Cooking up...

Recently my wife and I dabbled in making some home-made dishes for dinner instead of buying food outside.

This is what we came up with. Chef D'kneok presents:

Grilled Salmon and Dill Sauce, served with Baked Potatoes and Baby Carrots - The Salmon is of course my wife's favourite and it was little wonder that it turned out great, juicy, pink and slightly crunchy skin. The potatoes fought me all the way and refused to turn tender, but I suppose it had a certain crunch that justttt about redeemed it (that's a nice positive spin to it). I've been making baked potatoes since before I could walk and talk so I'm surprised it didn't turn out so great. The baby carrots were steamed and added a more tangy and zesty flavour to the meal. 

Three Cheese Macaroni - The best macaroni and cheese I've ever tasted, even if I do say so myself. It just came out perfectly, even beyond expected. I generally dislike Mac & Cheese, which is weird because I like cheese and macaroni. But all the other mac & cheese I've tasted (think Secret Recipe and Kenny Rogers) uses a gooey, yucky cheese that barely gives it any taste. So for this one, I used mozzarella, parmesan and cheddar cheese for some real kapow-zing-wazhashazammmm. Oh yeah.

Cloud-fluffy Omelette - The Fluff® is heavenly, I was really surprised at how it turned out. Unfortunately, I doused juuust a little bit too much olive oil and forgot to season the omelette with salt and pepper when cooking. Seasoned the omelette with a bit of paprika but it didn't raise the kick so much. The fluff though.. I think I have stumbled across a winner. Have I mentioned the fluff?

So I'm still a noob at this, but in all honesty I am quietly enjoying trying to pick up easier recipes that I can make for dinner. I hate cleaning up though, although I know I have to suck it in as it comes with the package.

Any quick and easy recipes to share?

Finding your Balance...[part 1]

Read an interesting article about work-life balance for lawyers, which was a little extreme. Basically article was saying lawyers who crave for work-life balance are just whiners and losers who give up along the way because cannot cope with the demands of the profession and aren't cut out for the big cases. Article also goes on to say that there is no such thing as work-life balance in the legal world.

My personal view? I disagree.

Of course, everyone gives up along the way. Everyone slows down, sooner or later. My pupil-master, the fount of loads of sage advice - once told me this: The law is a jealous mistress. What does it mean? What does it all mean? What is the meaning of life? I hear your thought bubbles loud and clear, folks. It basically just means that being an avatar of the law sucks all the time, energy, everything out of you. Whatever you have: family, fun, futsal, food, etc: the law is jealous of and will compete for your undivided attention against them. 

The thing is, I've always been a firm believer that work-life balance IS ACHIEVABLE, but only after you have learnt your trade and solidified your foundations. And to do that, in the shortest time possible, is to sacrifice pretty much everything else. Time, sleep, health, eyesight, relationships, pretty much everything. There is always a cost to achieving something.

Without learning your trade, you won't be able to have a healthy work-life balance. Most probably because you won't have work. No employer will reward or encourage mediocrity. So at some point, you're going to have to work hard to improve yourself. If the employer doesn't get rid of you, it's only because they're kind-hearted people who hope you get the hint and move your reeking pile of mediocrity elsewhere before you're found out. I know that there's a bit of a leap in the above logic. It's deliberate. "Having a healthy work-life balance doesn't NOT mean that you'll be mediocre", you argue. Of course not. 

But...

To be continued...

Everything you want is on the other side of fear...

The 'glamorous' life of a lawyer entails reading a lot of documents to prepare yourself for meetings, presentations, court hearings, etc often in the middle of the night...

It's boring, tiring and you wonder what it's all for as you trudge through page upon page upon page, until you finally can't take it anymore and get just enough sleep to function the next day.

But today, you wake up knowing you're much better for having gone through all that shit when it's much easier just to wing it and pretend you know what you'll be talking about.


Your wake up mood? bring the world on!

Now I just need to get out of bed and convince myself. And to get some coffee.

Obviously there's a life lesson dangling in front of you, which I needn't point out. But I will anyway. Life isn't just about doing what you like, it's about doing what you have to, to be able to do what you like. Sometimes doing what you like means doing things you don't like. Life is a little paradoxical like that, no?

So face your fear and grab what you want. The only thing stopping you is fear, itself.

Now, if I'm done motivating everyone, I may need some help getting out of bed. T_T

(taken from my Dayre post of 26-11-2013)

Leaving my Mark...

Everyone aims to leave their mark on the world. Well, maybe not "world" world, as in the entire world, but on the world of those that matters, be it your families', friends', those you want to impress, the profession you are in, or even if you've only wanted to impress your own self.

I've always wanted to leave a mark in the legal world. Its partly the reason I chose to do my pupillage in the firm that my lecturer recommended was the best in terms of learning about the law (from her registrar days) and also the most challenging. I took up that challenge to see if I could hack it. But don't get me wrong, it's not about being the best. The "best lawyer in town" label simply is of little value or desire to me. It's about being the best I can be. I can't really proclaim that I've made my mark, or that I'm now a famous lawyer. I'm not. and that's not the aim.

But I've always had the firm (heh.. heh) target to become a partner of a law firm or set up on my own once I have 7 years of experience. That's always been the magical number for me. So I've put in the hours, worked my socks off. And now the time has finally come. Sometimes, it seemed like I'd never get there. But now it feels as if time had moved so fast from my chambie days. Why the need for a law firm though? Well, to me, that's to be answered in a different post. But after events in my life which has caused me to take stock of my own mortality and future, I decided that I needed the flexibility, the freedom and the adventure of my own law firm.

Technically, I've not had 7 years of experience yet. That's coming in November. So it's a few months early, but it's here. Am I ready? Can I stand comparatively with the rest?  

I'm here to find out.

But do I believe in my own self to proudly plaster my own name?

Ho yeah. Never in doubt.

So this is it. This is me leaving my mark. Well, it's the start.

Returning from the light...

It's been close to two months since the day I returned from the Light.

For about two weeks, I traded my Black Robes for the White. And what a refreshing change that was. If you've ever played the Dungeons & Dragons board game or RPG video/pc game adaptations (or read the book), the purest priests wear white and the evil wizards don the black robes. Characters are defined by their race (elves, dwarves, humans), profession (bards, thieves, paladins, wizards, warriors), and moral alignments. Reflective of the real world, right?

The Apprentice and one of his masters

In D&D speak, I think a lawyer's alignment is Lawful Evil. A guild entrusted to shape the law and to enforce order, but the questionable way lawyers go about in achieving it? The devil may care. And as lawyers, to wield such powers we don the black robes. Powerful black robes. Power of the word. Words that turn into judgment. Judgment becomes Order. Order becomes the Law. And disobedience of that Law then becomes punishable. We live in a world where the ultimate duty is sadly not to seek the truth and justice, but to bend the law to our clients' favour. It is an adversarial battle royale: Winner-takes-all. But great power, as often is said, corrupts the soul. And for seven years, I wielded that power without realizing that it slowly corrupted me.

And then I traded it for the ihram cloth. An unsown cloth of pure white. A cloth carrying heavy rules and prohibitions to ensure its sanctity. It was not just the cloth itself, it was the entire state of consecration and the emphasis of the natural state. No alien scent of any kind was allowed to accentuate ourselves. It was overwhelming. But very refreshing. In the Holiest Land, a place where people vociferously competed with each other for goodness, even to the physical detriment of others (which sort of defeats the purpose, innit), I felt a part of my soul was being healed. Slowly restored. I was even allowed to feel pure. Me. Heh. There might be hope for me yet. The instant connection of the soul with the House of God was indescribable. The heart truly belonged there. It instantly knew that it was home. It was also a place for reflection on my past sins and my future direction.

And when I was contemplating the meaning and worth of my existence, I chanced upon a meaningful discussion with a guest in the Holy Land. He told me that the problem with the Muslim world is that there are many great scholars interpreting the fixed texts of God, but not enough scholars interpreting its application in the real world. The fixed texts are an important source, but it is constant, though the world is not. It adapts, it evolves, it changes. And lawyers are amongst those who are at the forefront of addressing that change and adaptation.

I guess it's easy to forget that there is a little white in the lawyer's attire underneath all that blackness, especially the more we remain trudging in its murky worlds. The step back and moving to a whole different world helped me realize it. There is good in the profession and that it needs to shine, it needs to be upheld. A reinvigorating reminder for those who have perhaps sunk in too deep or jaded with the profession.

But I've returned from the light, and I think I brought a part of it with me.

The Return...

Return from a long hiatus, and my last post was last June?

Wow.

Colour me impressed.