今早起床，看到餐桌上摆着一盒月饼。忽然想起五年前的笑话。

走出了这一场迷雾阳光还有温度每一场离别
当时都仓促是距离让人领悟
...
回首这风雨微笑竟然是我最常想起的表情

男子汉大丈夫, 跌倒了再爬起来. 没什么大不了.

Tonight, she told me what I dreaded to hear.

I dont think I have what it takes to continue blogging here. The muse is gone, the feelings have erupted. Somehow, I'm totally empty. Void.

I'm a fucking wreck.

Thank you everyone who reads this blog, for reading this at all. I know at times it's been silly, at times its been sleep-inducing, at times cryptic and others, just plain boring. Thank you.

Thank you to my friends who love me. Chui, Shir, Yj, Penn, LY, King C, D, Ry, WK; friends whom I've gotten to know through this blog like M, Celly, Dida; juniors all, and any others I missed. For what pittance it is worth, I love you guys too.

I will leave now. I know not where. From Friday I will be in China, physically at least. I may not return. I have the plane tickets, but not the courage.

Goodbye, Adieu, Au revoir.

And thats all, folks.

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To you: You will not read this because you have no habit of reading my blog, but I really need to tell you... I really love you. Whether you believe it or not. As much as a man can possibly love a woman. Truly.

I wish you well... always; forever.

Goodbye.

Of all the loserly thoughts in the world

因为我知道这样子，你会不开心。

THE best explanation of Stare Decisis... ever

For the non-lawyers, "Stare Decisis" basically refers to the legal principle that a court of lower competence has to follow decisions on the law pronounced by courts of higher competence. This keeps things in order. So thats my explanation of the concept. Look how this Canadian judge explains it!

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"Any legal system which has a judicial appeals process inherently creates a pecking order for the judiciary regarding where judicial decisions stand on the legal ladder. I am bound by decisions of Queen's Bench judges, by decisions of the Alberta Court of Appeal and by decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. Very simply, Masters in Chambers of a superior trial court occupy the bottom rung of the superior courts' judicial ladder. I do not overrule decisions of a judge of this Court. The judicial pecking order does not permit little peckers to overrule big peckers. It is the other way around."

South Side Woodwork (1979) Ltd. v RC Contracting Ltd., [1989] A.J. No.
111, 95 A.R. 161 at 166–67, para. 51–53 (Alta. Q.B., Master)
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The citation is included here for any brave soul who wishes to adduce this point in submissions. :)

Dare of the day: Tell a judge, "Your Honour, you are a small pecker"
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- courtesy of Yj

Some times, all I want to do is... to sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub. For in that sleep... what dreams may come.

Somewhere out there

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May has come and gone.

A few days ago I was thinking to myself how this year was much like last year, just in reverse. Last year I was away and alone. This year, it is everyone else who has gone off and away.

This is one of those evenings that has a person thinking about times past. A warm day, spent exactly the way most days were spent back in uni or even before. Dinner with the family, then relaxing in front of the tv watching an old rerun. And the gentle night wind that occasionally breezes in the open windows brings with it the fragrance of frangipanis. A smell that brings back memories of days gone by.

Life can be this simple, and be good. Or perhaps, it might be better to say that life is good because it is simple.

Where has time gone? Where have the days gone?

Where have you gone?

Some things change. Some things don't.
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And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby,
it helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky...

cherries and knots

I was at this lovely jazz bar last night with some friends enjoying the music, which was really good (those interested in knowing where it is, pls email me). The bunch of us consisted of two law students from the UK, a lawyer from Indonesia, a lawyer from Spore and another Sporean law student who just graduated... there we were listening to the music, chatting and joking and having round after round of cocktails... it struck me at one point how very Ally Mcbeal-ish the scene was. :)

Anyway, at one point the talk turned to how genetics determine a lot of things, like tolerance for alcohol etc etc. And then one of my friends took a cherry from her cocktail, popped in into her mouth and ate the cherry, then proceeded to tie a knot in the cherry stalk using just her tongue and teeth... just to demonstrate the point that the flexibility of your tongue is determined by genetics. That of course triggered a round of attempts by everyone else at the same.

My Indonesian friend (who had a thing for cocktail cherries) just couldnt do it, try as he might. He disgustedly took the cherry stalk out of his mouth and threw it on the table and gave it a look of disdain... a moment later, a mischievous twinkle came into his eye and he said... "I just take the cherry, I dont tie the knot."

:)

Shape up or ship out

My friends and frequent readers of this blog will know that I'm proud of the fact that I'm a commando. I've never felt it was wrong to be proud of something you've worked hard for (much like I'm proud to be a lawyer). There are people who will ridicule you for what you are... people who will say how stupid you are for having to "suffer" two and a half years whereas they chose to be clerks (by faking injuries etc) and spent their time in comfort. *shrug* To each his own. I just feel that there is more to be proud of that I'm generally more well-trained, faster, tougher and stronger (ok, admittedly these things are in the past). Rather than having wasted the years in the army, I made maximum use of the time to learn what I can, develop life skills, experience a wide variety of things I would never have had a chance to otherwise.

Simply put, life is a measure of time... how much of it you get. Time = Life. A waste of time is a waste of life.

Anyway, another thing I like about being a commando is the ethos of the corp. There is this whole brotherhood thing going on... it is the bond from commonality of experience, from knowing that the man you are addressing has experienced the same kind of sh*t, gone through the same kind of pressure/stress/training, from sharing a common language that stretches beyond technical terms to common expressions of disgust or even similar swear words. So when you know that such and such other person is a commando, you know that you can trust and depend on that person to at least a certain extent, that at a certain level you are both the same, even if that other person is a complete stranger.

Yesterday I received a letter; "On Government Service" it was marked. I opened it and, not surprisingly, it was a letter from the Army. The Commanding Commando Officer for all NS commandos (reservist commandos) had decided to write us a letter! haha... this is really what this post is about, the letter. It was pretty amusing. :)

The letter opened with "Fellow Commando," and immediately there was the feeling of the old familiarity again... even though I'm dead sure he doesnt know who I am. The first paragraph then went on to update us about how there have been certain changes in command with people being appointed to certain posts. Then it mentioned that this officer has vacated a post and moved on to other things. Then the line, "I believe most of you will remember him for his 1000 sit-ups sessions". hahaha... I just had to laugh when I read that. I dont actually remember this officer and have not been subject to his 1000 sit-ups PT sessions, but I've done a few hundred at once and I know what its like (the only thing I've done more than 1000 of at once is jumping jacks. Its so painful u just have to laugh.) haha... It just reminded me of the insane dedication we had to bettering ourselves physically. We used to have people who would book in early on sunday nights so they could run... or forego lunch everyday so they could do 16km runs. Voluntarily.

Anyway, the letter went on to talk about other things, and then this paragraph "Moving to ground issues, I will confess I am a stickler for training standards, and I am sure many of you are too, and will agree that Commandos have to maintain the highest training standards -- otherwise we are just wasting our time." The paragraph then talked about how some commandos have not been performing up to standards recently and had to attend corrective training.

Reading that, I was first stunned, and then totally amused... cause I realised something: Our commanding officer had just reached through time and space and kicked our collective asses (all few thousand of us). hahaha... through snail mail no less!

That said, the message is quite clear... time to start shaping up! :)

The Build-up -- Kings of Convenience

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Irked

I really dont like it when people state their interpretation of the situation, and then throw in a "you are a lawyer and therefore you can talk/defend/argue damn well" before asking for my response. Please dont do that kinda nonsense with me. It is patently obvious that they are trying to stack the odds against me. If they are given an answer that is anything other than what they want/ expect, they will put it down to the "fact" that I am "lawyer-ing" them. That I am twisting the facts. Or squirming around. Getting out of the question or misinterpreting this or that. Or something. Anything. Everything except tell them that they are correct... which is of course the only acceptable version of things.

Don't make it seem like its my "fault" that I'm a lawyer. Dont make it seem like being a lawyer is something wrong, cause guess what, it isnt.

I'm sorry there is some angst in this post, but someone has just insulted my intelligence. I'm not the brightest bulb in the room, but I'm darned sure I ain't the dimmest either. So don't try all these nonsense with me. Don't try to slip a fast one past me. Don't, cause its not getting past me. Really.

And try to live your life a little more honestly.