Questions and answers

"No."

If the questions are -
Whether I get the scholarship.
Whether I feel regretful after spending much time and energy contacting through 104 emails.
Whether I will punish myself and think if it's because I am not good enough.

I seldom cry. I can't even recall when the last time I cried was. But I admit when I checked the school website this afternoon and found out that my name wasn't on it, I could feel some warm liquid was trying really hard to blur my eyes.

I totally understood those words my friends tried to enlighten and comfort me. I still felt a little bit depressed. But I think I have a right to feel depressed and I know it will not be long and I will not be hysterical.


After I knew the outcome, I just can't stop humming a song - "Fix You" by Coldplay.


and "Yes."

If the question is whether I am OK or not. Because Coldplay is trying to fix me now.



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Now playing: Fix You - Coldplay
via FoxyTunes

Have fun, you law school students!

It is a pretty tense period for most of law school students in Taiwan now. During this period, there are some key words that may better be avoided in daily conversation, such as "the exam" and "a lawyer".

I call it a disease that only infects law school students who are waiting for the outcome of a Bar exam. The prevalence of the disease peaks in late October every year. The symptoms are being utterly anxious and become very conceited, depressed or even extremely elusive when the outcome is announced.

Yi-Wen, my law school classmate, told me she has tossed and turned at night in bed recently because it is the third time she took the exam and it will be almost the end of the world if she still can't find her name on the website this time. Although I have never prepared for a Bar exam, let alone taking a Bar exam, I can still understand how Yi-Wen feels now.

In fact, getting the disease is not the worst part. It is the stage before getting the disease a law school student really suffers. To prepare for a Bar exam, most students will go to a cram school and try to study for ten to thirteen hours a day, almost seven days a week for a whole year in a library or at home.

Every morning when you wake up, there will only be two places that you are going to - a library or a cram school. You will have your breakfast on a bus because you may rather spend more time getting some sleep in bed. You may not want to brush your hair or make yourself look nice because all textbooks and rules that you need to read and memorize will exhaust you first. Watching a movie, having dinners with friends, daydreaming will all become a luxury because time will never be enough. You will feel guilty and hopeless to pass the exam if you give yourself three days on vacation. Because everybody is still studying so hard in a library.

I am not exaggerating it and it is certainly not just Yi-Wen's story. It is a lifestyle that many law school students have right now.

How much time do we law school students have to afford living a lifestyle like that? To what extent we will consider it is not worth to sacrifice our chances to explore the world for merely a piece of paper which proves we pass a Bar exam?

Sometimes I am wondering if those students know that there are a lot of choices besides being a lawyer. You might just be a good paralegal that provides legal opinions. You might become a novelist who writes an interesting novel about law. You might become a secret agent working for the government. You might even choose to run for the president!

I doubt if it will be the end of the world for me if I never pass a Bar exam in my life. But living a lifestyle like that will surely be. I can be a paralegal because spotting the loophole in a contract is like a treasure hunt. It is usually fun. Writing a novel about law sounds a great idea because I might become next J.K Rowling. Who knows! Even though I have never thought about being a secret agent, it might be an interesting job, too, as long as there is no limitation of height to be a secret agent.

After getting some working experience and watching some classmates preparing painfully for a Bar exam, I question myself a lot recently if I will be happy when I really become a lawyer. I think I can only find out the answer when I really become a lawyer.

The answer about my future career may be still unknown. But one thing is for sure that after I get my master degree, I will also try to prepare for the exam but I will do it in my own pace and also try my best to keep my own lifestyle at the same time.

The interpretation of friendship

There is a Chinese idiom as "Like attracts like" trying to say that we will make friends with people who are the same or at least similar to us. But what kind of similarity does it mean? Can the idiom be proved between my best friend, Karen, and me?

If I start to look over the similarities between Karen and me from our appearance, well, I admit I was shocked a little bit when I saw Karen in her extremely colourful pink heels. It is just not the pink that will be on the list of my Top 50 colours of heels. But don’t get the heels wrong. Karl Lagerfeld, one of the most influential fashion designers, will agree that a pair of heels, like Karen’s, with a candy-like colour and covered with a layer of sparkling syrup was a must of the year. Honestly, I have only seen a few girls looking good in it and for some unknown reasons Karen did look gorgeous and stylish.

Compared to Karen’s wardrobe, mine is quite boring because the styles and colours of my clothing are all quite simple and similar to each other. I don’t know what kind of style my clothing is. But if someone can put more fabric on Britney Spears’s clothes, I will be very open-minded and love to give them a try.

Even though Karen and I have totally different tastes in fashion, it just also explains why Karen is always a good shopping partner - I do not need to worry that I will have to fight for a short skirt with her.

I like Japanese food, but Karen doesn't. She is good at mathematics and can do big sums in her head very quickly, but I am even too lazy to take out my cell phone to do the calculation. She also has the talent to make incredibly ingenious birthday cards or presents with her hands, but I can only knit clumsily my boyfriend a scarf with holes.

A man who is an American-born Chinese and with a real accent is like a powerful magnet to Karen, but for me, ok, I admit that a tall man will make me want to know him and ask him if the air above is fresher.

Karen is sometimes too nice to reject others' unreasonable request or is easy to compromise after some marathon-like persuasions, but I am usually the kind of person who will still do what I want when I have already made up my mind.

Am I feeling bemused if I have something in common or at least similar to Karen? Well, not at all.

We will get very excited if we find each other a pair of heels that she/I feel it has my/her name on it. If we both like the heels, it means that it may gain some compliments even from different styles of fashion lovers.

Because of being attracted by different types of men, we are somehow equipped not the same, but quite similar radars that enable us to detect if an American-born Chinese or a tall man is a wanker and try to remind each other.

We have a similar personality that like to be thoughtful to people. Karen will provide a good and creative idea for me if I don't want to knit my boyfriend a scarf with holes as a birthday present. She will always do the math for me even before I try to take out my cell phone.

Some female friends I know will call or meet their best friends almost everyday even there is only what kind of food they had that they can talk about. Luckily, Karen and I have similar ideas that we will need some space for ourselves.

I don't feel embarrassed or uncomfortable at all if we sit in a starbucks and have our coffee quietly. She will understand that it is not because we have nothing interesting to share or to gossip about.

If smiles can be marked into different sizes like clothes, I think we will have a similar size of smile - XL. Except Japanese food, Karen will love to have a food safari with me. We both like to be a teacher if she needs someone to teach her how to be defiant or if I want to learn how to use my brake when I am too anxious about something I can't control.

As a law school student, I have been taught and required to be capable of interpreting laws from different points of view. Similarity literally and logically seems to imply that there must be something different. But I am just wondering if the concept of difference and similarity will always be contradictive to each other. As far as friendship is concerned, I think I will try to interpret and believe that differences may become the components that constitute similarities in friendship. I am not sure if my professor will agree with my interpretation, but I know at least Karen will.