With Sam and Hong Yi at the steps leading up to the Postgraduate Village at Burgmann College. Sam is of course, my friend that I knew from OCF Perth, and we knew Hong Yi while at Burgmann. He's Singaporean, studies Computer Science at UNSW, and is on a MINDEF Scholarship! Really appreciated their friendship throughout the 2 months I was in Canberra, especially those nights when we went to the McD's at Braddon... because dinner at college was (occasionally) quite bad.
Our room at Burgmann College. I was at Block G of the Postgraduate Village... shared the apartment with a dude from Sri Lanka - his name is Hesavan - and he studies Computer Science (also!) at Adelaide University. But of course, we had our own rooms. :) Just showing you the fridge... which was woefully under-utilised because we were already provided with 3 meals a day. Actually, come to think of it, these were good days. Eat my meals, just dump the plates etc back to the collection point, and run off back to work, or my room. Unlike back at Perth haha.... but Perth's good too - in many other ways.
Even has a stove for cooking! The only time we used this during our 2 months here was during the farewell dinner for Ngoc, who left on 15 January I think. Kim was here doing her Pad Thai, which actually tasted not too bad!
Ahh my room... in its usual mess, as my Perth friends might come to expect as a natural condition by now. Room's much bigger and nicer than that in Nedlands (but not complaining here!), and it even comes with a heater (upper right-hand corner) for those cold nights in Canberra. Yes, we did have our fair share of below 10 C nights, even during summer here.
My study table in my room.
Entrance to Block G, Postgraduate Village.
Our lounge area in the apartment. Hesavan's room is on the left, mine's on the right-hand corner.
My own office at the Department of Political & Social Change, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Will miss this office - I dare say out of 7 days in a week, I'd stay in my office up till 11pm or even midnight+ for about 4 days. Ostensibly to do work, but most of the time, it'd be chatting with friends or having compulsive checking e-mail phenomenon.
Photocopying and printing room... or what is called the Equipment Room. Was thinking that I actually fell in love with the photocopier cos everything was free to print heehe. This room is pretty special too, cos we'd bump into each other in this room... and sometimes we'll hang around here to chat about everything under the sun - from what people were doing before they came to Canberra, to the Ministerial reshuffle in January.
If you look closer at the printers (on the right), you'll see a paper stuck on one of them. It writes - "Paper jammed on Tray 2. Please use PSC1 (i.e. the other printer) instead. TQ". So I remembered how this incident is so indicative of how we arts people work. It's like, when there's a technical problem of some sort, we'll just stick a piece of paper on it, and hope that some technical person will solve it... one day. So I was bringing Sam with me to tour my department, and I was telling him this problem that we've been facing for 2 days. And Sam deftly dislodged the stuck paper and everything was working a-ok instantly. Let's just say we arts people ain't very hands-on haha.
At the main entrance of RSPAS. It's called the Coombs Building, and it is made up of 3 inter-linked hexagonal buildings - if you bother to look at the map of ANU, it's Number 9 on the map. So I remember I'll always enter this building with a cup of cappuccino in my hand (taken from Burgmann College), and how when I left the building late, the security guard would always wish me g'night. :)
The signboard that is standing in front of the Coombs Building.
With David Jansen - he was also a Summer Scholar at the same department 2 summers back. He used to be from Newcastle University, and now he's back at the ANU doing his PhD. Remembered he bought me coffee at the tea-room in the Coombs Building during my first week, and we had lunch together in a cafe at the School of Art on my second last day. David's doing his PhD on government security providers in post-1998 Indonesia, and yeah, we had quite a lot of conversations about Australian politics, immigration policy, Kevin Rudd and so on.
With Dr. Edward Aspinall, one of my two supervisors. Ed's now in Aceh - which is where his major research interest lies in - the separatist conflict going on there. I owe him quite a bit, considering that he provided the main suggestion that it'd be quite fruitful to research on why there has been a coup in Thailand, but none so far in Indonesia since democratisation in 1998. My original research proposal submitted in August 2006 was something quite different. As for my paper, I've finished writing the first draft (8000 words), and yeah, still have some major editing to do, which I must admit I'm pretty lazy to do now that I'm back in Malaysia. The title is - "Coup-Making and Democratic Transitions: A Comparative Analysis of Civil-Military Relations in Indonesia and Thailand since 1997".
One of those conversations I remember at the top of my head:
Ed's like suggesting some possible avenues I could delve into for my research.
Ed: "You don't look very convinced with what I'm saying, Will".
Me: "I reckon that's because I look like that all the time".
And we both burst out laughing... haha.
With Dr. Greg Fealy - my other supervisor. Admittedly, I didn't get to meet him as often as I did with Ed because Greg was away all of December and early January. But during those conversations we had, he did suggest some plausible avenues where I can try to get my paper published, and he's also now editing my first draft. So my plan is to do my editing when I get his feedback. Greg's research interests relates to the role of Islam in Indonesia, and more broadly, Islamic politics.
With Hesavan my housemate in Canberra - this also happens to be the last photo I took in Canberra before I had to rush to the airport with Hong Yi driving. Really nice dude... had quite a few chats about our respective adopted cities (Adelaide and Perth), the conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan governments, about Hinduism and Christianity and so on. :)
My Canberra to Perth flight was scheduled to depart at 1930hours, and we reached the airport at 1910hrs!! The Qantas ground staff nearly didn't want to take my check-in luggage, and this woman went on a tirade on how "Qantas has a boarding policy that does not admit anymore luggage after less than 30mins to take-off". Well, of course I know that, but the way she was going on and on about it was quite urm... never mind heehe. But yeah, thank God that I was still able to get on the flight. Like she said, "Mr Lee, you're a lucky man today". You see right, I couldn't miss the flight because there's only one direct Canberra-Perth flight everyday (at 1930 AEDT), and I had a flight to catch to Singapore at 1630 AWDT the next day... see the problem there if I miss the CBR-PER flight? :)
Singapore, 6 Feb 07: With Jon, Jiamin and Vivian at Siam Express... Bugis. Jon's of course, a good mate from OCF Perth, and the girls are friends from OCF Sydney / UNSW, whom I first got to know during Convention 2005. Don't eat the eat-all-you-want buffet at Siam Express, please!
After dinner, we went to a jazz bar... think it was called Jazz @ Southbridge. Quite good live jazz music they have there. Spent the night at Jon's place, where he revealed to me "The Secret", to leave it deliberately vague hahaha. And was treated to breakfast at McD opposite Lido Orchard the next morning before heading back to JB. Thanks dude!
Singapore, 6 Feb 07: Earlier in the day, I went to NUS to have lunch with jianwei and daryl... was also hoping to get either one of them to borrow for me a book which I need this semester, and then I'll zap the whole book in JB to save costs. :P Anyway, I had lunch with jw at the Engineering canteen I think - the Arts one was closed for renovation :( Then when we were at the Central Library, we bumped into Yee Kai... he's like an old friend from Catholic High... we did Malay at the 3rd Language Centre together - now doing Sociology at NUS. Yeah was really very happy for the coincidental meeting. Chatted quite a bit, and you know, it's really funny now reminiscing about different people in CHS, where they are now and so on. Then daryl came to join us... and then we all went to the Science Faculty to look for Pierre, who was my Sec 1 & 2 classmate. Then we chatted more again about how was I doing in Australia, about their NS experiences... yeah was a good time of sharing.
Anyways, from L-R: Pierre (from 4-9), Yee Kai (from 4-7), me, and daryl (both from 4-8). Think there was some kind of friendly rivalry between the 3 classes, because we were allegedly the "smartest" classes in the level... but we're now all just old Catholic High boys who look back on our secondary school days fondly. And of course, my love-hate relationship with Whitley Secondary (the school next to Catholic High), and the girls in there heehehehe.
Perth, October 2006: At James Voon's dim sum factory... raymond, me, and jon. 2006 was the second year that OCF Perth took part in UWA's Spring Feast... and yeah, we're really grateful to James for selling us char siew paus and dim sum at rock-bottom prices to sell at UWA so we can raise funds for Convention. So we have to wear these shower cap-like caps before we enter the area where they manufacture buns etc. This must be a stoning-pose or something that we took haha. Always quite tiring to organise Spring Feast, but also happy times as well. :)
CHINESE NEW YEAR travel plans
This CNY, let's just say, paradoxically, I'm going to the cradle of Malay civilisation. Will be leaving JB early 16 Feb, and only back again on 22 Feb.
16 night - Genting
17 night - KL, in the Damansara area to be exact.
18 night - Ipoh
19 & 20 night - Kota Bahru, Kelantan. Will definitely want to make the crossing to Sungai Kolok, the border town on the Thailand side. :)
21 night - KL, back in the Damansara area.
22 - back in JB.
Estimated distance covered: at least 2000km. For the record, I don't have any relatives in Ipoh or Kota Bahru. Will be driving with my family. Quite looking forward to this, but also pray for journey mercies as traffic will be very heavy this CNY with the balik kampung exodus and all.
BAPTISM tomorrow
Actually, I'm not feeling particularly excited or anything like that. But definitely happy that I'm making this public commitment tomorrow. I know my mum is very happy about tomorrow though - I followed my folks to their cell group on Thursday, and my mum was sharing that tomorrow will rank up there with her wedding, as the rest of the family is getting baptised - dad, me, brother, and sister. Then there's also an element of doubt inside me, not too sure of what exactly... but of course, it's going ahead as planned tomorrow :) Our church chairperson came to give us a workshop on baptism on Wednesday night, and should be a couple more after tomorrow.
Doing the bible reading tomorrow - a very long 42 verses - John 4: 1-42. Should go and read and pray about it now :)