Goodbye brain cells!

20th January 2009 is a very good day. For a start, we’re finally rid of the most idiotic American President & welcomed in a new, ‘black’ President who incessantly borrows Bob the Builder’s catchphrase ‘Yes we can’. Nonetheless, to have a coloured President sends out so much hope, not just to Americans to people the world over. It gives hope to hard work and intelligence. It gives hope of equality, that we, at last, are judged no longer by the colour of our skin but by the very content of our characters as dreamt by Dr Martin Luther King Jr. And it gives hope to the underpriviledged and the marginalised to reach out and achieve what they set out to achieve.

A man is not a man until he is able and willing to accept his own vision of the world, no matter now radically this vision departs from that of others. [James Baldwin]

Then, 'psychic Tim' asked me if I was a Dr yet. Without checking my emails I answered no because the final examiner's report was not due until Friday 23rd Jan. No sooner had I sent off the msg on FB & checked my email did I find out that I passed!!! With flying colours!! I was actually notified by my supervisor (in confidence) the week before that the American examiner loved my thesis, would like to keep a copy, and had given me a 1!!! (For those not in the know, the Australian PhD marking system is divided into 4 grades - 1: pass without changes, 2: pass with minor changes, 3: pass with major changes, 4: fail. At present there is still no oral defence requirement.) Almost a week had passed until I heard further news. Not expecting the final report to return until the end of the week I went a couple of days without checking my emails. Until ‘psychic Tim’ asked me about my results actually. It so happened that the final report that been returned a week early & by Monday Kev (my supervisor) had already been notified of my results & passed on the good word! My final grades are 1, 1 and 1!! That means I don’t have to make any changes whatsoever, and they can’t make me!!!! That’s the most satisfying feeling after toiling over the damn thing for more than 5 years! Celebrations will no doubt drag on, I having popped the first bottle of Chandon already today. There are only 6 more bottles to go :D I in truth was not very confident of the results after having almost forced my supervisor to sign the supervisory certificate by way of an OS-trip attached deadline. To tell the truth I would have been happy with 2s but onesies are SOOOO much better. Now I’m free to be who I want to be and do what I want to do. All I need now is a career & to win the lotto to complete the trifacta!

In the end, what matters is not crossing the finish line before anybody else but just making sure you do cross it. [Jason Zweig]

It's the new dawn of a new world.

2008: A funeral & 4 weddings

Another year has come and gone. 2008 had been a year of 2 parts for me personally. It started out not so well with the passing of old Mr Look, and thus my first attendance of a funeral in the digital age (who knew funerals can be so hi-tech these days?). Before you know it, Feb came around & the Dell that I had been carrying around for the last 3 years decided to call it quits. Luckily it gave enough warning shots with its ‘blue screen of death’ prior to karking it, otherwise my PhD would have been ‘colder than ice water’ (凍過冷水). As a result, I promptly switched to a widescreen though Vista-ridden ASUS. This big heavy thing has served me well, first as a processor for the remaining of my doctoral and now as my own personal entertainment unit after I plugged in the subwoofer & dual speakers.

The year progressed slowly as the burden of the thesis got heavier & heavier, until a point where my ‘original’ deadline of end of Aug was fast running beyond the realm of possibility. July & August has to be the darkest months of 2008 with the thesis still no end in sight, my supervisor ignoring my numerous email & phone bombardments (he said he was ‘busy’ setting up new courses after his move to a different uni in May). This got to its lowest point when I considered chucking away 5½ years of hard work just to keep my own sanity in check. The final push came when I decided to drag it through right up until the day before my post-submission European trip (25 September). As of right now, I’m still awaiting to results to arrive. Prelim feedback that I’ve gotten so far is ‘positive’, whatever that means. Fingers & whatever else limbs that I have are all crossed, together with the Japanese 合格 headband that I have hanging over my bed.

The post-submission European trip was no doubt the highlight of 2008. It was a hectic trip, no less because I wanted to go as far away as possible after the submission but also to my own decision that the next few trips that I take would focus on E Asia rather than the western world. As such, I needed to squeeze out as much as possible of this last European trip in a little while. And boy, did we squeeze it out. After a gruelling 33-hour stretch that involved 2 transfers (Bangkok & London) I finally arrived in Helsinki to meet up with the 3 others who travelled direct from HK. We continued our journey onto other national capitals of the Baltic (Tallinn in Estonia; Riga in Latvia) & Eastern Europe (Praha in Czech Republic; Wien in Austria; Bratislava in Slovak Republic) as well as other regional cities/town (Rovaniemi in Finland; Salzburg in Austria) before finally parting ways after 2 excitement-filled weeks. I continued on my way through Deutschland (München; Hamburg; Bremen; Berlin) where I drowned my solitude in local beer & würst as well as visited Wendy for a couple of days. The trip rounded out with a week in Oslo (including a drive to Årjang in Sverige) followed by a week family & shopping in HK (OK, that’s not really Europe, but it was part of the trip).

Aside from the trip, 2008 was also highlighted by 4 wedding invitations (thus rounding out the title of this entry). First there was Vera’s wedding to Warren at the end of September which I couldn’t attend (it was in Helsinki at the other end of the world), followed by Robbo & Rachel’s 2 weeks after I returned, with Nat & Paul’s another month after that. The year of 4 weddings was rounded out with Fai’s wedding in HK (I was already back home in Sydney). Just when I though I would get another year off wedding comes the invitation to Jo’s wedding to Jayme in HK in Nov. Being the travel addict that I am I might just be tempted to attend & fit in a side trip to Taiwan afterwards. If little Anne get that job in 大板 (Osaka) I must fit Japan in as well :P

Looking ahead into 2009 there are a few things to look forward to. No doubt the most exciting & biggest relief would be finishing off the damn PhD. Following close behind is of course landing a ‘real’ job & buying my own place. Let’s hope the interview at U Sydney in a couple of week’s time works out so I can stop searching! Being a child of the 70s (just scraped in in 1979) I’d also be turning the big three-O. There had been a few ideas floating around on how to celebrate such a momentous occasion, from a big-ish bash at Banjo Paterson’s Cottage in Gladesville, to a small intimate gig on a houseboat on the Nepean or a lighthouse at Seal Rock. We’re still months away but I’m already making guest list, stuff to bring, menu …