30 minutes. the shortest, yet the longest 30 minutes of my life. i will never. never ever. forget those 30 minutes.

it has been a stress-inducing, hair-dropping, sleep-depriving week. and at the end of it, i have to say, i am extremely disappointed.

for the first time in my two years in this course, i am afraid of failing. failing coursework for a module. i have never believed that i would fail anything. i don't think i'm a fucking genius, but i know i'm not that stupid. i may be lazy at times, but not stupid.

i am in a bad mood, so do not expect this to be a nice post.

group projects really bring out the best, and the worst in everyone. really.

i'm quite speechless actually. i don't know whether to just be disappointed, or to be fucking pissed, or to just totally blame myself. someone told me i chose who my groupmates are, so honestly i can't blame anyone else. mr j also once said, if your groupmates suck, and you want the grade, work for it yourself. or something like that. and also since i'm the group leader, i should do more right? but there's a fucking reason why its called a GROUP project.

i play those thirty minutes in my mind constantly. since i walked out of that classroom yesterday, those thirty minutes just keeps playing in my head. i go through every minute of it, asking myself, what the fuck happened.

do not even ask me if my group was hired or fired. i will give you my coldhardstare (as moses calls it) and the middle finger. during those agonising 30 minutes, we were not able to even give the client any advice.

it started badly. really badly. so bad that mr j said that he didn't even want to hear the rest of the group. divorce. he got the client's facts wrong, he didn't know the test for unreasonable behaviour, adultery and what is constructive desertion. and because no peer teaching was done, none of us could save him. there was one part that i can't forgive myself for, because i knew the answer.

let's say the husband cheats on the wife. if she finds out, and within 6 months, does nothing, for example, continues staying with him, she has accepted his "affair" and can no longer use adultery as a basis for divorce. i knew this. i fucking knew this. i went through this before with someone i forgot who. but when mr j asked, "what must she do in order to use adultery?", it didn't hit me that that was the answer to his question. maybe it was his phrasing, maybe it was my nervousness, but it was no excuse. i knew the fucking answer. and i didn't say it and i couldn't save him.

after that, mr j didn't want to let the group continue. the rest of us couldn't present our findings to him. to give us a last chance, he went round asking each of us one question regarding our area of law. residual custody, HDB and the child's maintenance. mr j constantly repeated, "you guys bombed it." and then he said to arrange for a tutorial of some sort because he doesn't want to fail the whole group. and to please just leave because he doesn't want to let his disappointment spill over to the next group. i just walked out and went to the toilet to cry.

sure, there have been presentations which sucked, sure there have been group reports that sucked, but never before has it gone this low.

perhaps i should have done more. as a group leader, perhaps i should have pulled more weight, or just done everything myself. perhaps instead of simply telling him to look at unreasonable behaviour and constructive desertion, i should have gone to research it myself and just given him the research. or at least read up on it myself so that if there were any questions i could answer. i mean, since i already knew that these were two important areas for divorce, i should have just researched on it by myself right? well maybe i had more faith in him. perhaps i should have demanded for peer teaching to take place. perhaps i should have pushed harder when someone told me "oh i can find only one case on custody" which is of course total bullshit because you expect me to believe that for as long as there have been family courts, that there have only been one case on custody brought forward? perhaps i should have gone to search for custody cases myself. perhaps i should have pushed someone else more when he was simply content to rely on copying someone else's work.

so many "if only's" running through my head.

i knew my work for maintenance. periodic payments. the 1/3 rule. the children's maintenance till they were financially capable. no need to maintain priscilla unless they remarry. i knew all this. but i didn't get to present it. and when mr j asked me just one question. one simple question. i fucking blew it. he asked, "when would i have to maintain barry until?" the answer was simple. until he was financially capable. i went and said, "until he comes out of uni." do not ask me why i said that. do not. i went through this before with ct, with rahmat, with so many people. i knew that the parent has to maintain the child until the child is financially capable of supporting himself. so why the fuck did i say until he comes out of uni? WHY? i cannot get it out of my head.

the least i could have done was get my answer right. that's the least. and i didn't.

there were many opportunites for discussion, for peer teaching. like wednesday, where i waited for 5 hours in school for our meeting which never took place. or thursday, where i took a cab to school for nothing. or even friday, where we spent most of it in lab looking at cases. i should have stopped him from going home.

we could have discussed, discovered loopholes, picked out mistakes, clarified facts.

i know that as the leader, i must bear some blame. but i refuse to believe it was mine alone. meetings which didn't happen. group members who did not show up for our consultation with ms keng. which i believe which would have been extremely vital. areas of law not researched on. there were so many things which should have been done, but were not done. i know that i could have done more, but at least, couldn't some people have at least taken the intiative to do at least, the barest minimum necessary to pass?

i guess mr j is right, if you want that grade, you work for it. it is inevitable that there will be fuckers in every group. but it is NOT fair. it is not called group work for nothing. you cannot expect me to do everything myself. yes i know i am lazy at times. but i will get my work done. but you cannot expect me to do everything. what was i supposed to do. do all the work myself and then distribute it on that day and just ask them to present it? its not called PBL for nothing.

once bitten twice shy. i thought legal opinion 2 was just a one time thing. i was wrong. i should have expected this. with friends like these who needs enemies right?

there was a time after i got discharged, during my depression, i was fucked up in school. i neglected groupmates. friends were pissed with me. i was always MIA. you know, i'm actually quite a perfectionist at heart. i want my work to be perfect. i hate groupwork because i don't trust other people to do my work for me. i'm an overachiever. i want all A's. but because i'm lazy, i never quite do what i set out to do. but no matter how depressed i was, no matter how lazy i am, no matter how much i procrastinate, i always make sure i at least get my work done, i at least do what's necessary to at least pass. i know i'm not doing the best i should do at times. but i at least do something. even if i don't go the extra mile to achieve that A, i always make sure i pass that piece of work.

it was screwed right from the start.

so now, i'm afraid i might not pass family law. a fucking easy subject. all gone wrong. so what if there's exams to save me. i do not want to fail coursework. im not like some people, content on just passing on sup papers. i refuse to do sup paper. i'm not trying to boast, nor am i saying i super smart, but i believe i am more capable than a fucking sup paper. i do not know my grade for legal opinion 1, but i know legal opinion 2 is fucked. okay fine, it was my fault, i should have handed it up myself, instead of entrusting it to someone else to hand up late for me. but i trusted her more than that. and okay i could have done more for our group client conference right? yes, it was all my fault. i could have done more for this module, and i didn't. the failure is mine, and mine alone.

i'm grateful to those who have been around. who have offered to help. to rahmat and ctbah, for teaching, for discussing, for offering to help. for understanding. for listening. thank you.

i will never forgive myself if i fail family law. never. i have higher expectations of myself. just because some of you are just content with breezing through this course and coming out barely passing everything, it does not mean you have to pull me down with you.

so i'm selfish. vicious. extremely hypocritical. manipulative. evil. mean. bitchy. backstabbing. call me what you like. i don't care. that's life. everyone does it. you either do it, or someone else does it to you.

i keep asking myself what if what if what if. its too late. its over. i can't do anything. i suffer the consequences.

like i said at the beginning. this wasn't a nice post.

to anonymous - "Never explain yourself. Your friends don't need it and your enemies won't believe it." in that case, i won't need to explain myself for this extremely bitchy entry right? my real friends won't need an explanation, and my enemies can just fuck off. sometimes you never really know who your real friends are till shit happens.

well. now i'm going to study for conveyancing test tomorrow. i hope to hit that A for convey. because i need it to pull up my GPA. because family law is going to pull it down.

bye bitches.