Centimetres of growth~

It is a sobering thought that I am 21 and still look like a child. Never a tall girl like some others whom I used to play skipping rope with, I always try to feel tall: standing on a stool; standing on my tipped toes, or, as I am now entitled to, standing on heels. Resolution plays a great role in a person's life to spur him or her on to reach for the unreachable. Unreachable it may be, when I really do stretch (my joints when I train splitting for Latin), I feel pain, and eeriely, a true sense of existence. Resolution is about one thing at a time, planning for the future and molding it. Looking back, I had so many plans at the beginning of this year. Now this year is drawing to an end, I grow barely a few centimetres, though I do feel that maybe I get more than a few centimetres of growth.

There are times that I doubt whether looking back is a wise thing, when moments of self-denial strike. At some crossroads in your life, you were bound to have more choices than you currently possess, more untrod paths to explore, more possibilities to test on and more stories to imagine. For me, choosing law was one of the choices, but it never was a real choice. Devoid of any grievance or sense of grudge like some peers in law school have as they are nudged to pursue half-heartedly a degree with perceived "better prospects", I thought law was a too far-fetched choice: it was too good for me. Even now I still doubt that I would ever get the crux of it or really know the rope of mastering it. "Mastering" is a really big word, as I am, though learning fast and avariciously, still learning the basics--taking the first sampling. It does taste good.

Compared with some other paths that I used to imagine myself taking, law is not the most grueling one maybe. My heart went for things that do not operate like rocket science: I wanted to be a diplomat, to get my hands in international relations and to meet (rather than fantasize) truly amazing people--talking things out, making things happen--all so exciting. I also considered succumbing to the reality of being an engineer, capitalising on my forte in numbers, despite knowing full well that I do not really have any talent with creation, a trait all useful engineers have. When I tried to prime myself with what I was going to dealing with for a good four years of university life (and maybe longer), I went to Kinokunia this summer. Hopping from one bookshelf to another, I suddenly realised no matter how hard I wanted to prime myself to "get interested" in certain books, I could not make myself do it. I tried to decipher how an arch bridge was built in a book on civil engineering but subsequently decided that it was not my cup of tea. The law of natural gravity is as hard to resist as the natural attraction or predilection I feel for some realms of knowledge/facts/opinions. I would rather spend time on political science or possibly, economics. Strangely, I did scrutinize some law books quite cursorily and decided that those people writing/reading those books must have invented a language of their own! That was not normal English I was reading: seemingly innocent daily vocabularies take a life of their own to mean something drastically different. Strangely specific lexicon, I thought. I could not follow most of the books so I dropped them. Indeed, until now I still feel that literature on jurisprudence is so much more interesting to munch on than writings on substantive law, including some apparently commonsensical legal journals. 

What really features in my half-year's dalliance with law is the art of subjectivity, or rather the manipulation of innate subjectivity. The word "manipulation" maybe a lot stronger than I meant. The emphasis is on the art of crafting sentences/creating sentiments/evoking reactions in academic writings using objectively assessed materials. The sentence may be a bit self-contradictory, but of all things in the world, there is room for subjectivity in any self-declared objective process. The due process in criminal procedure can be excessively technical, the reference to the "reasonable man" figure can be equivalent to no reference at all (despite the modicum of truth in that not all legal fictions are fictitious), and the irrelevance of motive/intention is going to crack somewhere under the disguise of public policy arguments proffered by courts. I know such proclamations are bawdy and irreverent even. They are against the legitimate image of law and the paramount role it plays in promoting order and certainty in daily life. However, subjectivity still seems to be mastered before the making of a truly brilliant law student. One MUST have an opinion--qualified or not. A subjective opinion is everything. There must be a stand to fight for. Though the orthodox holds the view that objectivity is so much more important that one needs to look through troves of old legal literature/case law before arriving at an opinion, I somehow finds it stifles creativity and due development of--common sense. What the Dean of SMU Law Faculty said is still fresh in my mind: you have to be critical--if you agree with a statement, there must be a reason why you agree with it, and if not why not. You must be able to back it up. Anything short of backing it up will cost you...(there is a lot un-backed arguments are going to cost you). For a short period this mantra really spurred me on to doubt or affirm with reason anything I read: articles on Euro-zone crisis, newspaper articles etc. It can get really interesting how the forum pages in the Straits Times can give diametrically different opinions. Sometimes I pick one side and draw skull-head on arguments I find unconvincing. It is great fun and great brain work. Everything is about subjectivity?

Of course there are failed attempts in putting forward the message in paper assignments. Not a native English speaker, there are times I have to bear the brunt of not getting the pithy part of my ideas across: too late to reach the point, belabouring on the obvious, or using the wrong word (miserably) repeatedly in the wrong context. Still, it is great fun to grapple with it, sometimes equally fun as to grapple with a substantive legal idea.

Sacrifices come along the road when there is no time left for other leisure. No one really loves living a hermit life but to be a truly dedicated academic one has to be a hermit once in a while. True revelation comes in peace. When people say "take time to..." they do mean take the private, quiet hours to reminisce/reflect/drill your mind. However, camaraderie does not necessarily suffer. It is healthy to rant or vent your emotions together with someone going through the same process as you.

So much for my searching for self and searching for law. Whatever abyss lies ahead, the best way is to hold the head high, really high--I have to put myself up to it, to look like it, to feel like it and confidence ensues. What is the "it" I am talking about? It can be anything! A desired self takes no definite form!

Even though sometimes I have to tip-toe, there are times the few centimetres do not matter. It is the centimetres of growth that matters.