doctor of procrastination

i am hooked on... PhDcomics!!














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isnt it a hoot?! i spent a good two days trawling through its 10-year archive and not getting work done. ahh... hehe. tomorrow marks my first month in sydney, and it's easy to imagine how the next few years would simply fly by. a simple daily routine has set in. every morning i wake up at 8.30, just in time to wash up and make coffee and head down for breakfast. along the way down i'd have drunk half a cup of my coffee, and would down the rest with my breakfast. then i would come up and make a second cup, while reading the papers. then i'll read (or waste time, though i swear it's not deliberate), and then go down for lunch. sometimes i would go uphill to the shops, sit in a cafe, or go to the library to pick up some books, or take a bus to the city and wander around, and then come back in time for dinner. then i would return to my room, read some more papers, read some more (or waste some more time online), and before i know it, it would be past midnight and i must force myself to bed so that i can wake up in time for next morning's breakfast, and the routine repeats. i try to swim twice a week, the uni pool's an indoor one, just round the corner, and because it's expensive (about S$3.50) per entry, i try to maximise it, clocking an average of 50 laps, sometimes more, and it's becoming another routine. i'm still waiting for my 3 boxes of things to arrive, they should be here any time now - books, clothes, journal articles, and my running shoes. i need to run soon, my thighs are getting flabby and my tummy growing at a shocking rate (did i tell you that the food provided in my college is really good?) life can get rather isolating - i'm new in a foreign country, no classes to attend, meet my supervisor only once every three or four weeks, and spend the rest of the day eat-sleep-read-think-write. so i've taken to sitting in a couple of undergrad philosophy classes. i am not enjoying the readings - they're freaking freaking freaking dense, but i like sitting in, listening and observing, and in-between breaks, make small talk with the person beside me. i've made one or two friends this way, and very glad for it. arts and humanities students are a minority - unsw being a predominantly science and technologically-focused uni. in my college of 162 residents alone, there're only some ten other arts students - the rest are either doing engineering or science or computing or medicine. it's hard to make small talk, and without common interests (extolling the undying virtues of jeanette winterson etc), it's even harder to expand and go beyond the mundane, inane, insipid small talk. so i'm thankful for those philosophy classes, where the intellectual misfits (so evident in their outfits, hairstyles, jaded, nonchalant gazes) are corralled into. and each time i emerge from a three-hour lecture/tutorial, i feel mentally exhausted and utterly mind-fucked, and just wanna go lie down in front of the library lawn and smile at the sky above. but seriously, there were times self-doubts emerged and i wondered if i had made the right choice - and then i would sink into my chair, hug my pillow, let silence and solitude engulf my thoughts, and gradually a calm would brace me back to my world again. the idea of doing a phd feels like an exalted gentle breeze when you're not in it, but now, the prospect of coughing up a full thesis at the end of it seems so scary and daunting. i know time will fly, though graduation just seems so far away. but i think of my family and friends, former students too, and look at all their photos pasted on my wall, and of how much i do miss them, and of how much i've been wanting this, and that my hopes arent just mine alone, and the strength quietly and comfortingly slips back on.
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... until once more, i am defeated by my eternal nemesis:

O-whata-week

i mentioned something about orientation week and jadedness, but it was hard not to have some of that energetic, youth-bursting atmosphere rub off on me. it helps that i couldnt go anywhere without having to go through the spread of carnival all around the campus. although, i must say that i have been asked my age in one week more than i have ever in any 3 years back home! crazy people...:






gay and lesbian club - a very important association in school. you get all sorts of networking opportunities!


oh my che guevara, the heady insignia of every self-respecting university










you know it's hectic stuff when the student union (oh yes, unions... hallelujah...) provide sofas al fresco (and al free of charge!)
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then last sunday we headed to the beach. perfect weather - 20 deg, with the white sands, beautiful (and scantily-clad) people, and the pacific ocean rolling out before you:














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and then an opening dinner at college, rounding up the first week of school:
























You grow up in a place where you are told your country is multi-racial. But of course it is. Yet you, and every one of you, acquiesce to having your ethnicity effaced, erased, and abstracted to an inaccurate, erroneous, vacuous, category. Not for a moment do you stop to ask, what does 'Other' mean? What about the many other others? What does ‘racial harmony’ mean in a place whose people are ignorant of their own and of another's histories and culture, whose anthem is a foreign language, and whose pledge is an empty emblem? What does it say of a people who do not care that their unity is a mirage?

Then you come another place discovering that perhaps you have been deceived; that there is no such thing as the labels you have been acculturated with – that there are only you, and me, and anyone else who walks on this same ground. And if you are fortunate, half the world might travel to a place your paths could cross easily, and you might pause for a moment, say a hello, and have a picture taken.

melbourne vs sydney

i'm settling in alright, school doesnt start till next week, and next week is orientation week, and that means i've got one more week off. actually, i don't really have lessons proper, all i need is to arrange for a consultation with my supervisor, discuss some initial research questions and directions, and then invade the library. ah but these can only be done after everyone else are done running around excitedly.

and it's hard to be excited about something i've done three times before. i'm about ten years older than the freshies, attending my fourth uni (i did graduate from the previous three, just in case you're wondering) in a fourth different city, and i'm as jaded and exhausted as any jaded and exhausted institution-hopper can be. but that doesnt mean i don't enjoy my time now, and that the coming few years would be a dread and a chore. for god knows how long,this, is what i've been waiting for man...

but ideally, i'd have loved to be able to go back to melbourne. and coming to sydney this time only made me miss it even more - a case of so-near-yet-so-far. sydney's ok, it's got great beaches, a beautiful harbour and a bridge and the opera house, and sydney university's just gorgeous. but it's not melbourne. sydney can't hold a candle to melbourne's arty, groovy, indie vibes, wine bars and first-rate cuisine, its laneway cafe culture, its european, bohemian, air. these are things that appeal to me, and are what make melbourne more than just an old flame. i do wish i were back.

maybe i'd grow to love sydney, who knows. but as they say, first loves are the most unforgettable. when i first came to melbourne, it was as much a non-event as stepping out of my room to go to the kitchen. and it was winter then, rain, cold and grey and all. and how unknowingly i was in the kitchen's thrall. but well, mr sydney, i'll let you know in four years' time.

i promised to put up the aussie pics when i visited last june, what better time (than never) to present the two age-old rivals - forever putting the other down, engaged in a permanent battle to outdo the other - to be the city of australia:

Melbourne :


CBD area. the countless times i got lost amidst its buildings even though they were few and the streets were laid out in a grid!


southbank and the yarra river. i think of that one gloomy winter day having coffee with s, the grey giant clouds threatening to bring the city along with it


degraves street, and one of my favourite cafes in the city. when it gets very crowded you have working professionals milling around with cigarette and latte on the one hand, and a mobile phone on the other; and the bohemian types sitting on wooden crates in tubetops, jackie'O sunglasses, and a breakfast at tiffany debonair


the university of melbourne (ahhh...) - old arts (left) and law quad (right). how many times i've sat on the benches in front of the clock tower and read


anthropology and geography school. a lecturer there once gave me a C grade for a term paper accusing me of being a PAP apparatchik. i have since repented and reformed.


inside the old quad. leaning against the cold sandstone pillar while clad in comfy woollies and pondering the profoundest existential questions of life is one of the profoundest satisfactions one can derive from studying at this institution - that is, provided you have a propensity to ponder profoundly

Sydney:


the harbour bridge at sunset. i always wondered what's so fascinating about those gigantic steel structures while being fascinated by it


the famed opera house. likewise, i can never understand people's obsession with this clutter of faded, dated, aging seashells. i suppose architectural effects can be rather gestalt-ish.


st. mary's cathedral. when i took this picture there was a rainbow pouring through the fan of waters


the university of new south wales: john niland scientia building, where graduation ceremonies are held. when i visited as a tourist, who'd have thought i'd return eight months later as a student. life's endless surprises huh


its modern-ish buildings cant compare with sydney uni's (or unimelb's), but some pretty good research gets done here, they have a few rhodes scholars and nobel laureates already.


the business faculty, otherwise known as the asian money spinner. my word of advice to anyone wishing to experience a true university education is - never enrol in a business degree (unless you wanna do economics). hey i'm speaking from experience


the library, also one of the ugliest buildings in sydney. but they do have beautiful books inside, so it's all forgiven
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that's all the pictures for now, there're too many to put up and i don't wanna go figure out how to go the collage thing all over again (thanks, Apple). i'll try to keep you guys updated on what i'm doing as much as i can, and as you probably can tell, i seem much happier already - i am. i need to be re-acquainted with communal living. the art of making small talks and joining in activities i've not much interest in etc etc. i really just wanna be left alone to read my book. my next door neighbour, an architecture student, is also like that - i think we're just made for each other.

while i'm still rambling about universities, i'll put up the picture of the uni i'd most loooooooove to attend. when i drove through new england last october, i visited a few of the ivy leagues - just to stroll through their green lawns and hallowed halls - yale, brown, harvard, upenn, columbia, and none could match this sentient rush of vertigo this uni invoked - the prestigious, the secluded, the aristocratic, the elegantbeautifulravishingfantabulouslydazzlinglychokestoppinglyheartbreakinglygorrrrrgeousohhhhmyyyygorrrrrgeooooooussssssssss....


..... ahhhhhhhhhhhh.... dartmouth college