On Friday, I had an appoinment with Prof. Miller, because I wanted to ask him for some advice on my post-graduate studies. Prof. Miller was my lecturer for my Electromagnetic Theory course last year, and he seems to have taken me under his mentorship after taking notice of me (I was the guy who asks most questions in his class, or any other class for that matter). He has taken genuine concern for my progress, even more so than my personal tutor. As mentioned in my previous post, I've been having some sleepless nights worrying about my post-graduate studies, so I decided to arrange a chat with Prof Miller about this.

I told him my problems with the lack of MSc's in physics at Oxford, and the only MPhil's in Cambridge were in a field I didn't like. I also told him that my options were between doing a Maths course in Oxford/Cambridge, where there much better chances of getting funding, and doing a Physics MSc in UCL, where funding was harder to come by. "Between doing an applied maths course and doing a 'wrong' physics course, I think the former might be better, although it might be challenging for you", Prof Miller said. That was a bit of an understatement, since even though a Master's in maths would be helpful to me, the thought of it is terrifying, especially the Certificate of Advanced Studies in Mathematics in Cambridge, which is reputed to break even the most brilliant of students. When I told him my thoughts on this, he said, "Yes, it's a very tough course.... the people there have the attitude (which is same as some of the mathematicians we have in UCL) that if you don't have the talent, then too bad, there's nothing they can do about it. On the other hand, I think it's not as bad as it used to be... We had a student from here do that course a few years ago... I didn't think he would be good enough to make it, but on the other hand he enjoyed the course very much and did fairly well. Anyway, I think you're good enough to do well in almost anything, and your maths ability is certainly better than mine." I was momentarily stunned by such words coming from the person who taught the most mathematically demanding course of the entire department.

Later on, after I told him about my worries about getting funding for my studies (I'm virtually certain of getting in to the Master's courses mentioned...it's the funding part which gives me sleepless nights). "I can write a note to Chris, who's head of Culham, to see if we can get you a summer studentship for next summer, and perhaps a part-time or even full-time job there, while you work on your Master's on the side, that could help solve some, although probably not all, your financial problems." (Culham is where the Joint-European Torus, one of the major fusion research facilities in the world, is located). I was hoping to get a summer internship at Culham next summer, but the possibility of actually holding a part-time or full-time job there while I'm still studying never occured to me. Even if it doesn't alleviate all my financial problems, it'll be a tremendous opportunity.

Before I left, Prof Miller pulled out a sheet, and said, 'I'll just write a note to myself about this..."Email Chris regarding summer studentships for Khee Gan etc.... are you Singaporean or Malaysian again?". People tend to mistake me for Singaporean, so I corrected him. He gave me a sly look and said, "Shall I mention that you're Chinese Malaysian?". I was taken off-guard by this and said, "Just Malaysian is fine...." "Well, most people tend to have the impression that Chinese Malaysians are better than native Malaysians...after all, you people have everything stacked against you in your country and you still do well, so I think a bit of reverse racialism is in order here". He gave me a wink.

I was rather surprised that our domestic politics had affected a foreigner's perception of me. I want to be perceived on my own merits, and I feel that the colour of my skin should have no effect on whether I am good enough to do something. I feel that the NEP (Malaysia's National Economic Policy, which stipulates affirmative actions for Malays, for all you non-Malaysians) is unfair towards non-Malays, but in this case, I think that if I were a Malay trying to gain recognition on my own merits, this incident with Prof Miller would have made me extremely disappointed. With globalisation, more and more Malaysians will have to work with foreigners, and I wonder how much such interactions will be coloured by our own domestic status quo.

It has been at least 4 days since I had a decent night's sleep. The best I could manage was about 4-5 hours a night, and this despite going to bed at 12am or 1am, and lying in bed trying to get to sleep. I'm don't fall asleep easily under the best of circumstances, but having so many days of bad sleep is really uncommon.

It was probably started off by on Saturday night, when I was trying to do the problem sheets for the very badly taught solid-state physics course. I was so frustrated by the ambiguity in the questions and the gaps in our notes that I was still steamed up when I went to bed. My mind was completely alert, and it didn't really help that I studied Spanish for about 15 minutes before the lights went off. So there I was lying in bed, with voices in Spanish reverberating through my skull while I tossed and turned. My thoughts turned to absolutely everything, from worrying how to fit all my commitments into my schedule, to my future career, to my anger at Dr. Horsfield who's teaching solid state physics (or as we've dubbed him, Dr. Horsface). I eventually jumped out of bed, turned on my laptop and started hammering out a very vitriolic petition that I intended to get everyone on Solid State Physics to sign (I still haven't printed it out yet right now).

The next day (Monday), I had FOUR straight hours of classes. The first two hours were for my Spacecraft Systems Tech course, which is mostly engineering, and taught by a very nice but slightly dull electrical engineer (who interestingly isn't even an PhD). As I was sitting about 2 feet in front of him, I had to keep my eyes open while he waffled on about circuit diagrams and preamplifiers. I somehow managed not to collapse snoring on to the table, but the next lecture was Solid State. Fortunately however, Horsface wasn't around for the week, and we had a stand-in lecturer who actually made infinitely more sense. The lecture after that was Quantum Mech, and Dr. Moores who teaches that makes us copy notes far too much too fall asleep.

The other thing which has been bugging me was the fact that my well-laid plans for my post-grad studies turned out to be not-so well-laid after all. I was hoping to do a MPhil degree in Cambridge, but the Institute of Astronomy there doesn't usually accept MPhil students, and the Dept. of Physics there offers MPhil research in subjects I'm utterly disinterested in (i.e. Solid State Physics!). Oxford doesn't do MPhil for astronomy or physics at all, so ironically the only major option I have for a Master's in physics or astronomy is in UCL itself! Oxford does offer an MSc in Applied Mathematics and Computational Mathematics, and which is something I wouldn't mind doing to boost my maths ability. Similarly, there's the Certificate of Advance Studies in Mathematics in Cambridge (CASM) which is a one year postgrad course in maths. However, from what I hear, CASM is a really frightening course and a lot of people cannot cope with the level of study in it, so that's rather intimidating. So I'm stuck in a position where I have a few options, none of which are totally appealing to me, and there's the thorny question of whether I can get a full scholarship for it as well (and the reason why a full scholarship is so important to me is the subject of another long rant).

And my finger is still buggered....I should have gone to volleyball practise, because there's no way I can avoid putting stress in it even though I'm not a setter. So I STILL haven't touched my guitar since the concert, and I still can't set properly. I have a 5-day period to rest my fingers...hope they completely recover by then.

In the mean time, wish me a good night's sleep...