Arrived home today in a bad mood because I now have AS work on top of my mountain of work. Sigh. Whined and sighed a lot to no one in particular but since my mum was at home some of my whining was at her. Luckily she can tolerate whining.
Switched on the computer and watched Jennifer Lawrence's Oscar speech. She's quite funny. And pretty! I like her. She's my new favourite now, although I'm not sure who my previous favourite was. She's only 3 years older than I am and she's won an Oscar! Awestruck.


There's somebody else I decided to officially fangirl, and that is Joseph Gordon-Levitt... For being talented and for looking cute.
.

Now that I've sufficiently motivated myself, I shall begin work.

Ohmygosh seriously is there no end to all this work.
LEGRANDSIGH.

Let me be a bit self-absorbed and post my to-do list here. So I can get some bearings on what I'm supposed to be doing. This is week 8.
1. Catch up on Tort week 7 readings
2. Read Tort week 9 readings
3. Revise contract: discharge by breach, discharge by agreement and performance, discharge by frustration, damages I and II. Test next Thursday.
4. Do contract skeletal for hypothetical. Due next Tuesday
5. Catch up on contract week 7 (and a bit of week 6) readings
6. Read contract week 9 readings
7. Start on TWC report and remind group members that it's probably due in week 11.
8. Start researching on TWC individual presentation topic. Due week 10, presenting week 11.
9. Start on AS presentation slides. Due week 10.
10. Sit down and piece together what really happened in LRW appellate brief assignment. Lots of visualization required. Due week 11.
So screwed, so screwed. Happy birthday.

Drifting in a sea of work indeed. But the lyrics are quite sweet.

My parents must have experienced a harder life than I am experiencing now. I wonder how they did it and how they still managed to bring us into the world. It's quite a miracle that I exist.
So I don't really want to spend my existence whining about school.
But still, there are challenges ahead and they are uncertain, dark shadows in my future.
Still, the presence of shadows means there's light!
Okay anyway I'm facing tort now and the amount of readings I have to catch up on is quite soul-crushing.
AWGHHHHHHHHH AND THERE'S STILL OTHER SUBJECTS

Disturbed at how the tort of negligence is still evading me.
Disturbed at how distracted I am.
Tort is killing my brain.
AGHHHH

This is nice, by the way.

And here's another quote-worthy quote from said book!
"When you are measuring life, you are not living it."
I guess this doesn't only apply to time. Stop checking your watches, stop comparing how good you look, stop calculating favours. Just live!
Woohoo goodnight.

Sometimes I read something that changes my mindset forever. I've just started reading this book, The Timekeeper by Mitch Albom, and there's a sentence that goes like this:

"Sometimes, when you are not getting the love you want, giving makes you think you will."

What a sad sentence...

It just makes me feel like there's not enough love going around this world, because people are just too shy, conservative, lazy, or just too full of their own lives to bother. Or too prejudiced. Too narrow-minded. Too blinded by misunderstandings. Too much inertia, too much rigidity. It creates more isolation in our lives. But on the bright side, I guess it's a good thing that people still try to love. Occasionally they are rewarded. And by the way, remember that there are different sorts of love. 

And here's another sorrowful bit in the book--

"As mankind grew obsessed with its hours, the sorrow of lost time became a permanent hole in the human heart. People fretted over missed chances, over inefficient days; they worried constantly about how long they would live, because counting life's moments had led, inevitably, to counting them down."

I guess that's why I'm afraid of having free days with absolutely nothing to do.

But yet when I'm busy I yearn for free time alone.

Aiyo, 做人难. Imagine if you were a little puppy and you had no conception of time. You'd just live in blissful ignorance till the day you die. You'd probably be happier. Would you rather know and be less happy, or not know and probably be happier? But there's no point thinking of an answer to this question because it's not like we can change who we are. 

I remember reading somewhere that we don't know how best to live our own lives because we don't have any comparison. We only have one try at living the life we want. I forgot where I read that. Anyway what I wanted to say is, there's a solution to that, which is reading biographies of famous people. Not sure whose biography to start with though. Any suggestions? Maybe I should read the biography of a tortured soul, like Sylvia Plath. And then maybe I could move on to the biography of a happier person. But there I am stuck. Who can say that they are truly happy? Okay, maybe Justin Bieber's biography might fit the bill. There's a problem though. He's younger than me by 1 year. Who reads biographies of people younger than them??(And apparently he has the same birthday as me. My soulmate...)

Crap I'm typing so much rubbish. I should be starting on my Revision Plan for Recess Week.

Here's a happy song for you. Listening to this song makes me visualize hobbit holes and rolling green hills. 

But I checked out the lyrics immediately after I wrote that and I realized, hey, it's actually a sad song hidden in a happy tune.

How do I live, what do I give now? With my sweet love gone, with my sweet love gone. 

;( ;( ;(

I guess we can never be 100% happy. But... a few moments of happiness are enough. 

Birthday coming in about 1 week! Turning 20. Doesn't feel like much. Conversely I feel as if I don't like birthdays because it feels like some sort of "Judgment Day" where a) I realize that I'm older and supposedly more mature and b) I'm not sure how I should celebrate it, or if I even should, because it's not a very special day anyway.
Oh no, I'm getting old.
A birthday I'd like would be spent doing something unusual, out of the ordinary. Not sure what fits the criteria though.

Addicted to this song. Much better than the original IMO.
Quite sian today. Sigh I think I have an attitude problem. Or maybe I just need a break. But before I get my break, I need to finish my client letter. Don't we all need a break...

A day of negativity
What this means is, I've never felt so tired before; it's quite a new level of tiredness. I am so going home to sleep. My eyes can't fully open and its half closed most of the time.
And when I feel tired I feel wretched and I think sad things. And I can't connect to people as much, it's like a part of my mind is hibernating.
Tort mid terms was fine IMO but the thing is you never really know how you did until you get the paper back.
Maybe it's really a strain to be in a cca but as I told a friend today, it's what keeps me going in school. I can't imagine a life with only my readings to do. No one can lead such a monotonous life. It's better to be a happy tired person than a sad energetic person. Energy makes sadness worse, you have more energy to feel the emptiness in you.
And after this week I'll be FREER.

-------
Just had a nap and dinner and the world looks lovely now.
After 1.5 semesters of school, I think I've learnt quite a bit and I've grown more humble, and I've learnt that I'm just another human being in a sea of human beings. I'm not as special as my schools have been teaching me to think I am. Schools always tell you that you're unique and what not, right? But I don't think I am. I'm not saying this in a bad way; there's nothing wrong with being ordinary. I just feel like individualism has been overrated in the past.

Lovely covers! ^_^

Living life dangerously.
A nicer way to say how I'm so pressed for time but I have no choice but to do the stuff I need to do anyway, despite a lack of confidence about the quality of my work.
These days I haven't been totally present even though I might have been physically present. Sigh. I think I'm just built to not be able to function well with lack of sleep. I think the prof must have noticed my rather vacant expression about twice today. She's the fiercest prof ever. Luckily she was in a good mood, and the gods were probably watching over me, because she didn't scold me but looked in my general direction and said, you need to fake your enthusiasm a bit better. And note: I wasn't sleeping! My face just looked vacant I guess.
Oh my, I want my life back.

Blogging on the train again. Life sucks. At least for this week. But for now it really sucks.

Maybe I was exaggerating about being in code red, because this CNY was quite relaxing. :)
Meanwhile here's a song that I'm addicted to:

HAHA HOW SCREWED AM I

I need to 

a) do my legal memo

but before I do my legal memo, I realize I need to know what's going on in damages II, which I did not read because I was having my presentations.

b) study for tort

but before I study for tort I need to catch up on my tort readings, which I did not do because I was having my presentations.

ALL IN A WEEK

Okay, code red again, good luck.

After a really busy 1st half of the week I think I slacked off the 2nd half of the week. :( And now I'm faced with quite a lot of work...
NO SLACKING! CNY ain't a holiday, it's a time to catch up on work and finish my assignment.
Word of the week: DISCIPLINE.

Samba is fun but the trainings are so often. Sigh. Esp since the concert is coming. But overall I would say that the benefits of joining outweigh the costs. I wouldn't be such a happy person if I weren't in it. And I wouldn't have learnt so much about... people and drums.

Really... Here's a heartfelt word of caution to myself to stop slacking!
Stop.
Slacking.
Start.
Work.

"Don't give up what you want the most, for what you want now."
i.e. marsha don't give up your studies for what you want now which is lots of slack time!

Sitting in a coffee bean near my house now and enjoying red velvet cake and hot chocolate, because I wasn't hungry enough to join my friends for lunch! Although on the way here I got really hungry. And sleepy.

Thought through a number of things on the way to coffee bean....realized that whenever I feel bad, I just have to remember that there are much worse things in life, as my brother said. And I also have to be more generous to myself and not keep sticking to the same old routine of samba study sleep eat study lessons and so on! And if I'm more generous I tend to be a happier person. 

Today I decided not to go for lunch with classmates in the end cos... I guess I decided that I needed some time alone. Some time spent not doing anything at all! So I decided to give myself a treat... it can be a treat for finishing 3 presentations in 2 days. I realize I have the tendency to change my mind at the last minute, but ... whatever. No ill intention! 

Presentations and strict profs really do make me grow up. Yesterday I got chided by my prof during my presentation, because of random little things-- she did warn us that she was going to be come down hard on us. But... after the presentation I just shrugged it off because some people just like to be mean to others to help them learn. The prof did say that she's so harsh because she feels that she's a gateway-- she keeps out the people who aren't good enough to be lawyers. Hmm... sounds noble BUT ominous. What a paradox. Anyway after the presentation my groupmate gave me a cute face and a thumbs-up. Hahaha! :) So it made me feel good. 

Anyway yesterday I also realized that samba is a huge factor that keeps me going in school. And even if I'm not super close to the people, I don't think it matters at all. 

I don't know how my classmates are so driven to go for moots. Just finishing my readings and getting decent grades is sufficient for me already. o_o Different things make different people tick. 

AND I need to burn midnight oil more times because I'm behind in my readings. I've been switching off for the lessons this week because I have no idea what the prof is saying. SIGH.

I miss all my friendsss. Will arrange meet ups soon. Or already in the process of arranging. Except for friends who are overseas. 

Right!! So my major presentations are over. :)
WAHAHAHAHAHAH
But I realized that the state of my readings is very bad because I'm lagging behind by about 2 weeks for tort and 1 week for contract. So it's out of the frying pan and into the fire maybe.
Got chided (but not very badly) by my prof during my presentation, and felt quite sad about it after. But cheered up significantly during samba and now I'm thinking it's all just part of a ploy to make me learn.
Cca person just said in our whatsapp chat that I and another girl wear a mask to cca. i.e. we don't bitch. Well... I just am not bitchy. And my friend too, that's why we get along. Though I must qualify the term 'bitch'-- I don't think it means anything derogatory in this context, it just means... really opinionated and out-spoken.

Today the head announced that we would be going to Brazil end of this year. 

OH YEAHHHHH

I honestly hope it stays that way and they don't change their plans or whatever. 

COOL

Imagine going to Brazil to play samba.

WOOHOOO

I guess I will stick it out. 

And endure sleepless nights.

Like tonight.

I WILL NOT SLEEP TONIGHT