the mark of a law student.

cakap banyak.

that's the popular view.

okay, maybe a little sarcastic as well.

fact-twister.

manipulative.

argumentative.

domineering.

spineless.

heartless.

reckless.

lia----

ah. cukup.

people outside the faculty are always saying that i'm not like a law student - i don't talk enough. don't argue enough.

heck, people in the faculty are of the same opinion sometimes. not of me personally. but we hold ourselves in very high regard, in case you other people don't know. amreeta was saying that she keeps a low profile in the faculty (but sangat proud of being a law-ian outside, as george & co. should have recently come to realize =P). a senior looked at her and said:

"low profile? don't you know there's no such thing for a law student?
law students always maintain a high profile."

gaya much?

as lethargic and opinionless as i may appear to be sometimes, i disagree with this exaggerated statement. to agree with it would be to admit that i'm a pompous, attention-deficient idiot.

i'm a quiet more like silent? person by nature. some people can't live a day without talking. i can't live a day without silence. though i occasionally become 'more like a law student' with the right people and the right conversations.

i think the idea of a law student being talkative is baseless and probably founded on the too-prominent representatives of the profession. let's not look too far. let's just look at sam leong. recipient of the best oralist in the country award. the superman of the faculty of law.

he's superman.

i'm just me. the humble mortal.

i sms-ed ruth during the law society agm (needless to say, it was not your typical dull agm) yesterday. in the course of messaging, i said:

"ah well. something to do with independence, freedom and justice.
the three words that mark a law student. haha."

i don't talk very much because i'm careful with my words. words leave deep wounds, and part of me still bears the scars from those wounds. how can one who knows pain inflict the same upon another?

are we so shallow to think that a person who steps into this faculty must automatically be generated into a talking-machine? i direct this question to my fellow law-ians as well. is there nothing more to us than just our words?

if i could describe a law student with a single saying, it would be:

a person with principles stands by them.

we know the law. we are all-too-familiar with terms like res judicata, stare decisis, per incuriam*... are these just terms to us? we are a people with principles. and we abide by them. we have seen judges who have done so, even to the point of resisting the rigid structure of the judiciary and executive system. for independence, for freedom, and for justice.

this should be the mark of a law student. this should be what we carry into the harsh new world.

whether we lose our ideals along the way is another thing. but losing them would be far better than not having ideals at all. or worse, having the wrong ideals.

standing up for what we think is right, and standing unmovingly even when a gathering of 206 people questions your integrity -

...defending a friend you know to be true. this too, is our identity.

i believe law students tend to chatter because our tutorials are conducted in such a way as to force us to talk. we cannot not talk in tutorials. cuz then no marks. but that's about it.

i don't believe in sacrificing my personality for a foreign one just because i'm in this particular faculty. see how ridiculous it is when i put it this way?

i'm trained to find the law, not to be a chatterbox.

i'm also trained to write. hence the long post today.

ah well.

i'm a good student.



*res judicata = the decision of the court that binds both parties. they cannot go against it.
stare decisis = literally let the decision stand. a doctrine that binds lower courts to the decisions of higher courts to ensure certainty in the law.
per incuriam = declaration of the wrongness of a decision that forsook the doctrine of stare decisis or ignored a statutory provision.