the long overdue post

Its been quite a while since i've posted stuff here. My backlog in terms of blogging posts and photos to upload on facebook is really bad. I'm just going to skip the winter holiday posts and get straight into the present; the past will be slowly chronicled in a series of holiday posts =)

So, the burning question would really be, did I really pass all my subjects? The answer is really "yes and no". I passed all my law modules, but really I failed beginner's tennis if it was counted for credit. The final exam consists of playing one on one against the coach and trying to beat her. After a 3 hour marathon match (well my regular exams last that long too!), I was unfortunately beaten 6-1, 5-7, 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4).

Actually, I lied. haha the only reason why I would have failed beginner's tennis is because I didn't attend enough lessons to pass. Of the lessons I skipped, half of them were due to law makeup classes, and the other half was because i was held up the night before and had too little sleep.

So now at NYU, I'm taking what I like to call the "political dissident" route. There's Advanced International Law, International Human Rights, War Crime and Terror, and erm Accounting for Lawyers (even political dissidents need to count!). The classes are rather fun, and my tutors are all very interesting. One of them was a form college president who decided that he preferred teaching to admin stuff (on an unrelated note, in his class he said that academia can be so bitchy because, as Kissinger puts it, the stakes are so low); another is Philip Alston, who happens to be the UN special Rappourteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary executions. He is the guy who's always in the local news for clashing with the Singapore Government. Its really interesting to hear his views about Singapore and human rights; ask me if you want to know!

Now as for my new place, its fantastic. It better be, because I'm paying more for housing than what some people are paying for an entire semester of exchange. Or, as one of the NUS/NYU LLM students here put it, the amount they pay for 1 entire academic year of on campus housing is more than what we pay for our NUS LLB degree. And the sad part is that its the market rate. It just shows you how expensive Manhattan is.

But on the plus side, my location is really fantastic. Its 5 mins away from law school, just off broadway, and really near alot of good eating places. There's this French pastry place that is a 7 min walk; apparently its so good that French expatriates go there for breakfast. There's Joe's pizza right in the neighbourhood, which divided opinion between Kox (who swears by it), and Gabriel (who thinks its exceedingly normal). There's this new ramen place that is supposedly a branch of a famous ramen shop in Tokyo, and its 5 mins away too. Also, chinatown, with its attendant dim sum and singapore food etc, is just a 20 min walk away. And, for all you shopaholics, my place is just 3 mins away from the border of Soho, and 5 mins away from shops like Prada and Hugo Boss etc. I'm always amused by this fact, because going to Prada over here is like me going to 7-11 back home in Singapore - it is that convenient.

And of course, being in NYC means that lots of people visit you. My room has already played host to Gabriel from DC, Kox and Galvin from Boston, the dudes from Canada, and some friends I met at the Singapore Embassy in Washington who's on NOC (NUS Overseas College) in Philly. My room is so big that it can accommodate 3 guys sleeping on the floor, though at times it seems like I'm running a Chinese illegal immigrant outlet over here =)

And there you have it, a short summary of life as it is presently in NYC =)