Bloody hell, I feel like shite. I’m on the verge of sickness. For the Cantonese speakers, “jok beng” in my half-assed romanization. This sucks the big one since the next few weeks will just be a big blur of busyness and adventure.

Tomorrow, I have to work my little buns off on the mountains of school work that are rapidly piling up. If there’s time, I’ve got to run off to hunt for a windbreaker suitable for next weekend’s mountain trek in Borneo. Even though I’m not asking for a snazzy GORE-TEX number I still have reason to worry as everything for ladies comes in small and smaller over here. Plus, I’ve only got about a week to: finish all the requisite school work; go to Melaka, Malaysia for the weekend ^_^ ; buy all my trekking gear; and fight illness! EEEEEEEE!

Since I’m one of two French speakers in my Comparative Public Law class, I’ve been asked to do a presentation on French constitutional law on Thursday. The class is extremely diverse with the professor visiting from New Delhi, India and students hailing from Cambodia, China, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Er…conveniently, the other French speaker is the only native expert on German law (since the other German exchange student is doing his LL.B. in Edinburgh. Don’t ask.) so here I am learning reading up on a jurisdiction about which I know jack. Joy of joys.

Actually, the sarcasm isn’t totally warranted since I am keen on learning more about civil law and the Canadian version’s roots since I’ll probably devote another year of my life to civilian law school in la belle langue du Molière in my second home, Montreal. As if 2 undergraduate degrees weren’t enough! 8 years of university and all I’ll have to show will be 3 undergraduate degrees! Where’s my fancy title? I need some crazy German title. Frau Doktor Professor Bamboo Star. Or how about Frau Doktor Doktor Bamboo Star. That works too. I love the doubling up with ‘doktor’. It cracks me right up.

I’m not actually complaining. Those law degrees don’t come easy! I have to admit that the snobby me gets all irritated about the Aussies, Brits, Hongers, Singaporeans etc. getting their LL.B.s slapped at the end of their names just after a few years in university. They make our Canadian LL.B.s seem like a lesser achievement. Not that a sole undergraduate degree is a lesser achievement…Oh Adrienne, just extract your foot from your mouth before you jam the other one in! I will say that I do think that the North American system of generally requiring previous post-secondary study is better.

I do think that it’s silly that American law students like to say that they are in grad school, though. No, sillies, it’s not graduate school. A J.D. is not a graduate degree. The LL.M. or J.S.D students at American schools are probably all like, “Grrrr. Don’t steal our thunder!”, when such comments are made.

Aside from the presentation on Thursday, I’ve got to represent both my law school, home university, city, province, country etc. at a special International Exchange Day here at NUS. I’ll be chatting up visitors to the “Americas” booth. Ooh.

I’m interested in seeing who else will be at the booth since I’ve met so few people from our massive region. I’m even more interested in connecting with more locals because even though the school is dominated by locals and other Asians from nearby countries, I’ve generally been spending too much time with the Commonwealth Crew. As much as I love my Aussie and English friends, it’s been a bit too Anglo-centric for me. It’s also weird learning about how all the local kids perceive me as a Chinese Canadian. Ah, the bamboo star questions. I loooooooove this.

More on that another time. Singapore is an amazing place to do social scientific study on identity. Oh man, so many interesting issues to explore.

Did I mention that I’ve fallen in love with school again? I may be getting slightly sick from sleep deprivation and whatnot, but this ain’t the stress-induced shingles of last year. I am so back in the saddle. Nice.

And now back to more research to the sound of Bloc Party, hipsters who actually deserve the hype. They rock my world. Thanks go out to Kele Okereke and Matt Tong for making my life easier.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 6th, 2005 at 7:08 am and is filed under Academentia, S'pore, The Sacred and Mundane.
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