adventures in job-hunting

Job-hunting now, post-bar, so I may still not be around much, unless I am trying to escape from the depressing tedium to bemoan the fact that I still feel unqualified for everything.

(1) Jobs that require you to tell them your salary requirements. What. I don't know! However much you want to pay me so I can eke out a living? A million dollars a year? What is a reasonable request, how much does it affect whether they'll give you the job, oh god too much stress.

(2) I've forgotten how to write cover letters. D: It's essentially a talk up of all your skills and experiences to make you sound like the pinnacle of perfection that everyone is desperate to have! ...which sadly does not explain why you are currently jobless, huh. (No, really, I feel so artificial every time I have to embellish my accomplishments with grandiose prose. It's been beat into me to Be Humble. And, anyway, anyone with Asian parents in the U.S. probably grew up hearing about how Everyone Else's Kid Is So Much Better Than You.) So...how crass it to just write HIRE ME HIRE ME HIRE ME I'LL DO ANYTHING and then sign it?

(3) Do you think it makes a significant difference if I apply to DC jobs with a local address or an NC address? The government refuses to pay relocation costs flat-out, so I feel like they shouldn't discriminate based on location. /contemplates

(4) Senator jobs! Republicans offer to pay. Democrats apparently want you to subsist off the glory of serving alone. Now the question becomes: what morals are you not willing to compromise for the sake of gold, gold, gold an income?

(5) The only legal jobs in Singapore require 2+ years of prior experience. The only legal jobs in Hong Kong are for corporate/funds/banking lawyers. The only legal jobs in China are for Chinese attorneys fluent in Mandarin. There are no legal jobs in Taiwan. Well - fine! I didn't like you either! (Not that I could've honestly expected to get anywhere without guanxi.)

(6) Why doesn't your job site support Chrome?! /grumbles and breaks out the never-used Firefox

(7) There are people who advertise lawyer positions on Craigslist? Like, actual firms? I am seriously eyeing all of them with suspicion. Don't you, like, have a website for that? Or...approximately 100 different job websites?

(8) The eternal Catch-22 question of how do I get a job when every job requires experience and no job wants to hire me and give me some experience?

Sad story from post-bar: while I was in NY, there was an episode of Law and Order or a Lifetime movie or something on TV where a suspect gets questioned in a room by the investigating officers who arrested him. They then step out, mentioning something about the suspect's attorney. Mei's first thought: OH NO, THAT IS SO ILLEGAL, YOU CAN'T QUESTION A SUSPECT WITHOUT HIS COUNSEL PRESENT IF YOU KNOW HE HAS COUNSEL FOR THAT MATTER NOOO. Someone then tried to argue with me about how Miranda rights required explicit invocation now and that mere silence was not enough. I only gave him a Look and thought, layman, you don't think I know that? Because this is not a violation of his Miranda rights, this is a violation of NY's indelible right to counsel, guaranteed by NY's 6th Amendment, which offers even greater protection than the U.S. 5th Amendment. I know because I just took a two-day test on it..

And then I was promptly horrified by myself. Don't be one of those unbearably smug lawyer types, Mei!

Cheers, though. Everyone says the bar exam is the most law you'll ever know - I will now commence slowly (quickly?) forgetting everything!

海浪

I shudder when I look through archives of my old blogs and see the way I used to be so - young, I suppose, back in the day. Maybe I shouldn't blame myself for that, but it makes me wonder if I'll look back at how I am now in a few years and shudder still.

Apparently July is a tough month for me, generally speaking, over the years. This year, I'm worried my ~depression~ will interfere with my bar review - mostly in that it strips away the time I need to study with periods of listlessness/hopelessness/pointlessness. And other -esses.

Friendships always fuck me up more than any other type of relationship. Perhaps it is a sign I am not committed enough to those other relationships, or a sign that I am not yet ready for them. Somehow, I am not shocked. Sometimes (more often now) I wonder whether I even want that kind of relationship. What do I want? Ah, the essential question.

In happier news, I made garlic fried rice this morning and breakfast sausages. Cooking, like cleaning, makes me feel much more productive than studying ever will, since you reap the benefits of instant and visible results. Unfortunately, cooking and cleaning will probably not help me pass the bar...

greatest common factor

Took the day off bar studying and that was - all right. I had a good time at A's Clue party in the evening, but looking back, I think I wish I would've studied. Can you parse that sentence? In any case, there's nothing I can do now - sleep and bar study all day tomorrow, I suppose, though I may need to make a pit stop at the library.

I have a lot of feelings right now and most of them are unpleasant, so I don't think I'll record them here for posterity, because there's venting in private and then there's being hurtfully passive-aggressive in a blog post. One thing I can say, I think, is that I am pretty pissed at people who are willing to sacrifice their friendships for their relationships. I don't mean that you should be placing either one higher on the hierarchy or that sacrifices don't need to made - I understand that things change and it's not a competition. But when you are displacing your friendships entirely, purposefully or not, for your relationship, I think that's bullshit. I don't think I've done that in the past - but then again, maybe there's a reason I'm no longer in those relationships. Maybe I have been doing it wrong all along, for not being more willing to commit more to those relationships. If it turns out that you really do have to sacrifice your friendships for your relationship-- I can't even finish that hypo, it's clearly so wrong.

I suppose if our friendship was so weak as to be so easily and carelessly sacrificed, there wasn't much to it in the first place. Or you just didn't care as much as I did. Either way, I'm sorry.

I'm hurt and I'm angry, and I'm sorry.

I'm not targeting anyone or singling anyone out because the best part is that friends trading me in for their relationships has happened in more than one situation so... They say when you're the greatest common factor in all your failed relationships, the problem is probably with you. Yo.

So it's not you, it's me. That means I get to make a whiny blog post about it, right?

sound of distress

Oh bar studying. D: So much D:.

Oh MPT, why. Why. I can't remember the last time I wrote a memo, persuasive or otherwise - even for moot court I was writing briefs and at least I had more than 90 minutes to do so.

The MPT "measures fundamental lawyering skills, namely: legal analysis and reasoning, fact analysis, fact gathering, problem solving, and recognizing and resolving ethical dilemmas".

Whoever said I had these skills lied. Wait, would that be me? No wonder I wouldn't recognize an ethical dilemma if it walked up and offered to buy me a drink.

D:

I could use a drink, though.

pick yourself up and push yourself forward

I've been feeling like the crap the past few days. Part of it is not sleeping well, which I'm sure contributes to the decline in emotional stability. I'm surviving for the most part; the last thing I want to do is lay the same-old same-old whining on my friends, who've all heard it dozens of times before. Really, one of the worst things I do when I'm feeling bad is allowing myself to wallow. So I am trying to pick myself up and make some productivity happen regardless of how I feel, and that accomplishing of things will eventually lead to a pick up in mood anyway.

Of course the other thing I'm dealing with are the joys of procrastination. What an accurate depiction! Yet so tragic.

For better or worse, I will have to force myself to get some research done this weekend, since I have to put together my powerpoint presentation for class on Monday. For better, actually. Let's get to work on this paper and get it out of the way sooner.

A bit of sociality will also help improve my mood, I think. I managed to Skype with my 宝贝 T today in the best kind of phone-call way, where you say nothing of importance to each other and just enjoy each other's presence for an hour or so. Tomorrow, hopefully something with B and A to celebrate B's birthday. They are cool people. Some of my favorite to hang out with among the law crew; the rest of my time goes to myself and my local friends. It's a nice balance, hopefully. Dinner with family friends J's parents tonight - delicious black pepper crab and salted duck egg crab. Food, you are my favorite, even when you are messy and I've forgotten to take pictures. Hopefully meeting up with F and G and S and S at some point... Well. I'll be around Singapore for the next month. We can make things happen so I can stop being so homesick.

It's not that I miss STL so much that I miss my friends there and the ability to do certain things I can't do so much here: drive and cook, for example.

At least one good thing came out of feeling like crap: I always turn to new music when I feel bad. So now I have more Chinese music. Hurrah, Fan Wei Qi. My style of easy-listening c-pop.

for all my complaints, the good remains true

In summary, translated from tired chatspeak:

VS: Is your semester abroad as good as you thought it'd be?
Me: Yes. I love it. I'm not loving my lack of future/direction/purpose in life, but that would've been the same even in St. Louis. I would rather have these existential crises here, where I get to fill in the extra time and space with awesome experiences.
VS: Could you work in Singapore?
Me: It is definitely something I am looking into.

cosmic balance decided i'd had it too good lately

Some people are assholes. Some people are idiots. I fall in one or both of the categories, thank you spectacularly terrible morning. The day was saved from continuing in that horrible vein by G, whom I hung out with at Orchard (lunch, Comic Station, Kinokuniya, Starbucks) and the National Museum, where we saw the Pompeii exhibit.

Last night I branched out and met new exchange students, ooh la la. L, whom I'd met already, suggested we do dinner in Chinatown and then hit up the comedy club he'd been recommended in Clark Quay. I thought it would be fun, so I agreed, and met V and T (both Canadians, because NUS is apparently crawling with Canadian exchange students - who knew?). We did a fun dinner game in which each person was sent to buy a dish to share with the group in order to push us all into being more adventurous with our food; it ended well, with many delicious things. Popiah, in particular, I'm a fan of. T's choice of Szechuan wontons was really delicious too.

The comedy club is called Comedy Masala and is a weekly Tuesday night open-mic stand-up at Club Home. Apparently a ton of NUS students came and we formed the largest group Comedy Masala's had since their opening (16 weeks ago). Good crowd. Loud music. Cheap (relatively) drinks. The MC was Pakistani and very funny; the 9 comedians were a range of funny to not so funny (closer to oh-god-embarrassment-squick), all guys. Some Indian, some Singaporean, one Malay, and one well-known white dude to wrap up the night. Overall a pretty fun experience, except it ran late, but L and V wanted food on our way back, so we had prata (which was good), and then it was even later!

Why does no one believe me when I tell them I'm really old inside? Like, a 50-year-old woman who needs to be in bed by a sensible hour and get up early without feeling like she wants to die? I rolled out of bed this morning to finish up student pass stuff, only to be completely tied up in Singapore's affinity for red tape (in triplicate) and my own stupidity. So that was unfun, on top of feeling physically like death. Emotionally not so hot either.

On the bright side, kaya toast with butter is delicious, and G is perfectly lovely. And C looks like she may very well be able to come to Singapore to visit, which I'm thrilled about.

The grimmer news is that I still think some people are assholes (no, I told you, the "no cursing" thing was never going to work out, not even a little bit) and I have so much, so much to do. And my emotional equilibrium has not returned, to say the least.

I love to end on a bright note, yeah? Bright note: good thing my room's only on the fourth floor!

it's like trying to ford the damn river

I've finished packing all my clothes and books (save the textbooks I plan on selling back) and have come to the conclusion that owning clothes and books is a pain in the ass. Or at at least the transportation of them is. Why has no one invented teleportation yet? Why is that not recognized as a real word? (I have many questions.) I also keep looking around and noticing things that will need to be packed that I can't currently do anything about, e.g., my lamp, my sheets/blankets/pillows, and bathroom things. Sorry, I actually sort of need those at the moment. I am legitimately concerned about whether I can shove everything into my car at this rate. If worse comes to worst though, I should be able to store some things at J's place until we can come pick it up in May. Argh, stress!

Honestly, I am much more stressed now than I was while doing exams, which is weird because 'm not actually on a deadline since I can choose when I'm leaving... Still...

I am half-afraid one of my tires is going to blow out on me while driving back, but it might be paranoia speaking. I'm taking the southerly route so there shouldn't be much if any snow (also I should be on giant interstates anyway), but (insert irrational panic) should I get my car's oil changed and get a check-up before I go?! I'm also tempted to leave at, like, 3am and just miss out on the traffic since I'm going to have to drive in the dark regardless. This way I'll end up at home earlier too.

Oh moving in the winter, I hate you. Let's never do this again.

Now I will inhale some coffee because, yeah, caffeine withdrawl headaches are a sad part of the life of an addict, i.e., me. Also I will eat some food and watch some Top Chef because it is that or have a needless stress meltdown. Option B is the wrong answer here.

a meandering tale of summer

Argh, job-hunting woes. All I'm looking for is some part-time summer/fall work, please! Any income would be great at this point. CB&W may hire for the fall ugh. Borders, call me back right now! Maybe B&N is hiring too?

In other news, there is no real news. I am torn between missing people and thinking I should reach out more via phone calls and feeling incredibly introverted and prone to isolation. I'm pretty sure the latter is not really the healthiest of choices, especially in light needing to maintain friendships, but it is so much easier! Why do I always try for the path of least resistance? I know better. I also know I feel much happier/more satisfied/more accomplished when I have worked against the path of least resistance and have actually accomplished something. Still.

I have again lapsed into losing the creative urges, so my word count so far this year is abysmally low. Such is the theme of this summer, I suspect, much unlike last summer. I feel pretty blasé about that - which probably concerns me more than the low word count or lack of writing. Shouldn't I be more upset that I'm not feeling the drive to write that I used? I remember being so unhappy whenever I couldn't write before. Now I sort of just shrug and dismiss it and continue reading/living/whatever.

Some random thoughts on:

Food
I have a love affair with milk tea, man. Not even bubble tea (unless it's the freshly made authentic/homemad kind), but milk tea itself. It would surpass my love of coffee if only it kept me ramped up like coffee does but, well, coffee's effect is probably mostly in my head but, my, those are some mighty powerful effects. This reminds me that I need to just suck it up and go buy a coffeemaker tomorrow.

(In related news, I was thrilled by the Top Chef Masters finale tonight. I think I enjoy it more than regular Top Chef for a number of reasons that I am too lazy to list out at the moment.)

Kpop
My thoughts on kpop are this: apparently SS3 is running from August to next April. I'm in Singapore next spring (Jan-May) and if they happen to have a tour date in Singapore or Malaysia during that time, I will go. Otherwise, whatever. I'm pretty disappointed that the Wonder Girls/2AM concert in St. Louis was cancelled though. Sunye!

Life in general
I keep feeling vaguely stressed (or dissatisfied?) by life and I'm not entirely sure why: maybe it's the lack of job. Maybe it's just this humming under my skin about not feeling productive enough. Let's face the facts: a lifetime of pushing hard and being told to push harder to meet expectations, that you're not meeting your potential, and that you can always (and should always) do better - it's hard to know what it means to "relax". A little part of you's always going to be whispering: hey, do you know all the things you could be doing with this time instead, you procrastinating slacker? Even if another part of you argues that, dude, there's only one life and you need to experience so many aspects of it to truly know what living's like.

/end philosophical meandering into the psyche

memories are like bullets, cracking my armor

You have questions, I have some answers:

01. No.
02. I've lost the point. Everything seems surreal lately, like I'm watching someone else fuck up her life.
03. I'm not interested.
04. I hope so but I really doubt it.
05. You never cared and I stopped trying. Or is it you never tried and I stopped caring?
06. Green.
07. Yes, like crazy.
08. Alienating all my friendships, yeah baby.
09. I could not begin to give a fuck.
10. Forty-two.


When I look back at what I write and how I write "love", it's easy to see what my version of true love is: friendship set on fire. As cheesy as it is, it's true. It's all laughter and dependency, understanding even without knowing everything, trusting the one who makes you laugh and smile and is always there, through good times and bad. The one who notices the little things (how important the little things are), the one you've grown so accustomed to in your life that you (in a way) take them for granted, as a given, like the air you breathe.


Apropos of nothing: Jensen Ackles is a gorgeous thing. It irritates me to no end when people don't understand how to use the word "nonplussed" (hint: it is not a synonym for "nonchalant") or confuse homey vs. homely, nauseous vs. nauseated, and faze vs. phase And if I ever did trust people, I no longer do. It wasn't even a conscious decision, merely defensive.


the whole world is watching - you haven't come this far just to fall off the earth

미치곘어나

S posted some thoughts on Avatar that make me :D a bit because she sums up in very precise words a lot of why this movie bothers me - and it helps that she's seen it? My dislike for the film is based off what I know it's about, but perhaps her words will have more weight considering she sat through all 2.5 hours of it. I'm not sure I can link or quote her without her permission so wait a bit on that. In summary, however, the movie shouldn't have tried to have a plot - and if it really was going to go the plot route, it failed spectacularly on a literary level (and not just on the sociological/race issues as I mentioned previously).

In different news, I am somewhat depressed by the fact that I have to go back to St. Louis so soon. I should call up V to see if we're still on for dinner tomorrow night... The weather here has been sunny though cold (but 30s aren't so bad); St. Louis is frigid and in the teens this week. :( Boo. But next week is supposed to go back up to the 30s. Winter, I'm not cut out for it.

I will regret not having been more productive over break, I know it, but part of me wants this last fling anyway. I'm also looking forward to being knee-deep in busyness again too, actually; stress is not my favorite thing but it seems to motivate me to be more productive. And what's law school without some complaining, right?

Not a long update because I need to drive my brother to his kung-fu lesson in about five minutes. I'll bring a book and do some reading.

Mei out for now. Emails and more contemplation/meta (too much meta for my own good) later.

playing your violin like a ukelele

The culture of "emo" nowadays has made it impossible to have your feelings hurt without being labeled "emo" or melodramatic or just too thin-skinned. It's no longer okay to just be human and have human reactions without people telling you to "lighten up" or not take things so seriously or just to get over yourself. :/

Though, to an extent, in this situation it is applicable. "Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter." The wisdom of Dr. Seuss is pertinent still.

You don't have to love me or the things I do, but I'd appreciate it if you would just let me be, to live my life as I do. I'm not forcing anything on you, am I?

Then again, I should also "man up" a bit. I put it out there, and that means getting judged and getting critiqued. Privacy rights are more of courtesy than a right of law when you're a public figure. (Am I a public figure? That's a weird thought. I never wanted to be famous, but to complain about problems like these is like complaining about having too much money. Um, I will never have too much money, thanks.)

On a slightly related note: I hate posting things up and discovering typos/mistakes later that I can't fix. D: It's my own fault for not proofing it beforehand but...augh. Still so sad.

My problems in this regard are shallow; don't worry about it. Hurt feelings heal and I have a guy friend who is enthusiastically reccing the Skip Beat anime at me, so that has buoyed me up slightly through amusement factor alone.

sometimes being an INFJ is hard, when no one gets you

I keep thinking it must be nice to be like J...friends with everyone. Enough time to be friends with everyone; enough energy to make the effort, and easy-going enough to make it uncomplicated. I don't know what changed this year - maybe it's just that I'm so busy, so I never have the energy. Maybe it's just that I'm not Korean enough to hang out with the Koreans, or Chinese enough to hang out with the LLMs, or nice enough to hang out with the people I thought were my friends.

Well, it'd be unfair to say they were no longer friends...but it's like there's this expectation that I'm nice and friendly and will make the effort and take the initiative like I did last year. Why is there this expectation? I do want to be nice and friendly and all that, but...it feels so much harder this year. It feels like there are complications left and right, and imminent drama I never wanted and am valiantly doing my best to ignore. It feels like I'm losing people because we're all so busy, we all have our own small groups and our own directions...

And it feels like I'm losing people because I'm not as nice and friendly and outgoing as I was last year. Which seems unfair to me. I can't be perfect; I can't be positive all the time. I wish I could be. I wish I had more energy, or that I didn't feel like I was trying and getting nowhere; I wish I could stay happy and energetic in the face of that but - but I'm human, and I get discouraged when I feel like I try and get nowhere. Maybe I am trying less than I did last year. Maybe I am just tired. Can you fault me for that?

It feels like I'm the only one expected to make an effort; that if I fail, it's my fault. But friendships are a two-way thing, aren't they? I can't make new friends if they aren't receptive. I can't keep friendships if they don't make an effort to maintain them too.

I guess...I wish I were a better person. I wish I had more positive energy, that I was still nice and likable and all that. I wish I had a purpose in life.

I hate feeling like I'm losing people. I hate feeling like I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Little joys, I still have them, but where is my big picture?