aftermath

my social life can resume itself now.

i've clicked on 'submit application' while crossing my fingers enough times. i've also been staring at the computer screen too long. and i've also been nitpicking at words far too much.

right now i wish i was at home in london, listening to the traffic roar behind the wall, sitting out in the garden watching the aphids suck the life out of the bean plants while drinking red stripe and smoking benson & hedges gold.

or maybe i could be in koh samui on the 26th watching the luminescent moon cast its milky glory on all us party-goers.

a leeky brain

i'm the first one to admit that i'm a geek and i don't mind people telling it to me either. so i have to say that i was really excited today when i realised that i was going to sit in on an arbitration hearing(?) with the head honcho at my firm.

everything that they taught me in commercial contracts on alternative dispute resolutions and arbitration clauses suddenly flashed through my head and my eyes opened super wide and my jaw dropped open.

'like, oh my god, it's happening in real life! and i get to see it! wee hee~!'

but of course the idea of it is always better than the actual exercise, and i had to do my utmost to hide my yawning from misterheadhonchoman by scribbling things in my notebook and drafting answers to those seriously weird questions. it also helped that there was free coffee and tea and cakes and sandwiches and samosas - free food is always exciting right?

oh, and there was an interesting article on the page facing the inside back cover (i'm too lazy to go find the page number) in the Straits Times today on the increasing wealth-gap and the problem of continuing the academic meritocracy system, i.e. the rich will get richer because they can afford the best everything for their children and so their children will do very well in schools and be given scholarships when they don't need it and then they will come back from overseas and become very rich and important people and then they will have money to afford the best everything for their children and then you rinse wash and repeat ad infinity ad nauseum, while the poor will remain in the vicious cycle of poverty and deprivation.

of course the writer makes a better argument than i have, and i'm merely generalising and making sweeping unsubstantiated statements - but i really feel that this is a genuine problem that the society in singapore faces, and it will only get worse. i always feel very humbled by people i know who have succeeded in life despite their backgrounds, and always ask myself whether i actually deserve whatever i've achieved so far. it might not have been a silver spoon but at least i didn't have to use my hands.

dead line

my brain tells me that there is a training contract application whose deadline is today. or today when it is midnight in England, anyway.

but i can't find the email that told me that. and i don't know which firm it is because there are too many. so. that's one application in the trashcan. unless by some miracle i find it and i finish it.

and why do they always ask you questions like, "Give an example of a complex situation where you have been pro-active to produce a successful outcome". uhm.

sad drunk and poorly

going to the office with a hangover and only 3 hours of sleep is not funny. not funny at all.

and having to discuss a bill of costs and talk about principle and quantum and whether or not we are justified in claiming that amount? trust me, it was very painful and difficult. especially since i'd not done any background work and only read the notes to the civil procedure rules an hour before the meeting.

i don't think half a dozen gin&tonics on a weekday night will be a good idea again anytime soon. at least not while i still have to get up at 6am and get into the office at half-eight.

// on the other hand, i've sent in one of my applications (out of perhaps 35). *cross fingers* give me an interview and give me a job, and i'll dedicate the next 4 years of my life, the best years of my youth, to you absolutely. and i really i mean it. for now. //