Occasionally, I remember I have a day job. Tales from this, and other legal tidbits I picked up along the way.
On Saturday, I took this photo of the lazing feet of an Ubin boatman, after alighting at the jetty on the way to Chek Jawa.
Tonight, I am writing this post at 1.31 A.M. at my dining table, elbow deep in legal documents, as a brief insanity-fighting respite before I continue working.
Yesterday I was finally called to the Bar as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore. I celebrated this momentous occasion by heading almost immediately to the hair salon, to get my hair cut and coloured such that any self-respecting judge would throw me out of his courtroom. (This is possible because I’m only starting work at my scholarship company in September, and it’s not a law firm.)
It was quite amusing when I left the hair salon, walking through Raffles Place in the evening with my ultra-conservative black and white court attire and my new hairdo, which is basically like the chick in Sinfest, plus bright purple streaks.
2 vignettes from my working life:
I detect a slightly sour smell on the lapels of my jacket.
After some sniffing and recoiling, I come to the conclusion that I must have fallen asleep (at my desk) and drooled on myself at some point earlier in the day. How very embarrassing.
Now I have to go to the dry-cleaner’s again. KNN.
Won’t have time to post much until the weekend because I am involved in the tenth circle of legal work hell also known as due diligence. Essentially, I have to spend hours (as in, 14+ hours at a stretch) looking through reams of contracts and summarizing them, with only an iPod to keep me sane. Ellen Allien and Neutral Milk Hotel were good music to work to yesterday. Soundmurderer wasn’t.
This is a fucking far cry from The Practice, man.
Today at work, I learned how to use the binding machine. I am glad to add it to my repertoire of office machinery, having mastered the fax, scanner and photocopier several weeks ago. Oh, and the giant stapler.
Truly, there are some things I am learning in these challenging 6 months on the cutting edge of legal practice that they don’t teach you in five years of law school.
I’m learning the paper shredder tomorrow.
More shipping lawyer fun – in the Lloyd’s Register today, I found a ship called GAYDAR!
[I text-messaged Sue immediately to share this wonderful news. She replied telling me to search Lawnet for an article called The Meaning Of Meaninglessness.]
The little ways we get through the days.
Work is stressful today, but even on bad days the law gives me little gifts. Like discovering that there exists a case called The Dong (citation: [1979] 1 MLJ 152).
(Apologies to any Edward Lear fans reeling in agony at the punniness of this entry’s title. I’m too tired to think of anything remotely witty.)
It is not a good idea to find yourself crying with laughter at work as your pupil-master (for non-lawyers, that’s basically your Big Boss Man) walks towards you.
It is even less of a good idea, when you see your pupil-master walking towards you, to switch hurriedly in panic from the cause of your tears to the Merchant Shipping Act, the end result being that you have to think of some way of explaining to your bewildered pupil-master why you are crying with laughter at the Merchant Shipping Act.
You know you’re stressed when, while preparing a research document on the passing of property and risk in carriage of goods by sea, you start smiling every time you come across references to “ship’s flange”.
(Non-shipping lawyers: The flange is a part of the ship. Property and risk in goods are often agreed to pass from seller to buyer as they are moved across it in the process of loading.)
(Non-Brits see here for double-meaning.)
You know you’re stressed but bored when the next thing you do is a global search-and-replace of “flange” with “minge”.
You know you’re stressed, bored and playing with fire when the third thing you do is a Google search for “minge” in order to provide another definition for non-Brits, and then break into giggles at the results. I present:
On one of the first few pages of the latest edition of Street on Torts: This book is dedicated to Lukas, though I hope he never gets the urge to read it.