The Law Club elections are long over by now, but we’ll all remember this round of elections as something different from the previous years’ — contested! Two factions (or rather, one faction and a single person) campaigning vigorously against each other at the start of the semester, handing out a variety of baked goods and even installing a chocolate fountain, plastering the lift lobbies with posters. With the votes all counted and positions sorted out, Justified is hoping to start a tradition of interviewing the incumbent elected members of Law Club.
Person-in-the-Rain test
In order to make things more interesting, we decided to tag on an additional psychological test to delve deep into the murky recesses of the members’ brains. The test is simple, we hand them a post-it note and ask them to draw 1) a person 2) standing in the rain. From this, we can hopefully glean information about the artists’ personalities through their respective masterpieces. Here is a quick run-down of what the different elements of the drawing mean — but very simply, the amount of rain correlates to stress, and having an umbrella or raincoat (or absence thereof) indicates the artist’s employment of (or conspicuous lack of) coping mechanisms.
Wai Yee (Sports Director)
Q: Why did you run on your own? And why for the position of Sports Director?
Now that elections are over, let me just say the whole truth. It was a very YOLO decision on my part – I was quite frustrated and disheartened at the lack of sports culture in NUS, especially after being the touch rugby captain like last year – I thought if Medicine could be good, we could be that good as well.
Then I just decided to apply for this role. I didn’t tell anyone, so Bao Huei’s team didn’t know at all.
Did your friends know?
No actually.
You just decided one night?
It wasn’t really one night, it was just… thinking about what better way I could do this. It only really dawned on me how much of a David and Goliath situation it was when I went into the Law Club Room to pay my deposits, and all the other nominees were there.
Wasn’t that… scary?
Well, make the best of your situation lor (sic). I’d really like to thank my OG mates who really campaigned and did the publicity work for me – they were the ones who bought Hershey’s kisses for me to give out to people, and walked around with me at The Summit to talk to people.
So, your OG mates helped you make the poster?
I did the posters myself. It’s quite embarrassing actually
Q: Did you think the reception to your solo-run would be so enthusiastic?
The percentage of votes is it…(sic)? I guess I sort of knew I had a high possibility of getting into law club already because a lot of people were telling me that they were going to vote for me…
Q: Do you have any thoughts or reflections on the recent election season?
I think like… I don’t feel much anymore. The hype of elections has gone.
Q: Every year there’s a suggestion that the person with the highest votes should be the President – what do you think?
Wai Yee laughs. Personally, I think it’s quite snakey of me to, you know, position my campaign as like sports director, and then after election results come out to become the president. And personally I don’t think that I am capable of being the president- that’s not where my competencies lie, and I’m not passionate about being president.
Q: Have you heard of @nuslawsports? Are you planning on continuing it?
Yeah. we are. Jaypy, my athletics director, and I have plans to develop it into a “professional yet fun” Instagram account. Professional because we definitely cannot come up with as funny a caption as Shuzhen was able to.
I think it’s important to continue this account because we already gained quite a substantial following on it and it doesn’t make sense to end this social media front after one year – it makes sense because a lot of people use Instagram anyway.
Q: Any other initiatives you have in mind?
Besides carrying out my usual duties of IFG, LawMed, Law Frat, and Lounge Games (which took over Justice League), I have several initiatives planned for this year. First of which is to roll out a Team Nus Law Sports jersey – because I realised that we don’t have a law shirt that isn’t specific to a competition. We have LawMed and IFG shirts but it’s not unique to Law. I want to give NUS Law Sports athletes a unique identity, and a shirt that they can identify with – incorporating elements like what sports they are in, the members’ names, and our motto…
We have a motto? We ask incredulously..
Wai Yee begins spouting Latin, and then, without prompting, decides to get up and write it on the board instead.
Quia gloria et honore – which means for the glory and honour.
We are simultaneously horrified and amused.
How did we get this motto?
I got it from the NUS sports comm website, it’s specific for each faculty. Which is how I got the logo also, which is this:
Editor’s note: Unfortunately, we (who may not be as passionate about sports as Wai Yee) could not find the logo.
The shirt was designed by Baolong and I.
So besides the jersey, I’m thinking of having a team NUS Law Athletes Dinner after LawMed (in the interim between LawMed and IFG), I want to have bonding between the sports IGs – because while we may be bonded within our sports, we may not know the athletes of other sports.
Actually, let me … let me state my mission and vision for NUS Law Sports for this year: To build a family of athletes striving for excellence.
Wow. Would you like to elaborate?
Family because I want us to be bonded. Striving because I want us to at least try to be excellent at the sports that we do. And the mission to achieve this vision would be to, mainly for me, increase the opportunities for our sports athletes, and we have three ways to do this: firstly to foster NUS Law sports identity, secondly to build passion and lastly to develop competencies. As a side project, I want to give our sports ICs more financial support for their equipment – to renew their sports equipment, etc.
Q: We’ve heard that there’s been some dissatisfaction with how we cover IFG – what are your thoughts? Any suggestions?
I think captains can help to contribute to the write-ups as well – they can put in their thoughts into how the team played, and they know their teammates better so they can put in their quirks… I am definitely open to sports captains sending in their write-ups, as they are doing now.
Q: We heard/know you bake. Is there a recipe that you like to bake, or one you have been trying out but can’t seem to succeed at?
I bake healthy minimalist recipes and most of them turn out weird or have weird tastes and textures because I never add in more than a quarter stick of butter, and never more than half a cup of sugar. I always put in like honey, flour, and oil instead.
What…?The Interviewer is, understandably, aghast.
So… yeah… the texture and taste are a bit weird. How bad is it ah (sic)? Do you want me to show you? I can send you some pictures.
Sometimes the healthy recipes add in like (sic) a cup of sugar and I’ll just reduce it to like (sic)… a third of that. I am going to make healthy snow skin mooncakes this weekend – I have the purple sweet potato filling done… and maybe I want to try out carrot-flavoured fillings or… kale-flavoured matcha filling?
PiTR
For her drawing, Waiyee takes the nearest pen she sees and begins drawing: a stick man, dotted raindrops, a speech bubble, and even a house. She’s the only one who has drawn the person facing sideways, in what we suppose is a post-breakup get-back-together-with-me scenario.
Darryl (Corporate Relations Director)
Q: Why did you want to run for Law Club, and why as Corporate Relations Director?
I… did not anticipate this question. I didn’t think much about this interview. I did marketing for FOCC, and I had fun – it was okay lah (sic), so I thought I’d try it on a slightly larger scale.
Q: What’s your job scope?
Basically I talk to firms, and try to get support for whatever Law Club is doing. Um (sic), to put it bluntly: I try to get money, but apart from money we try to seek support like getting firms to come down and share their experience, creating more opportunities. This year, I’ve been trying to increase the dialogue between the firms and NUS Law Club.
Q: What are you planning on doing as Corporate Relations Director? Last year, we heard about sponsorships and discount initiatives- are you changing that up?
Yeah. It’s something our predecessors started – getting sponsorships for various food welfare sort of things. You may see more of that in the second semester.
Hui Lyi has reached out to the place that just opened in Botanics, Juju – the new smoothie thing? That’s one of the places we’ve explored.
Q: Anything else in the works?
Um. Maybe? A lot of it is…well, at this point we’re just taking to firms.
Q: Tell us about your plans for sub-clubs sponsorships.
Generally, as far as I know, the subclubs will reach out to firms in order to get support for events. I’m trying to streamline this process – so I’m getting the sub-clubs to collate what they do in terms of events and initiatives to make this process less spammy and messy in general for both the firms and subclubs. Uh, again, a lot of the stuff that I’m doing is in the works, so…
Should we check back with you in 6 months?
Yeah. I’ve talked to all the sub-clubs already – and generally, most of them are quite open.
Is there anyone in particular you would like to get as a sponsor?
No? My approach is just to talk to everyone and hope that everyone will give me money.
Is there any sponsor whom you would not take?
No? If there’s cash, I’ll take it.
What if the firm attracts moral hazard, e.g. throws staplers at their associates / are white supremacists outfits?
I mean I guess it’s like your friends right – just because your friends do shitty things doesn’t make them bad people.
Daryl is very evidently not prepared for this question. He is puzzled. To be fair, we didn’t prepare this question either.
Okay lah (sic), I believe everyone is entitled to their own belief – it’s separate from whatever relationship we’re trying to forge with them.
Q: What do you do outside of school?
I like to play music – I like to jam. Guitar and piano. I’m too shy to perform in school.
Q: What’s your go-to order in a hawker centre?
For drinks, kopi gao siew dai.
That’s an uncle order right?
Siew dai is there because my friends are trying to convince me to become a little bit healthier (before that, it was just kopi gao); gao is because the normal kopi doesn’t have as much of a kick as it used to.
Q: Are you a coffee addict?
No? I can stop if I want. (Daryl sounds very unconvincing.)
For food I guess it’s duck rice and roast pork. Duck rice, if there is yam rice, because yam rice is great – and most places don’t offer yam rice outside of a duck rice context.
Q: And between mee pok and mee kia?
I prefer mee kia – there’s more surface area to noodle ratio. I’ve had this conversation before. Like mee pok is too starchy, there’s too much noodle to sauce, in my opinion.
PiTR
Daryl picks a black fine-tipped marker without hesitation and starts drawing umbrella first.
He questions why is he drawing a person in the rain. The figure is one that doesn’t seem to require an umbrella.
Junning (Media Director)
Q: What does a media director do?
In theory, the MD manages the… media side of things.
In practice, this means dealing with the server that Law Club has – sometimes certain sub-clubs (e.g. Justified, CJC) reach out to Law Club and ask to use our server, and we usually say yes.
Q: Wait, is CJC on your server? Justice.sg?
Yeah, they’ve bought their own domain but they actually have their stuff on our server.
I think Dikaios put it pretty well: if I do my job properly you actually won’t even know that I’m doing my job. The only time you should come and find me is when you have problems, like when you couldn’t upload any photos on Justified yesterday.
Q: Speaking of which, is that fixed?
Speaking of which, I will fix that right after this interview.
I found like a 4GB error log yesterday. It’s strange in a sense that technical competence is not a “requisite” of being MD – it’s law school so you don’t really expect that people know how to code, etc. Just Enrichment was set up in 2012, and since then there was a lot of updates, and those updates, sometimes they conflict with each other… And MDs over the years have just kind of swept it under the rug. And now… It is. Broken.
Yeah. No one has touched the Justified website CSS either for like… 6 years. The copyright at the bottom says 2012.
Yeah.
We pause to consider this.
Q: What are some unforeseen problems you’ve run into so far?
That was the one. The Just Enrichment one. So I mean, when you come on board you don’t really expect there to be problems – personally, my expectation was that everything was running fine, and I’d just have to help BH come up with new initiatives and make the Law Club website nicer… I didn’t really expect to come in to… things burning down. So… that has been a challenge so far.
Q: So are you fixing it?
Yeah like SMRT – we’re working on it. Or you can have the picture of the dog with like a burning house saying “This is fine”. Do you want to put memes in this?
Q: Why did you want to run as media director?
I was approached for the… thing. I think in general there’s not a lot of people in Law School who are – not saying that there aren’t, there are some people out there who are really good at what they do, but there’s not really a lot of people with working knowledge on this sort of things. Bao Huei approached me and said we’ve worked together before, there’re a few initiatives I’m planning on that require tech knowledge, and I said ok! And it seemed like something I could manage.
So, is it still manageable?
Ehhh, still manageable, I think.
Q: As a co-optee, do you think it makes a difference in your relationship with law club given that you weren’t up for election?
I don’t know about the other co-optees, I see my role as pretty clear-cut as far as working goes – none of them want to touch what I do, so in that regard I have a lot of discretion in where I want to take things; if I have suggestions/ opinions the other Law Club members usually would just go along with it.
Personal relationships wise, I actually know most of them, despite the fact that I wasn’t in FOCC, so in that regard it is also alright – I don’t think there are any conflicts.
Q: Do you think the position should be open for election?
Hm. Not really- because the thing is, the whole point of it being co-opted, my guess is that you want to co-opt people who have specialised knowledge. So you don’t want to get into a situation where the person who can’t do the job gets elected gets the position and the one who does, can’t…? Politically speaking, you end up having to co-opt the other guy anyway. So for these kinds of positions that require specialised knowledge, keeping it co-opted is still… okay.
PiTR
Jaypy (Athletics Director)
Q: What do you do as an athletics director?
I assist YE in the implementation of her plans, such as Law Frat, LawMed, Lounge Games, and IFG.
So you’re Wai Yee’s assistant?
Actually yeah. I’m her assistant. But we agreed to view each other as equals – although there is a difference in that the sports director is elected and the athletics director is co-opted in, but generally what we do is help each other with sports activities.
I serve as a check and balance as well – because Wai Yee has grandiose ideals, and I have to moderate her idealism. Actually, essentially, we have the same personalities – but since I’m older, I have to keep her weighted.
Q: As a co-optee, do you think it makes a difference in your relationship with law club given that you weren’t up for election?
It makes a difference because they were legitimately elected in by the power of the people – it’s a bit unfair that I’m just co-opted in like that. Some more (sic) I’m the only Y1 inside the club, so I can offer a fresh Y1 perspective in the club. When they hang out they really just talk about their stuff- but I will provide my Y1 perspectives, which helps to serve as a reminder that other levels are affected by the decisions that they make.
Q: What do you do outside of school?
Usually I do sports, but because I tore my ACL, I can’t do my sports outside. I’m heavily involved in clubs, like hockey and floorball – sports is the basis of my life, basically. But now that I don’t have sports, I am really just a student.
Q: What about your drama involvement?
I used to be President of the drama club in primary school – I wanted to be a Troy Bolton, like doing sports and doing theatre. But in Singapore, you can’t do this – sports is very demanding, and requires high commitment.
I did Matilda in secondary school – I wore a skirt on stage and won the best actor. I played the Headmistress Ms Trunchbull. And to really put myself in the character I had to wear the skirt.
Q: Was it an all boys school?
it was a mixed school. It caused quite a stir.
PiTR
JP starts his drawing in black pen, and draws it fairly quickly. There is… no rain in his picture.
Samantha (Accounts Director)
Q: As a co-optee, do you think it makes a difference in your relationship with law club given that you weren’t up for election?
I don’t think so. I’ve worked with quite a lot of the members from Orientation and I know Lidiya from secondary school and junior college – we were already friends before that, and I work most closely with her.
Q: What about with the rest of law club?
I haven’t worked much with the rest of law club yet, but we study together in the law club room sometimes.
Q: What exactly is the role of an accounts director?
I’m Lidiya’s extra pair of hands. Whatever she does, I do, and there’s some stuff that she does that I won’t do. For now, we mainly do things like budgeting and attending talks.
Q: You do individual sub club finances?
Only a few. So far, I’ve only done claims – those that have been due since a while back.
Q: How do we submit claims now?
Invoice kind claims are given to the counter, otherwise, people just submit their claims directly to Lidiya and me.
Q: What made you want to apply for accounts?
Law Club needed someone to do accounts stuff and nobody else applied. They needed an extra person, and I think I’m quite good at looking at numbers and stuff (sic), so I thought I should just help out.
Q: So you’ve had some previous experience doing accounts?
A bit of previous experience – usually for CIP-ish stuff like budgeting for different events. I’m in some youth organisation thing, where we do committee events like small runs or Halloween parties, and small events for families and stuff that we need to claim back whatever we spend. It’s linked to Community Centres- but at the same time we’re separate from them.
You are so vague, Sam.
I can explain more! So uh, the most fun event that I’ve done is Halloween – am I even allowed to mention CSI Night? It was like upscale CSI night, and we ran the whole event through the CC and stuff. We had mortuaries and other things and we had scarers as well. It’s been happening for a few years.
Q: You do these things concurrently with Law School?
The coping is okay. Even though we call it a Halloween event it actually happens in December, since none of us have time during the school term.
Why not just call it Christmas?
Because if it’s haunting, then for Christmas, it’s a bit weird.
What about, Nightmare before Christmas?
Oh yeah.
Q: Do you foresee yourself taking on a broader role in Law Club, since you’re so close to the others?
We will just… help out with each others events and stuff, in like (sic) an informal capacity.
Lidiya’s my main man, my master.
Q: (Lidiya walks in) Lidiya, do you have any other plans for Sam?
Besides making Sam my minion, I don’t really have anything la (sic).
Not really. I just hope that she can help me when I am dying in finance and claims. And I know she will, so far she’s been helping me quite a lot. It’s not really a specific plans thing, it’s a teamwork effort.
Let me give Sam more credit! Sam helps me scan the receipts and put them online – she uses the Camscanner app. I asked her to download it. She’s going down with me to meet the office people this Friday this week, she did that a couple of weeks ago also.
Q: Sam, you were the medical officer for QWP?
Oh yeah. I was QWP’s medical officer, but it was not because of this role but because Bao Long wanted someone else to help him, since he just passed his test last week. My first certification was when I was Sec 4?
Q: What can you do as a medical officer?
CPR… on people.
PitR Test
Samantha seems suspicious about the test, but duly sketches out a simple stick figure holding an even simpler-looking umbrella. “Should I use another colour for the rain?” she asks, and when we tell her to go wild, she grabs a blue marker and dashes the paper wildly with the finesse of an artist.
Thank you all for reading! This is Part 3 in a series of posts interviewing the 39th Law Club MC. Justified would like to thank them for their patience and cooperation. Part 1 and 2 of the interview can be found here and here respectively.
