When I was in high school, our school made us take a career counseling test, which was supposed to tell us our ideal career path. Of course it was the right time to take that test, and so I took it with all my zeal. The results were something to the following effect;
scientific reasoning - negative
logical & rational thinking - negative
mathematical, computational, numerical , analytical reasoning - negative
career in science - not suitable
career in business - not suitable
career in research - not suitable
....well you get the point..and just as I was about to give up on my dream of the "high-flying" executive, my eye fell on the word "excellent"
At last! something was right! there was hope. I picked up the paper again, it read:
argumentative & verbal capability: excellent!
suitable career: lawyer, journalist or politician
in my father's words, "nonstop useless chatter - this is why i ask you to focus ...blah blah blah"....
11 years flash forward, I think I can say with confidence that the test was clearly wrong ;)
But the thought that i was most suited to be a lawyer never quite left me; and it wasn't just the test, which was clearly f***ed up; it was because all my friends, school teachers, everyone always thought I'd do either journalism or law.
And though I didn't, when I saw this course being offered, more for temporary gratification of "studying law" than anything else, I took it up. First class was phenomenal. We talked about criminal law, murders, evidence, witnesses...wow! it felt like the movies. Everything, from Damini's Sunny Deol's famous "tareek pe tareek" to legally blonde's solving a murder through knowledge of hair perming to Jeffrey Archer's novels to even Agatha Christie's murder mysteries flashed in front of my eyes . Already I could picture myself making a fiery, passionate closing statement to a jury that would exonerate my innocent client from the murder charges he was clearly being framed for!
This was going to be exciting!! :D
Alas! Fate..err the Prof had a different thing in mind..
The subject was about contract law. And for the rest of semester, every word in the class sounded obfuscated, circuitous and sometime even senseless. It took me forever to grasp the concept of consideration. A promise of exchange, where a $1 offer is considered sufficient economic value for a fresh consideration (exchange).??!!!!
"Frustration" caused me a lot of pain & frustration! No matter how frustrated you are, unless lightening strikes u on the head or Katrina's (the storm) sister blows ur company away (pun unintended), you cant claim frustration to get out of a contract! Why not call it "I cant do it because I am dead!!" instead?
CISG, the full form of which I still dont know, took 10 years to form, does not cover services & half of the goods or anything thats too complex for a 10 year old to understand; cannot be reinforced and hasn't been updated in 30 years since it needs majority of 74 member states to sign the smallest of amendments!! ...Errr and its still being used...The world has changed in 30 years, and you need 74 members to sign putting a fullstop to it..err i mean on it, and businesses r still using it!! No wonder things never get done with governments and international law!
I still don't understand why if B breached the contract, and A was efficient enough to cover his losses, A is not entitled to damages from B, & B gets to go Scott- free. A is penalised for being efficient!! If I ever felt confident about using the word "ridiculous!!" it was at this instant. So confident I was, that I actually used this in front of the Prof, when she was teaching it!!! Oopss!! tch tch...nows thats over confidence, thank God it was not you-know-who ;)
Many times I suffered Frustration, the english one, and went "arrgghhh!!!"
And in the end no matter what the case and what the evidence was, the judgment always...Alllwaayyyssssss depended on how convincing the argument of the lawyer was to the judge.
If it wasn't for the ever so patient, smiling, kind and knowledgeable Prof Kah Leng, my final addition to the list of 10 Best Profs @ NUS MBA, I would have given up long ago!!
Ya ya, we need this subject. Its contract law, and its surprising how many business people make mistakes because they don't know this stuff. I was surprised at how many times I saw the terms I studied in this class, spring up around me. They had always been there, but I had never noticed. And yeah my level of awareness has gone up manifold.
And through this increased level of awareness, my 3 key takeaways,
;) :D
scientific reasoning - negative
logical & rational thinking - negative
mathematical, computational, numerical , analytical reasoning - negative
career in science - not suitable
career in business - not suitable
career in research - not suitable
....well you get the point..and just as I was about to give up on my dream of the "high-flying" executive, my eye fell on the word "excellent"
At last! something was right! there was hope. I picked up the paper again, it read:
argumentative & verbal capability: excellent!
suitable career: lawyer, journalist or politician
in my father's words, "nonstop useless chatter - this is why i ask you to focus ...blah blah blah"....
11 years flash forward, I think I can say with confidence that the test was clearly wrong ;)
But the thought that i was most suited to be a lawyer never quite left me; and it wasn't just the test, which was clearly f***ed up; it was because all my friends, school teachers, everyone always thought I'd do either journalism or law.
And though I didn't, when I saw this course being offered, more for temporary gratification of "studying law" than anything else, I took it up. First class was phenomenal. We talked about criminal law, murders, evidence, witnesses...wow! it felt like the movies. Everything, from Damini's Sunny Deol's famous "tareek pe tareek" to legally blonde's solving a murder through knowledge of hair perming to Jeffrey Archer's novels to even Agatha Christie's murder mysteries flashed in front of my eyes . Already I could picture myself making a fiery, passionate closing statement to a jury that would exonerate my innocent client from the murder charges he was clearly being framed for!
This was going to be exciting!! :D
Alas! Fate..err the Prof had a different thing in mind..
The subject was about contract law. And for the rest of semester, every word in the class sounded obfuscated, circuitous and sometime even senseless. It took me forever to grasp the concept of consideration. A promise of exchange, where a $1 offer is considered sufficient economic value for a fresh consideration (exchange).??!!!!
"Frustration" caused me a lot of pain & frustration! No matter how frustrated you are, unless lightening strikes u on the head or Katrina's (the storm) sister blows ur company away (pun unintended), you cant claim frustration to get out of a contract! Why not call it "I cant do it because I am dead!!" instead?
CISG, the full form of which I still dont know, took 10 years to form, does not cover services & half of the goods or anything thats too complex for a 10 year old to understand; cannot be reinforced and hasn't been updated in 30 years since it needs majority of 74 member states to sign the smallest of amendments!! ...Errr and its still being used...The world has changed in 30 years, and you need 74 members to sign putting a fullstop to it..err i mean on it, and businesses r still using it!! No wonder things never get done with governments and international law!
I still don't understand why if B breached the contract, and A was efficient enough to cover his losses, A is not entitled to damages from B, & B gets to go Scott- free. A is penalised for being efficient!! If I ever felt confident about using the word "ridiculous!!" it was at this instant. So confident I was, that I actually used this in front of the Prof, when she was teaching it!!! Oopss!! tch tch...nows thats over confidence, thank God it was not you-know-who ;)
Many times I suffered Frustration, the english one, and went "arrgghhh!!!"
And in the end no matter what the case and what the evidence was, the judgment always...Alllwaayyyssssss depended on how convincing the argument of the lawyer was to the judge.
If it wasn't for the ever so patient, smiling, kind and knowledgeable Prof Kah Leng, my final addition to the list of 10 Best Profs @ NUS MBA, I would have given up long ago!!
Ya ya, we need this subject. Its contract law, and its surprising how many business people make mistakes because they don't know this stuff. I was surprised at how many times I saw the terms I studied in this class, spring up around me. They had always been there, but I had never noticed. And yeah my level of awareness has gone up manifold.
And through this increased level of awareness, my 3 key takeaways,
- stay away from getting in trouble with the law
- if you get stuck, hire the darn best lawyer you can afford
- and lastly..the golden advice a friend passed me on a chit in class,
;) :D
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