Qualifying for the Singapore Bar; Christian and church life; and Life in general

This year, I have been caught up with doing my pupillage at a law firm for the earlier half of the year, and then taking the bar exam in the latter half of the year. I did my pupillage, first at a firm dealing with corporate litigation, and then moved to another firm that dealt with criminal and family law matters. I am still quite undecided as to which area of legal practice I should delve into. My good sense tells me that if I should decide to practice law, I should practice in a community-related legal discipline like criminal, torts, and family, but a part of me wish to be able to do corporate-related legal work like merger and acquisition, and insolvency. I find those contents very much harder to grasp though. Perhaps I should be doing something else other than law for a career, but I am not sure what that should be.

My long-standing illness with tension headache still gets the better of me at times. I have been suffering from this illness for more than 5 years now. I feel that it makes me more easily addled than what I would otherwise be, though it may very well be that the content by which I am trying to grasp may very well be beyond my mental ken. I have begun trying out certain therapies like acupuncture and tuina. There are quite many traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) clinics near my previous workplace providing for such alternative medicine treatment. Acupuncture doesn’t seem effective in my opinion. Tuina, a form of traditional Chinese massage, has some alleviating effect, but it is no panacea.

It is quite an experience doing my stint in the legal industry, and I truly enjoyed interacting with the various clients and working upon their various legal problems. It allows me to witness a snippet of society. I got to see some of the social ills from doing criminal and family related legal work. I think I have more of a fondness for litigation rather than simply corporate work. The former involves going to court and presenting a case before a judge. The latter is more sedentary in nature, and the daily routine is mostly being in the office working upon some corporate document. If there was anything that inspired me to study law, it were the legal dramas like Boston Legal,  games like Ace Attorney, and books like How to Kill a Mockingbird where the lawyer characters appear most charming and eloquent when they passionately argue their case on behalf of their clients in court with great panache. In that regard, litigation would be more in line with that initial conception of what legal work is all about.

I have been trying to brush up on my mother tongue throughout this year, which is the Chinese language. One reason for doing so is because I feel it would be useful for me in dealing with Chinese-speaking clients. Another reason is that I wish to be able to communicate more effectively with chinese-speaking Singaporeans. I try improving my Chinese by watching Chinese dramas. Some of the Chinese dramas I have watched are The Three Kingdoms and Battle of Changsha. The Three Kingdoms is a period of tripartite division of China between the states of Wei, Shu, and Wu in the 14^th century. Battle of Changsha is a drama revolving around the lives of a family in China during the Japanese invasion in World War 2. 

I make it a point to attend church on Sundays. It would be nice if I could find the discipline to write on my blog about what goes on in my weekly church service. Indeed, there are plenty interesting things for which to write about, but for some reason, I find it difficult to go about writing about them despite wishing to.

I watch sermons by various pastors and priests on youtube, and read blogs by various Christian writers. Some of the pastors of whose sermons I watch are Timothy Keller, Jon Piper, and John F. MacArthur. I also watch monologue videos by Catholic priest Fr Mike Scmitz. I also find guidance in the secular wisdom of Alain De Botton, a british popular philosopher, in his narrated animated videos on the youtube channel School of Life. 

I also meet up with friends I know from law school, especially those whom I know from the batch prayer group. It’s my way of keeping in touch with people from the fraternity, and to fellowship with fellow believers in Christ. It also helps to strengthen my faith, and keep me from my proneness to excessive doubts and disgruntlement with God. Recently, I have been attending a cell group at my church. It is made up of church members a little younger than I am. The cell group that I was formerly in composing of guys around my age has pretty much become defunct because the other cell group members have stopped coming to church, or left for other churches. I guess there’s a homeliness to attending the church I am a regular at. It is also one in which I feel there is more of a sense of authenticity of what being a Christian means, compared to what may be talked or emphasized about at other churches. The church which I attend is a Lutheran church. From time to time, my pastor would meet me up for lunch, and I would talk to him about my struggles in life, and discuss with him what I think about his sermons, and what could be done to make things better at church.