My final exams are 2 weeks away, panic is starting to set in, so I've been spending large amounts of time in the library. The funny thing is, I have every single hour of revision planned out before the Easter break even started, and this year I am taking only 5 papers compared with 7 last year, so in principle I should have at least 25% more free time.

This is true to a certain extent... I have been practising my guitar and exercising a lot more than I did in the same period last year. I think the problem is that I treat these as part of my schedule, rather than as something extra. My parents probably wouldn't think of me as being too organised from having me lazing around the house for 19 years, but truth is that when I have a large period of time free in front of me, I mentally plan things even when it is probably unnecesary. For example, I already have my exercise schedule planned out for the next week....gym Tuesday, short run Thursday, long run Friday, gym Sunday. Or at least, that's how I plan it... I'll probably not follow it to the letter, but it's the thought that counts (i.e. I'm stressing myself over it).

The part of my revision that is the most time-consuming is the process of understanding the material. One of my courses is solid state physics (affectionately nicknamed solid-s*** physics) is taught by a lecturer whom we have (equally affectionately) nicknamed 'Horseface'. As I have mentioned before, Horseface is a lecturer only in name, and his 'teaching' involves some rambling in class and scribbling random undecipherable things on the board. Thus, literally all the material in solid-s*** is totally new to me, and I have learn it from scratch. The course isn't trivial either, as the material is conceptually new.

One thing I've realised from my revision is the process of intuition that goes with being a physicist. When going through the notes, there is always the temptation to think that just because I can follow the mathematical steps in the derivations, I 'know' the material. But just following derivations in a linear way isn't assimilating it... doing physics requires one to 'feel' the subject matter. It's hard to describe, but 'feel' is the only word I can think of. I refuse to move on from a section until I can feel it intuitively, and understand what it means physically and how it relates to other things. The intuition is one of my main strengths, and if I don't make sure I intuitively understand the material, there isn't much to differentiate me from Mr. "I-Hate-Physics-But-I'm-Doing-This-Course-Because-Investment-Banks-Like-Physicists".

It's back to the grind tomorrow morning....

I had an interesting day today. A fellow guitarist I 'met' over the 'net, Ivor, invited me to his house. He lives in Middlesex, right at the boundary of London, in a nice but small-looking suburban house (at least from the outside). After we entered and I met his wife, he showed me his garden, which had to be at least double the size of the interior of his house (he told me that he calls his house the 'Tardis', after Dr. Who's hideout which has an interior 100 times larger than the exterior).

Ivor is 71, although he looks in his 50's. After a light lunch with his wife, we got down to the business of checking out his guitars and playing for each other. The thing we have in common is that we both take lessons with Carlos, although apparently he has been playing for almost 50 years, before taking up classical guitar seriously in the past year or so. He has at least 3 concert guitars (at least, he showed me 3 of them), and it was interesting to try them, as I have essentially not touched any other guitar apart from my own in the past couple of years. Still, it must be said that I still prefered my own guitar, which I guess is probably because I have been accustomed to it for so many years.

Ivor is very well-travelled, and he has been to the Far East many times, and this is reflected in the furnishing of his house, which isn't large, but very nice. We swapped stories with each other, and I was there for a few hours, just playing for each other and talking about music.

In the evening, I met up with Jane outside the Royal Academy of Music. She had managed to get a couple of tickets to the first round of the London International Piano Competition, which was being held in the Duke's Hall in RAM. It's been some time since I went out for a concert or recital, and here was the prospect of listening to a half-dozen of the most promising pianists from all over the world. The Duke's Hall isn't a very large hall, but it certainly has an atmosphere, with paintings of musicians lining the wall, large chandeliers overhead and a full-scale pipe organ just hidden away behind some partitions. A Steinway concert grand piano was the solitary object on the stage, and we took front-row seats just to the left of the piano, which allows a good view of the pianists' fingers.

There were 5 pianists in the session we went to; the first was Lithuanian girl, and there was a German guy, two Russian pianists (one guy and one girl), and one girl with her nationality listed as Israeli but with a Russian name. Each pianist has about 30 minutes of music to present, selected from a given list, although there were no repetitions of repertoire among the competitors of the present session.

It's extremely interesting to be able to listen to several different pianists one after another... in normal concerts, the listener has to contrast the musician with others from memory. Overall, all the competitors were superb pianists... but the difference in their styles were definitely there. The Lithuanian girl and Russian girl were in my opinion the best of the evening... both were technically superb, yet played with feeling and panache. The Russian guy was a bit of a robot unfortunately... he was clearly nervous, and the nervous energy transfered well into Lizst and Bach, but when he play a Schubert sonata, it was totally obvious that he didn't have the delicacy and lightness of touch to play it properly. The German was not bad, and I enjoyed his Romantic approach, but he seemed to be in love with his sustain pedal, which totally ruined his Bach.

Overall, it was an enjoyable evening, and I will probably be going to the grand finals in about 10 days....

I haven been posting much lately because the end of the second term has been, quite frankly, insane. I had to write a 50-page report on my research project, and as if that was not enough, I had to prepare and give a presentation, in addition to my usual work. I also had to suffer through two Java exams, but at least once that's over and done with I don't have to worry about it anymore .

Easter break has started, spring has arrived early this year, although I'm not too thrilled at the prospect of staying over during summer in a country where air-conditioning and fans are a bit of a rarity. In the meantime, I'll be studying for most of Easter, although fortunately for me I'm only doing 5 papers in my finals this year (as opposed to 7 last year), so this Easter break should be a bit more relaxed than last year's.

I don't think I have mentioned my plan for the coming summer... immediately after my finals, I'll be going over to MSSL in Surrey to do work for my supervisor, mostly involving writing a paper based on work done in just-completed research project. In mid-July, probably, I'll flying down to Australia, as I have been accepted to an internship in the Anglo-Australian Observatory near Sydney. It should be fun, and I can't wait to visit all my friends in Melbourne and Brisbane (can't think of any friends who are in Sydney, though...). My sister is going to start her degree in Melbourne in July as well, so I might go there first to help her settle.

Anyway Happy Easter to all...I'm going to take a nap now....

The following is an email I wrote in response to an interesting article by Sim Kwang Yang on Malaysiakini, on MCA's campaign for life-long learning.

Dear Kwang Yang,

I have corresponded with you not too long ago regarding philosophy teaching in Malaysia, and your excellent article on life-long learning has made me want to share my experiences with you.

When I was still in early primary school (I think in Standard 1 or 2), my parents bought me a set of childrens' encyclopedia. Now, I'm sure a lot of Malaysian parents buy their children encyclopedia sets, but I actually set about the task about actually reading them. To this date I'm still unsure as to why I did this, but nevertheless I did. This was clearly before the full weight of the exam paradigm hit me (there isn't that much to study in Primary 1 and 2, after all...), and just before the full weight of the information age hit with 24-hour cartoons on satellite TV and video games (this latter was due at least thanks to my parents, who have never succumbed to years of my petitioning to buy a Sega Megadrive). I soon graduated to raiding my parents' collections of 10 year old back-issues in Reader's Digest and Far East Economic Review (!).

For better or worse, I have never stopped being addicted to books, and throughout my primary and secondary education I would rather curl up in my bed with a good book than do my homework. In this respect, I was somewhat fortunate that my parents were too busy to supervise me too closely, and I managed to go through 11 years of state-education without doing much homework at all (my primary education was in a Chinese-medium school, and I consistently got into trouble because of this... secondary school was a government school, which meant very few teachers ever cared...).

I managed to scrape through that 11 years with reasonably good, if not exceptional results... I was intelligent enough to do well in primary education without studying much, and in secondary school I became an expert in last-minute cramming despite my aversion to regular work.

I am now studying in London, doing physics, a subject which I was always fascinated with, and which my parents to their credit allowed me to do, despite its dubious utility (to Malaysian eyes, that is). At the risk of seeming immodest, I have blossomed in university, and I am the top student in my year (there is a Singaporean Education Ministry scholar here who barely edges me in exam performance, but more of my lecturers would agree that I am the better student overall). One of my research supervisors, who has worked with the top physicists in the world, believes that I am one of the top few brains to come from Malaysia, although you would certainly not see that from my SPM or PMR results.

There are almost certainly a lot more intelligent Malaysians out there... my IQ isn't exceptionally high (only about 120-130, and I know friends who are 180). But it is not intelligence which makes me a good physicist, but a critical and questioning mind as well as an ability to think creatively (qualities which, alas, I rarely see in Malaysians).

Clearly, I did not learn these qualities from the Malaysian educational system; indeed, they are IN SPITE of my schooling. You might be surprised that I was totally uninspired by physics in secondary school.... I spent most of my time either asleep or ignoring the teacher during the physics classes. My inspiration to do physics was from reading books outside my curriculum (often at the expense of my schoolwork), and from an inspirational teacher I had in A-levels.

While I do not deny the fact that I had learnt a lot of things from my formal schooling (in particular, I was fortunate that most of my mathematics teachers were good), nevertheless if I not for my intellectual rebellion against the educational system, I would not be where I am today.

I think it's sad that my desire to learn had to be sustained AGAINST the educational system, instead of being fed by it. Perhaps not everyone can be as passionate about a single subject like me, but I have many other interests in history, literature and philosophy in addition to science, so I'm far from a single-minded nerd.

In UK, students who decide to study subjects like history, literature or art do so because they are passionate and interested in it; in Malaysia, they do so because they cannot be accepted into university to do 'proper' subjects. I think this is a sad symptom for the overall condition of a country which aspires to be developed.

Regards,
Khee Gan

It's been a crazy few weeks. Actually, the rush started after I finished the main programming for my project... having the code actually run is great, but that's when the science really started. After the program started spitting out the results, the hard questions started flooding in from my supervisors: Are you ABSOLUTELY sure there's no bugs in your code? Do the results make sense? What's this feature over at 10 keV?
The crux of the matter was that I had to take full responsibility to my work, as it would eventually (hopefully) make its way into the body of scientific knowledge. Last summer, I was carrying out science as well, but there was a lot more hand-holding in the sense that I already had the program sitting there waiting for me, and I just had to feed it numbers and hope that the outputs matched the observed results. Even when I had to help Yong Chen make modifications to the code (adding in the flared disk geometry), there wasn't such a sense of responsibility as it didn't seem as if the work was going be published.
However, it has been made clear to me that if things work out well, I will be carrying forward with my work over summer, and possibly be the principal author for a paper on the work. Also, the fact that I wrote the program myself means that I'm personally responsible for any cock-ups in it. At every step of the way, I had to double- and triple- check everything to make sure that there are no mistakes, and that everything can be explained in a convincing manner.
In that sense, it's an honour that my supervisors have entrusted me with this project, as third year students are normally thrown some problem that has already been solved, instead of giving original work. But there IS a completely different attitude, may I say a scientific attitude that I have to adopt....
Actually, one of the main reasons I've been so busy is because I have been working on my final project report....which is FIFTY bloody pages long. And the worst thing is that I have the entire thing sitting in my head, but whenever I sit down to put it down into the report it doesn't seem to work immediately, and I have to spend ages modifying and perfecting every single bit before I can let it go. Repeat ad infinitum for 50 pages....

After 3 weeks of wrestling with my programming, I have finally finished my research project. In fairness, most of my difficulty was with learning Fortran, and getting debugging it everytime I make idiotic mistakes in my code. Considering that it took me just over a month to get my program up-and-running (although I still need to clean up bits of it), and that I had to learn Fortran from scratch for this, I probably wasn't wrong when I felt that there wasn't very much scientific knowledge required to do my project. After all, when all was said and done it was essentially about multiplying some numbers together, although the algorithms I had to use probably needed more than just programming ability.

When I mentioned this to Kinwah, he seemed to be rather annoyed. He told me that what I was doing was part of front-line-research, even though my role in it was a minor one, so I should be happy with it as most other students get projects which are 'recycled' stuff which the supervisor has already done before. In fairness, even though the bulk of my work was something any competent programmer could do, the background preparation required me to know the problem in its scientific context.

Having said that, creating a program to model the spectrum from supermassive-black holes in galaxies at the edge of the universe is really cool when I'm not sitting in front of my computer swearing at a bug that I can't find. In any case, I have a month left to prepare my presentation and report, which is plenty of time, apparently.

In any case, this does mean that I'll have more free time on my hands, and I can now renew my acquaintance with my guitar. I've been suddenly hit by the performing bug, and if anyone knows anywhere that I could have a recital near London, let me know.

"I want you to be a Fermi.....". I have already mentioned Kinwah's ( my supervisor) propensity towards mentoring me, almost to the exclusion to actually supervising me on my project. This Monday, in our meeting, again we spent the first hour or so sorting out my applications for my summer job.

As a slight aside, if all goes well, I'll be insanely busy this coming summer. I'm applying for a bursary to do research with my supervisors in MSSL in Surrey (about 40 minutes outside London), officially for 8 weeks. In addition to that, I'm applying to do an internship in the Anglo-Australian Observatory outside Sydney, and if I get that I'll probably be spending nights playing with big big BIG telescopes. If I get offers for both, I'll take both on. This lasts 10 weeks. 10 + 8 = 18..... I have maybe 3 1/2 months of summer vacation at most, so how would I make it work. Fortunately, the bursary for the research at MSSL is provided for by a organisation called Nuffield Foundation, but my supervisors will (obviously) be supervising me for the research, and they'll be pretty flexible about timing so long as I get things done.

Anyway back to Kinwah's latest comments/advice to me. His current PhD student, Steven, has gotten himself a post-doc position in Stanford U., and so he told me that Steven could probably help put in a good word for me if I wanted to apply to Stanford for a PhD. Steven is going to be continuing as an X-ray astronomer, so if he's going to be any help to get me into Stanford, I would obviously have to go into X-ray astronomy as well. I do get the vague feeling that Kinwah is trying to push me into his field....

He also said that I remind him of Roberto, his second PhD student who is now on a fellowship at Harvard, in that I am more of an intuitive physicist rather than a purely theoretical type. However, if I were to get a strong theoretical grounding and work mainly as a phenomenologist or experimentalist (e.g. like Enrico Fermi), then he thinks I will be very good at that.

I've always regarded experimentalists as playing second fiddle to theorists, possibly because most of the famous physicists that laypeople hear of are theorists (Einstein, Bohr, Hawking). Also, experimentalists tend not to be able to have so much intellectual ownership of their work, as they tend to work in large groups, compared with theorists. Nevertheless, it's impossible to overestimate the importance of experimentalists....modern science is profoundly based on the experimental method, after all....

My youthful dreams of making an impact on the world a la Einstein and Feynmann, however, have been dispelled by reality. 99.999% of physicists make contributions which the layperson would have heard of, even if they win a Nobel prize (how many Nobel Physics laureates can the average person name off the top of their head?). Science is first and foremost about learning about nature, and the act of doing science should be the greatest reward any scientist can have. Anyone who expects greater rewards from science should look for another career.

In the past week, I have not had lectures because the astronomers are on a field trip to France, so lectures have been canceled. However, my Java programming class is still ongoing, and I still have to make progress in my research project. As my research project predominantly involves programming as well (but in Fortran), this means that I've been averaging about 7-8 hours a day programming in one way or another.

I haven't had much programming experience, apart from an abortive attempt to learn VisualBasic before university. I must say it can be a frustrating but absorbing activity. There's nothing like sitting in front of the computer, cursing and swearing while trying to identify the one flaw in the code that's keeping the program from running properly. I literally refused to leave my computer until I hunted down my adversary like a hunter tracking an insidious but elusive prey. Now I understand why 'techie' people often end up neglecting personal hygiene, sunlight and social contact.

Another thing about the past week or so was that I've put aside some time to practise my guitar and listen to music. It's the opposite of drugs I think....when I don't have music, I might not really notice it, but when I get back into it, I can't imagine not having it in my life.

Last Tuesday, I went to a chamber music recital in my uni, and Prof. Miller from my department was one of those performing. I first met Prof. Miller not when I took his Electromagnetic Theory course last year, but before that when he was organising a recital where I played in. Even though he is already in his 60s, he still has a deep baritone voice, which he puts to good use yelling at the students chatting away in the back of the lecture theatre. In fact, he once told me that when he was young, he had toyed with the idea of going professional... he felt that he was "better than the worst" of the opera singers he had worked with.

He was singing a few Schubert lieder ('songs' in German, which have evolved into a genre of their own) called Winterreisse. The lyrics are based on poetry by Wilhelm Muller...here's a typical one:

9. Irrlicht (Will o’ the Wisp)

In die tiefsten Felsengründe
Lockte mich ein Irrlicht hin;
Wie ich einen Ausgang finde,
Liegt nicht schwer mir in dem Sinn.

Into the deepest mountain chasms
A will o’ the wisp lured me;
How to find a way out
Doesn’t worry me much.

Bin gewohnt das Irregehen,
s führt ja jeder Weg zum Ziel;
Uns’re Freuden, uns’re Wehen,
Alles eines Irrlichts Spiel!

I’m used to going astray,
And every way leads to the goal.
Our joys, our sorrows,
Are all a will o’ the wisp’s game!

Durch des Bergstroms trockne Rinnen
Wind’ich ruhig mich hinab,
Jeder Strom wird’s Meer gewinnen,
Jedes Leiden auch sein Grab.

Through the mountain stream’s dry channel
I wend my way calmly downward.
Every river finds its way to the ocean,
And every sorrow to its grave.

...and that's one of the more cheerful ones!

Today, the world marks the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1945. Spare a thought for all those who were slaughtered, and the inhumanity of those who committed this. For those of you who don't know much about this travesty in the history of mankind, I recommend taking a look at Maus, a graphic novel by Art Spiegelmann. There is nothing more I can say to express my feelings today.

My current research project is officially under the supervision of Graziella, but it seems that I'm interacting more with Kinwah nowadays, even though he's officially only the associate supervisor, and is just supposed to help me out with the programming aspects of the project.

I see him more often than I see Graziella, and during our meetings, most of the conversation seems to involve more about my future career than about the work at hand. Don't blame me... I wouldn't mind some advice and help on my future, but he seems to enjoy playing the mentor and gives me lengthy and detailed advice.

Today, I was supposed to pick up an internship form from Kinwah after he filled in. Instead, I ended up sitting there while he sat there telling me about how to improve myself. I needed to get more confidence and tell people my achievements, he said, but at the same time I needed to concentrate more on having 'insight' into physics rather than worry about my crap maths. Apart from that, he gave me some rather lenghty advice on how to be a successful academic and researcher. I basically just sat there and nodded while he told me all this. He has a fondness for using analogies, especially from football...'Right now we're in the FA Cup final, and we're putting you on as a young player....your job is to disrupt the defences to let our main striker into the penalty box. The job may be boring but it's still important', when referring to the fact that my current project could be seen as dull and beneath me.

One thing that did bother me a bit was that he mentioned that I 'moan too much'. Yes, I do have my worries, and I've voiced them out to him, but I'd rather worry now and remain blissfully ignorant. This is definitely not a positive light for him to see me in, but at least he's actually telling me this, so I'm probably not on his shit list just yet. When he was giving me his spiel, I was rather restless because I wanted to get back home and do some work, but instead I just sat there and listened.

Don't get me wrong, I think what he told me was really good advice, and I appreciate it.... but having it rattled off to me in one sitting is probably just a bit too swallow at one go.

It was in Paris that I saw my first Nobel prize winners....8 of them in total I believe. Of the millions of scientists in the world, and thousands for each field, a maximum of three gets awarded with the ultimate accolade every year, so it is really an incredible achievement to win one.

The first thing to notice about the prize winners is their age... the youngest of them seemed to be Gerard 't Hooft (yes, I got the apostrophe right...) (Physics '97) and Harold Kroto (Chemistry '99), and both were at least in the late 40s or early 50s. Most of the others seemed well into their 50s, and Masatoshi Koshiba (Physics '02) seemed positively geriatric.

Most of them were there to give talks, and so it was from their presentations that my impressions of them were made. The first Nobelist talk was given by Zhores Alpherov (Physics '00). His talk was supposed to be 'Physics and Information Technology', but within 2 slides he'd gone of talking about heterojunction semiconductors and bipolar transistors, stuff that I'd covered in the much-maligned solid-state physics course in first term, but by the halfway point I was completely lost. I'm a third year university student, so I wonder what the high school students in the audience thought about it. I amused myself by laughing at his accent. He has this very RRRRRRuuuusssian accent when he talks, like something a Soviet character out of some bad pantomime. I bet he still calls his friends 'comrades' and has glass of vodka when he wakes up in the morning. One interesting thing is that the work which led to his Nobel prize seemed to date from the early '60s.

The others fortunately did pitch their talks at a somewhat lower level, to an extent that Claude Cohen Tannoudji's (Physics '97) talk on quantum physics touched on stuff that I already knew, but I'm sure lots of people in the audience appreciated this level. Harold Kroto's talk on nanotechnology was notable for his superb presentation style. I can bet that every single person in the audience was at full attention during his talk. He didn't just present the science of nanotech (although admittedly at a pretty low level), but he conveyed the sense of adventure in the journey towards the discoveries, and did so with wit and humour. Although I disagreed with some of his points, there was no doubt that his presentation style is totally fantastic.

Incidentally, the only talk in which I fell asleep was at 't Hooft's talk on particle physics. It wasn't that his talk was dull, but I was completely exhausted from lack of sleep (my roommate at the hotel couldn't sleep, and kept the lights open, tossing and turning etc...that kept me from sleeping as well).

Kobashi was another interesting talk. His talk had been titled 'Cosmology and Astrophysics in the 21st century'. So he tottered on to the stage with his cane, sat down (other speakers had did their presentations at the lectern), made his apologies for his frailty, and announced that he was going to talk on neutrinos instead of the scheduled topic. I guess being a Nobel Laureate had its perks, but anyway neutrinos was his field of expertise anyway. I later described his style to a friend in two words: wizened sageness. He spoke in a very slow pace, with the classic Japanese accent, and periodically jabbed at the screen with his walking stick. It was like the old man from Karate Kid, only this guy was even more sagely, and spoke his words of wisdom with a patience borne out of, well, age.

After the conference, I spent my time during the lectures mimicking the speakers, especially Alpherov. During Nuclear and Particle physics, the lecturer is (I think) from one of the former Soviet republics, so I asked my questions in a perfect Russian accent. I don't think he was particularly amused.

Here are some Googled pics of the people I'm talking about...couldn't be arsed to take/upload my own....

Koshiba:


Alpherov (on the left...hope I don't need to tell you who the guy on the right is):


Kroto:


One thing I like about physics, is that I can do work anytime I like. When I'm in a bus stop freezing my butt off while waiting for the no. 113, I can keep myself occupied by thinking about problems. I think that when I'm stuck with something, actually staring at the piece of paper strewn with equations can be a hindrance rather than a help. Maybe it's something to do with a mindset...when I'm sitting right there, I'm forcing myself to solve the problem, and if it isn't obvious, I do get frustrated and angry very quickly. When I'm doing something else, the answers somehow start to seep into my brain subconsciously, or if I'm really bored, thinking about problem free-hand is surprisingly effective.

I was a bit pissed of about a derivation that I had to do for particle physics in the afternoon.... it was an integration that looked rather scary (but then, the emotion that pops up in my whenever I see long equations is fear....), and I was getting frustrated as I kept hitting a brick wall. Part of the frustration was a bit more general, as I reflected on my inferior mathematical ability. I decided to go grocery shopping and get an early dinner...while I was walking along in the shopping centre, and steps to get the integration seemed to flow into my head without thinking.

After I came back, I sat down and did the derivation in 5 minutes flat (OK, I got the wrong sign, but I'm not going to be too fussy...). The human brain works in mysterious ways....

Some of you might know that I was in Paris for a conference last week. It was the UNESCO's launch of the World Year of Physics, 2005, to commemorate Einstein's miracle year in 1905 when he wrote 3 papers that changed the world. Unfortunately, my New Year's resolution is to become a workaholic, so I can't spare the time to write in detail.

However, here's a report that I wrote to the Institute of Physics student newsletter to whet your appetites:

It was appropriate that the launch conference for the United Nations World Year of Physics was held virtually in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. Constructed in 1889, the Eiffel Tower embodied the anticipated scientific and technological advancements of the coming 20^th century. In 1905, this spirit was turned into reality by an unknown Swiss patent clerk in Bern, doing theoretical physics in his spare time.

A hundred years later, the global physics community and the UN have decided to recognise 2005 as the World Year of Physics (WYP) in homage to Albert Einstein’s annus mirabilis. Jointly organised by UNESCO and the European Physical Society, the launch conference for WYP 2005 was held at the UNESCO headquarters located several blocks from the Eiffel Tower. Nearly 1300 delegates from all over the world were gathered for this event, which was held from 13-15 January. In view of Einstein’s youth when he published his seminal papers, it was fitting that half of the delegates were students at various levels, from high school to post-graduate studies.

The conference consisted of a non-stop schedule of talks and discussion sessions held over the three days. In following with the broad theme of ‘Physics for Tomorrow’ chosen for WYP 2005, the talks addressed of the challenges facing physicists in the 21^st century. These were presented by a distinguished panel of speakers composed largely of research physicists, including several Nobel laureates. They presented a fascinating mosaic of the unanswered questions and possibilities open to the physicist of the near future, when research will become increasingly cross-disciplinary and the boundary between fields will blur. However, the future challenges for physics extend well beyond the merely scientific.

Several of the talks and discussion sessions talked about physics in its context of its socio-economic challenges. And these are massive challenges: the increasing disparity between developed and developing countries, declining levels in the public understanding and support of science, difficulties in recruiting young people into physics, and others. The diversity of the delegates ensured that there were representative points of view from across different genders, nationalities, faiths and age groups.

As an aside from the formal sessions, there was a book exposition from various scientific publishers and a very popular showcase of interesting table-top experiments organised by a group of Danish physicists. Of course, there was the opportunity to meet other physicists and students from all over the globe, from countries as far flung as the United States and Ghana. Language was but an easily surmountable barrier in the presence of the uniting passion towards physics and science in everyone. The conference culminated in a formal banquet at the French Senate in the Palais du Luxembourg on the evening of the 14^th.

The general mood at the conference was one of optimism. Maybe it was due to the energy of the younger delegates, but there was a sense of eagerness to take on the challenges that lie ahead, and overcome them. A century ago, a 26 year-old young man profoundly changed the face of his world. His modern-day counterparts are now preparing themselves to do the same.

A pic of the Irish, US and UK delegations in front of you-know-what....

Been home for just about a week. Home is beginning to refer less to any specific place, but rather wherever I happen to be at a particular time. Relations with my parents are still pretty much the same Cold War situation that it was, although we have largely avoided any major flare-ups for now.

Still, I seem to have become more distant to everything in this country. I somehow feel as if I belong less to this country. It's an alarming thing to realise that I relate less to people of my own country than those in Britain. I have never felt the total lack of sophistication in Malaysians so keenly as now (yes, this does completely smack of pretension, but no apologies from me...). On the other hand, when I'm in London, the decadence and pansiness of the British people do drive me up the wall at times, so it's probably a matter of the grass being greener on the other side.

I have been working part-time in the NST again this time round, but things seem to be going slow in the few days I've been here, although I've managed to finish a couple of articles as it is (no guarantee on whether they get published though). Also catching up with some friends, although my reserves of cash is drying up with alarming speed.

The other main thing that's happened this week is of course the earthquake off Sumatra and the resulting tsunamis. It's sad that tragedies only seem really tragic when they happen close to home, but it's true... when tens of thousands of Iranian died in the Bam earthquake last year, there wasn't so much media coverage. As it is, the tourists who perished on the beaches of Thailand probably maximised the amount of coverage in the Western media. Not that this is a necessarily bad thing, as more publicity means more humanitarian assistance and donations from private citizens.

One thing that really chilled me to the bone is the realisation that if not for Sumatra being in the way, we would have taken the brunt of the tsunami across the entire western coast of Peninsular Malaysia, instead of just receiving some of the diffracted wave in Penang. Fortunate for us, but I bet that doesn't comfort all the Acehnese who have suffered so much. Part of me wants to go do something about this. I have called the Maha Vihara, a Buddhist temple in Brickfields where they are accepting donations from the public, and the lady I spoke to told me to just turn up if I want to lend a hand with the work. I just might.

As some of you have gathered, I have been in a low ebb in the past couple of months or so. I have had difficulty concentrating on work, sleeping at night, and has barely touched my guitar since my big concert in October. Mel suggested that it might be SAD (Seasonal Adjustment Depression), where the lack of sunlight in the winter (the Sun set at like 3.30pm today) made me depressed. But I've been in London for the past two winters, and I don't remember being so down.

Last night, as I laid in bed tossing and turning at 3am, grappling with my demons, I was completely filled with resentment and anger at all the times I've been wronged, even if they happened years ago, and I was lying there plotting revenge on how to get back on those people who have made me unhappy. I gave in to my anger, when I suddenly realised: this cannot last without me destroying myself mentally.

I sat up in bed, and knew I had to do something. My parents have been trying to drill into me to take up meditation for my own good, and I have always rebelled against them. They don't seem to realise that I'm the perfect candidate for reverse psychology: tell me to do something and I won't do it, even if it's something that I would have done on my own. When I was 14 or 15, I was a believing Buddhist, but my parents suddenly turned towards Mahayana Buddhism, and which had elements I completely dislike, and that turned me away from it. Ironically, the final straw that turned me stop considering myself as Buddhist came from a pamphlet my father made me read when I was about 18. It was by some Thai Buddhist monk, and it contained stuff that I considered so repulsive and ridiculous that I considered myself an atheist from that time onwards.

I realised that I need to continue my own search, and not let my disdain for my parents' particular sect of Buddhism poison my perceptions of the entire religion. When I made that realisation, I calmed down almost immediately, and I decided to pick up a little booklet of Buddhist aphorisms that my mother had given when I left for the UK. After reading a few minutes, I was calm enough to turn off the light and sleep.

It's good that I'll be flying back in 2 days' time. A change of environment can only do me a world of good, and I can't wait to meet up with my friends.

Check out this video of my friend Todd Kreuzberg from Annapolis, whom I visited during my STScI internship in Baltimore. He totally rocks (albeit rather unorthodox playing style), and I've gotta get back to working on my guitar....

I had dinner with a VIP on Sunday evening. A few days before, Jane had called me, saying that Tourism Malaysia was hosting a dinner for the visiting Minister of Tourism, and they wanted a couple of young Malaysians to be present. My first response was, 'Ummm... do I have to play?'. I haven't touched my guitar for ages, and I most certainly wouldn't have been very eager to play in public anytime soon. Fortunately, we were just to be there to provide company for the minister, so as it was basically a free dinner, I agreed.

One thing to note is that I had NO idea who the minister was even after the dinner... I've since googled his name (Datuk Leo Michael Toyad, 'Datuk' is a title for you non-Malaysians), but I was totally clueless during the dinner and had to cop out by referring to him as 'Datuk'. The dinner was at Satay House, a Malaysian restaurant near Edgware Road, so it was something that would have set my mouth watering if I wasn't going to go home during the Christmas break. Jane and I arrived at the restaurant bang on time, at 8.30pm (and this despite the fact that I was a bit late meeting up with Jane near Edgware Rd). Of course, since there was a VIP going for the dinner, AND the fact that they were all Malaysians, meant that they were precisely 30 minutes late.

There were were the top two people from the Tourism Malaysia London branch there (Zalib and Zailin respectively, I think), and the minister of course, along with a few other people whos names I didn't quite catch (the only non-Malaysian at the table was their driver, who had this extremely Cockney accent). The minister was quite friendly to us, and it turned out that he used to play the classical guitar himself...and he even did Grade 8 and Performance Diploma for it. Small world indeed.

Of course, I absolutely stuffed myself silly with the food, as a prelude to stuffing myself silly when I go back home I guess. As for the dinner table conversation, I must say that I was rather occasionally bored by some of the things that were said, and I confined most of my contributions to nodding and smiling politely, except when talking to the minister about classical guitar of course.

In any case, I would never complain about free food, and I did enjoy the evening.

My New Year's resolution for this year was to do volunteer work, to ignore myself and give something to other people. I've told very few people about this because I was afraid that I wouldn't have the willpower to carry this out (which in retrospect probably isn't a good thing). I have all the ingredients of happiness with me: talent, intelligence, motivation, stable family, success (at this level). But there has been an emptiness inside me... all of you know I have always been single, and that is something that has been bothering me for ages, but in university it's even more glaring, as it's the stage when even my parents have given me the go-ahead to get a girlfriend.

Of course, it's not been through lack of trying....I've lost track of the number of girls I've pursued with zero success and plenty of rejections, and I've taken every single one personally. One of my personality traits is self-confidence bordering on cockiness, but somewhere inside there's a part of me that takes a huge put-down from those rejections, that's something is inherently wrong with me.

My response to this is to prove my self-worth, and the best way to gain best worth is to give instead of receive. I have received all my life, but rarely have I had a chance to give to someone, and in those occasions, I briefly felt complete. So one night near the beginning of this year, when I was wallowing in my self-pity, I made a resolution to give something away instead of waiting to receive.

When the 2nd term started, I got as far as walking to the Volunteer Services Unit in my Students Union, but there was no one there as it was lunchtime. Since then, my work and extra-curricular activities have swamped me, and I never did think about carry my resolution through. In the beginning of this term, I finally got to the extent to talking to the people of the Volunteer Services Unit, and they have given me some contacts... I have emailed a project working with young children which appeals to me, and we'll see how it goes.

Talk about belated fulfilment....

Why the fuck should I care about other people? Nobody cares about me. Why should I work so hard? If I am successful, who cares? Why the hell should I be so altruistic, when no one has ever been altruistic towards me?

Why the hell should I keep rattling away at this stupid blog, when no one gives a fuck about it?

Why should I play my guitar, when no one listens? Or even when people do happen to be there, the sounds just go in through one ear and out the other?

Why should I live?

Fuck everything.

After endless amounts of flip-flopping that would make John Kerry proud, I have decided to change back to the 4-year MSci, instead of doing a separate Master's degree. One of my research supervisors has persuaded me that the MSci would be the best way for me to get into research. Apparently, the MSc degree is an inferior degree for inferior students, and even doing well in it would be like 'scoring 10 goals in Division 3 compared with scoring 2 goals in the Champions League', as he put it (he later told me about one of MSc students, who got his degree from Keele, not knowing how to do matrices).

Even when I told him that my main motivation is financial, he told me that it would be better to 'suffer for one more year' than to do the MSc (note that I'm talking primarily about the MSc in Physics, not the Cambridge CASM). Apparently one of my first year lecturers, Mark Cropper, has told him about me, because even though I've only just started working with him, he already has a very high opinion of me. He said that he can supply me with a very good reference, and mentioned that most of his students have ended up in places like Princeton, Caltech, MIT etc., and frankly it was this bit that made me decide to trust him and take his advice.

At one point, he started rattling off his students and where they are now, and my ears picked out 'Curtis Saxton'. As you might know, I used to be a hardcore Star Wars fan (and am still eagerly awaiting Episode III even though my fanaticism has abated), and Curtis Saxton created a website called 'The Star Wars Technical Commentaries' some years ago analysing the technology and science in the movies, and it was noticed by the people at LucasFilm, so he ended up being technical advisor of George Lucas for Episodes II and III (and wrote the Incredible Cross-Sections books for them. At that time, he was Kinwah Wu's PhD student in the Uni of Sydney! He graduated a couple of years ago, but get this: HE IS NOW IN UCL!!! He wasn't in MSSL (our lab) when I was there, but I should have a chance to meet him very soon. I am now officially only two degrees of separation from George Lucas :p.

On another note, I just got notification that I have been selected to go to Paris on 13-15 January next year. The international launch of the World Year of Physics (to commemorate Einstein's 'miracle year' of discoveries) will be held in the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and I will be going as part of the Institute of Physics' British delegation. Wheeeeee.......

My Madrid pics are here.

They say that a nation's flag should reflect the nation. Most countries have flags rich with symbolism, expressing lofty, grand ideals for the nation to aspire to. Spain's flag is just a yellow section sandwiched between two red ones, with its royal seal encased in yellow. However, it seems to me that apart from any abstract meanings, the colours of the Spanish flag express the physical essence of the country itself.

At least, that's what I thought as my plane approached Barajas airport just outside Madrid just after noon. The sun was hanging in the sky, without a cloud in the sky, its golden rays streaming through the window. Under us, the ground was a reddish brown, with tiny buildings splashed against its flat expanse. After we finally landed, I could see that we were on a great plain, with craggy mountains just visible in the horizon. The entire panorama seemed to suffused with a dusty intensity, as if reality itself has been distilled into a purer form.

Mel had been pestering me and Tom to visit Gara in Madrid for ages (all of us knew each other from Baltimore), and while I agreed immediately, we didn't actually get down to planning the trip until fairly recently, thanks to the demands of the new academic year. Tom, who's up at St. Andrews' in Scotland, didn't feel like travelling all the way to London to catch a flight to Madrid, and pulled out quite early. As the term carried on and work started to pile up, I didn't feel like running away from a weekend either, but I gave my word that I'd go with Mel. We managed to get some cheap plane tickets, but it had to be on Friday morning. That meant that I'd miss some lectures, but I didn't really mind so to speak.

We took the Metro underground trains from the airport to our hostel. The Metro trains were absolutely spanking new, and extremely nice, which would be helpful in their bid for the 2012 Olympics (having been there, I don't think London has a chance now...it's going to be between Paris and Madrid). The parts of the Metro apart from the newly-built lines were older, but still it was better than the London Tube and much cheaper. Gara had helped us find a hostel in the Chueca district, an old quarter, and when we emerged from the station, we were in a small square surrounded by old, faded buildings. Not old and faded from neglect as in most cities, but old and faded in the dignified manner of a place that has not changed for centuries. The streets were narrow and chaotic, with tiny shops in the ground floor of crooked buildings with tiny balconies on the wall. After checking into our hostel, Mel and I went to do some sight-seeing on our own until the evening, when Gara would go and meet us (she had to work as it was Friday). We went to see some of the tourist sights of Madrid, and spent a couple of hours in the Museo del Prado, which was an art gallery which happened to be having a showcase of Spanish portraiture (e.g. El Greco, Diego Velazquez, Goya, Picasso etc), and after that Gara came to meet us. It's been the first time since either of us had seen her since Baltimore, and it was really nice that we were visiting her at her hometown. She brought us to see a few more landmarks before we finally decided to look for a place to eat at around 9pm. We walked quite a while looking for a suitable restaurant before we finally settled on a place around 10.

One of the largest differences the Spanish people have with the rest of Europe is in their culture and lifestyle. The Spaniards are a very laid-back people... the term 'siesta' means to take a nap during a day, a concept which until recently has been regarded as laziness. During the siesta hours, shops traditionally close while people go home for a heavy lunch and siesta, before reopening at around 4pm. Dinner is usually no earlier than 9-10pm, and often later (recall that I mentioned the fact that the Hispanic cabal were extremely reluctant to have dinner at the usual times). While we were there, most of our meals were in tapas restaurants, where small dishes are shared among everyone at the table. In our first meal in Spain, before we had Gara to guide us, we wandered into a crowded little tapas bar like the gormless tourists we were. We stood staring at the menu at the bar counter for about 15 minutes, while Madrilenos bustled around us ordering their lunch and talking loudly. We ordered more or less a la carte rather than a la tapas, because we were too embarrassed to consider the matter further. I ordered a serving of chorizos, a type of spicy sausage, and tortillas verduras, or vegetable-and-potato omelette. The servings turned out to be rather large, but I managed to get it down. Mel, on the other hand, ordered a Spanish omelette (tortillas de patatas) and something called patatas bravas. Now, patatas means potato in Spanish of course, so Mel had the interesting problem of having a large slice of Spanish omelette, and then have a huge plate of potatos with a spicy sauce (presumably called patatas bravas because you have to be brave to eat it). The person at the counter must have thought we were such complete weirdos.

Another thing about the Spanish culture is their love for the night life. In most places, the streets are essentially deserted by midnight or 1am at the latest, but that is the time when Madrid comes to life. Masses of young people (and a lot of not-so-young people) throng the streets, music blares out from discos and clubs that were dormant until then, and the noise is relentless. On our first night, we went to bed at about 1am, and the other people in our dorm room were just about to go out (they must have thought we were totally sad, but we have had a long day). On the second night, we went out with Gara and her friends, and when we left the clubs at 4am, there were still people queuing to get in. When we went to bed, there was still a considerable din outside (hurrah, earplugs, hurrah!).

Note that I made no detailed descriptions of Madrid's architecture and landscapes. That's because I'm letting my pictures do the talking.

Apart from that, a few lessons from the trip:

1. Try not to lose the Metro ticket when you are travelling in Madrid. And then lose a 50 Euro note a few minutes later (OUCH!). (Me)

2. After meticulously writing and affixing stamps to a stack of postcards to send to friends, do not put into mailbox without addresses (we did put names and countries though.... so it was like "Thomas Robitaille, _____________________ Scotland"). (Me and Mel)

3. After checking in for return flight, do not lose the boarding pass. (Me)

4. When buying the return ticket for the train ride to Gatwick Airport, do not accidentally throw away the return ticket after the outbound journey. (Me)

5. Do not walk into lampost. (Gara)

6. When a bunch of bitches appear to be swearing at you in the club in an argument, do not repeatedly say 'Gracias'. (Mel)


That is all for now. Pictures will be up in a day or two.

I was Googling myself out of boredom....it's interesting how much random stuff comes out that you don't even remember. Top of the list was from, of all things, BBC's website (5th from the top)! When Anwar was released, BBC put up a section where we could put comments about what we thought of the whole thing, and I chucked in some random ranting, and surprise surprise they actually put it up. I didn't even realise until when I met Julian Lee when I was still in KL, and he mentioned that he saw my comment on the Beeb. For those of you too lazy to click on links:

This whole charade is but yet another chapter in the whole shadow-play that is Malaysian politics. Contrary to all the odes to the apparent new-found freedom of the judiciary, Anwar was released simply because he is no longer a immediate threat to the government, and denying him medical treatment will make the Malaysian government an international pariah. As far as I'm concerned, this is just a ploy by the powers-that-be to gain political brownie points both locally and abroad. If Anwar is still a viable threat to the establishment, the yes-men in the judiciary wouldn't have been told to dismiss his conviction, period. As it is, Anwar cannot take part in politics for five years thanks to the law which states that anyone imprisoned for more than 12 months is disqualified. What a cynical yet brilliant masterstroke by the government.Lee Khee Gan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The next thing on the search result is something I barely even recall, on a website called TalkOrigins.org. When I was in Methodist College, at one point I got into a heated debate about evolution with this fundamentalist Christian idiot whom I shall not even dignify to name (let's just say he had an obsession with exploring his nasal cavity as well, for all you ex-MCers) . TalkOrigins is a website which is dedicated to discussions on evolution, and I posted a questions for fortify my armoury of arguments. It must have been very regularly accessed since it was second on the list.

Then, there are a couple of sites from the UCL chamber music society, with programmes of my past recitals given in college. I remember being very surprised when a new acquaintance seemed to possess a priori knowledge that I was a guitarist, before he mentioned that he Googled my name (yay!).

And then.... an article in the Star of my concert last month! I should point out here that I am unimpressed with the standard of writing in Malaysian newspapers, but when it's an article about yourself (OK, just a paragraph to be fair...), you usually don't care how lame it is. And I look rather scruffy in the picture in the article as well...time to get a new suit!

There is a link where my name turns up rather perfunctorily in a list of summer students in the STScI webpage, but apart from that the rest of the links are to the letters section of Malaysiakini, usually extremely vitriolic and critical ones. How nice to know that it will be sitting in Google pretty much indefinitely should any government official be perceptive enough to do a quick search. I just hope that would not be requiring government assistance anytime soon, or failing that, to saturate the Google results by many more news articles of a more positive nature!

Oh....I will finally be going to Madrid next weekend! Will have to skip class on Friday though (boo hoo!) since we got a cheap flight on Friday morning, but it'll rock!

Do you remember that childhood feeling, after successfully pestering daddy to buy you a toy you really really really want, you finally get home, tear open the packaging and finally get your grubby little hands on it? It's been some years since I last cried and bawled in order to get what I want from my father, but I just had similar feeling of denouement (yay...always wanted to use that word!), of the sort that used to ensue whenever I manage to drag my parents to Toys' R' Us as a kid.

On Wednesday, I had no lectures, but I went to see an Internet friend perform in a lunch-time recital in a church not too far from UCL. I have never actually met him before, but from his posts on the Classical Guitar Forum regarding his occasional recitals in London, I have had several opportunities to see Paul Miron (or 'PaulM') perform but never did get round to it. So, I was pretty determined to make sure I get there. From what I gather, Paul is a fairly accomplished amateur player who had just been awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Schools of Music (FRSM), the highest accolade on the 'grades' ladder (remember Grade 1 exams, anyone?), and (I'm told) equivalent to a post-graduate degree in music. Apart from that, I knew nothing from him.

I went to get lunch at Chinatown first, before walking over to the Bloomsbury Methodist Church where he was to perform. I've walked past the church a long time ago, when I was in first year, so I knew its general location. However, when I approached the New Oxford St. area, I had to take a few wrong turns before I finally found the church about a minute before the recital was due to start. Not surprisingly, there wasn't more than a dozen people sitting on the pews, and I took a seat in a very nice spot just before Paul came on-stage.

I grabbed a copy of the programme, and quickly glanced through it. It was mostly music by South American composers, although he didn't actually list the pieces he was going to play.... most of them were familiar names like Reis, Pernambuco, Jobim etc, but there was a couple of unfamiliar names as well. Turning over, I read his bio...played guitar since 11...working in finance....'started in an academic career as a theoretical particle physicist'. Wow...another thing in common with me!

When he finally came on stage, he was carrying his Smallman guitar (read: very expensive) , and he was a rather short and stocky middle-aged person about my height, with a short-cropped hair as one would expect from someone in finance. He played his pieces one-by-one, and I enjoyed his playing, even though the sound from his guitar was somewhat lost in the large spaces of the church. It was technically very impressive playing of some very difficult pieces, although there were mistakes here and there (and God knows I know all about stage-fright induced mistakes!), and the rhythm was always there, as befitting South American music.

After the performance, I shook hands with him and chatted with him briefly, but he had to rush back to his job so I didn't hold him there for long. I had some things to do in college, but I decided to walk the other way, towards Leicester Sq to visit the Spanish Guitar Centre. It's a dingy little shop perched above one of the most touristy and crowded areas of London, but it was founded by Len Williams, the father of John Williams, and in many ways it's the spiritual soul of classical guitar in London. The walls are covered with neat rows of guitars (cheap ones that is...the expensive ones all stay in the cases), and what empty space remaining is adorned with pictures of famous guitarists visiting the shop. I haven't been in there for quite some time, but I have been wanting to buy some sheet music for some time, and rather than making a blind purchase online I decided to go there. Barry, the proprietor was there, and I told him what I wanted: the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro BWV 998 by Bach (... for all you non-musicians, 'BWV' is a catalogue number for Bach's music). He promptly took out a few versions for me to compare, and I grabbed a cheap beat-up guitar from a corner and sight-read (badly) through them. The BWV 998 is a piece which I have been completely in love with since I bought Paul Galbraith's recording of it in the summer. I have been listening to it almost every day, and even reading stutteringly through the sheet music on a lousy guitar was a beautiful experience. Finally, I settled on the cheapest copy (most of the versions were more or less the same anyway), and walked off to college to get some things done.

That evening, I eagerly took out the music and unpacked my guitar, which has been sitting sullenly untouched in a corner for a month thanks to my finger injury. It's difficult to describe how spiritually fulfilling it was to finally play something which has been playing in my head for months, even if I was only hacking my way painfully through the notes. Over the past couple of days, I have literally been playing my guitar more than in the past month, and I've been neglecting quite a few of my other obligations (admittedly none which are very immediate).

Anyway off I go to practise more...I've almost memorised the first (and easiest) page of the music now...only another 10 pages or so to go!

I hate it when I get called a genius. Especially when it's from my circle of friends in my course. In putting me up on a pedestal like that, they unwittingly put a barrier between me and themselves. This analogy is even more apt, because like a statue, they talk about me even in front of me, almost as much as the amount of direct conversation I get. There is always plenty of jokes involving my superiority, which was flattering at first, but wore out very quickly and is seldom much more than irritating nowadays. It's all good-nature I'm sure, but what it does is that it makes it difficult for me to relate to them directly, even though I hang out with them during lectures.

Apparently my lecturers consider me a genius as well. While they've never called me a genius in front of me, a friend was telling me that a lecturer had referred to me as 'He's a genius', and it was a lecturer who didn't know me well. This is truly flattering, but I personally would never consider myself a genius, and I would rather not be considered a genius even if I did deserve it. The simple reason is that I NEVER feel like a genius. I have to slog through work just like anyone else, and I personally know of a lot of people who are more intelligent than I am, even among my friends who call me a genius. To quote Da Vinci, 'If you knew how much I worked, then you wouldn't think I'm a genius'. But a lot of people work hard as well, and I'm sure that if some of them worked as hard as I did, they'd do extremely well in exams. Perhaps my passion in the subject makes me a lot more determined to work hard, but I can only think of one other crucial difference between me and other people: I am continuously asking questions, and challenging authority. During lectures, I always ask the most questions, and in the process I'm challenging two things:

1. The implicit assumption of the lecturer that what he has presented is sufficient for our knowledge. As an undergraduate, I can't expect to make any ground-shaking challenges to authority.

2. The social climate within the class, where due to awkwardness and embarrassment, few people dare to ask questions from the lecturer.

Yes, everyone is afraid of asking a stupid question and being shot down by the lecturer in front of everyone, but a fool who knows he's a fool is wiser having known that. I have asked more than my fair share of questions that in retrospect seemed silly and pointless, but I wouldn't have arrived at that level of knowledge without having asked those questions.

To sum up, what better quotes regarding geniuses than Albert Einstein himself:

"I have no special talents, I am just passionately curious"

"Fate has punished my disregard for authority by making me an authority myself"

Over the past few days, I have been utterly sick of hearing people talking about the US elections. Too bad, Bush won...live with it. I think Bush is an utter twat and buffoon, but Kerry isn't really much different as far as his foreign policies are concerned. As far as the Middle East and the whole Israel/Palestine is concerned, he is even more pro-Israeli than the Republicans. So, it's just a matter of which of the two evils was lesser. As some commentators have already pointed out, at least Bush doesn't try and sugar-coat his foreign policies...better the evil we know than the evil we don't. What I'm sure of is that despite all of the US's strong-arm policies and unilaterism, it will be all the more weaker for it. The decline of US influence will be accompanied by a paroxysm of heavy-handed acts, in the same way the decline of the British Empire was started almost a century ago with sabre-rattling.

On a personal note, not too long ago, my ultimate aim for my post-grad studies would have been to do my PhD in one of the elite universities in the US. The intense focus on the American people and society in the run-up to the elections has been relevatory for me, not to my mention my sojourn there during summer. The US is indeed the land of opportunity, but a point of conscience for me is whether to take that opportunity, if it had been created at the expense of other countries and the global environment. Considering I already disagree vehemently with the direction the US is taking, I think it's a question of principle whether it is right for me to receive from, and contribute to the US system (as a PhD student, I would be receiving money from them, but I will be contributing to American science as well). My American friends would tell me that they are against Bush as well, but as American citizens they are entitled to, whereas as a foreigner it would be hypocritical for me to benefit from the American system while opposing it. I suppose that the Democrat states, i.e. the West Coast and North-East would be considerably less revulsive to me, but even then I will only go there if I really run out of options elsewhere...

Now, if the Democrat states would just break-away and form another country, that would be a different matter...

Sunday was one of the worst days of my life, when everything just went wrong at once. Newcastle Utd lost 2-1 to Bolton, for a start, but that's not the only sporting disaster.

We were supposed to play in a volleyball tournament in Kent, 3 matches in all. Jon, our skipper, told us to wait at Victoria train station at 8.30am in the morning, so I set my alarm clock for 7.30am. After hammering on the snooze button a few times, I finally dragged myself out of bed at 7.45. 45 minutes to get to Victoria station is extremely achievable, when there is plenty of buses at rush hour, but not with the dodgy bus schedules on Sunday morning.

Still, I managed to get to the station just a couple of minutes late. As I hurried over to the departures board where we were to meet, I began to wonder where everyone was. After 5 minutes, I got really worried and called Jon. 'Oi Jon, where the hell is everyone???'.'What do you mean where's everyone. It's a quarter to eight.' Brief silence. 'You muppet! The clocks went back last night!'. Another brief silence, then I went 'Oh...'. 'See you in an hour', then he put down the phone. The change from summertime to wintertime was last night, and I was so busy doing my homework that I didn't realise I had to set my clocks an hour forwards! Brilliant. So I have sacrificed an hour's sleep to arrive an hour early, and have to figure out how to spend the next hour.

As I was standing in the middle of the station mulling my stupidity, a guy who looked vaguely familiar from volleyball came up to me and said him and asked me where everyone was. With a wry smile I pointed to a clock on the station platform without saying anything, and realisation dawned on him. Silvan is a Frenchman from Bordeaux, and he's a new exchange student to UCL. I hadn't gotten around to talking to him yet although we both see each other in practise sessions. Still, I was glad to know I wasn't alone in my foolishness, although to be fair unless we watch TV or radio, it's easy not to realise such things. We decided to walk around the general area around the station to spend the time, and soon enough it was the right meeting time, so we went back.

Jon, Simon, Sven and a few others were there with a worried look on the face, puncuated briefly to laugh at me and Silvan. Apparently, no one had thought to bring the bag of volleyballs, which is a necessity at away games in order to warmup. As Alex would be travelling later on his own, there was a call to him to rush to the Sports Centre to pick up our balls, although I reminded everyone that it was unlikely to be open at this hour. We waited a while for a couple of people to turn up, but when Adam and David failed to turn up, there was no choice but to leave without them.

We arrived in Kent well before our first game against Imperial College. The whole of the University of Kent's sports hall had been taken up by volleyball, with one court for the men's games and another for the women's games. We had to borrow some balls from ULU to warm up, and shortly afterwards we began. The first set was very close, and we only managed to scrape a 27-25 win for that. I played pretty well generally, making some nice passes to Jon, who was setting, and covering well in defence. However, in the second set we allowed IC to get a lead that we never did recover from, losing that set. As we were playing best-of-three games, the final set was a cliffhanger, but we made far too many service errors and mistakes, and lost the game.

The next game was against Essex, which is the whipping boys of our league, but to avoid revisiting the pain that happened so recently, let me just say we somehow managed to lose to that lot. I didn't really play well in that game, with my weakness at passing floating serves being exposed too many times. After the game was over, we were simply shattered.

Immediately after the Essex game, we played against Reading. We beat Reading quite comfortably twice last year, but this year they were much better. Again, we managed to win the first set, but collapsed in the next two sets to lose the game. So at the end of the day, we had 3 losses, when in the whole of last year we only lost two games. And we haven't even played Kent and ULU yet, which are the strongest teams in our league.

In general, I thought I played reasonably well, even though I made my fair share of mistakes. My defensive coverage and reaction speed has never been so good, although I struggled to pass some of more nasty serves. There was too many mistakes in the attacking pipeline, with dodgy sets from Jon and spikes going far out, not to mention a ridiculous number of service errors (FIVE in one single set). In the beginning of our first game, our blockers were shutting out the opposition attacks, but later on somehow it became far too leaky. Most of our problems seemed to be psychological, especially with Nik from Athens. He is easily the best player in our team, but his attitude during matches can be completely infuriating. Playing alongside, one can't shake the impression that he's completely in contempt of having to play with us, and when things aren't going well he's the first one to take a defeatist attitude. I've played alongside him for the past two years, and have put up with this all this while, but never has it been this bad.

To put things bluntly, I think our team in general is not as good as it was last year. We had Seb the Swiss and Hadi from the States in the team, both formidable middle attackers, and in the first year we had Ryan, an exchange student from UPenn, who was actually in the US junior Olympic squad. They're all gone this year, and in their place are players nowhere as good. Last year, I wasn't as experienced as I am this year, and I felt that I definitely let the team down at times, but this time I felt that even though I could have played better, I'm indispensible to the team.

So as I collapsed on to bed that night after 13 hours out of my room, it was the most terrible feeling the world, that my world is collapsing around me (albeit only my volleyball world), and nothing I can do about it. UCL men's volleyball is staring relegation in the face.

Courtney and Ben from my course invited me to go to their Halloween party last night (apparently they purchased 24L of alcohol for the occasion!), but I thought I've already spent too much of my recreational time this week already (a pity, for I was planning on dressing up as Dr. Horsfield a.k.a. Horsface, with bow-tie and all).

On Wednesday, when I was checking my email after getting home in the late afternoon, I saw a post on my Classical Guitar Forum message board offering a free ticket to see the great violinist Itzhak Perlman in concert. I had nothing to do that night (except for work...), so I quickly emailed the guy back and arranged to meet him before the concert. John/Sohei is a fellow guitar enthusiast working in IT, and we rendezvoused some time before the concert began, so we had a nice chat about our shared interest.

Itzhak Perlman is one of the most famous violinists in the scene today, and he's definitely the most distinctive appearance, because he's crippled from polio. When the lights were dimmed in the concert hall, the audience went silent as Perlman slowly hobbled onto the stage on a pair of crutches, while his accompanyist carried his violin for him, and handed it to him after he sat down. I shall not say any more about his playing because it's impossible to describe in words. I generally do not like the violin as a solo instrument, but Itzhak Perlman converted me that night. The second half of the concert was slightly bizarre though...the listed programme for the concert was a Debussy sonata which lasted all of 10 minutes, and after that he and his accompanyist took out a huge stack of music, and then he apparently started flipping through the stack picking out random pieces ("The next piece is called...'The Little White Donkey'"). His playing was top-notch at all times, but I would have prefered that he played something more substantial.

And on Thursday, I had dinner with a few friends, so I decided last night not to go to Courtney and Ben's party. Instead, I settled down to read a condensed version of the Maha-Bharata, the great Indian epic. As epics go, the Maha-Bharata is even full of melodrama and supernatural intervention than the Iliad (appropriately enough, since it's apparently 8 times longer than the Iliad and Odyssey combined). It's basically the story of a feud between five brothers of divine origin, the Pandavas, against their 99 cousins (all of the same father!!), the Kauravas. It IS an extremely fascinating story, and it gave me an insight into the Hindu religion and Indian psyche in general. And from what Bollywood movies I've seen, the general zeitgeist of the plots and characters definitely seem to be influenced by the Maha-Bharata!

Those of you who didn't know me during childhood are probably not aware that I used to suffer from asthma and eczema (I still haven't fully recovered from the latter, and there's still some rashes under my knee joint, but nowhere as bad as it was). As asthma isn't particularly good for stamina, and eczema meant that I itched when I sweated, I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about physical activity as a child.

I remember the first time I had to run more than a hundred metres or so, when I was 13 years old in high school. I was completely out of breath after a couple of hundred metres (it didn't help that I was a rather plump child). I'm not sure at what point I start to get enthusiastic about sports, in particular football and volleyball (mostly the latter nowadays), but when I did, my perfectionist self took over and I was never satisfied with my ability. Even more startlingly, I somehow gained the determination to run long distances. It might be the knowledge that many people are capable of lasting the full 42km of a marathon at full pace, yet there I was breathless after a few hundred yards. The fact that I was so unfit probably made me determined to improve, and I intermittently started to jog during my free time.

The first few years, I didn't really do it with much determination, running distances of only a couple of km before letting my physical pain stop me (to be fair, the terrain around my house is extremely hilly). It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I realised that the trick to running isn't to run without effort, but to endure for as long as one can. When you see the marathon runners on TV, they may seem almost nonchalant, but inside they're almost certainly burning with pain.

Nevertheless, there is a lot of training which is required in order to run for any distance. Part of it is to gradually build up the stamina and muscle endurance, but equally important is the mental training. One needs to know one's body, gain comfort from the fact that the initial pain and discomfort will not get worse for many kilometres yet, and have the stoic determination to continue even as the muscles start to scream out and the lungs start to heave.

The last time I managed any consistent training was during summer last year, and I managed about 12-13km at my peak in the murderous terrain near my house. Since then, I've only managed at most a run a week or so, which isn't enough to improve, and there have been periods of indolence where I didn't run at all, so my fitness is nowhere near its best.

These days, I've actually managed at least a couple of runs a week, and in lieu of increasing my distance, I've settled for increasing my running speed. A particularly neat thing I've discovered that during rush-hours, it's actually faster for me to run home than to take the bus, which means that I'll be running quite regularly, if only to get home!

An additional source of motivation....running while listening to the LOTR soundtrack. Nothing like the entire hordes of Mordor to motivate me!

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...

It's been over a year since I last performed in public in anything vaguely resembling a formal setting, and this was not a thought that was particularly comforting as I put on my bow tie and suit in my room just an hour and a half from the start of the performance. Just to make things more interesting, I was also carrying a finger injury from either over-practice or volleyball (not sure which), which made long stretches somewhat uncomfortable. Still, it wasn't a show-stopper, so I decided not to cancel the performance.

One might think that I would have wanted to get some last-minute practice and warmup for a couple of hours before my concert, but I've since realised that last-minute practice is a no-no, since it only makes me more nervous when I discover which parts I haven't practised sufficiently (which usually turns out to be EVERYTHING). It's a simple philosophy...the less time you have to worry, the less you will worry. And so I didn't actually sit down to warm-up until just 30 minutes before I was to go on stage, although this was partially because I had to run around getting some things sorted out like the arrangement of the things on-stage.

I was to be the first person to play in the concert organised by Neil Pickering under the banner of the British-Malaysian Society. All of us who were going to play are Malaysians, although I'm the only amateur. There was Foo Mei Yi, a RAM Master's student who was to play 8 of the Chopin Preludes on the piano after me; Jane Ng, a violinist doing her Master's at RCM, playing some music by Franck, Wienawski (?) and Prokofiev accompanied by Yuki Negishi (a non-Malaysian, this time); and Bobby Chen, an accomplished concert pianist playing pieces by Debussy, Ravel and Liszt. With such illustrious company, I had every reason to be nervous and overwhelmed.

Even when warming up, I could feel the stage fright creeping in, making my fingers go cold (despite constant visits to the hand-dryer in the restroom) and my heart race. Just before I was to go on-stage, as I waited close to the stage door, I was an absolute wreck. My attempts at calming myself down by playing some easy pieces came to nought as I couldn't even play those properly. As I walked on-stage, I was preparing for total humiliation.

The Master of Ceremonies was a short old English chap, Nigel or Neville (I didn't catch his name, but I have reason to suspect he was once the British High Comissioner to Malaysia). In normal classical concerts, there are no MCs, and even if there were they'd leave the stage the moment the performer comes on. So I was rather surprised when he stayed on-stage when I went on, and he introduced me to the audience. Somehow, that helped me settle my nerves, and while I was still nervous when I sat down to play, at least my fingers have stopped trembling and I could actually FEEL them, which was a good start. ...which didn't prevent me from flubbing the first passage of my performance.

Still, things went reasonably well for the first couple of pieces of my programme. It wasn't perfect, but the mistakes I made were pretty minor and probably unnoticeable for the uninitiated. The final piece of my performance, however, is by far the most difficult. Things were alright for the first 5 minutes or so, then I came to a section which is the most difficult of the lot, a real finger-buster. I actually managed to play it quite well, but as I came on to the final few bars consisting of truly insane block-chords flying about the fingerboard, I felt my injured finger give way, and I mentally went "OOOOOOOOWWW!". And I still had a couple of pages' worth of music to go through, and so I basically limped through the finish line.

After I finished my programme, there were still Mei Yi, Jane and Bobby to go, so I moped about the place, reading the newspapers before deciding to sneak back inside the concert hall to listen to the rest of the concert. After the encores (including a four-hand piece by Mei Yi and Bobby), we went up to stage for a group bow. The girls were handed bouquets and we, the gents, were given a bottle of fine champagne each, as well as an envelope containing (I quote) "A little token of thanks".

At the reception after the concert, I was almost immediately accosted by a Malay lady who turned out to be the assistant director of Tourism Malaysia's branch in London (which incidentally is in Trafalgar Sq). She asked me to play background music at a dinner next Tuesday. She seemed a bit too insistent on it for my taste, BUT ON THE OTHER HAND she asked me to name my fee ;-). I'm not sure if I have to mood or if my injured finger allows it, but it seems tempting.

In general, the comments I got from the audience members were extremely flattering. Lot's of comments on the musicality and sensitivity of my playing, and a lot of them seemed extremely impressed that I was doing this just as a hobby (albeit an extremely passionate one). The most flattering comment that I got was "My daughter plays the classical guitar as well, and I had no idea it could sound so good". The oddest comment was (after hearing that I intend to continue in a scientific career, "Are you going to become an academician?". Blank look from me. "You have a lot of stage presence. You're a small person, but when you're on-stage you are completely gigantic". Uhh...okay.....