represent those in the ‘traditional’ arts such as painting, sculpting, drawing, but not photographers.

Photographers don’t have any representation at those levels because photography is not seen by the most part of society as an art form, but a technical skill that can be picked up upon by anybody and everybody. Because, obviously anyone can pick up a camera and start taking photographs, but not everyone can buy watercolours and start painting. Like, give me a break.

But, really, what I take offence at is not the cultural bias, because that is a given - legislation generally lags behind social acceptance/recognition (e.g. the continuing illegality of homosexuality in Singapore). What is offensive is that it is the little person (i.e. the photographer) who has to burden him/herself with the responsibility of varying or negotiating a contract for service so as to gain more rights for him/herself.

Under UK legislation, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 states in section 11(1) that

11.—(1) The author of a work is the first owner of any copyright in it, subject to the following provisions.

(2) Where a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work is made by an employee in the course of his employment, his employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work subject to any agreement to the contrary.

also, under S90(2),

an assignment or other transmission of copyright may be partial, that is, limited so as to apply—
(a) to one or more, but not all, of the things the copyright owner has the exclusive right to do.

There is therefore no other provision for works made under an agreement for valuable consideration, much less one specifically noting that the copyright in photographic works belongs to the person hiring the photographer for that particular job. The photographer is therefore the owner of his works and the copyright within his works unless he is an employee, and even then the rights are negotiable.

If there were similar legislation in Singapore, photographers acting as independent contractors would be in full ownership of their rights. This would enable them to give away/contract for less rights with those hiring them, but not leave them without any copyright as is possible under Singaporean legislation. The burden would then be on the other party to negotiate with the photographer for the permission to use his or her work in particular ways, rather than on the photographer to prevent it.

The funny thing is if, as I mentioned in the previous post, that more and more companies turn to foreign photographers to shoot their campaigns etc, those photographers would not only charge more for their services, but would also retain more rights than any Singaporean photographer is entitled to under the present legislation. But then again, it is because they are foreign and talented that we give them more concessions than locals, right?

So, there are several ways to change the situation. Professional photographers could a professional body to represent them and protect their rights, with accreditation and referencing systems. Or, they could use written standard form contracts which state exactly which rights are given up, for what purposes and for how long.

Or, they could work outside of Singapore and be very established there (case in point: Clang) - go to Europe, they have moral rights on top of copyright - and thus get greater protection, and could also come back to Singapore and charge higher prices whilst retaining more rights because they have overseas experience, and because they are basically the prodigal children returning into the fold and you’d give them anything they wanted to as to prevent another escape.

There’s no point whining about the sad state of photography in Singapore unless someone’s going to do something about it. And if the photographers in Singapore could look at the wider picture rather than be concerned solely with their own rice-bowls (of course it’s important, but other things matter too), perhaps some joint effort would result in great leaps and bounds in copyright protection for photographers and their works.

If they don’t save themselves, who will?

Copyright is infamous for being culturally biased, and in the context of photography, the genre has only been accepted recently as an ‘artistic work’ – which is defined as ‘a painting, sculpture, drawing, engraving or photograph’ (S7(1) Copyright Act).

However, artistic work or not, the statutory regime seems to treat photography as a second-class genre of an artistic work, with different sections dealing separately with artistic work and photography especially when it comes to authorship and owning of copyright.

S30(5) of the Copyright Act states that

where —
(a) a person makes, for valuable consideration, an agreement with another person for the taking of a photograph, the painting or drawing of a portrait or the making of an engraving by the other person; and
(b) the work is made in pursuance of the agreement,
the first-mentioned person shall be entitled to any copyright subsisting in the work by virtue of this Part, except that if the work is required for any particular purpose, that purpose shall be communicated to that other person and that other person shall be entitled to restrain the doing, otherwise than for that particular purpose, of any act comprised in the copyright in the work.

which in simple English means that if a photographer is hired as an independent contractor to carry out a photographic shoot for someone (or some company), that someone (or some company) automatically owns the copyright to the photographers work.

It’s automatic. No questions asked, no need to argue about it. The photographer loses his rights to any photograph taken in return for payment swiftly and immediately.

Seeing as most photographers, in general and in particular, work on the basis of independent hire and contracting, the Copyright Act sure doesn’t give a lot of protection at all to the photographers in Singapore, does it?

Oh sure, S30(3) allows for

The operation of subsection (4), (5) or (6) in relation to copyright in a particular work may be excluded or modified by agreement.

but seriously, how many photographers in Singapore know about this? And how many of them will make use of this? From my observations, many of them are so happy to get a job that considerations of copyright protection only occur later, when they’ve signed their rights away.

Worst of all, because the copyright automatically rests with the person hiring the photographer, the burden thus lies upon the photographer him/herself to modify or exclude the operation of S30(5). Which then gives rise to the issues of how many of them know exactly which rights need to be protected for their best interests, and how many of them are able to bargain with the other party?

Many regard photography as an unmeritorious and purely technical, and it is this perception that results in the downgrading of the photographers right to protect his or her photographic works as seen above. And because many photographers act as independent contractors, they lack the bargaining power that would enable them to negotiate for better deals or better rights. This lack of bargaining power places photographers in a worse position than plumbers.

The best friend was asked to do a shoot for a well-known fashion line which required at least a few days pre- and post- work on top of the shoot itself for $2,000 - which includes transport, equipment hire/rental, studio rental etc etc etc. Out of that sum, he probably only really gets $500? I mean, if you need a plumber to fix your pipes, you’re not exactly going to bargain with the plumber and cut his fees in half or more, are you?

The situation is further exacerbated by the lack of a overall body or an association of photographers which acts on behalf of the photographers in Singapore to educate them of their rights and how to protect them.

Photographers should band together and prevent the exploitation of their works. If all photographers, or a large proportion of them, were given standard form contracts that they could fill in or delete as required, and if all their dealings with others were based upon these standard form contracts, photographers would be able to gain more rights and protection for themselves. This standard form contract would then be recognized as the contract between a photographer and the person hiring his or her services, and would act to the benefit of both parties involved.

Without co-operation, photographers as individual actors will always be shortchanged and unable to exercise fully their rights and creators and authors of their works. Professional photographers will know better than give away all their rights except at premium prices, and Singapore will be left with a huge pool of amateur photographers who are desperate for any job, and will do them at cut-rate prices without reserving any of their rights at all. You get what you pay for, so cheapskate companies will get lousy photographers and lousy work, which then leads to the companies hiring foreign photographers for the job at higher prices (because they’re foreign talent, y’know?), and less jobs for local photographers, thus making them more desperate thus perpetuating a never-ending vicious cycle.

if the situation does end up that way, alarm bells should ring, and church bells should toll, for the death of Singaporean photography is nigh.

long live Singaporean photography, god save Singaporean photography.

• learnt to make crackling
• cooked boxing day dinner for 10
• using my new favourite kitchen toy, a mezzaluna
• tramped around in 6inches of pure white snow
• helped to make a snowman for the first time in my life
• spoken to my parents twice in a week (a record!)
• and also to every other member of my nuclear family for the first time in months
• apart from actual sleeping, spent the equivalent of 3 days lying in bed watching teevee or reading
• watched the whole of season 1 of M*A*S*H on dvd
• watched most of season 1 of Northern Exposure on videotape
• read ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ by Haruki Murakami
• and also ‘Snobs’ by Julian Fellowes
• and am halfway through ‘Anansi Boys’ by Neil Gaiman
• played Murder Mystery on New Year’s Eve
• following which learnt that red wine, brandy and cava are NOT a good mix
• but wintermelon, carrots, onions and split red lentils are brilliant together for soup, especially because my wisdom tooth is cutting my gums and the inside of my cheek
• smoked the last of my duty-free cigarettes
• amongst various other things…

and so here are the things i ought to do in 2006

• graduate from university with sufficient enough honours
• completely remove gluten from my diet
• make more long distance calls
• have fun with the best friend when he moves to london in february
• introduce best friend to everyone
• move house/flat to somewhere in east london
• travel around england and wales more
• return to singapore sometime or other for a visit
• learn how to plant/garden in containers
• get to know more people, especially people i like
• stop smoking, or at least restrict it to social occasions
• make better use of my library membership
• learn how to negotiate with landlords and lettings agents
• cycle as much as possible
• be less critical and dismissive of my fellow humans
• oh, and of course single-handedly eradicate poverty and conflict, correct climate change, revoke all laws restricting freedom of information and speech and expression and/or only allow the narrowest interpretations of ‘national interest’ or ‘national security’, and become the first female prime minister of singapore - well, we can dream, can’t we?

hope the last week has been as gluttonous and slothful and as filled with alcohol and bad behaviour as mine has been.

onwards ho!

and also to receive phone calls from my dad because he was bored stuck in a traffic jam on the way to bugis junction to pick my mother up, who was calling him repeatedly to tell him to pick her up from somewhere else due to aforesaid traffic jam but could not get through because he was on the phone with me, and then a lot of passing the phone around ’so your mummy can talk to you’ and my dad could go back to shouting at other drivers. so there was news about my grandma, siblings and cousins, and wonderings about whether or not i’d be back for chinese new year this (next) year, and how my studies were going, was i actually studying or really just having fun, and about my graduation and who was going to come in july to attend it. and then also lots of moral lessons passed through the phone line, about ‘that friend of yours’ and ‘proper behaviour’ and ‘think about your reputation’ and ‘tell him not to take it personally’.

are we all janus-faced and multiple-lifed? once again, i will reflect upon the concept of ‘asian values’ as a construct invented to further the social engineering project. and like, whatever.

and while M splutters and is flabbergasted at (1) being the subject of the parental conversation while he could hear every single word of it, (2) my mother being so nasty to him, (3) how not not to take it personally because it clearly was a personal attack even though they’ve never met him before, and (4) what the hell ‘lor’ and ‘lah’ meant, it is also time to pack up the car with still unwrapped presents and other assorted sundries and head off down the A21 and into the southeast - after waking up 3 hours later than planned due to the holding of half-asleep conversations with the parents afterwhich i had to fall asleep again so as to recover from the shock&horror of it all (see above).

oh, and of course ’twas the season for christmas trees, log fires, roast turkey, glazed parsnips, caramelized carrots, roasted potatoes, stuffing, roast loin of pork, brussels sprouts and christmas pudding.

like being caught by surprise whilst scuba-diving, and suddenly having to stay really still while a huge school of barracuda pass you by in their silver-blue-flecks-of-light brilliance.

but anyway, many pictures follow. because i’ve only just uploaded them, even though some date back a month or so.

gig 01: Faust
gig 01: Kid Koala
gig 01: Explosions In The Sky
gig 01: Fourtet
gig 02: Courtney Pine
gig 02: stairwell at the De La Warr Pavillion
the gherkin, on the way to Paul McCarthy at Whitechapel Gallery
self-explanatory, on Brick Lane
where clothes go to die
chive flower husks

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Chive flowers are so pretty when they’re in bloom, and when they’ve seeded they resemble hearts on stalks. Cutting off the heads to collect the seeds, I’ve fallen in love with their raspy paper-like texture, and the faint onion-garlicky smell.

I’ve also bought spring bulbs to plant after suffering a full-blown case of bulb-envy over the weekend. See, M persuaded me not to get any in November because ‘we’ll be moving before they come up’. The fool. Now I see the hyacinths in pots in other people’s houses and I get so jealous I want to pierce the bulbs and introduce root rot. But now I’ve got my own (at half-price too!), and I have to plant them now now now or they’ll never grow, and come spring I might fly into a rage and start eating them damned bulbs.

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Last night there was a Christmas drinks party for the current and future trainee solicitors of the firm I’ve signed my life away to.

Last night there were too many gin&tonics, and waaaay too many flaming sambucas. I hate that sticky sickly sweet thing. The only part I liked about it was holding the fire in my mouth. I’m a fire-eater! RAWWR!

Obviously, everyone there already is or is going to be a trainee solicitor. But I never expected those on the LPC now to be so cloistered. Perhaps I’m reading too much into things, but they seemed so insular and hidden away in that corner of the lounge never venturing out except to get drinks from the barman.

From their midst emerged an ex-schoolmate from Singapore who stopped me and asked ‘Are you from RJ?’ I was slightly stunned by the question, and after answering in the positive had to think really hard to match her face to my memories, and I finally realised who she was whilst in the toilet. But I can no longer remember her name. I’m sure I never knew her name whilst at school, and we only knew each other by sight, each of us navigating our own way and intersecting occasionally through the occurrence of mutual friends. She tried to tell me above the din of the music and drunken lawyers-to-be, but alas, it fell out my ears and mixed with the clinking of glasses and the calls for more tequila. I’m sure I’ll get to know her a lot better when I start my training contract.

But I digress.

Apart from those on the LPC, everyone else seemed to be mingling very well. Too well, I suppose, seeing as it was all this mingling that resulted in those flaming sambucas. And it was interesting that everyone got along, which bodes well for my future, and it felt like a confirmation of this nebulous thing called a training contract that has so far only seemed like a faraway concept. Which is nice, I suppose.

But 24hour drinking rocks, and we ended up horrendously drunk after staggering our visits to 3 different pubs/bars, picking up friends as we went along. Herne Hill is where I’d like to move to, if only it wasn’t so far out and we hadn’t already decided on Bethnal Green.

Saturday was spent shopping with T, and then having fortifying drinks under the arches of Peckham Rye Train Station. Good conversation and amazing buys. I honestly think that our shared post-colonial upbringing (her in South Africa, mine in Singapore) does a lot for our friendship and increases our mutual disbelief at the bend-over-backwards political correctness and social correctness in England.

After which it was back home to a feast of lamb curry, dhal and vegetable curry. And more wine. And more whiskey. And more Port.

I think we overdid the drinking by Sunday afternoon, and last night was spent semi-conscious and hazily hungover in T’s kitchen, having nut loaf, butternut squash soup, tofu and couscous salad and mince pie.

I heart weekends.

Especially when they play out without any deadlines looming, or any niggling feelings telling me I really ought to be back at my desk highlighting and underlining.

But it’s good that term is ending now. I’m so tired, and I haven’t been able to breathe.

I spent an hour or so cycling on my new-old pushbike, and it felt so nice to not think about how best to fit my life in around my work for once. I didn’t think about which chapters I had to finish by tonight, I didn’t think about what I needed to catch up on for my class on Friday, I didn’t think about all the up-coming essays and reports I had to do in the next few weeks. I was occupied by other thoughts, like what to make for dinner and where I ought to be cycling to in order to purchase ingredients (I decided on spiced rice, roasted large flat mushrooms with mash stuffing, and salad, by the way).

And of course now that I’m back, the books loom large on my shelf and the emails start trickling in. Reading schedules have to be worked out for this week and over the holidays, essay deadlines have to be entered into the calendar, feedback noted and filed away.

This last week of term is an academic blackhole. It’s a vacuum where the lectures take place but no one’s really paying attention anymore, and no one really cares what takes place because they’ve all got plans to fly off to foreign lands sometime in the coming week, and questions pop into my head about whether I ought to read now for the first class next term or should I just leave it for now.

But most important question in my head of all: How did I get roped into cooking Christmas dinner for M’s family? This is serious English-ness we’re talking about. And me! Chinese girl from way out there cooking Christmas dinner for 6 to 10 others? Oh dear. It’s going to be interesting times, I can tell.

a discomfort with being still. of sitting here. of being this.

i need to go go go! somewhere or other. before its too late, and i’ll be left with .

and what is it about the closing-in of essay deadlines that results in procrastination?

and the debilitating nature of ignorance, which leaves me shocked and unable to write (much like a rabbit caught in the headlights), whenever i don’t know all, absolutely all the things that i will put down on paper in reply to the essay question.

and the proliferation of happy christmassy green-and-red-and-gold cinnamon-ginger-and-nutmeg-scented thoughts that invade my mind, when really i should to be thinking about the causes of corporate failure and whether we ought to be concerned when companies fail.

and spitting ice through straws from one beige table to the next.

or studying for exams with our books and files strewn all across the long benches, the fans spinning lazily above our head, with only the occasional shriek and laughter to puncture the otherwise quiet.

what about the conversations we had on the spectator stand in between lessons and during breaks, about life and lives and loves and likes.

it all seems like a dreamscape now. i sometimes wonder if they’re real.

i wonder, if it didn’t go so right then, would it all have gone wrong by now?

Aids is a fact. Sex is a fact too.

There’s been a lot of discussion over use of contraceptives as the best form of prevention, and the increasing weight given to abstinence policies which is mainly influenced by Christian America and its politics. American influence has resulted in a sharp fall in the amount of condoms sent to, and distributed within, Africa because the use of condoms promotes a lifestyle that includes sex, and abstinence is about not having any.

Well, abstinence policies will not work in societies where monogamy is not part of their culture. Abstinence policies will not work in societies that call themselves modern, either.

The only effective method of reducing the numbers of HIV carriers is education. Sex education can only be for the benefit of society, and may well help to prevent new cases of infection from arising, apart from raising awareness of teen pregnancy and STIs and other such issues amongst others.

Of course, growing up in Singapore, I was giggly and embarrassed when we had science lessons on the reproductive systems of man and animal. But apart from my childish reaction to the topic, what shocked me was the teacher’s attitude towards it – she said, ‘it’s all in the textbook, I’m sure you can read it for yourself’, and moved on to the next topic. If she had turned to our class of 30 young girls and had given a matter-of-fact explanation of sexual intercourse, I’m sure she would have been highly respected and thought of as especially enlightened.

But that is basically what parents, and the education system, does. Both are embarrassed, more embarrassed than the youths they are addressing I suspect, and both try to fob off the responsibility of speaking about the birds and the bees. The lack of discussion over the simplest aspects of sex reduces the chances of any detailed discussion of sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy and homosexuality. Those issues, especially, are seen as something that could only happen to ‘someone else’ and so no need at all to address them (see yawningbread for a good write-up, here).

We then grow up in a world where we know all about sex, but nothing about it. And, pretend to look away but really, everyone is doing it.

Such is the situation when the government insists that the country is one of traditional morality, and things like sex are hush-hush matters. And the sudden explosion of church-going people love it as well – all these bible-thumping anti-abortion, abstinence-supporting, homophobic creatures. No sex allowed, we’re good Christian heterosexual Singaporeans, unless you’re married to someone of the opposite sex, of course.

Well, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. Singapore is modern. And highly technologised. And highly sexualised. No amount of persuasion can convince me that we still have the traditional morals of ancient China, and anyway, I’m not so sure if they were moralists either – Concubines? Prostitutes? 13th century erotic toys? They had it all – so save the sanctimonious talk and deal with a social problem for once.

Perhaps by getting off that moralistic high horse and accepting the fact that sex happens, in and outside of marriage, greater and more effective effort can be made to heighten awareness of contraceptive methods to prevent situations where women turn to abortions instead of using contraceptives . And seriously, if a gay couple were to talk about contraception and prevention, I wouldn’t think of them as promoting an alternative lifestyle so much as protecting the health and lives of those who are already leading it, and heterosexual couples probably would have a lot to learn from them as well.

Abstinence can only work in highly specific and special situations, for example where everyone is of the same religion or believe in the same moral code, which is impossible in any country today where race and religion are no longer homogenous. And abstinence will not help those in marriages to partners who are infected, and there is growing evidence of more and more infections happening within marriages. And abstinence does not educate.

If we cannot talk truthfully and honestly about sex and its implications, and if sex education remains ignored as a crucial step towards cultivating a mature and responsible sexual lifestyle, then sadly, I’m afraid that we will never be able to find solutions but will always have to deal and cope with the fall-out of institutionalised ignorance.

but i forgot to defrost my ribs. and they’re frozen rock solid in cold wintry weather.

so what else is a girl to do, but to leave them on top of her radiator to thaw?

it’s ingenious, no?

i could have thrown them into the microwave (yes, i do have one), but defrosting meat in the microwave always leaves me with semi-cooked edges that is just not kosher. or i could leave them on the kitchen counter, but then it’ll be midnight before i can start cooking.

so, on top of the radiator it is. now, i just have to cross my fingers and hope pork rib juice/blood doesn’t leak out the plastic bag and drip down the sides of the radiator and onto my bed or floor. ewww

“The PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) is currently studying how we can better engage overseas Singaporeans, in particular recruiting the young overseas students back to Singapore, and is seeking feedback from the students on how the government could facilitate that.” Apparently there was another similar session held a few weeks ago, where some students gave their reasons for not wanting wholeheartedly to return to Singapore after graduation. And in typical talking-down style, the speaker defended all the policies that the students had questioned, and even implied that they were unpatriotic/dishonourable/rude (I’m not really sure what he said, exactly, because I know about it through hearsay, but I know it was something not very nice).

So, I got to thinking.

Why, indeed, is there reluctance for Singaporean students to return to those sunny shores of our garden-island-state? And why do I not witness the same reluctance in any of my classmates that hail from Hong Kong – arguably comparable in terms of size, economy and social demographic?

Personally, I think that returning to Singapore will reduce the chances of any student who has harboured thoughts of an international career to actually embark on it.

There is the comfort (false, it may be) of being ‘at home’ and thus stifling the desire to remove oneself from a place where mummy is just 20mins away. Also, even if one still manages to retain one’s international aspirations, unless one has held a job in an MNC or even a regional company, there is little scope of advancement coming from a wholly Singapore-owned company unless one is truly and remarkably exceptional. Further, the dynamism and get-up-and-go-get-‘em attitude and spirit is just something I don’t see in Singapore, unless you’re talking about the top levels of MNCs, which will be impossible to get a job at without first having had international experience somewhere else, thus perpetuating the problem above.

As discussed with Jem, while I was desperately filling out application forms for training contracts with firms in London and he was twiddling his thumbs waiting for calls to interviews, would you rather be a big fish in a small pond, or a medium sized fish in a big pond?

I think most people concentrate on the size of the fish, but forget about the size of the pond. A small pond can only sustain that much of an ecosystem, and is highly susceptible to external shock. A big pond has a larger, more self-sustainable ecosystem, greater variety of species, and is much better placed to adapt to new situations imposed by external sources.

And anyway, if you’re already a big fish, there’s no impetus to improve oneself or get bigger, meaner and stronger. At least in a big pond, there’s challenge and there’s competition and there’s intellectual stimulation.

Like I told several of my interviewers, I want to work internationally and it’s a lot easier to work in international offices having started out in London than in Singapore. One just cannot deny the fact that certain cities have better and more attractive prospects than others in terms of getting to the top-end of a not-so-level playing field.

Another reason might be society. Perhaps after being exposed to the free and liberal-mindedness of mainstream society and the press, Singapore seems claustrophobic and smothering. This would explain the difference in attitude between the students from Hong Kong and those from Singapore. Civil society in Hong Kong is much more developed there than in Singapore despite, and in spite of, the fact that they are a Chinese territory.

Or it might just simply be down to a matter of money. I can only do a comparison between lawyers, but I will assume that the information can be extrapolated into other fields. For a lawyer who qualified in 2001, average yearly pay would be £42,500 - £53,000 in London, £60,000 - £72,500 in Hong Kong, and £26,500 - £50,000 in Singapore (source here). Even after taking into account the cost of living, Singapore still doesn’t seem to provide the best remuneration, especially since many firms in London provide perks like you’d never believe, e.g. free use of on-site gymnasium with swimming pools, in-house café/restaurants, season passes to football, theatre or opera, etc.

So, what can the Permanent Secretary of the PMO do to convince people like me to return?

Nothing, really.

Anecdotal evidence amongst fellow schoolmates who have gotten jobs in London has shown that nothing much can be done to convince them to return immediately after graduation. It’s not selfish or unpatriotic to think that if one can begin a career in London, one should embrace it and make the most of one’s opportunity. In fact, I think one ought to be suspicious of anyone who is overeager to return to Singapore and who has been scornful of others’ attempts at securing a job in London after graduation, but perhaps I am not giving enough weight to the ties of family and girl/boyfriends.

Nevertheless, I think the question posed focuses on the wrong group of people. What good can fresh graduates do in a system where heirarchy, seniority and bureacracy reigns? Whatever fresh ideas and new thoughts that we might introduce will merely be dismissed as being the ‘idealistic wishful thinking of a young upstart’. So, unless that changes and the views of young people are regarded as equally important and useful, both of which are highly unlikely, then perhaps it should not be us that the government should be seeking to attract.

Perhaps the more important question ought to be, after establishing careers and proving ourselves to be good at what we do, what can be done to convince us then to return to Singapore? Or, what can be done to convince already-established professionals with international experience to return to Singapore?

But until then, it seems there is not much magnetism emanating from Singapore when scholarship students find as many ways as possible to delay their return, as evidenced by a surge of Master’s students present in and around the country, and when scholars quit the public sector soon after they have finished their bond in search of greener pastures elsewhere.

Panic is when there is no money in my printing account, no staples in any of the fucking staplers in the printing room, no paperclip to attach forms to envelope, and no time.

But it’s okay. Because everything turned out fine, and I got my forms countersigned and sent off right before my lecture at 4pm.

Now, I’m off to do the crossword.

+ And then there were the railworks between Robertsbridge and Hastings, i.e. no train from Battle (Welcome to 1066 Country!); driving through some serious countryside to get to Frant, where we dumped the car and got on a train back to London to see

+ The Doctors of Love at Filthy McNasty’s; great music, but overcrowded by fashionista types with perfect hair and black wardrobes and skinny men in blazers (i think real fashion and magazine fashion might be slightly out of sync), but increased the count of my possessions by 2 proper gin glasses. hurray!

+ Further procrastination and paucity of work done; the coldness has set in and my brain refuses to thaw itself. resulting in lots of newspaper reading and thumbing through christmas catalogues for gifts i’ll never give or receive.

+ With the winter looking like how it is, i’m not looking forward to anymore school; the holidays are so close and yet so far, with an essay and 2 reports to get through first. oh the obstacles to freedom! and the obstacles to curling up beside the radiator all day long, getting up only for hot chocolate and cake.

As defined in the Film Act (CAP 107) S2(1):
“party political film” means a film —
(a) which is an advertisement made by or on behalf of any political party in Singapore or any body whose objects relate wholly or mainly to politics in Singapore, or any branch of such party or body; or
(b) which is made by any person and directed towards any political end in Singapore;

and according to the Societies Act (Cap 311) S2,
“political association” includes any society which the Minister may by order declare to be a political association;

and the Political Donations Act (CAP 236) S2(1)
“political association” means —
(a) a political party or an organisation which has as one of its objects or activities the promotion or procuring of the election to Parliament or to the office of President of a candidate or candidates endorsed by the organisation; or
(b) an organisation (not being a branch of any organisation) whose objects or activities relate wholly or mainly to politics in Singapore and which is declared by the Minister, by order in the Gazette, to be a political association for the purposes of this Act

And of course the video is persuasive. Don’t we believe everything we see on teevee, and believe everything we read or hear? I mean, we’re trained to believe in the absolute truth of what we are told, and not to question the right or wrongs of it.

Weren’t we?

i heart reggae. i heart rastas too.

ooh! one of dem dey got dreds!

this is much too amusing for a midday monday when i’m supposed to be starting on writing an essay 3 hours ago but have not typed out one word.

and amongst the jangling of bottles and cans, oh wait. they’re not the dustbin men. they’re the recycling people! all the more fitting to have reggae drift down the street, those songs of freedom.

RASTAFARI!

i wander through my mind and my memories and wonder what’s happened to all the people i used to know, and how they’re doing.

perhaps it’s the cold and the dark, but i seem to be doing that a lot more often nowadays. i try and remember the last time i’ve seen so-and-so, and its usually such a long time ago that i can’t remember.

and sometimes i wish it was that time again when the three or four of five of us hung out at Gardens or playing mahjong or just chilling and playing cards in the cafe.

what happens when the friends you’ve made along the way somehow or other ended up on a different route? and when will the place and time come when our paths intersect once more and for that moment we can pretend that nothing else has changed?

there are so many people i’d love to call up and catch up with whose numbers i no longer have or never had in the first place.

shame.

i used to cut my hair with a specially-made-for-layering scissors, with the blade on one side and a comb on the other. somehow, between moving from cartwright gardens to elephant&castle, they got lost and were never to be found again.

my hair hasn’t been trimmed in 13 months. the last time was when Taka cut my hair for free when she was at the Vidal Sassoon Academy in Knightsbridge and needed a model.

i’m just waiting for a few more weeks so i can magically transform this dry and knotty haystack into some semblance of chic elegance (yeah right). failing which i will chop it all off and have the christmas holidays to grow it out again.

The bad thing about it is that we law students become so insular that we are mostly like going to be inbred and have really ugly behavioural patterns in the next generation. And no one else really likes us because all we do is talk about law and commerce and realities of life, and sometimes about reform, but absolutely nothing soft and cuddly and nice (or politically or socially provocative, in the context of the LSE and it’s general student populace).

I don’t really mind being seen as a corporate whore and ‘just-another-bankerstrokelawyerstrokehighfinance-person’, but the worst thing is finding that the only friend (who is not Singaporean) that can understand my take on careers paths, money and the property ladder is someone who lives in Kensington. Okay okay, it’s not about him living in Kensington. It’s about all the other people who think that they have a moral upperhand because they’re studying policy or economics and want to work in the UN or some NGO out in some war-torn strife-ridden place, who also insist that they’re miserable because they don’t live in Kensington, but have never worked a day in their university life, unlike the Kensington resident who was a banquet waiter for most weekends of the year.

My annoyance also extends to many of my coursemates who criticised my class choices last year (oh, it’s all so commercial! Why don’t you do something more… intellectual?), but who made the exact same choices as i did for their third year. And there I was thinking that they were serious academics and all about ethical arguments and moral issues and the other more worthwhile things in life and mind, and I was just another moneymakingmachine. Honestly, that’s just asking for my vitriol, isn’t it?

But anyhow, it’s been cool mostly. And the full implications of my law degree is slowly but surely sinking in and creating quite a lot of fear and nervous anticipation. Good stress, though. I don’t think I’ve had so much fun academically since… since never. Wee~!

The days are short. Carpe diem. Get as much drink down your gullet before the sun goes down.

These are the things I wish I had had the money to have bought at the market:
- apple&plum custard tartcake
- a whole wild seabass
- a kilogram of langoustines
- bunches of vegetables
- a cut of steak
- oak smoked herring and mackerel
- lime tree / marsala honey

But this is what I really actually spent my money on: an okay only latte from a greasy caff on the perimeters of the market.

And then to the Southwark Tavern we went for lots of drinks and calamari strips while waiting for W, a friend I see maybe only once or twice a year, to turn up. As the draught blew its way in, we retreated into the bowels (really, basement cellar) of said Tavern for lunch of sirloin steak ciabatta (me) and wedges with sautéed mushrooms and cheddar cheese (M) and sausages&mash with roast onion and gravy (W).

Lots of talking talking talking and wondering what we (he, W) wanted to do with his life, about travelling and Spanish, and Mexico Germany and Asia. Racism and being poitically correct bollocks and class and innate prejudices. And also about music and art and silly/scary/beautiful films that we’d recently seen or want to see.

Oh, and also about illegitimate relatives turning up 26 years after the fact and getting reintegrated into the family.

It was all so very very good.

Now that I’ve had such an exciting and inebriated day, all I can really do for the moment is the laundry and the vacuuming. And after this, sink down back into bed and read the Saturday papers and watch crappy teevee.

Have you had a nice day today?

i remembered that day - the only day, really - when i ended up with you in Montpelier. that morning, walking through the narrow streets to buy the breakfast things, i thought how nice it was this place and how nice it was to be there. it was beautiful weather, wasn’t it? the huge trees behind high walls, while you were telling me about tunnels in hedges in devon where you grew up.

and then you made me breakfast while i sat on the kitchen counter amazed at how officious sounding your full name was. i’m sure i laughed out loud. and we had tea in the sitting room on the couch all tangled up in knots of arms and legs.

we never did meet up again after that. although there were times we were in the same town, somehow plans always took us someplace else.

has it been almost a year since?

when you come back to this ol’ island from that place where you are right now, we really should go for a drink. or many drinks. i’d like that very much, i hope you will too.

+ do do the things you write down last night for this morning

+ the weekend is over, darling

+ go get groceries or starve to death

+ yes, explosions in the sky are a lovely band, but you aren’t supposed to stare into space whenever they come up on iTunes (which is many a time)

+ you are supposed to be reading textbooks, not lovely library books like Lighthousekeeping or Orlando or The Pickwick Papers. those are for later. much later.

+ stop talking to yourself while in the garden repotting big bunches of parsley, it makes you look madder than you are

that’s all, my dear. till next time. x

-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Talking about moving, and the formalities like whose name should go on the bills (his) and whose name shall go on the tenancy agreement (mine, only because I’m student and we won’t have to pay council tax) and also about the Berlin-thing.

Turns out, I’m probably going to have the whole flat to myself a lot more than I thought I would. It’s good in the sense that I was freaking out slightly over my potential loss of personal (study) space and so this will mean I’ll have lots of space and quiet to do just that. On the other hand, I’m not so sure about living alone alone in an area that I’m not overly familiar with.

But then again, it’s all still waaaaaay early times to be talking about anything. I mean, we’re not even going to seriously look for places until January or February, and we’re not moving till March. We’ve got loads of time to figure things out and get into some sense of things.

For now, I’ll just continue my live-alone-rehearsal since he’s away till Tuesday.

And hearing the fireworks go off in the distance knowing I could be out there somewhere watching the fireworks/bonfire displays for guy fawkes, but being indoors is so much warmer and cosier.

Especially after an all-nighter houseparty where the last guests staggered out at 5am, and the punchbowl was laced with absinthe and cherry brandy.

Weekends, the stuff holidays are made of. I’d quite like a month of weekends, especially now that ryanair is having (from) free ticket promotion. And of course, now that there is a better than ever reason to make regular trips to Berlin, long weekends and ticket offers will come in very handy.

I have also lost all interest in dressing up as pontianak for our party today. I’m too tired and fatigued to do anything but sit and stare while Owen makes curry and Matt rearranges the room and they make punch with absinthe and brandy.

I need a reading week break.