I have a paper in half an hour. Probably the easiest one of all. I gave a really really bad Public International Law paper last afternoon that left me with a sour taste in my mouth and a nasty headache. The only saving grace was in the form of P, this Afro-Austrian cutie from NYU@NUS who was my eye candy post exam in the reading room as I tried to cheer myself up and get down to studying Projects. I couldn't study. Came home and slept for 8 hours straight until T woke me up at 6:30 AM horrified that I was still asleep. I finally got to revise my stuff this morning but no mood to study anymore.

Moral of the story: I never know when I give a good paper and when I don't. The amount I study is not directly proportional to how well I write a paper. Arghhhhhhh! 

On an almost happy me today

Happiness is a steaming bowl of rasam made by your landlady on a rare lazy Wednesday afternoon when you bond with her due to lack of company or maybe because you have gotten used to these bonding sessions over toasting bread and making coffee every morning and sometimes her generous offers of delicious food. She is home away from home for me. I never ever thought I would ever call this place I stay in home. How I hated it with a passion when I first shifted in! Damn it things change.

Happiness is having homemade gol gappe and drinking screw drivers simultaneously while you catch up with  T on a Tuesday night. Happiness is rajma chawal, palak paneer and chapatis laced with ghee on the same night as you gossip about all the common people you once knew and rarely hear about but for Facebook.

Happiness is coming face to face with your best buddy at the bus stop after 2 days of cold war and avoiding each other because you gave him a piece of your mind. Happiness is making up with UT at the bus stop opposite Uni with no explanations being given or any justifications needed.

Happiness is all the yummie bong food P makes for me and I gorge on almost weekly, especially the fish curries. Happiness is looking forward to meeting her this evening.

Happiness is finishing the first reading of Aviation Law & Policy in 4 days without any guarantee of the grades you are gonna get. What the hell at least you finished the damn first reading!

Happiness is the end of term Bar-B-Q at A and B's place on Saturday which actually just 3 days before the dreaded PIL exam.

Happiness is knowing that exams get over in 10 days. God help those grades, you only wanna pass.

Happiness is silently acknowledging the fact that maybe, just maybe you may actually dare to think that:-

 -after all those moments you spent wondering if you did the right thing or not coming here;
 -after all those days when you'd wake up with the sinking feeling in your heart as you looked out at the dreary grey skies;
-after those agonising hours spent in the library as you desperately tried to bring your mind back to the words dancing in front of your eyes;
-after all those times when it almost felt like you are not gonna make it through this maze of research papers, assignments and presentations and exams.

 Well happiness is knowing you survived the first semester. Almost. 

Guess what inspired me today!!!!

I finished my first and probably the last revision of PIL last evening after much deliberation on whether I should give it another day. But Aviation Law & Policy beckoned. Trying to study Aviation all afternoon but my mind has been somewhere else. Studied a bit of Private International Air Law halfheartedly, taken too many breaks. Then I found this http://www.indianmemoryproject.com/tag/sir-mohinder-dhillon/#sthash.YyfYngUg.dpbs and I hope it is the much needed mood uplifter. I need to read something inspiring everyday to keep myself going. 2 weeks more and I am done with first semester. Sigh! 

Today is one of those days. I studied a bit of PIL, finished reading one case. Read one New York Times Article that made me mull over the perils of social networking and excess of texting and messaging. I took a lunch break with Bettina and Sans when we made fun of all the localites and how serious they are about books and notes and studies in general. I came back to my seat, finished reading the bit on the Rhodesian UDI and then read this. http://www.rebellesociety.com/2013/11/08/a-pause-for-my-mom/

It reminded me of people gone, of my grandmums and my Dad. It reminded me of the fact that I want to stay a flight away from family and loved ones, preferably a national flight and how I want to spend more time with Mum and Bonu and Mashi and Mumum and Mesho and Shivi and Mona and Tinni and Nisha and Sagarika. I want to meet Par, Rad and Akku more often.  I hope to meet P every now and then even if I leave Singapore next year. That pretty much sums up my world. Hahaha! Sounds so simple, doesn't it? 

Yes yes ambition lurks somewhere. I don't know if its beneath all of that or all of that is shrouded in this garb of ambition. 

It seriously doesn't help when the guy who got an A+ is roaming around before your very eyes, under your nose, chilling out, listening to music and studying while you got a C in the same essay and you are at your wit's end trying to figure how to manage all the reading material for the same module's final exam. I am so jealous of S___. He is brilliant. He quotes all international law scholars like he was born spouting the "The Treaty of Westphalia" and Grotius,Hobbes,Kant, Vettel and Rousseau were people with whom he rubbed shoulders with all his life. I am struggling with this paper and he does everything so effortlessly. Hmmmphhhhh! 

Oh and then one of your closest friends here announces on the whatsapp chat group "Guys I got an A+ in Indian Business Laws." Oh I am so proud of you but I still cannot get over my C. :(

I am late but Happy Diwali :)

As my roomie put it in words so eloquently this morning when she walked in all red eyed, looking haggard and tired after uploading her paper "Forget about Diwali mera toh Diwala nikal gaya." Hahaha! Those were the longest twenty four hours of my life. I spent the whole of Diwali writing a 24 hour take home exam for International Commercial Arbitration and all the misconceptions I had about how easy a 24 hour exam shall be, were dispersed when the question paper was uploaded at 9 in the morning. I was up till 4 in the morning today doing it, reading and re-reading and trying to figure if my line of arguments for the wretched practical problem was actually making any sense. We spent hours and hours hunched over our laptops drafting our grounds of challenge. I know everyone does this in law school. I am sure they do. But doing this after 7 years of work is a tad bit difficult.Plus law school for me back then was so different. There was no plagiarism policy or turnitin breathing down my neck. Come to think of it education back then was so pro-plagiarism that I had to change my complete line of thinking. Imagine footnoting everything I write or how do you footnote a memory or an experience as I increasingly find this happening in my Project Infrastructure class. On top of the moot problem there was an essay question and for more than an hour we kept thinking noooo this question can't be that direct, I am sure there is more to it until we gave up thinking let's just write what we think it is. It really isn't helping us by thinking what more can this question want us to venture into besides what is staring at our faces.

I finished most of my writing around 2 and my brain wasn't functioning an iota anymore.I packed up my bags to head home from Evans Lodge and the roads were empty and deserted. There wasn't a soul anywhere. I could here the crickets chirping . Not that the roads are teeming with people  all day but at 2 at night it felt eerie. Not even for a moment did I think I wanted to walk across the University to the bus stop by walking through Botanical Gardens. I have heard the strangest stories of people feeling the presence of something or spotting something. There is this huge board in one of the fields that forbids us from roaming around the campus late at night because of some ghostly presence. The University was a Japanese torture centre during World War II and Evans Lodge was the hospital including the morgue. Talk about being creepy. Its a big joke with us now but only during the day time. After 10 at night we refuse to walk through Botanical Gardens alone. Those who have been compelled to do that or dared to do that have always come back next morning with funny tales of the feeling of someone walking beside them or some mysterious force pushing them that they ran for their lives. Anyways thankfully I found a cab after some 20 minutes of waiting and wildly flaying my arms at every passing cab. 

I uploaded my paper at 4 and heaved a sigh of relief and slept. 3 more to go. I wonder how much more of this I can take. Wish me best of luck. :) Oooopssss Happy Diwali everyone.I know I am late but nevertheless.