It's so true that home is where the heart is. It accounts for why I feel so twisted in my gut every time I'm about to spend any amount of time in a foreign place away from Scott. It is very corny, but I suppose he is my heart.

At least I won't be away too long this time.

Light in room blown and I cannot pack because I can't see the clothes in my closet. Tickets to Manchester and Liverpool are still not booked. I haven't applied for sep! Or activated autoroam. Or a million other things.

My family will only be in London from 4th to 9th because of mum's limited free time and somehow I'm going to have to squeeze all of the following into them:

- Visiting the best places in London (Need list! Natural History Museum, British Museum, Hyde Park, Tower, Trafalgar Square, Harrods, Notting Hill, Camden???? Etc etc etc)
- Watch theatre!!
- Splitting the family into two and packing us off to ANFIELDD!! and Old Trafford respectively
- Oxford
- Bath
- Stonehenge
- Salisbury
- Cotswolds?

I CAN DO THIS. Thank goodness I canned the day trip to Paris. This is the second time I've rejected visiting Paris when in Europe. Haha. So weird ah. Most girls would love to go there.

[EDIT] I AM NEVER PLANNING A TRIP FOR MY FAMILY AGAIN. NEVER. That's what tour groups are for. Free and easy are for travellers unencumbered by parents who have a guidebook fantasy of how their holidays should turn out but want you to plan everything and siblings who do nothing to help. I am totally regretting my "I'm not paying the travel agency for some crappy tour group where you're stuck with a bunch of Singaporeans who get on your nerves when I can customize my own itinerary for cheaper!" snobbery. NEVER AGAIN.

So life hasn't been going so great lately. Take today for example. The company law exam was the worst exam I'd ever sat for. Ever. I might actually get a flat zero on the second half of the paper. I only wrote stuff to fill in the lines so I wouldn't have to hand in an empty exam booklet. First half involving rights and people suing each other - still relatable. Second half about capital maintenance, financial assistance, floating and fixed charges - complete brain fuck.

Some people are just not cut out for corporate stuff. I know I need to deal with humans, and as such realise my limitations and pretty much just walked out of that exam more resigned than dejected.

And yeah other stuff. The world is inherently an unfair place and good things don't happen to good people, but to privileged ones. People don't always get what they deserve. Still it seems so screwed up that my brother, who is the kindest, most humble, thoughtful and empathic person I know, has to find that out so early life. He may be scared of the dark, vegetables and heights (okay I share the first two, it's not that bad) but he has more courage than people my age will ever have the fortune to even consider.

I learn a lot about people from my brother. I now know that nobody who is truly different from everyone else in a way that is actually detrimental to them would ever want to play up the distinction. I also know that as tiring as it is being the minority many aspects, it's even more difficult being so special in a way that precludes you from being slotted into any category.

Most importantly though, from him I learned, and am still learning, how to be as good as he is.

I'm very proud to be his sister. I love him so much.

And thanks to the best friends who never make me regret spilling. I generally don't believe that a problem shared is a problem halved. More likely, a problem shared is a problem multiplied because you make the other person worry too and sometimes you just get angry when they try to fix it because they never understand why their way doesn't work in your situation and you regret saying anything which reinforces your belief that you should have just kept your mouth shut in the first place. I don't like telling people much, if anything, but your support even for half-explanations that don't strike at the heart of the matter are amazing <3

Anyway it's holidays now. New start. Just half a year more to go dealing with corporate rubbish and then it's hasta la vista commercial suckers. (Yeah I don't know the difference between corporate and commercial okay. Don't mind if I never do) Holiday off to a great start with Manda and Lin today!:D I know I say this ad nauseum but I really really do love my girlfriends. I'm very lucky (:

And of course I really love my boyfriend too :D Even though he is a WoW geek who dresses like an ah pek now hahahaha. He satisfied my Thai food craving! I love Thai Express' red ruby + coconut ice cream.

Urgh off to London in two days and I haven't planned a thing. Except for going to see dinosaurs after we check in.

The past few days have been cocked.

Sunday
Food poisoning.

Monday
CLT paper. Which went okay but shit my time management I could have done so much better
After CLT, went home with every intention of studying but got locked out of house and had to kill the entire afternoon reading Asterix in library.
Also, dud you know you can get a gum ulcer after falling asleep while brushing your teeth?

Tuesday
Liverpool out of Champions League

My laptop adapter fucked up again. HP refuses to give me a free replacement this time even though this is the same adapter they used to replace the FIRST faulty adapter they gave me which left me laptopless during the LAST exam period. Fuck. The temptation to bury myself under covers. cry and give up on studying property law was overwhelming but I pulled through. Okay, I gave in for a few minutes (in my defence, any other law student would have done that - a law student without their notes and tutorials the day before their open book exam is just fucked). WHY does this always happen during the exams?! The last time round at least it was a week plus before the papers so I managed to print the bare minimum in time but my paper was TODAY. God.

Today
Exam was traumatizing. The questions were no problem if I'd had double the time. I was sitting next to this girl who didn't even look like she was thinking during the whole 2.5hours, she just copied everything straight off her neatly organised file while my papers were flying all over the place.

And that was property law, which is so much more palatable than the upcoming company law paper. I have till Monday to teach myself the whole company law syllabus from scratch. Sigh how did I end up in university studying corporate related shit? I hate corporate related shit. Fuck you corporate world order.

Okay but then I got home today and chatted for ages with Scott while he was on his way home and things feel better (: Also, Lin is back and I will see her and Manda once I conquer the corporate inferno. <3

That's it. From tomorrow onwards I am not going to be the loser anymore. I will kill company. Stupid financier fat pigs with wallets bigger than their brains and ... other parts - I am better than you! DIE, fools.

Happiness is being rescued by your brothers from library exile after wasting the whole afternoon away there after you forgot to bring house keys (and notes and laptop) and coming home to realise that there's one more Milchschnitte you haven't eaten when you thought they'd finished weeks before.

Still yummy, even though it expired one month ago haha.

Exams make me damn greedy lah. I keep thinking about food. I want to eat opeh kway teow from Simpang, or green curry from Thai Express or Seoul Garden again (this time with a boy who has a bigger appetite haha).

I was so shagged after spending the afternoon in the library wasting my brain cells on Asterix and straining my eyes to read the muggers Joey (who is as awesome as my PDA) sent me on MSN Mobile to make my afternoon worthwhile that I fell asleep when I came home but the first time I drifted off, I was jolted awake because I thought there was forty five minutes left on the clock and I hadn't started my essay yet and I couldn't let myself fall asleep -.-

It was bad enough it happened in real life this morning but do I really have to go through the experience twice? Thanks brain. Thanks a lot.

OKAY YAY BOYFRIEND WILL INDULGE MY GREEN CURRY CRAVING SOON :D

Belle de Jour drops her anonymity

Dr Magnanti says she has no regrets about her experiences A former prostitute whose memoirs were turned into the TV series Secret Diary of a Call Girl, starring Billie Piper, has revealed her true identity. Dr Brooke Magnanti wrote under the pen name Belle de Jour to describe the encounters she had as a high-class call girl while earning money for her PhD. The 34-year-old said she decided to unmask herself because the stress of the deceit was making her paranoid. Interest in her identity increased when her memoirs became a television series. Dr Magnanti, who now lives in Bristol and is a research scientist for The Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health, became a prostitute because she needed a job that left her enough time to complete her studies. She kept her double life a secret even when she started the blog describing her experiences and the books which followed. It feels so much better on this side. Not to have to tell lies, hide things from the people I care about Belle de Jour blog Dr Magnanti told the Sunday Times she worked as a prostitute from 2003 to late 2004, and found it "so much more enjoyable" than her shifts in another job as a computer programmer. She told the newspaper "I don't want this massive secret over me any more," and that she feared an ex-boyfriend might reveal the true identity of Belle de Jour. Sunday's entry on the blog said: "It feels so much better on this side. Not to have to tell lies, hide things from the people I care about. To be able to defend what my experience of sex work is like to all the sceptics and doubters. "Anonymity had a purpose then - it will always have a reason to exist, for writers whose work is too damaging or too controversial to put their names on. 'Pride' "But for me, it became important to acknowledge that aspect of my life and my personality to the world at large. "I am a woman. I lived in London. I was a call girl. "The people, the places, the actions and feelings are as true now as they were then, and I stand behind every word with pride." A spokesman for her employer, the University of Bristol, said: "This aspect of Dr Magnanti's past is not relevant to her current role at the university." The spokesman added that Dr Magnanti's revelations would not affect her chances of future employment with the university. A statement on the website of Orion Books, which published Belle de Jour's novels, said: "It's a courageous decision for Belle de Jour to come forward with her true identity and we support her decision to do so. "We have published her since 2005 and we are looking forward to continuing that relationship." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8361557.stm

** Can't believe I didn't post this earlier when it came out but here it is now. Shared it with FF and Joel and we are now all in complete awe of Dr Brooke Magnanti.

When it comes to exams and perhaps life in general, the whole "YOU WILL REGRET IT IF YOU DON'T DISCIPLINE YOURSELF NOW" mentality doesn't work on me. I don't think I regret anything I've ever done in my school career too badly. Well, I still get annoyed that I landed myself in law school but I comfort myself with the thought that it's the right, less selfish thing to have done.

My philosophy is probably more aptly described in this post from Saumya that appeared on the Facebook newsfeed yesterday - the "will this matter in a year from now" mentality. If they had a category for it in Olympics I'd be sweeping the medals. In this respect I'm normally right. Everything seems so trivial on hindsight.

Come on come on. Exam tomorrow. It's not like you're doing anything more important anyway (putting pictures of my dream home together on weheartit after Dot did hers. facestalking etc).

Let's soldier on:

HAHA.

So I was using Google Desktop to look for some document, and this MSN conversation came up in the search results, where my friend (who shall remain nameless) asked me how to get this guy interested in her because she thought I would know how to do that sort of thing. And I actually gave her tips?! This is from almost a year and a half ago. Omg. Clearly I wasn't thinking straight at the time (ah see, the conversation took place around one in the morning). Wtf?!?!?! Not my area of expertise! It's like asking Scott how to use Facebook, or Singapore's Judges of Appeal to summarize, or international footballers to play in the NBA (oh wait there's Thierry Henry, scratch that)

I wonder how it turned out.. :s

In case some of you don't know all my MSN conversations are auto-saved. It's amusing that there are some people I chat to so often that the records actually turn into archives - FF, Joey, Coco, Terenz etc. Anyway when I search for something on my desktop these records inadvertently get searched too. It's very distracting!

Hehe okay now that Scott and I have been together for so long this won't seem nearly as psycho but in the first few months I knew him I'd specially save all our MSN convos (this was before auto-save) and re-read them doing the whole "omg I think this shows he likes me omg this shows he doesn't" chacha. And then I'd give them to Lin, Aki and Mands to scrutinize and analyse and being the loyal best friends they are they'd do the whole "OMG he totally likes you!" pep talk.

Fun days. It was so exciting but so stressful! I completely don't understand how people can have so many boyfriends/girlfriends, like my cousin, who goes through like, one a month. If all relationships are like Scott's and mine, and I put myself through a few of those relationships, I think my heart would short-circuit.

I've finally found a decent place to prepare for exam-slaying! No awful music blasting over the speakers (it's a cafe in a library) but with enough hubbub for it not descend into one of those awful silences. Good lighting so my eyesight doesn't get any worse (it's really terrible now, I'm going to get myself Lasik with my first bonus as a first-year associate). Yummy food smells and cheap-ish (for a cafe) food roughly two metres away - my wallet will never be Star*ucked again.

The only downside are all the kids running about. So cute omg! Their chubby cheeks and their big round eyes and their high-pitched voices asking silly questions - I just want to hug them and keep them safe. Yesterday there was this solemn looking boy - I think his mother just scolded him or something, so his puffy eyes were looking all emo-nemo into the distance as he sulkily forked chicken chunks into his pouty mouth while his mother and sister looked on in amusement, And the pretty princess with fluffy curls like mine when I was little! And the boy in his changshan sneakily attacking his brownie ala mode before his dad and sister got to him.

I feel my biological clock ticking. I know, I know, it's way too early to even think about it. But it's my genes I tell you. Haven't met a single person whose blood is remotely malay or whose upbringing is remotely muslim who doesn't want to start a family early. You know, we should really get more government benefits for this.

Have Arab lunch date tomorrow (: Hummus and shawarma I'M GONNA GET YOUUUU. I love eating food you can dig into with your hands and lick off your fingers.

And all this squinting at my notes makes my back really hurt! Can you imagine if I didn't only do this during reading weeks? I'd be hunchbacked! :s

MANDA'S HOME YAYYYY!!! Only a week till Lin is too. I have missed my girls so so much ^.^ The sisterhood of loverdoverheartsandsmoochies is fully formed again. (Yes we are very cheesy but you won't understand if you don't have girlfriends who love you that much)

I fell behind on my revision schedule yesterday. Fffffff. Cannot afford to because there is no time and having done even less than the bare minimum this whole semester I'm learning everything for the first time. It doesn't help that when I went to Tampines Library to study, there were little girls crawling and mewing under my table. Yes. "Mew, mew, mewwwww!"

Also doesn't help that I keep giggling everytime I come across the phrase 'touching and concerning the land'. Seriously. Hee. I skimmed through Adat Law because the name M.B. Hooker is distracting. I keep trying to come up with names for his children. Such as, "Kennan Will B. Hooker", "Chip Hooker" and "Wanda Bess Hooker".

Omg honestly.