the laziness got the better of me and i decided to hold out updating for a while. yeahs, loads did happen in this couple weeks.

but whatever it is, i was reading yan's blog shortly before this and she spoke about self-reflection. and yes, when was the last time i reflected my own actions? i have taken some pretty drastic actions in the past month or so, which has never failingly mystified the few people who know what is going on. starting with the most obvious and publicly known decision of me moving in with nick. and i know, while so many people have never asked me, who the hell is nick? no one has really quite heard about him before right. he is popped out of nowhere.

and i have been particularly vague about it. the truth is, the truth will shock all. so perhaps, ignorance is bliss. i have never really lied about how i knew him or for how long or even how well i know him to begin with, just particularly vague. i reckon that vagueness is enough to start a whole string of unrecognisable change in me.

i do question myself alot nowadays. my (poor) decision making skills... my (lack of) judgment and even my own (in)sanity. consciously doing things i have never ever done before, allowing myself to succumb to change, change i never quite thought i'll embrace. [P.S don't go off jumping the gun, readers] but never quite once have i got much answers to what i am doing.

yes, i embarked on change with a strict code of what i expected (or did not expect) to get out of this whole thing. but girls being girls, since when it is ever easy to separate your emotions? well, i am trying/struggling. like what mark and jeff said, its about learning to 'protect yourself' and for me, i am just taking the baby steps of discovering what it takes to protect myself. we all need to reach that stage at some point in time, and now is my time.

if i chose to do what i did, i need to learn to deal with damage control, managing myself and not regretting whatever repercussions that my actions have incurred. so far, i have no regrets, but whether i am proud of myself and the chosen actions, i can't quite say i am. but i will live. its a trade off. enjoyment and grief. we all make decisions that gives us possible moments of enjoyment for which we may have to suffer later. the same goes for my situation.

boys will be boys. and i will let them be. insensitive, red blooded and indifferent.

but i promise myself i won't let this get to me for long. and bounce back. because thats what the new rach has set herself out to be. she will not harbour any expectations because it only hurts when they let you down. it fucking hurts.

honestly, i don't give a flying f what people are going to assume from this entry but all i know is if you guys care enough about me, don't judge me and talk to me to know where i am coming from. maybe then you'll understand. i don't expect you to agree with me. just understand and not judge base on some flimsy statements.

you gave me such a fright on saturday, you know?!?!?

Virginie - Lips Of An Angel (Hinder cover)

damn. i am considering becoming lesbo.

my loveable housemate mucking around ikea with swedish meatballs.

i feel like a newly wed without all the lovey dovey emotions.

the whole process of moving in with nick. i reckon the whole block of neighbours think we are married or something. not to mention we have broken our bank accounts to furnish the place. imagine. $4.5k in 3 days. can you beat that? its a nice lil "shag pad", as we call it. not that any shagging is done. photos will be posted up once the whole place is done up. it is in its final stages.

its so funny, how everything worked out. he is a neat freak - he's even neater than me! beat that. he loves to assemble the ikea furniture, helps me carry the heavy stuff, and well, i do the cooking and cleaning. this is getting interesting. functioning like we're married but we're not. plus away with all those stupid emotions.

but its been good fun. honestly. now that the chapter of jem has been finally closed, while the heart burns and aches which no one knows about, a new chapter has begun. no love interests, just focussing on my work and enjoying my lil shag pad. we all have to move on sometimes.... even if the pain of letting go is too hard to bear.

linguistics1101: signs are used to convey messages to people. what do you think this represent?

psychology2210: differences in areas of touch between the genders and relations.

unlike my uber boring law lectures which are filled with words and more words, it seems like nick and jem are/were studying uber cool stuff. *grumbles*

the secret snapshot of housie while we chilled @ gloriajeans.

Alternate Dispute Resolution Journal Week 2 (the 1st of 6 entries)
Lin Rachel 10447301

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ADR is the process by which an impartial person, who is not a judge, assists in resolving a dispute between two parties or more.

Honestly, who am I trying to kid by regurgitating the definition? I will be lying through my very bare (and coffee-stained yellow) teeth to say I know a fair bit of what alternate dispute resolution (ADR) is. The truth is, prior to our first introductory lecture on Wednesday, I have not quite got a clue what it is about. When I think of ADR, the only words I can muster up are ‘conciliation’, ‘mediation’, ‘negotiation’ and ‘out of court settlements’, which honestly, I am quite abashed to say it is not very much.

Yet, after sitting through the introductory lecture, it appears to me that ADR is fundamentally about those issues and processes. I know the next question you must be thinking is why on earth I am doing such a unit when I have not the faintest idea about what it is about. Well, the simple reason is that ADR happens to fit in my busy timetable and I figured that since it is not one of those freakily early or outlandishly late classes, I could very well attend it.

On a slightly more serious note, the term ADR intrigued me. It was not the usual administrative “law” or contract “law”, which I have always felt was rather intimidating. You know what they say about law students – those poor, poor students who slog their craps off. Call it cheap thrill, but the fact that I was doing a law unit which did not even have the word “law” in its title was quite appealing to me. Its title made it appear more student-friendly and slightly comforting to a stressed out and overworked fourth year student like me.

By the sound of it, I’ve always thought ADR is an avenue for me to further develop my mediation skills. Also given the one too many “crisis” that my friends face, I think I have become quite the Aunt Agony in that respect. However, I have not always been successful in remaining impartial or keeping tact in such situations, a weakness of mine. Hence, to be able to take those mediation skills to another and more serious level, would only serve to be an asset to my future working (and social) life.

I’ve always found litigation cumbersome and arduous. Patience has never been a virtue of mine, quite unfortunately. I like things settled right there without the wishy-washy whimsicality. Not to mention the exorbitant financial costs incurred (excellent for us lawyers-to-be but not quite the common man) by the claimant or potential defendant! Having survived law school for 3 years, I have seen my fair share of the silly case scenarios which I’ve personally felt could have been easily settled out of court.

Perhaps with ADR taking a more active role in settling disputes, law students will have fewer cases to read in the future!

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*note: whatever rubbish you have read are entirely and purely up for submission to be graded. God save my ass!

i am required, as part of one of my law unit requirements, to keep a weekly journal on my thoughts on that particular unit in question, namely Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR). so i thought that it would be quite interesting to publish those weekly journal entries on my blog, so perhaps you readers may some-what benefit from the nonsensical stuff i write on ADR.

enjoy!

i've tried. so hard.

buti just can't let you go.