Step one: get a certificate of good conduct from the Legal Practitioners Conduct Board, for the purposes of an application under Rule 9.

"... Derek Tee Chong Wee [that's me!] has not been the subject of any disciplinary proceedings by the legal practitioners conduct board pursuant to the legal practitioners act 1981."

Check!

 I don't want to go home. The food sucks. The shops close too early. The people are ugly. My family think something is wrong with me. The only things Adelaide has to offer the world, in my opinion, is wine and cheese.

So why accept a job there?

The plan was to move to Brisbane or Sydney, but honestly if I did, what I've been offered is exactly what I'd be looking for. Most people wanting to change careers into law need to go through law school and pre-admission (as a - ew - mature age student.) But I've already done that. I'm like, "Here's a career change I prepared earlier."

Don't talk to me about IT. There is no IT boom except for the 'business' side, which means saying 'yes' to everything the 'customer' wants, and 'programming', which is about nerding around ancient programs that only two people use and no one else can fix. I've been burned three times in a row by IT. It's dead to me. Dead.

Teaching English (unqualified) is like saying I have yellow fever or I can't get a job back home. Or both. I never really felt comfortable with that.

I've lived off rent and dividends for 6 months now. But I need some work to fulfil my investment objectives. I guess I would be prepared to work full time if I could say I was something important, like a lawyer, or a landlord, or a professional investor. And since I seem to feel no respect being the latter two, that only leaves lawyer.

So yeah, bought my tickets (return, naturally,) for the 16th August. I'll give this gig:

1. Six months if I don't get a practicing certificate;
2. Two years if I do. Then I go 'unrestricted' and burn my name in the road.

That's all, Adelaide. Impress me. I'm waiting. Or whatever, just pass the wine and cheese.

"Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world." Mary Wollstonecraft

I apologise to my Japanese students. The Merlion isn't man-height. There is a child-sized merlion but that's one of three. You can safely go to Singapore and avoid disappointment.

Sentosa: a different sort of nice. I recommend hiring a bike to tool around on, if you're not going on any rides.

Merlion Park: If you hit the right angles you can keep reclamation sites out of the picture.

Food does not have to:

• Look dainty or elegant. If I wanted a dollhouse I would eat at Toys 'R' Us.
• Be eaten according to centuries-old traditions. Bow like this, pour like that, right over left, nuh-uh. I'm a glutton, not a surgeon.
• Be served by impeccably manicured staff. They can insult me (in any language other than English) and I won't give a damn as long as they:

1. Bring me my food;
2. Give me correct change.

• Contain exotic, elaborately produced, or endangered ingredients.

I don't want food to inspire, enlighten, or entertain me. I want it to taste so good that it makes me come.

(Written after yet another pig-out session in Little India)

If he speaks first he wins the argument. If she speaks first she wins. However, for the sake of peace both stay quiet and stew in solitary discomfort.

Sound familiar? Mathematicians will instantly recall the Prisoner's Dilemma, as follows:

Two suspects, A and B, are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both stay silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail  for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So this dilemma poses the question: How should the prisoners act?

Cooperating gives a better outcome, but betrayal maximises your gain or minimises your loss in light of what your fellow prisoner chooses. Thus betrayal - not cooperation - is the dominant strategy. It seems 'honour among thieves' holds until other thieves are involved.

This branch of mathematics known as 'game theory' is full of irrational - some would say cynical - results. Yet game theory and the prisoner's dilemma in particular sees extensive practical application in psychology, law, biology, and military strategy.

Which brings us back to lovers' quarrels. The Prisoner's dilemma seems to suggest that since betrayal is the dominant strategy then partners should 'betray' each other wantonly by raising taboo subjects, despite the peace being at stake.

However, that is only for a single turn of the prisoner's dilemma; in relationship terms, similar to casual flings. Things are very different when the prisoner's dilemma is played over and over again, with scores accumulating. This game is called the iterated prisoner's dilemma, and more closely resembles long term relationships, where what you say will be held against you indefinitely; perhaps even until death do you part.

In a competition for computer programs to 'play' iterated prisoner's dilemmas, cooperative strategies produced the best results. The judges noted that for a strategy to be successful it would have the following characteristics:

• Nice - that is, it will not defect before its opponent does.
• Retaliating - It must always retaliate if wronged. An example of a non-retaliating strategy is Always Cooperate. This is a very bad choice, as "nasty" strategies will ruthlessly exploit such softies.
• Forgiving - Another quality of successful strategies is that they must be forgiving. Though they will retaliate, they will once again fall back to cooperating if the opponent does not continue to play defects. This stops long runs of revenge and counter-revenge, maximizing points.
• Non-envious - The last quality is being non-envious, that is not striving to score more than the opponent.

It is somehow pleasing to know that keeping the peace profits us as individuals, and not solely the relationship; even though done grudgingly, with occasional injections of cheery sarcasm, and 'mutually assured destruction' a hair trigger away.

The only alternatives are: firstly, to play many single-round games, secure in the knowledge that betrayal is a certainty. Secondly, to simply not play at all. Neither alternative helps those currently engaged in iterated prisoner's dilemmas of their own.

So when you hit that loving stalemate, the math is clear: shut up, put up, and stay together. It's for your own good.

Spot the difference. That's right, Japan has less green.