All the men and ladies in black

I followed my boss to the Shah Alam complex yesterday where they deal with legal matters pertaining to courts. Well, the case that we are doing is still in the stage called "case management" which meant that it's the preliminary stage before the case is being heard by the judge. So, the lawyers will need to submit their documents to the court registrar there before they can set their hearing dates. When I reached that area, I'm instantly surrounded by a legion of men and ladies in black with suitcases lining up to submit their documents. The suitcase especially looks a lil funny with its trolley and squarish looking features. That's where all the bundles of authorities and documents are stored when they go around. And everyone of them has them! You can easily spot a lawyer in the vicinity by the black jacket and that particular style of bag..haha.

The funny thing over there is that everyone seems to know everyone that passes by there. Perhaps it's such a small community that you are bound to meet friends in the same legal line. I think I counted 5 to 6 times where my boss greeted other bunch of lawyers that he knows as friends. Ahhh..it'll be interesting though if your friend happens to be the opposing team..haha. As my boss mentions, litigation is all about waiting and waiting. You have to wait if your opponent has missing documents, you have to wait if your client doesn't send you the right documents, you have to wait to get things certified, you have to wait to get the case shifted off to another date of hearing..lol.

Since my boss' opponent has already filed in another date, we are free to return back to office after confirming it with the registrar. Hmmm..I did some filing and proceeded on to draft out a statement of claim. Today's task was a little challenging and this involves the tabulation of costs after a case is concluded. Lol..I didn't know the preparation of letter can cost RM1 per page and basically, the legal firm can claim back all costs including postage, photostatting and printing cost. Haha..letter corresponding in the legal world is not that cheap. Every single time there's a change or a mere small development like attaching a receipt has to be followed up by a letter to inform the relevant parties of the changes. It could easily come up to about 30-50 letters going back and forth (depending on the length of case) and each of these letters can cost about RM3 for the process of preparing printing and sending it.

Hmmmm..working life is so far so good. I realised that no matter how jam the place can be, it takes only a maximum of 30 minutes to reach my working place. Lol, and I always end up being there early coz I also wanna eat breakfast before starting work.

First day at work

Today's my first day at work and I must say, it's a whole lot of new experience for me. I'm currently working in a law firm at Taman Tun Dr Ismail in Damansara. I have not been around Damansara so, naturally I'm not familiar with where to go and how to even get to the office but thanks to Kevin and Grace, I have directions to go there now and it takes less than 15 minutes to get there on a minimal jam traffic from Grace's home, like this morning. Lol..I was dearly hoping that I remembered all of Kevin's instructions yesterday and thank God I did. I managed to get the TTDI safe and sound at about 7am and my boss came in about 10 minutes after I had reached. Anyways, the parking at TTDI is very irritating because I need to go to machine and print for a ticket. It's 50 sen per hour and I can only print a ticket with 3 hrs max. So this means that I have to come down at every 3 hr interval unless i decide to park somewhere else at a permanent car park.

Since my boss had to rush off to do something, I help him to jaga the office until he's back at 11am plus. Meanwhile, I read some of the case files that he has, especially one of them in which we will be attending court tomorrow. Before having breakfast, I did a short exploration around TTDI and found out that there's really lots of stuff to makan there. There's Domino's, Popeye's, Pizza Hut, Ayamas, plenty of independent cafes, mamaks and a few Chinese kopitiam. Not to mention, KFC is just a mere 2 minutes walk away from the office and that's where I had my breakfast today..haha.

When my boss came back, he gave me a briefing on the stuff that he passed to me to read. Hmmmm..I learned about the basics of civil procedure and yea, it's nothing like the academic version of law. It starts with letter of demand, then statement of claim, then more paperworks to bypass. Lol..Intima red tape is miniature in comparison but at least the law documents are not as nonsensical as the proposals and event reviews that we send to Intima. There are lots to look through like receipts, invoices, doctor's handwriting and medical reports. I figure out that a lawyer needs to be as well verse as a doctor on the different scientific names of the human anatomy since they will be dealing with injuries from accidents and fights. I also just learned today that the scientific medical term for a blackeye is Periorbital Haematoma. (Haha..how cool was that?). I manage to do lots of hands on stuff today, including drafting a statement of claim (the real one this time) and helping my boss to correct the court's final draft of order on a case that was recently concluded. Oh yea, while looking through one of the Court of Appeal cases, it does seem that the bundles there are really like mooting..haha.

Time seems to pass by slowly today but I think it's gotta do with the environment of being at work..lol. Oh well, tomorrow is an adventure on its own too at the court xD

Hopelessly bad

These are times of misery for the Kop

Wow, it's not a win away at all for the turn of fortunes that Benitez had anticipated. It went on to be bad, bad and very bad. The Kop does best, but only against their fiercest rival. They wake up only then and they slept back immediately afterwards. Quite similar to the Man Utd from 2004 to 2006 where their only notable victories were against their main rivals while they slack at the other matches. The loss at Fulham meant that Benitez has lost 6 out of the last 7 matches and even Burnley is not losing at that rate. Mind you, they are losses, not even draws. How long will his head stay there? Benitez's head would have been long gone if he were to be at Chelsea, Newcastle or Bayern where the alarm bells rings fast. I don't think Mourinho or Scolari can last in front of Abrahamovic to go past a losing streak of 3 games. Maybe they're keeping Benitez there for old times Champions League sake. But simply, the blame cannot be placed on the manager squarely because the squad is ravaged heavily by injury and the remaining players themselves gotta wake up their ideas too

If Benitez wants to find solace at the Champions League, he can't do that either. The Scousers' qualification are hanging by the thread after Lyon's last minute equaliser to deny them a win. Fiorentina now needed just a draw and then Liverpool will be out irregardless of any results. They can consider getting a consolation prize at the Europa League instead..ahaha. No Torres and no Gerrard makes the Kop look like plain Jane. I wonder whether I can see "Leeds United" written on the walls of Anfield..lol.

United escaped with a 3-3 draw to qualify definitely for the next round. This weekend match up against Chelsea will be crunchy. If there's a need to put a loss in Chelsea's team sheet, this will be the weekend. It won't be easy at the Bridge but some damage should be done there. I hope United will learn from lessons from their Anfield encounter.

It's over..for now

Hmmm..exam's period over now but somehow, there's a melancholic feeling hanging over the air for me. I don't really feel that great after finishing this time because nearly all papers have some problems on their own other than Public International Law which of course, remains the most well attempted of all of them. I'm kinda pleased with the amount written for PIL and yea, that's the only paper which I have a good feeling about. Haha..you can't mess with Stan over historical or political stuff. =p Yesteday's equity paper was..hmmm..how would I term it..'ambivalent'. Maybe I should have done 3 certainties, maybe I should have not. I just hope the term "short answers ftw" in the past comes true this time too. A part of me felt that maybe I should have tried harder for the other papers or revised more. I just hope that some reasonable marks will come back soon, or else it would be super hard to get good results in the finals..sigh.

Now that it's two months hols, there's lots of stuff to do. I was thinking of going to visit Mama but due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to end up staying in campus until I go to work on the 9th. It'll be quite an experience working at a law firm even as a noob watching at the sidelines..haha. I hope I can learn something from there during the one month. xD It'll be a whole month of living with another family too, so I wanna thank Grace and her family for putting me up..haha. Other than work, I hope I can make some progress with my guitar and scaling by learning a few of my favourite rock tunes. Not to mention lots of movies and Lost Season 5 to catch up..haha. Till then, it's time to clear up the mess from the exams in my hostel room and prepare the materials for my two final thesis papers.

Exam blues and rants

I've been keeping awake and limiting myself to just 2 to 3 hrs of sleep for the past 2 days. It's that time of the year, the dreaded exams. It's like keeping watch at the watchtower. The desperation in trying to complete all the revisions. This mid-sessionals had to start with the killer subject known as "land law". I felt myself being "gg-ed"..really "gg-ed" and pawned big time because I didn't really finish looking through the stuff completely. I think I spent a disproportionate amount of time trying to shore up my tort law revision with notes making. In the end, land law was not that screwed up as I thought. I was kinda worried that I didn't have enough to write but it turns out that I didn't have enough time to write all the materials..lol.

It turns out that tort law was the one that ends up screwing my brains up. There were just too many things (yet again) to write. Year 2 subjects are a killer. Woe to those who can't summarise what they study. It's not about what I know or don't know. It's about the power of summary. And among the 50 cases that I've memorised, I could only recalled about 20 or so only with some of the minor but important cases being jammed up somewhere in the mental block. It had to get stuck at that point of time. Argghh! Tort law was the one which I prepared the best and I still ended up pawned there. Nearly about 60% of my resources and time was poured in there and the result was that I was scrambling to finish the last 2 essays, with me writing only half a page of crap for section b) of the 3rd question. Goodbye 10 marks. And maybe another 10 more also. Arumugam is gonna skin me alive too for the amount of crappy nonsense that I write in there with no cases to support. The first two essays were done pretty alright but the last two were just..ughhhhhhh. This was the exact same feeling that I had when I did my criminal law paper last semester exactly at the same time during mid-sessionals. I hope the first two will get 20+/25 to make up for the near-failing deficit for the other 2 behind. I'll be really glad if I can even run off with at least 60 marks. (which I narrowly got at criminal too). Bye bye distinction, unless I can get some imba marks at the finals..haiz..

I'm fearing for my last paper on Monday. Public International Law is crammable at the last minute but I haven't even touch anything on Equity and Trusts for the past 1 month. GG. I smell another disaster coming soon. May the Lord have mercy on me! :(

P.S. JPA mode is still on and will be on until Monday 2nd November. Till then, no updates on this blog.

Scouser Revival

Rio is lagging again in his concentration

I was right before. Man Utd screws it up the best when it's the easiest. In those circumstances, they had to lose in some idiotic fashion. Both teams had their star strikers hit with injury problems and both forced them to place anyway even though they may not have regained full fitness. It was a gamble that both sides are willing to take. Benitez is thinking that a half-fit Torres is better than no Torres while Fergie thinks that Rooney should start since Owen would probably not last the full 90 minutes of Anfield flak.

The game was pretty much balanced and both sides had their fair shares of shots although the Scouser's chances were overall much better in breaking the deadlock. The beachballs jokes were never ending as several of them rained down during corners. United played some good passing all around but the finishing at the final third was just awful. For some reason or so, the Liverpudian defence turned uber when they play against Man Utd. I can pretty much say that Man Utd may be able to score if one of the attempted long range shorts by Rooney or Scholes were allowed to take its full course. However, the Liverpudian defence was there to cover every inch of the field and their closing down of such shots is kinda impressive. All the shots that did get past through were predictable and Pepe Reina dealt with them with ease. At this rate, it just takes a defensive lapse from Rio and Co for the Scousers to kill steal a win. Anyways, Van der Sar had to commended though in covering for the inapt United defence and dealing with several Aurelio's shots impressively.

Torres had several chances in breaking free of the United defence but his half fitness prevented him from finishing off his balls lethally. He finally settled the score for the Kop after latching on from Benayoun's killer pass in the 65th minute. It's quite embarrassing that a fully fit Ferdinand actually struggled and got left behind biting the dust in the pace of chasing a half-fit Torres. That shouldn't have been a goal to let in by a good defender's standard in the first place. Once again, Rio's absent mindedness at the wrong time proved costly. Fergie released Owen only in the 74th minute amidst the chorus of boos from the Kop. For Owen, it's clearly a different Liverpool side he once knew, with only Carragher as the only person on the pitch he played with other than Gerrard in the spectator stands. Well, he wasn't the saviour of the match as United fans would have expected but he did play some part in assisting a very close equaliser. The closest ever moment that United had in salvaging the match was when Valencia managed to smash in the ball diagonally past Pepe Reina in the penalty box crowd but unfortunately, it rattled against the crossbar and away went went United's hope. It's moments like this that you know that it's not gonna be Man Utd's day. The match finished off in a most shameful manner when towards the last few seconds, United threw everything that they have at Liverpool and a counter-attacking turnaround tide saw David Ngog going 1 v 1 against van der Sar, effectively sealing it with a goal to put down to rest any attempts by United to equalise.

There are at least 2 referee decisions that left Fergie aggrieved and he may have reasons to do so. One was a Carragher slide smash on Carrick in the penalty box but it appears as if the referee played an advantage when it should have been a penalty. The other was a last-man tackle made by Carragher on his former comrade brother-in-arms Owen. It could have been a red-card and the tide of the games might have been very different indeed. Instead, it was Vidic who got sent off for a soft second yellow but Mascherano's on the receiving end too of a red towards the end of the match..lol. Bad referee decision or not, Man Utd have performed below-par in the match and even Fergie admits that. Maybe we just need more beachballs to motivate Man Utd to do better too..lol.

Well, looks like defiant Benitez was right after all: It's just a win away from turning their fortunes and what better way to do it than against the Red Mancunians. Benitez may just have his job saved by his fellow Spaniard and he would do well to remember Torres when he gets his paycheck from Gillett or Hicks..lol. Anways, the Scousers still have lots to catch up even with this victory. With Chelski back at the top, United will have to hope that the Blues start to lose some points again.

Blushing Red Kop

Beach football anyone?

What a weekend for the Scousers. What a weekend indeed. I can't help laughing over and over again. This will probably be remembered as one of the weirdest moments in football history. A comical disaster struck for them just within 5 minutes of their game against the Black Cats at the Stadium of Light last weekend. A Liverpool beachball apparently floated and invaded the pitch amidst the Sunderland attacking wave. A superb pass between the Sunderland players enabled Darren Bent to have a shot at goal. At the split second of fate, the mighty football collided at the crossroads with the funky red beachball and Pepe Reina ended up saving the beachball instead! The most ironical thing was that the beachball was thrown onto the pitch by a Liverpudian..lol. So, Rafa and Co can have no complains. They should probably ban the fan who threw that sneaky invader onto the pitch..haha.

Without the talismanic duo, Torres and Gerrard, the Scousers were unable to save themselves from the mess. That was their 3rd defeat in a row, and it looks like the Kop is in really deep trouble now. 8th in the table and 4 defeats in the Premier League don't spell good results for a team aspiring to dislodge their most hated defending champions in Old Trafford. It is interesting to note that the enemies or rather closest rivals to Man Utd at the top of the table all falter at the same time during the last Premier League weekend. Chelsea got rocked at Villa Park while Man City was held to a 1-1 draw. Only the Gooners continued marching on. Ahhh..this meant that United's draw against Sunderland is more or less compensated with every other team screwing up..lol. United returned to the top of the table at the expense of Chelski tripping and the embarrassing beachball that sunk the Liverpool steamer would have brought a smile to Fergie's face.

The rot doesn't stop there for Liverpool. Red beachball jokes aside - just yesterday during the Champions League table round-up, Lyon condemned the Scousers to a 4th straight defeat, making it their worst run of 4 consective defeats since 1987. This is not a passing relapse, it's turning into a major scale crisis at Anfield. Benitez risked Gerrard in the match against Lyon and he returned back to the bench after 25 minutes because he couldn't much continue with the injury he is still sustaining. Their domestic front is already bad enough, and now their European front threatens to disintegrate horribly with the possibility of ending at up Europa League instead being very real.

This Sunday's match-up against the Scousers will definitely be electrifying. There are lots at stake for Liverpudians, as Benitez desperately tries to prevent a 5th straight defeat, which would be a major total disaster. A demoralised bunch of Scousers is ripe for pickings. United would be in the best position in recent years for the Liverpudian's head but I remain cautious on this. This is because Man Utd is also known to be screwing up against their rivals when they're in the easiest position against them. So, though the Scousers look like beaten scrap metal at every point, they cannot be written off and they'll be even more determined and fiery to prove themselves. Man Utd would have to up their game and make sure their advantage in form counts. It's the gonna be a good day to bring down the Kop on Sunday.