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"