Video.

This clip kinda left a mark on me.

Piping hot.

The soup spoon rules! Though this might sound a little odd, the soup spoon serves delicious sandwiches!

Sentosa.

Shangri-La |ˈ sh a ng gri ˈlä|

a Tibetan utopia in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon (1933).• [as n. ] ( a Shangri-La) a place regarded as an earthly paradise,esp. when involving a retreat from the pressures of moderncivilization.

(New Oxford American Dictionary)

I'm currently in a hotel on Sentosa (a tiny offshore island that is part of Singapore). The view here is divine! In fact, I'm staying at the Shangri-La Hotel and it is beautiful. I guess the hotel lives up to her name as 'Shangri-La'.

I'll be adjourning to the restaurants in a while for breakfast but before I do, here are 2 images of what view I get from the hotel room's balcony.

"The balconies"

"The pool"

Chocolate!!!

"Food glorious food..."

After a day of work at Rajah and Tann (a law firm), I brought Demas, this PJC student councillor, to Ichiban Boshi and Max Brenner. Skip the Ichiban Boshi thing because 'everyone knows Japanese food rules'. We had our desserts at Max. It is literally a chocolate haven. It's like I've died and came back to life on some chocolate land. The smell was tantalising. It's like there were tendrils of chocolate reaching out of the shop for our noses. Now for those who have read 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and mouth-watered over it, then this place is for you.

"The extraordinary Suckao"

They have something called Suckao which is like a shot of chocolate. It's a cup of melted chocolate (pure milky chocolate) heated by a flame and sucked through a metal straw. In fact, all the drinks here seem to come with a metal straw to suck from. Now that's environmentally conscious. Well, Demas had a vase (the shape of the cup is really like a vase) of banana chocolate latte. It is really good!!! Trust me. This coming from a person who does not fancy bananas, it has got to be divine if I say it's good.

images: https://shop.maxbrenner.com/Data/Images/suckao_right_size.png

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/03/24/souffle_wideweb__430x285.jpg

Greed.

I asked a friend to give me something to talk about, he said greed. I asked him why. He told me he used it for his O level examinations.

Examinations. It is the impetus of our being as Singaporeans. We do well, get a good job, a good life. I beg to differ. A good life?

What constitutes life is, to me, the enjoyment of living. Our education system has literally squeezed every drop of youthful exuberance out of me. Singapore breeds highly skilled conformists and does not nurture sufficient creativity.

Ladies and gentlemen, I now present the top 5 paying jobs in 2008:

Coming up at number 5 we have the General Manager, followed closely by the Commodities Futures Broker at number 4. Clinching 3rd place is the General Surgeon and 2^nd place, the Managing Director. Now for our top earners; the Specialised Surgeons aka Plastic Surgeons.[1]. Now what does that tell us? It tells us that those jobs viewed most worthy, most beneficial to society are ones which are lodged in the world of logic, rules and business. The ones that require a person to stick rigidly to a set of rules and to conform to instructions. Therefore, in Singapore, creativity is not as well nurtured as these businesses. Sadly, creativity is precisely what this ailing world needs to help solve global problems. A factory that churns out workers that have a carbon copy knowledge about a subject can continue to manufacture goods indefinitely, but it cannot solve the environmental problems it has also created? Does it even care? We have more than 5,000 doctors in Singapore, our healthcare system is considered the best in Asia, one of the best in the world, but we have a negligible number of environmentalists and conservationists. Not forgetting that we are the 9^th most polluting country per capita in the world in terms of carbon footprint². Why don’t we have any of the latter – because we don’t value jobs that do not rake in the millions. Because we gear our education system to the knowledge that is required for revenue generating industries.[2]

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[1] Available at URL:

URL: http://www.salary.sg/2008/best-paying-jobs-in-singapore-2008/

http://www.salary.sg/2008/best-paying-jobs-in-singapore-2008/

[2] Available at URL:

http://www.photius.com/rankings/carbon_footprint_of_countries_per_capita_1980_2005.html

Law Firm.

I'm sitting in a cubicle in Rajah & Tann now and watching news bloopers.

Off With Her Head.

A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

I have been, over the past few days, attending some law programme for JC students. Yes, that does explain my absence from school and an excuse for not handing in my homework (snickers). Well, it is really interesting to hear and see for one's self the legal profession. I have got to tell you, the pay is really really good. The pricing for 1 hour consultations for some firms may well be in the thousands. $.$ However, the work you have to put in is definitely, if not more, than what one is paid. I'm currently attached to Rajah and Tann LLP (one for the largest and best law firms there is in Singapore *fanfare in the distance). I guess this firm really does take the staffs' welfare into consideration. There are gaming consoles, foosball, pool tables and a cafe made available for the lawyers to enjoy. In fact, there is free breakfast and lunch available for the lawyers at the cafe (interns get only a free breakfast and the menus change daily, by the way :(. But hey! The food is free anyway! :)). These are supposedly tools to help the rather busy lawyers socialise in a less formal setting. Well, we interns use these amenities to satisfy our needs for constant entertainment.

My friends in the other firms, who got to accompany their mentors to court, told me that some times when a lawyer has so many things to carry to court, he would take a cab to court despite the court being just a across the Singapore river. Well, I for one, did get to see the Supreme Court for myself too! The flying saucer is really just a viewing gallery and the courtrooms are not like what you'd see on the telly. The lawyers practically speak with this unfazed, tranquil tone into the microphones. You do not get the expected yelling and tension. The tension one experiences is those really scary sort of tension due to that cold calm tone of the lawyers.

All in all, the programme is really an eye-opener. It's really so cool and exciting that words cannot convey it. By the way, I made new friends through the programme! There are really cool people from all sorts of schools all over Singapore! Shaun of Hwa Chong Institution and his friend Margaux (french name!!!) thought that Zafran and I were RJCians! Well, Z and I are, however, from SRJC (super raffles junior college), some private school somewhere near Pedra Branca (it's one of those places you can use to get that 'timbuktu' feeling). In the practice group (aka department)that Z and I were posted to was a PJC guy named Demas. Interesting dude with rather cool braces. Yes, I have something for braces, fingers, hairstyles and colours. Truth be known, the fingers are the sexiest body part to me. :P