Things have been rather confusing in the past week. If I was asked a week ago, I would say that I have more or less decided on Princeton as my choice of university. However, I then started thinking specifically about professors with whom I would want to do my project with. I was looking for professors who are doing theoretical work on the Early Universe, and who are relatively young (and thus upwardly mobile). I thus identified A. in Harvard and K. in Princeton whom both fit these criteria. In fact I was truly impressed with the number of citations they both had considering their young age, and their work was very exciting.

Now, I've discovered that K. is leaving Princeton and is thus unavailable to me, but A. said that he might be taking students in the next few years. So the plot rather thickens as far as my decision is concerned. Princeton has an excellent cosmology programme, but K. seemed to be the only person doing theoretical work on the Early Universe.

Another thing I've discovered is from the eventual careers of graduates in Harvard and Princeton. Both departments have a list of the fates of students who did their PhDs there, and while in general it's not very easy to get academic positions in the top universities even for Harvard/Princeton PhDs, Princeton seems to produce more top academics than Harvard.

So the basic message is that in most aspects Princeton is the better choice, apart from the very crucial fact that I have already identified a Harvard prof I would very much like to work with. This really complicates the decision-making, so I've decided (pun intended) the best way to make the choice would be to visit the respective campuses, so I'm going to make a 5-day whistle-stop tour of Princeton and Harvard in late March....

The past couple of weeks have been a strange, almost surreal, experience. As mentioned ago, I had the most pleasant shock of my life when I received a PhD offer from Princeton, and followed the next day by Chicago. Since, then, the offers have come in, to the extent that everytime I see some of my Indian friends in halls who ask me, 'Any more news??', I do indeed have more news. A week after Princeton and Chicago, it was Harvard with an offer, and in the past couple of days they have really started to tumble in... Cornell 2 days ago, and today Stanford.

I have never felt so confident about myself in my entire life. Before university, my life has always been marked by under-achievement. I was always considered a bright kid, but in school I've had better things to do than to do my homework and pay attention to classes. Reading books, playing computer games and watching TV were more interesting and fun, to the extent that I scarcely remember doing any homework or studying for exams during primary school. Yet, I've always had the competitive streak, to be better than others, and without the inclination to actually work for it.

I was bright enough to do pretty well, but never to the level I (unfairly) expected. Nevertheless, as I grew, I gradually began to work harder as my goal in life became more defined during adolescence. Still, I could never find the 'killer' touch to absolutely be the best at what I was doing. There were always people better than me.

Although this desire for glory died down as I began to build up my self-esteem, it always seemed that I could never completely achieve goals that I set for myself. For example, I was satisfied with my results in university, but part of me was irritated that someone else always managed to beat me, which took the wind out of my sails somewhat.

My hard work in university was intent on preparing myself with the knowledge needed to carry out a scientific career, while at the same time ensuring that when the time came to apply for graduate school, my record would be good enough to ensure that I get admitted into a good university. Obviously, just one offer from a good university would be enough for me to get a good boost into an academic career, but I mentally set myself an insane goal: to apply for the top universities in the world, and get offers from them. I pushed myself in this pursuit, and pushed myself to the edge of depression.

It was my New Year's resolution to detach my ego from my ambitions in life, and to work hard in science not out of self-glorification, but out of curiosity and love of knowledge. And somehow, after I stopped trying to boost my ego, I finally managed to do something that was absolutely unexpected.

It's been a lot of euphoria and excitement in the past week after getting my offer, and it's been somewhat expensive as well, as I've had to buy dinner for my friends....but there's been something more sobering as well.

In September last year, Prof Miller, one of my favourite professors, suffered a stroke. I didn't realise this, apart from the fact that he wasn't replying to my emails (he is a baritone, and I was supposed to accompany him sometime in the future). I was later emailed by another supervisor about this bad news.

I called him soon after, and I was pleasantly surprised that he could still manage to pick up his phone, which I couldn't take for granted considering that he's recovering from a stroke. He was talking quite slowly, but was still lucid and conversant. I was very happy to talk to him again, and he was still very concerned about my PhD applications, and was endeavouring to fill in an online reference letter form which I had requested him to do before I knew he'd had a stroke. He told me he was having difficulty with filling in the form from his impairment, but he was determined to fill it in for me.

I later saw him at the chamber music club recital where I was performing. He was more stiff and expressionless than before, and he mentioned that functioning with half a brain wasn't as good as functioning with a full brain. At the time, I was rushing to prepare for my recital, so I didn't get to talk much to him (I played terribly, by the way...). I was observing him listening to the other performers, and it was to my great relief that he still seemed to be able to enjoy the music.

In a later phone conversation, I learned that he had partial loss of motor function to the left side of his body, and that he was suffering from short-term memory loss. He was still very eager to talk about music, and he could still talk about the Bach that I played at the recital. He's trying to regain his singing ability which he'd momentarily lost after the stroke, and he asked me when we could next rehearse the songs.

It's quite a busy time for me these days, with my project and studies, but I think I will find some time to learn the music to accompany him.

On Wednesday evening, I was doing the telephone rota at my residence, trying to read a mathematics textbook to while away the time. Suddenly, the phone rang, and when I picked it up a man speaking in a Spanish accent asked, 'May I speak to Alvaro Tintore?'. Our telephone system involves the person on rota transferring the calls to the telephones in each floor, and if the person isn't expecting the call or isn't in his room, it can be rather of a needle-in-haystack affair to find the person in question.

I couldn't Alvaro after ringing his room and office (he's the hall secretary), so I wandered over to the chapel to see if he was there. As I was walking over, my mobile rang. The screen said 'Unknown caller'. This usually only happens when people call me from abroad, and it was very early morning back home in Malaysia, so I was wondering if there was some urgency back home.

I picked up a phone, and a distinctively American voice asked 'Is this Khee Gan Lee?' . Still wandering about the basement of Netherhall trying to look for Alvaro with (presumably) his father on the line at the reception, my heart stopped. 'This is Professor Jeremy Goodman at Princeton University, and I'm pleased to tell you that we have voted to nominate you to receive a PhD offer'. I was speechless as I listened to him tell me this, and I was still pacing up and down the hall ostensibly in search of Alvaro. He spoke to me for a couple of minutes, and all the while my faculties for speech have been reduced to stuttering 'Yes'. After he put down the phone, I walked back to the reception and picked up the caller from Spain, and told him to call back later as I couldn't get Alvaro.

I was in total shock after this. I had expected to get a few offers from the 7 universities I'm applying for, but Princeton was always 'for the heck of it', as they are the absolute elite with such a tiny department that they take only about 5 students worldwide each year. Even my supervisor had told me that he thought it was unlikely that I would be able to get into Princeton. In addition, I wasn't expecting to get any of my offers until at least late February or early March, so to get an offer from Princeton in early February was beyond stunning.

The next day, I opened my email and got an email from Chicago. 'I'm pleased to tell you that we are offering you admission into the Astronomy & Astrophysics department of the University of
Chicago. You are one of our very top candidates this year and hope you will accept this offer'. I had only submitted my Chicago application about 3 weeks ago, so they must really mean the bit about me being a top candidate to give me an offer with such haste.

One of friends commented that the past week must have been the happiest week of my life. That's probably exaggerating it a little, but nevertheless it definitely is a very happy culmination of the hard work of the past few years. These events have sparked off a lot of excitement in me, and I've been just been boiling with anticipation instead of doing my work.

I need to calm down and get back into my routine. If I'm going to go to somewhere like Princeton, I'll need to ensure that I'm adequately prepared before I start.

Been back for a couple of weeks already, and can't believe I have to head back to London on Thursday. It's incredible how time flies, although I've had a good rest. I've spent most of my time in front of the computer playing games, or watching TV. Not the way I usually choose to spend my spare time, but it certainly is an effective way to rapidly destress. Things with my parents have also been OK. Relations with my father turned chilly the last time I was back, and this time we managed to steer clear of conflict.

I didn't really think of a New Year's Resolution come to think of it, since I'm always trying to improve myself in some way, but I guess I'd take my supervisor's advice to decouple my self-esteem from other peoples' perception of me, and to derive my satisfaction from my love of science.

Speaking of science/work, I have a massive pile of work awaiting me when I get back. My term project, which was supposed to start last term, was essentially untouched, so I have to catch with the work, not to mention that I'll be taking 3 very nasty lecture courses. Also, random promises here and there to give talks, write articles, play recitals etc only serve to make my timetabling interesting.

This would probably serve to pile stress on me, but in a way, there's no more pressure on me. My PhD applications are already away, and whatever I do in UCL from now on will have little effect on my future career. My position in the top of the class is almost unassailable, so I can take some luxury to enjoy some of the things I'm learning.

Time to enjoy life.

The past few days have been spent in what one may call 'idle leisure', i.e. not doing any work at all, which is unusual for me.

Apart from an obsession with multi-player Pro Evolution Soccer 5 on one of my hall-mates' PS2, I've done some reading, reading the newspapers end-to-end, and I've also gotten around to reading Dickens' Great Expectations. I have never read Dickens before, mostly because I always thought that his portrayal of the Victorian era was rather gloomy (from what I know of his plots), as well as my instinctive aversion to anything popularly acclaimed. In fact, I started reading the book as a soporific, to help me sleep, but very quickly his wit and the humanity of his characters won me over. I also found his portrayal of children to be wonderfully charming and warm.

I've also lost control of my appetite in the past week. I have managed to lose a couple of kilograms in the past couple of months through my regime of running, volleyball, gym and not eating junk food, but lately I've thought 'what the hell...' and stuffed my face. So this afternoon, in guilt of the double-scoop Baskin Robbin's I had scoffed earlier, I decided to go out for a run, my first in a few weeks.

It was dark by then (6pm), and as usual I went out in just a long-sleeved t-shirt, shorts and gloves. I made good progress in the first couple of km, heading down towards Regent's Park, before start my ascent up Primrose Hill, looping back towards Netherhall. Primrose Hill, which overlooks central London, isn't very high, but nevertheless running up it is about 7 minutes of exertion which stretches into what seems like an eternity of pain (all you long-distance runners out there, bear with this beginner for a while...).

I've run up this slope many times, but this time the lights along the running path were broken, so it was dark near the top. As I trudged up the hill, a bitter sub-zero wind started blowing at me, just as I was pushing my muscles and lungs to carry me through. So there I was in a t-shirt as the biting wind made my whole body go numb, muscles and lungs straining while I couldn't see 5 feet in front of me thanks to the dark and my watering eyes (from the wind). Everything seemed unreal, and my consciousness started detaching from my body undergoing punishment. As I gritted my way through, every second seemed to last a lifetime, but finally I got down the other side of the hill, where the worst of the wind was blocked off by the rows of houses.

I usually only run about 4-5 km at a time, and yet everytime it's a struggle for me to keep going in the final km. I can't help but admire the runners who can run 42 km of a marathon; while they have superb stamina, nevertheless after about 20km they start aching, and the last few kilometres are always sustained through sheer willpower.

Apologies for my prolonged absence from this blog. The past month or so has been occupied with filling in forms for my PhD applications, and preparing myself for the two GRE exams (General and Physics) for US applications, which I had already taken.

The GRE Physics was held in LEEDS of all places, presumably because it was the geographical centre of the UK (they should have held it at geographical centre weighted by population, which would probably mean something like Watford in North London...). So I had to undertake the 5 hour coach journey northwards to Leeds, but fortunately Rachel, one of my classmates, was going as well. As the exam was on Saturday morning, we arrived in Leeds the night before and stayed at a B&B nearby. The place was OK, but for the fact that Leeds was unseasonably warm (warmer than London, in fact), and the room had heating I could not seem to turn off and a very tiny window. As a result, I was sweating like a horse, and couldn't get a wink of sleep all night.

Not a good preparation for what is probably the most important single exam of my life. Nevertheless, there was nothing to be done except to sit down and do the exam. The exam was 100 physics multiple-choice questions that had to be done in 170 minutes. A few of them are really easy high school stuff, but most of them involve some thought and calculations (NO calculator allowed), and quite a few are difficult. So one has to fast and accurate, which isn't particulary easy to pull off in state. It was so bad that my sleep-deprived brain thought that 1.5/2 was the same as 3/2. Nevertheless, I don't think I performed superbly, but it should still be an acceptable mark.

As we were boarding the coach home, Rachel boarded first and showed the driver the e-ticket for both of us. As I was getting on, I gestured at her and told him 'I'm with her'. He then replied with his Yorkshire burr, 'But are you sure she wants you to be with her?' and waved me on.

It's the last week of term, and I can't be arsed to do anything. Due to my applications, I have not done much of my project work, and it's menacing presence looms over my consciousness at all times. Also, my supervisor Kinwah gave me a major slagging off last week, the gist of which was that I may be the top student here, but I may become small fry if I do my Phd in a top university.

So I'm momentarily discouraged, and burnt out from working almost non-stop all year (I spent summer doing my two internships, as you may recall). I really need a break...

Just added a rant against an 'UNintelligent design' idiot on cosmicjourneys.blogspot.com .

Time flies despite my procrastination and sincerest belief that 'there's still a few months/weeks/days before my concert, so I can goof off now and not practise for my concert', and before I knew it, the concert was bang in my face. Even with the concert a couple of days away, I still managed to convince myself NOT to practise, as practising this close the concert can only me make me increasingly nervous as I run out of time to iron out my mistakes.

So, bang came Tuesday the 8th of November seemingly out of nowhere. I had honestly gone past the stage of caring what people would think of my playing, as other pressing concerns (e.g. PhD applications, exams etc) were foremost on my mind, so I wasn't concerned as I returned home from morning lectures, a scant few hours before the concert. Indeed, the foremost concern in my mind was whether I could manage to tie the bow-tie (the real deal, not a clip-on) that Hon Weng had lent me.

As Jane turned up, violin in hand, with her accompanyist to do some practising just a couple of hours before the concert was supposed to start at 7.30pm, I was trying not to strangle myself in my attempts to tie the bow around my neck. Neil P. was supposed to be the organiser for the concert, but it turned out he was only just returning from a trip to Mexico that very afternoon, and had turned over most of the detailed organisation to Alvaro and Eugene (our resident Singaporean working for a Malaysian concert...brilliant). However, both of them were a bit clueless about the demands on the ground, so I had to pick up the ball, making sure that all the four musicians were taken care of. I was running around trying to find someone to re-arrange the stage furniture between musicians (classical guitarists, violinists, and pianists have rather different requirements as to what they need on-stage), find a page-turner for Jane's accompanyist, sort out some dinner for them, etc etc. I did quite a lot of exercise running up and down (and in leather shoes, at that...) sorting these things out as the guests started to filter in.

At 15 minutes before my concert, I just about managed to get the tie around my neck, and get my fingers stretched just as the MC started his spiel (at that point, it was the first time I had touched my guitar all day, let alone practise). I was surprisingly calm. Normally, just before I have to play before in public, my fingers would go numb from stage fright, but this time the adrenaline rush of the organising work kept my nerves steady.

The first movement of my Bach, the Prelude, was almost perfect, which seldom occurs even in practice. The second movement, a heavy finger-busting Fugue, was less than perfect, but still I managed to play well with lots of feeling and passion, in contrast with my usual machine-like playing in public. However, I could not avoid succumbing to fatigue as the Fugue was that demanding, and the last Allegro movement was a bit of a mess. Nevertheless, I managed to avoid breaking my fingers in the process, and the progression of the music was at least uninterrupted overall. The final piece, Vals Venezolano no.3, went quite well overall, as well as could be expected considering that my fingers were burning with fatigue by then, and I used some declamation in my expressions which I think the audience liked.

So, my role finished, I could afford to kick back and heave a very large sigh of relief (and untie the thing choking my neck). Also, Eugene decided to take my photo after I had finished performing (in 6 years of playing I have only had 1 picture taken of me while playing the guitar).

The bow tie looks cooler untied. I'm grinning so widely, obviously because I have just had a millstone removed from around my neck.

From left to right, Bobby Chen (piano), Datuk Neville Green, Jane Ng (violin), yours truly, Foo Mei Yi (piano, and Neil Pickering.

So that's it. I'm not going to touch my guitar for at least a couple of weeks, and I can now let other things stress me out totally.

Pet peeve of the day: How long will it take for people to realise that optical mice do NOT require mousepads? In fact, with brightly coloured mousepads, the colours will in fact mess with the detector at the bottom of the mouse.

My concert is tomorrow... I have been practising the pieces for the concert almost exclusively for the past 4-5 months, and guess what? I'm not ready.

Part of the reason is that I often give myself excuses not to practise. Even in the past couple of weeks, I doubt I managed to put in 12-13 hours per week, which considering that I haven't even finished memorising the pieces until 3 weeks ago, isn't a very wise idea.

This laziness contradicts squarely with my perfectionism, which means that when I do practise, it's extremely frustrating. To be fair, it is only 3 or 4 awkward bars in the entire programme which have been giving me problems, but passing through those bars brings a huge amount of tension into my fingers, which is detrimental to the rest of the music. A large portion of my practise time has been devoted to trying to iron out those few kinks, but it just hasn't worked.

After this morning's practise, I'm just decided to give up any hopes of playing perfectly, or even expressing the music the way I want it to. It's going to be every musician's nightmare: to play a half-baked concert.

Some days ago, I met up with a few friends from my course last year who have now moved on to other things. Xinhui is now doing a Master's course in Physics in Oxford, while Raj is doing Material Science in Cambridge. Fahd and I were the two people still remaining in UCL. At one point, Fahd mentioned to me, 'You know, apparently a lot of people in our course now want to go on to Particle Physics because of Saakyan'. Dr. Saakyan is a Russian lecturer who taught us Nuclear & Particle Physics last year, and he was quite a good lecturer with a lot of clarity in his presentation. Fahd continued, '...and no one wants to do Solid-state Physics because of Horsfield and the others'. Dr. Horsfield (whom I later christened 'Horsface') was our lecturer for Solid-state Physics last year, and quite simply, the worst lecturer one could possibly have. 'The others' Fahd spoke of were the lecturers of the pre-requisite courses prior to solid-state physics, such as Thermal Physics and Statistical Thermodynamics... for which the lecturers ranged from deathly dull to OK-ish. If what Fahd said is true (about students in our year now tending towards particle physics), then the effect of undergraduate lecturers on the students cannot be underestimated. Quantum mechanics is arguably the most difficult subject for a physics undergraduate, but we have had excellent lecturers from 2nd year all the way to 4th year now. While I'm not particularly passionate about quantum mech, I now find the subject fairly interesting and enjoyable. I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of students (those that decide to continue in physics, anyway) from UCL end up doing particle physics or quantum physics, and few decide to go into solid state physics.

Laziness has gotten the better of me lately. I have only 6 hours of lectures per week, and only have to go into uni two days per week. The rest of the time is supposed to be occupied by my project. However, I met my supervisor Kinwah on the first week of term, at which point he told me that he will be in China for a month, and promptly assigned me about half a graduate textbook to learn up and some other tasks.

So I'm without my project supervisor until early November, and 'merely' have to read up on about 60 pages of radiative transfer physics. This means that I have to force myself to sit down and actually study, which isn't something I can get up to this early in term. It's something to study a topic when it's in set out and nicely defined in a syllabus, and another thing when it's basically open-ended.

I haven't spent as much time as I should be doing the things I'm supposed to. I was aiming to work for at least 6 days a week, but in reality I'm managing something like 4 or 5. It doesn't help that my current top priority is applying for my PhD places, which involves filling in applications, writing personal statements and preparing for the American GRE tests. I reckon that when my supervisor gets back, I might get a bollocking from him over how little I've achieved, but once I get my applications sent off I'll be able to focus more on the project.

Last night I watched Downfall, the German movie released earlier this year portraying the last days of Hitler as the Nazi regime verges on collapsed. It was really great film...it pulls no punches in showing the violence and horror of those last days, but I found it completely absorbing in a macabre way. The acting was superb...at no point did I doubt that the actor Bruno Ganz was Hitler himself. After the film ended, I was deeply disturbed and everyone else who was watching it was, too. I wholeheartly recommend Downfall, but it's not for the faint-hearted.

An update to the other blog, with the final part of the story of my observing run in Oz.

I've been back in London for about a week. Hard to believe that not much more than 2 weeks ago, I was still in Sydney...in the intervening time, I've travelled halfway across the world via Kuala Lumpur. It wasn't that hard to settle back in London since I'm staying back in the same place as before, although the gray skies here are quite different from the Sun of Australia.

In the mean time, I'll just have a health nazi rant. I was in M&S the other day to pick up some lunch. I was looking at some of the salads on the shelves, and I realised one thing: there aren't actually very much vegetables in any of those salads. Instead, they mostly seemed to be filled with pasta of one sort or other. How can you have a salad with hardly any vegetables?!? And this is from a retailer that has a reputation as a 'healthy' food supplier.

In Australia, I was eating so much fruit and veg that I was almost overdosing on the stuff. One of the most popular drinks franchises in Sydney is called 'Boost', which sells fruit smoothies, and there are several fast-food chains which specialise in salads, real salads with vegetables, not nonsense with 80% pasta. Vegetables are also outrageously cheap in supermarkets...I often end up having to carry 10 kilos of food home.

In contrast, the nutritional deficiency of most peoples' diets here are just plain alarming. Most people seem to go through the day without a shred of green or fresh fruit passing through their mouth. Even 'vegetarian' options seem to be loaded with carbohydrates without anything really nutritious. When trying to buy my lunch, it seems to be a daily challenge to try to find a balanced meal without paying through my nose, which is why I often end up eating at Subway: it might be more expensive but at least they load the sandwich with lots of vegetables. A lot of people do not seem to realise that it is recommended to eat at least 5 portions of fruit and veg per day to avoid cancer, and when they DO get cancer, it's as if it was totally unexpected. This is a totally unscientific pure speculation, but I suspect that it might one day be able to show causal links between diet and cancer in the same way we know know the causal link between smoking and lung cancer.

It might seem strange that I would turn out to be a health nazi, since I have more of a reputation as a gourmand. However, anyone who is observant will notice that while I eat large amounts, the food is actually quite balanced. That's it for today...it's off to have some grapes and juice....

I just discovered a really amusing link, which translates English into moron-speak.

To quote Sir Winston Churchill...

We shaL go on 2 d nd, we shaL fite n France, we shaL fite on d seas & oceans, we shaL fite w grON confidNc & grON strength n d air, we shaL defend our islnd, wutevA d cost mA b, we shaL fite on d beaches, we shaL fite on d landing grounds, we shaL fite n d feLdz & n d st.z, we shaL fite n d hiLz; we shaL nevr surrender.

I think that was the sound of the English language finally raising a white flag...

I'm kinda annoyed because Blogger cut off my posting halfway through to do maintenance work, so I lost the stuff I was typing...shouldn't they save the damn thing first or something?

Anyway, as I was saying.....

Back to London, and a welcoming rain was drizzling down when I arrived. The flight was OK, apart from the fact that none of the inflight movies were appealing to me (Mr & Mrs Smith? No thanks). So I did a lot of reading... I had a couple of scientific papers that I had to read, and that was a bit going. Aside from that, I am reading a 'popular science' book on a mathematical problem called the Riemann hypothesis, which mathematicians have been trying to prove for over a century. I use quotation marks when referring to it as 'popular science' because it's not trivial... the author actually tries to explain matrix and eigenvalue theory, not to mention bits of complex analysis.

I won't try to explain what the Riemann hypothesis is about, but it's basically something to do with how prime numbers are distributed throughout the real integers. What was fascinating were the large sections devoted to portraying the mathematicians past and present who were working on the problem. Physics tends to attract a lot of obsessive types, and I've encountered some of them (some might even consider yours truly to be one such person), but the mathematicians described are truly nutcases. They tend to start being obsessed with maths from a very early age, whereas I didn't really get into physics until about 2nd year in uni (I started the physics degree with the intention of going into planetary exploration). I guess part of my intimidation with such types is the fact that my own maths ability is my Achilles' heel, but still....

I also finally got round to writing my personal statement for my PhD applications. I'll be applying mostly to US universities, as I can only apply to one UK university. This is because I can only specify one institution for the Queen's Overseas Research Scholarship which is essentially my only source of funding in the UK, so I'll probably be choosing Cambridge, which is a reasonably safe choice. As for US universities, in rough order of preference: Stanford, Princeton ("Might be hard for you to get in", Kinwah said), Caltech, Chicago ("Good chance of getting in"), Harvard ("Pity...I know one of the admissions tutors but he's retiring this year"), Cornell ("Quite good chance..."), and as a backup, the University of California, Santa Cruz.

I'm essentially going to pick any of the US universities (apart from UC Santa Cruz) over Cambridge, because US PhDs take 5-6 years on average compared with 3 years for a UK PhD, and I think I need those extra years to work on my abovementioned weakness in maths.

Notice that apart from Chicago, all my US choices are either on the US Northeast or California....

Back for 3 days so far, and will be jetting off to London tomorrow at noon. Within 30 minutes of being picked up by my family at the airport, I had managed to get into a massive argument with my dad, and at this point we're still hardly talking to each other, although he seems to be pretty happy to order me around nevertheless.

Significantly, my mum didn't blame me for the situation, so I think I'm definitely not in the wrong. She also mentioned that dad used to have huge arguments with my grandfather whenever they disagreed (when the latter was still alive; he passed away months before I was born). Like father, like son....

I've also updated my other blog with a piece about my work in Sydney....

My second last day at work in the AAO. I'll be flying back to KL this coming Saturday (24th Sept), and then off to London in the following Wednesday (28th) . The new term actually starts on Monday the 26th, so I'll be missing a few days of classes, boo-hoo.

I must say that I generally had fun here. Work was hectic because I was trying to cram 3 months' research into 2, and it was a bit lonely after Sam and Pablo finished their time here. But Sydney is a fantastic city, and I wouldn't hesitate to live here (whether I would work here however, is a different matter). It's in fact my favourite city after Paris, and it has the great virtue that it isn't filled with French people!

It's not going to be easy to go back to the dreary weather and disgusting food that awaits me in London, but c'est la vie. Not to mention the fact that I have a shitload of work and things to do once I get back. A dozen PhD applications need to be filled out, and Kinwah will be cracking his whip to make sure I don't slip up in his project.

My sister is coming into Sydney tomorrow (Friday), and I was going to take the day off to show her around, but then she just messaged me saying that we should only meet up in the evening because she wanted to spent the day shopping.

Girls.

I'm about perform the most significant act in my life since I decided to do physics: I am going to change my name. In scientific circles at least, from now on I will officially be known as Khee-Gan Lee, with a hyphen to make it loud and clear which part of my name is my given name.

I can understand it when people get my name confused...even native Chinese speakers or Malaysians can get confused, as 'Gan' is a common surname as well, so that do not know whether Lee or Gan is my surname. However, it's with Westerners that my name truly gets mangled. People calling me 'Khee' I can live with, people thinking 'Lee' is my given name I can also live with, but when my article comes out in a magazine (Astronomy & Geophysics) with 'Gan Lee' in bold at the top corner in the pages, that's the final straw!

So if I let my first published article(s) be K.G. Lee et al. 2005, I would put up with about 40 years of my name being mangled beyond comprehension, so it'll be K.-G. Lee et al. 2005 to avoid this. Hmm...maybe I should have discussed this with my parents, although I don't imagine it's that big an issue. It's just hyphen after all.

Speaking of K.-G. Lee et al 2005, the MSSL paper was originally slated to be my first, but my supervisor is busy with his PhD student's thesis and wouldn't be free till the end of the month, so it'll only be finished when I get back to London. Fortunately, I have a second K.-G. Lee paper coming up (K.-G. Lee & J. Bland-Hawthorn 2005 actually, as it's just me and my supervisor here at AAO), although this is in an Australian journal which is a bit less impact, but with a bit more work we could probably follow it up in an American journal after I leave, albeit with the author names reversed.