clean linen

I have been in practice for close to 1.5 years now. I have yet to conduct my own trial or Assessment of Damages hearing that involves proper cross examination of the other party's witness(es).  I have been to Court numerous times though, although it's more the Subordinate and Family Courts as compared to the High Court. Anyway, one thing that impacted me today as I went to the Sub Courts for a short Summons For Directions hearing, was the nice way the security guards at the security scanners of the entrance would smile and recognise me as a lawyer. There are 1 or 2 particularly friendly guards who would ask me questions like "have you had breakfast/lunch?" Or "how are you?" This afternoon, I smiled at the guard as I was waiting behind a visitor to the Sub Courts. He was emptying his pockets of everything. At the same time, the guard looked up at me and returned my smile. Then he said to me, "Oh! I just realised it's you because you chan...

I was just transferring a case report out of my Downloads folder when I realised I had such a photo in my computer: I can't remember when I saved this photo into my Downloads folder, and exactly what I was thinking when I did that. But I think it's quite informative?:D Rightright. Back to work.

Yesterday morning, I attended a summons hearing with uncle Edwin so that I could be granted an Order of Court to be part-called. This morning, I went to the Subordinate Courts by myself , and handled 4 files that had Court Dispute Resolution (CDR) sessions to be adjourned or attended. What an experience and an exciting landmark in my life! I now have a voice in Court. Before, I was just a shadow to lawyers, only taking notes and following them, carrying files. Now, it's different. Ok, let me try to explain. When I am fully called to the Bar, it means I have officially become a lawyer. I can represent clients in open court, which means it's in a more formal setting and most of the time the public can sit in. To be part-called means I am not a full lawyer yet, but I can attend sessions that are in chambers. To be in chambers means it's somewhat like a more personal setting where it's just the judge and the lawyers in a smaller room that can be known as the office ...

Last week, Adrian (a.k.a. Ah Di) came down with a bad and mysterious case of some illness related to the stomach. It was just painful and/or uncomfortable - I think even Ah Di himself didn't know if what he was feeling was just pain or a churning uncomfortable kind of feeling... He completely lost his appetite (which is HUGE, I tell you), became rather lifeless and just lost his healthy colour. To make himself munch on something, he brought chocolate Hello Panda, but we told him eating dairy products like chocolate wasn't good for his stomach. Instead, we made him drink a cup of ginger lemon tea, which I found nice, but he thought it was absolutely horrible and it took him many hours to finish just one cup of ginger lemon tea. In the photo above, you see Adrian displaying his (forbidden) Hello Panda biscuits on the mini wall separating my table from his. And further in the background, you see Wendy the secretary trying to make her ginger lemon tea packet be seen in the photogra...

Goodness, we're into the third month of the year! Time is flying past too quickly!! 25 Feb, Friday: Celebrating Mummy's birthday on the actual day Originally, my mum thought we'd be able to get the family together on the actual day of her birthday to celebrate with a dinner. But it was quite a last minute decision to have the family dinner on the actual day itself, so my sister already had something planned. As a result, my parents invited a few friends, along with my brother, Carolin and I, and we went to the newly opened Oversea Chinese Restaurant at Shaw Tower for dinner. My parents were quite excited about it I think, because the 'char siew'(in English, it is roast pork) from the Oversea Chinese Restaurant in KL, Malaysia is so fatty and delicious. And to have a branch here in Singapore means they didn't need to wait until there was a church camp in KL to have that deliciously sinful 'char siew'. Left: The 'char siew' that seems to melt in yo...

Yesterday, it felt like I was just traveling from place to place. To the airport I left the house at 6:30am to catch bus 53 to the airport to send Julie off. She left for Korea today for exchange. Jien was supposed to be there with me but she completely overslept and didn't turn up. Julie also only arrived at the airport around 7:50am, which wouldn't have been an issue to me if I didn't need to leave the airport by 8am to get to LCP to get documents and then rush down to the Subordinate (Sub) Courts. I hugged Julie twice, said a few sentences, and then I had to leave. No photo or whatever. Just, 2 hugs. I choose to believe that it wasn't a wasted trip down to the airport to see Julie for the last time in awhile. To LCP At 8:05am, I rushed off to take the train to LCP to get some court documents Thomas would need for his trial. I was supposed to be at Sub Courts at 9:10am. I reached LCP around 8:55am, hurriedly rushed to the toilet, unloaded some stuff, grabbed the court...

Because I was in Nottingham, I have not spent the past two Christmases in Singapore. Now that I'm back in Singapore for this first Christmas since graduation, it is something I need to get used to again. Just as life in Nottingham was less busy as compared to life in Singapore, so Christmas in Nottingham was alot quieter and less hectic as compared to Christmas in Singapore... So far for this Christmas, I have eaten 2 log cakes. The first one is from Awfully Chocolate. It was part of a gift hamper to LCP: The second one is a log cake to the family from Uncle See Chuan and Aunty Cerina: Yesterday - Christmas Eve - I still had to go to LCP for a half-day of work before we had our Christmas party at 12:15pm. I finally managed to leave the house early enough to catch the same train as Tina. When we got to the office, we were surprised to see many small gifts on the table! Here is Tina at the reception desk with her presents: After hanging out with Tina for a bit downstairs, I finally d...

December has been a very interesting and eventful month for me so far. I don't have pictures for everything, but trust me when I say it has been very interesting, and very enjoyable. Besides the whole thing about starting work at my dad's firm, where I will be working until at least 31 May, I've also had a lot of new experiences and met new people. There were things that happened in the first two weeks of December, but I'm just going to start from last week. 11 Dec, Saturday: Christmas@Kovan For the first time, my church, LSBC, was offered the opportunity to hold an event at the old bus interchange at Kovan. We could tell the Christmas story, share testimonies of God's goodness and what Christmas means to us as Christians, and we could sing Christmas carols and even Christian praise and worship songs in a public place! We thank God for such a wonderful opportunity to let the community hear us and God's story like this! I also had a lot of fun attending the whole...