Physics with space science is cool subject, especially that bit where I tell people what I study in university and get to see their eyes widen. When I started this course, I wanted to become a planetary scientist or, possibly, an astronautics engineer, but that was over two years ago. Since then I have had gotten a much larger overall view of the various fields in physics and astronomy, of things which I have not heard of before university.

Nowadays, if people ask me what I want to do for grad school, I find it much difficult to answer. I find that inspiration comes most naturally to me when I think about the big picture about the universe: cosmology, the study of the past, present and future of the universe. It is a field in which some of the biggest names in science have been made (e.g. Messrs. Einstein and Hawking), and which have completely revolutionised mankind's knowledge of his place in the grand scheme of things. When I think of the field of cosmology, I get a tingle up my spine about the unimaginable size and scale of the universe, and the insignificance of mankind. There are many outstanding problems in the field, and I feel the solution of these problems will revolutionise science in the same way Einstein or Newton did. However, I'm not really interested in the observational aspect of astronomy, which often involves cataloguing distances of faraway stars, a glorified combination of photography and librarianship (with due apologies to my astronomer readers!). It's the gigantic intellectual challenge of theoretical cosmology that excites me, but on the other hand abstract mathematics isn't my true strength, and there's another thing.....

I have often fancied myself as a humanist, as someone who looks beyond the parochiality of my individual self, family, race and nation, for the good of all mankind. It has not gone unnoticed to me that there are many problems besetting mankind right now, which I shall not even go into, but suffice to say that I want whatever thing I do to be for the benefit of mankind (or humankind, for all you feminists). Cosmology is a really pure science, in the sense that it has no direct and obvious application, although in common with all pure science, there are always spinoffs, such adding to our knowledge of science as a whole which might help other, more practical branches of science. I have no doubt of the value of cosmology to mankind in general, but I think there are more immediate ways in which I can contribute....

There is a joke about nuclear fusion reactors: it is always 30 years in the future. It is a power source of dreams: the energy of the stars, with the main raw material almost freely available in sea water, and little or none of the political and environmental problems associated with most energy sources we currently have. There is, of course, the little problem that viable commercial fusion reactors are still a few decades in the future. There are many problems with making fusion reactors, and while a lot of progress has been made over the past decades, there is still a lot of ground to be covered, with a lot of obstacles in plasma physics and engineering to be overcome. However, the promise of nuclear fusion is something that I can work for in full conscience, in the knowledge that the work I'm doing will help solve a significant chunk of the world's problems. However, fusion research is a huge field, and as an individualistic person, I have doubts about how well I can work in a huge group (OK, maybe there's the egoistic aspect about wanting to get due recognition for work done, which might not be in good supply in large group efforts). Also, the work within fusion research won't be as intrinsically interesting as in cosmology, but there will be the satisfaction about the social benefit of the work done.

There is the large dilemma between personal interest and social worth of the work done, that I'm facing here. At the moment, it looks as if I will be going into fusion research, but there will be a lot more introspection and thought before I commit.

"You look like a homeless person". Those are not the words that one normally uses to greet a friend whom one hasn't seen in nearly a year, but then most people aren't Mike Macdonald. I was waiting outside BK in Leicester Sq for him, and he had just come from Victoria, where he was just concluding the deal for the purchase of his second house in London. He asked me where I wanted to have lunch ("And no bloody Chinese food, obviously"), and I suggested Angus Steak House nearby. "No way, Angus is shite".... so I suggested that we have the lunch buffet at Chiquito, a Mexican restaurant next to Pizza Hut.

I first met Mike at the Singapore Guitar Festival over 2 years ago, and I did not notice this at the time, but he speaks in a strange mixture of a Scouse accent with a hint of Hong Kong and the occasional 'lah' tacked on to the end of his sentences. He's from Liverpool, but has been working in Singapore for the past few years as a financial analyst. He's not your average scouse though, since he can speak reasonably fluent Cantonese, which is because he once worked in HK.

He studied maths in university, and he was interested going into research in general relativity, but decided to go into market analysis rather than end up in 'Economy Class Land' (as he put it). Among other things, Mike is very clearly a genius. He did his O-levels when he was 13, and got accepted into Cambridge, but he decided to go into UMIST instead (apparently he thought Cambridge was too dull). He can play the guitar better than I can (at least that was the case the last time I heard him play, which was some time ago), yet he says that it's his THIRD instrument after recorder and piano. Not surprisingly, with brains like his, he's making loads of money, which is why I had no compunctions against getting him to buy me lunch. After all, he's only in London for a couple of weeks, and I probably won't see him again for a few months at least.

Intelligent and successful that he is, he has a tongue that is acerbic to say the very least. As PH observed when he met him, Mike is one of the best insulters that you'll ever meet. His vocabulary still consists of stuff you would expect from a working-class Liverpool background (his Scouse accent has been watered down, but having met his sister, I now know he's definitely from a working class family), like "I'm going to have to stick a mint up my arse by the time I'm done with this" when helping himself to the food at the buffet table.

Despite this, he is extremely intelligent and can still remember stuff from his university days which (presumably) he doesn't need in financial analysis. So, we were stuffing our face with ribs and chilli (I was, at any rate), and we had words like 'eigenvalues' and 'Riemann hypothesis' and 'Legendre polynomials' flying across the table. I was struggling to keep up my end of the conversation, like when he asked me about HOW we derived the Schrodinger equation.... I was even more lost when he told me how HE did it back in university.

He was always giving me advice on what to expect, and how to handle it, and a lot of it is on issues I've never even thought of. By 2pm, I had to go off to uni to register for the new term ("Oh alright...I have to bugger off that way though"). He might not be a friend I meet everyday, but talking to him never fails to be interesting.

I am back in London now. 13 hour flights are no fun, but after the first couple of times, one tends to develop strategies to deal with the interminable passage of time. Most people seem to pick sleeping, but I am utterly incapable of sleeping continuously on anything other than a flat bed. I find the 13 hours ideal for listening to music....most of the time, I have no time to just sit down for an hour or more to listen to a full symphony, so long journeys like that are perfect for that. I spent an hour or two learning Spanish, and finished an entire book: The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke. I haven't actually read any of his books in years, although I have fond memories of reading many of his books in my formative years. It was a fantastic book, and I read it from cover to cover.

Modern travel is supposed to be making the world smaller. I suppose that is true, but when 40,000 feet in the air, with entire cities and mountains on the ground seeming Liliputian, I can't help but feel that the world is still extremely vast, notwithstanding any pretensions we might have otherwise.

747s might be able to bridge the gap between continents, but it doesn't really help with the process of bridging cultures. Despite having been in London for most of the past two years, I still got culture shock and a sudden feeling of isolation. Maybe it's the knowledge that I will be a wayfarer for the next decade at least, with no place that I can confidently call home. I will regularly be going back to Malaysia during holidays etc, but nevertheless it's not going to be a place I can be settled in. I am fairly certain that I will still be in UK for my Master's but beyond that I have no idea where I will be doing my PhD, post-docs and any permanent positions I might hold (incidentally, 'permanent' is relative insomuch as scientific jobs are concerned). And to think as far as where I will settle down for a home....

Ambition is a good thing, but there are always sacrifices to made from things that most people take for granted.