Can I have it all?

Someday  am gonna miss all these books and all this studying. Someday again an upcoming exam won't be the only tribulation in my life. That day I'll miss all of this madness and frenzy to complete my syllabus. Cheers to all of this today. I know I won't have this tomorrow. It'll be over before I know and it'll be back to the drudgery of daily life. Hopefully I shall find something new to look forward to even then. However much I crib and whine every day there are moments like this when I am reminded I am where I wanted to be for now at least.

Hope I find a workplace that shall have rows and rows of Construction Law Journals stacked neatly in shelves like in the CJ Koh Library here, waiting to be discovered by me. :) I am being too idealistic. Even if I do, there shall be some catch to it, like a neurotic boss and psycho nasty colleagues or a bad pay scale. Sigh! We cannot ever ever have it all. 

Thirty isn't too old or is it?

I got high on apple cider last night. I am getting older. This is how you realise you are 30. You wake up in the morning with a hangover because you drank 4 bottles of cider. Like seriously!  My drunk stories ain't that drunk anymore. They are more of happy and buzzed stories when I have a great time over  barbq and conversations on modules and how all of us are dying together. I am not the only one having a tough time. So many of us hold the same views and opinion on the way of living here, how you are not allowed to think for yourself. I thought being an Indian I was probably being too critical but I was speaking to an Indonesian, a Thai girl and a Vietnamese classmate and they felt the same. I don't share a single module with them but they have had the same experiences and they get the same vibes I do from the Singaporeans. I wasn't imagining all of that.

The only reason I get offered notes in my PIL class is because I am good friends with Andy and Bettina who are Swiss. If not for the Swiss none of the Singaporeans would come out and offer me their carefully comprised notes. I get the fact that my brown skin will be held against me. I was under the impression it is more to do with my race so if I was an oriental they would be more friendly. I was wrong because my mates belonging to neighbouring countries and happening to be South East Asian are treated with the same disdain. So last evening we were exchanging notes and it was amazing how each one of  us had similar stories to tell without ever having discussed it with each other. But to be honest I am not so sensitive about this racial profiling. Given that it is Singapore I am more than happy going back and working in India.

This isn't some fascinating city I see myself in. If this was London or New York I wouldn't have given a  rat's arse to racialism at this level and stayed on and tried to make it there. There has to be more to a city than just clean roads, greenery, well managed traffic, malls and more malls. I love the safety bit. I love the fact that I can wear whatever I want and walk out anytime of the day without men checking me out from head to toe, without men mentally undressing me, without being objectified, without being felt up, without being scared that I am gonna get raped. I love all of this and this should be the case in any civilised city but sadly it isn't so in my country. But this isn't enough for me at least to stay on. I so miss my people. People make a city or it has to be as fabulous as a New York, Paris or a London and this place is far from that. I haven't been to those cities so I shouldn't be talking like I am authority on having lived there but I am so sure they are more interesting cities to live, work and stay while you are still young. :) Come now thirty isn't too old and I am not gonna stop dreaming, trying to get where I want to. Not as yet. 

I confess I am feeling rather happy today. I just uploaded my last written assignment for this semester. A 3000 word essay on the "written requirement" under the New York Convention. I went bonkers with the plagiarism check and just before I submitted it I realised I had gone dreadfully wrong with my footnoting. It took the better part of the hour between 2 to 3 rectifying that and finally I could heave a sigh of relief.

I have also chosen my modules for the next semester and needless to say it isn't getting any easier. Sigh! But of course 4 written exams to go before I can think of the new modules. The last three in succession and that shall be a trial by fire. I haven't given any exams in 7 years.:( Next semester Business & Finance is gonna kill me beautifully, skillfully and ever so slowly. I am so hoping I get the chance to be killed by it. Hmmmmm..... Bring it on.

 But dear Lord could I please pass these 5 modules first without flunking in any and without having to defend myself against any plagiarism charges. Please pleaseeeeeee! 

And when I least expect it something reminds me of Dad. Like this childhood friend of mine on Facebook. We haven't met in years and years but we belong to the common fauji background. Her Dad was in the army and to top that her brother joined the same battalion my Dad is from and her fiance is an infantry officer too. Anytime she puts up a status on us army kids or brats I feel so nostalgic for the childhood I had and mostly the Father who isn't there anymore. Baba not a day goes by when I don't think of you in some way or the other.You are always there somewhere around in my thoughts. It isn't that mind numbing empty restless ache anymore but that void will forever be there. You are missed. I hope I can in my own small way make you proud of me. Right now though everything seems like a maze and I seem to be stumbling, getting up, falling down and trying to walk in the direction of the light wondering where is this light coming from. No answers as yet. 

One month, six days to go and I am done with Semester 1. I can't hardly wait. I am gonna run away from Singapore that day to KL. 3 days there and off to India for a month. Yeayyyy!

But of course I need to get done with 4 exams before that. 

And I am plain tired of all this.

I am tired.

I am tired of writing, writing, reading and writing some more and again writing. I keep looking out of the window and the view is so pretty and green and all I want to do is walk around, stare at the blue skies, appreciate the green leafiness of the trees juxtaposed against the blueness of the skies. I wanna worry about my appearance, my eyebrows that have grown into a forest, my nails that are screaming for a manicure and the feet that'll die for a pedicure. I want to be able to surf the net, read random articles, blogs, food blogs, strange blogs, the New Yorker, the Rumpus, Rebelle Society. I want to read the remaining bit of Julie and Julia in one sitting on my Kindle. I wanna go for a run and pant and pant and feel my muscles being stretched and come back home and take a warm water shower with the most aromatic of bath gels and just stand under the shower and feel the warm water over my naked body. I wanna shop for clothes without worrying about the burden it'll cast on my pocket. I wanna wear lipgloss and colourful eyeliners and colour co-ordinate my clothes and make up and shoes. I wanna buy shoes, slip ons, chappals, moccasins. I wanna go out for  drinks with my favourite people at our favourite haunts, order as many plates of crispy lamb and chilly pork and have as many glasses of Bloody Marys, Margheritas and Screw Drivers.

I wanna do all the above without worrying about papers, assignments and exams and this excruciating fear of failure. I am missing out on life at some levels I feel. I am gaining knowledge and yada yada yada but it doesn't help that while all I did was to sit cooped up in this darned stupid CJ Koh library during the festive season, everyone back home only spoke about the delicious food they feasted on, the range of colourful outfits they wore, the amazing times with loved ones, the gaiety and fun and frolic in the air and I was in this clinical and sterile country where every thing is so mechanical. People don't have conversations while travelling in buses. They are busy playing with their phones and tablets. They hardly talk. Whispering out aloud in the library is also greeted with raised eyebrow and a frown by a local Singaporean. I have one really good friend but she seems to be an anomaly amongst the rest. She is like us Indians, loud, giggly, loves to chatter. The Europeans are so much more friendly and forthcoming. The chinese are reserved and suspicious by nature of foreigners especially Indians. But if you are white you'll be treated like God in this country. I see it everywhere. I don't plan to live here forever so it doesn't bother me.

 I think this is how your perspective changes once you head out. Not that one is treated as a first class citizen in India. I am so so aware of how things work out in India and the shortcomings of the system. I totally get why people once gone often do not wanna come back once they get a taste of life elsewhere. Singapore is fair to its citizens and I accept that. If you are a Singaporean citizen here then there would hardly be any discrimination based on your race, religion or economic status. In India we deal with discrimination everywhere but then we get used to it. Its inbuilt and when we want to get something done we know we'll have to approach the right people. For that you need money of course. In India a lot of it is about how much money do you have and do you know the right people and these two questions are repeated again and again in situation after situation? To think I still wanna go back to that is questionable. I guess its the fact that I don't like living without a support system and my people and at the end that is all that matters. 

Note to myself

So my moot got over. And of course I was grilled the most. Back in another lifetime too I would be scared but this time I was hell bent on doing decently and couldn't afford to make a fool of myself. Plus my case itself was weak. I don't know if I did well. I tried to hold my ground but I could have done better. My partner was really good with her pleadings and so supportive. Our memorial was better. Thank God for that. I spent precious hours drafting it. So that was one saving grace.

I am in familiar territory now trying to draft an opinion for the Project Infrastructure assignment but yet again I have to do well in this one. This is my field. I cannot give a substandard opinion. Not in this one. No excuses and no room for slip shoddy work. 

This is endless. :(  

I also discovered where my heart is.  

Note to myself: I wanna travel the world but wanna be based at home. 

Of stressful Sundays

Today has been a strange Sunday. I have been stressed all day with the moot problem which isn't much really but in my head it has taken on gigantic proportions. Sigh! I want enjoy this experience of studying and trying to grasp new things and interacting with so many new people from all over but I am always running this race to keep up the pace. On days like today I just loathe the work load. Maybe I complain too much and I am unable to detach myself as easily as others.

So we went to Club Street last night which has restaurants and clubs lined up one after the other in a row and the tables are all spilling out on the roads. It is such a pretty hilly road and A, K and I were sitting around on the pavement, smoking and just watching the world pass by and  it did feel like we were observing them through a kaleidoscope because there were people belonging to different races and nationalities hobnobbing with each other.T and U and came later and we all jointly came to the conclusion that this place is too expensive for our pockets and went off to Clark Quay to sit by the river and drink Jim Beam in Coke. I wasn't drinking though. I didn't wanna waste my Sunday nursing a hangover.  Of course drinking should not be synonymous with a hangover but sometimes old habits die hard minus any tomfoolery and "oh my gawd what did I do last night" moments.

I woke up worried of course. Ran to the library and have been there ever since. Yuck my memorial beckons. Pray I do well. :( 

Of moot courts and maccher jhol and P

I had this mini-panic attack today. It happened in the evening sometime between 4 to 5 in the library. I was trying to get the skeleton draft of my moot court submission in place and nothing was making sense. Words were flying all around me. I couldn't find a single case to support my stand and I was just drowning in this sea of moot court induced depression. How easily I sink into it and again come back to float. I flit in and flit out of these self made bubbles of depression every now and then. I scolded myself and said this is how you work yourself up and screw it all up. I went back to typing and trying to find some semblance of logic in the problem  and I guess I did.

I managed framing some issue, even found a mediocre case law to support my position. I haven't finished drafting, no Sir I haven't but I guess I'll make my way through. Besides you know my old enemy Mr. Public Speaking has yet again showed up and is staring at  my face. Yet another instance when those vocal cords of mine shall have to be exercised in front of a mock Arbitral Tribunal. Uffffff!!!!!!Wait it gets even better. I am pitted against my smart room mate and a smart Singaporean in these moots. Some days I can't believe I do this to myself again and again. I have only just gotten over the shock of the IP Presentation a month back. Hmmmphhh!!!

I had lovely machher jhol and bhaat made by P last night. I can't imagine Singy without her and our long, funny, bordering on bitter conversations while walking with Baby Butterfly on her stroller by the side of the river. Every time I have to leave her place to go home I get this wistful feeling. Sigh! This is how we get used to having each other around P. I am already getting ready to miss you once I am gone next May. 

Imagineeee being gung hooo once all of this is done!

Today was the first 2nd of October, in my life of 30 summers that wasn't a holiday. Imagine working on 2nd of October if you are in India. It is almost like sacrilege. Hehe!

I submitted my second assignment today, the one that had been killing me with all the research and the different schools of thought. Thank you soooo much PIL. I still don't have an answer to that question I have supposedly answered in the essay. But I enjoyed all the reading, I seriously did. You have started to make me believe that I can do 4000 word essays without losing my trail of thought. Never mind the panic attacks that sabotage my mind every now and then. Whewww am I not glad this one is over! Now let's get done with the next one and the next one and the next one and not to forget the moot court and four written exams.

Wow if I had ever know last year while applying to NUS that I wouldn't have time to breathe, I doubt I would have applied so enthusiastically. Hahah! Serves me right though for all the reading I never did on my own and all the classes I never attended in law school. :)

Now I am sitting quietly in the library by the window and enjoying the view while giving the finishing touches to the IP Evaluation paper. Sigh! There is also the arbitration moot looming in the background. This is clearly endless. Lemme get back to my books. Imagine my life once all this is done. :) Am I still gonna be this gung ho? Hehe!

Promise yourself

"Regardless of your romantic situation at the moment, make a promise to yourself that you will love and respect yourself first. That you will treat yourself the way you know you deserve to be treated, and that you will not settle for anything less than everything."

I promised this to myself  last February. :)

Most days I feel like I am groping in the dark but I move on regardless of my fears which are omnipresent anyways. I fight my demons everyday. They ain't going away anywhere.

I think I am trying to live up to that promise. I am struggling everyday, more so since I began school at NUS and it isn't easy but I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

Happy days, picnics and wine buddies

Today was an almost happy day. I was happy doing nothing but listening to music and reading arbitration occasionally.

Today was U's birthday and S, K and I threw him a surprise picnic party at the Botanic gardens. S ordered Indian food and I bought the beer and K convinced U to come to college on the pretext of meeting S and there we were waiting for U with cupcakes and food and alcohol. :)

Today was also one of those rare days when A's state of mind seems to be in sync with mine.

 We were hanging out every now and then all day. Taking smoke breaks and coming back to the library to study. I love hanging out with A and listen to his stories about life, love and law school. Some days he reminds me of someone I knew more than half a decade back. I remember me being hopelessly in love with him then. I grew up of course and we went our different ways but not before I confessed my love for him. How innocent I was. I used to think if you love someone you should say it before its too late because you don't wanna die having that regret that you never told him how you felt.

Now its so different. One doesn't fall in love at all. I haven't drunk dialled or drunk texted anyone in such a long time save for Shivi maybe. I don't do these things anymore when I wake up in the morning with that funny feeling that all is not right with the world because my dialled calls list screams back at me of my stupidity. When did I grow up sooooo much that I am not silly and love struck at all?

I got drunk last night too and A and I were outside a club at Clark Quay cos we didn't feel like going in with the rest. We sat with our respective mini wine bottles talking about my fear of public speaking, his ex girlfriend who won't let him forget her and I laughed at him in my wine induced haze. Yeah I love these conversations we have after downing many wine bottles and I like it when a couple of days later he'll be talking to someone and he'll look at me saying 'remember I told you' and I'll be like 'yeah you did' and we'll nod at each other. A thinks he has told me about all these episodes and stories and expects me to know what he is talking about when he is relating it to someone else. He is the one person I spoke about my Dad to when we got drunk the first time. We never spoke about it again cos I didn't want him to think I want his sympathy. We are smoking buddies, wine buddies, sometimes library buddies. We are buddies and I like that. 

Love will come set me free I do believe still

Some days I still believe love will come set me free. Hahah! Silly me. On days like today when I have been fighting the blues last two days sometimes silly conversations make me smile. They don't mean anything to the other person but it brought a smile to my face just for that moment.

x- Things will fall into place. I promise they will and on that day you'll think of me.

Me- I already think of you. :)

Where were we?

Tidal waves of nostalgia are washing me away this morning. I woke up to grey grey skies followed by torrential rains. Reminded me of home and Calcutta and the girls who get so excited on a day like today. We message each other out of happiness because back home in India such days are to be cherished. 

I had no one to message but for P telling her I am homesick and we quickly made plans to meet up in the evening on the condition that I finish my paper by afternoon. I opened a new assignment that I have to submit in a month's time and there it was my Project Infrastructure question that took me back to Delhi and M and R and DIAL and all the work I did there and the airport looming larger than life. The airport that I saw built before my very eyes and became a part of my daily life and the airport that'll always occupy a prized place in my heart. What I am today professionally and all the effortless answering  I do in my Projects Infrastructure class is all because of that project.

 I went through my old work material, the contracts I worked out, the silly letters I drafted  and I had tears in my eyes. Those 2 and a half years there and I never realised I'd someday look back so fondly at those days. I keep moving on and on, changing cities and jobs and leaving people behind and I feel I won't look back but I do look back. All that I thought I wanted to be then and all that I thought I couldn't be then I just might be tomorrow because of the lessons learnt there. 

Do I even dare to dream of working in a construction law firm? Sigh!

The only class where I feel I know more than everybody else in class put together is Project Infrastructure. Haha!

One of the few advantages for having worked in this field for over 5 years as opposed to freshers.

So I shouldn't feel so cool about myself. :p

I am quite a dodo in the rest.

On today because it is far from being a fairytale

Last night when I finally finished my quota of 1000 words actually 1100 words per day of my PIL research paper I looked at the time and it was 11:10 PM. I was told by Sans on Skype that I should call it a day. I was hesitant initially thinking well I won't write anymore but let me read something from another module. I opened the China-Asean Air Services Agreement to read but left it after superficially skimming through the document. I had to unwind. I had been sitting from 1 in the afternoon and my grey cells had actually gone on the sleep mode.

Even a short span of 10 months at Grad School isn't lacking drama given that the kids from India who are my contemporaries here are already knee deep in petty politics and hard core back biting. I don't miss being a part of all this. Haha! It is such fun being the bystander and watch them get harassed over such trivialities. It is hilarious how us Indians carry a bit of India with us wherever we go.

So last night I switched my Kindle on and read a bit of Julie and Julia. Julie was in her 30th year when she took the challenge of making 524 of Julia Child's recipes in 365 days and maintain a blog of it. This was way back in 2002. I tried to find similarities between the protagonist and me just to inspire myself saying if Julie could make 524 of those complicated french dishes in 365 days then I can also finish all my papers and assignments on time. Alas the only similarity between us is the age and the desire to do something different besides the daily monotony of life.

My life is hardly monotonous now. Hmmmm okay yes reading all the time and writing is monotonous but I am not stuck somewhere I didn't wanna be. It'll get over before I know it in 8 and a half months. I have my panic moments almost everyday when I am convinced my writing is going nowhere and there isn't any flow of thought and coherence is too much to ask for. I don't think about my grades because it is pointless. I don't know how this is gonna be. Some days I console myself saying there is only so much stress you can take in one day so don't lose hope. This is the worst it can get for today.

Today I am going to the library and studying. I need some human interaction today which is beyond whatsapp voice notes, skype and viber.

If today was a fairytale it would be 11th May, 2014 all my 10 modules would be over and I would have successfully completed 40 credits required to get that LLM degree. I would have finished all assignments, papers, moots, exams without any setbacks but for the regular panicking. If only today was that fairytale. 

Some days I have very little to say but that missing is happening.

I am missing my girls soooo much. Right from S to M to Tinni to Nish Mish and the mad bunch.

And of course my crazy lil baby sister who is married now. I can't wait to hang out with her and my brother in law in Hyderabad.

Tinni, Dia and Nisha sent me the most adorable, drunken voice note last night on whatsapp that transported me back to Cal to Tinni's place, one of those happily wine buzzed evenings.

I miss my people and it is as plain and simple as that.

I still wanna travel the world and go live in different places but I want my people around.

That is too much to ask for I know.

When I am hanging out with Riona or P here then I am absolutely at home.

One and a half months have gone. Some days pass by achingly slowly and some days just flash past by.

I wonder where all this shall lead. :)

Summing up my day

That pretty much sums up my day.

Turkey and Ham pasta and home made Iced Tea for dinner at a hawker centre behind my place.

Pasta cheered me up since I am sitting at home alone on a Friday evening, reading and reading those books. Seems endless the readings.

I am still not convinced about doing nothing on a Friday evening.

I'll slap anyone who says this will be worth it. I don't know anything about my grades. 

Midnight cravings

I am feeling ham, cheese, egg and tomato sandwich hungry.

I am feeling New York Cheese Cake hungry.

It is 1:43 in the morning. There is no need to express these cravings of mine.

My roomie is busy screaming at her parents for having transferred funds to a wrong bank account or is it the wrong bank address. No idea. Alien language so I only understand bits and pieces of the conversation.

There is only so much of  Sources of International Law  one can read in a day.

The sight of freshly done laundry hanging on the clothes line on a sunny day makes me happy. 

I thought you would have made something of your life by now.

Yes I thought I would. Sometimes it feels so late and sometimes it feels like I have only just begun. I want all the time in the world but I don't have that frame of mind anymore. The 24 frame of mind. I am not 24 anymore. Hell I stopped being 24 five years back but that number somehow stuck on to my head. If there was one year I could relive I would want that year to be played again.

I get stuck in this limbo these days when I have bad days and good days and all are directly proportionate to how much reading and studying did I get done and how far have I reached with respect to my research papers. I know I am not the first one to go to Grad School but this feels like a tremendous burden. It does.

Some days I can't wait to head back home and some days I wish I could  go live and work in a different country. Mixed emotions.

Last week I was religiously recording my Public International Law lectures on my phone and laptop so that I could go back home and listen to it within the quiet confines of my room. I still haven't gotten down to doing that though.

Thursday evenings are date nights with two of my girls at Orchard Road. First I meet R and jabber about the world and exchange gossip regarding school friends and eat lots of yummy food of the fattening variety and console ourselves saying 'we lead such active lives here as opposed to India. It'll all get burnt with all the walking' followed by my session with P when we drink coffee and complain about our lives and various people and we are so nasty and unforgiving I must say.

Studying interspersed with smoke breaks with interesting people doesn't help. They distract you so no more silly little smoke breaks and no more downloading lovely music while reading. Yet again I only keep listening to the song on a loop and the article gets wiped off my brain and all I am left with is a couple of ridiculous lyrics of random songs floating in my subconscious mind which is anyways devoid of any sense.

So when is a good time to stop reading and begin writing? Seriously? Somebody please tell me. Hmmmphhhh!