Proposal Amendment

I took a dip two days ago, and finally came up with the first draft. My college graduate tutor, Dr. David Coomes, went through the first draft and suggested I should include references. I knew the draft was written shabbily so I've decided to rewrite the whole draft. A full page with references on the second. Thought it was sort of better.. Sorry but this is a possible PhD proposal, so I minimised it on purpose.

Second draft outline

Only to receive a joyous return of a bunch of firecrackers. To be honest, for the past nine months of being so insignificant, I was glad to receive something to be amended. I am humbled to know that I still have room for improvement. It comes as an affirmation that I do have a voice that can be heard, though right now, only my tutor hears it. Soon, the day will come. I don't know how but I can only trust in God that I will not be left in darkness forever.

Suggestions for amendment of my second draft

I guess I'm no longer hiding under the stone that I am in deep trouble with my current PhD and need a huge and possibly arduous change. There's no way it would work out if I try the same thing over and over again expecting different results. That's insanity. So said Albert Einstein.

I don't want to be a stupid fish my whole life.

Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ49-YGZ-bJt1nIElQKwIeejBoN4S-tXDrSOZ9slhmjJ0WHBBOHgOf1y3gWikWApWPoeoXtePSUX7dHQ9mom2eFNSo_u5RKUYdkle5c1YGrLzHGYHgaMP8Kuxh2YvCnt0XSLDewlDAeJUM/s1600/AlbertEinsteinQuotes+pics5+genius+judge.jpg

Life as a Struggling PhD Student

My home workstation today, for the first time after nine months of struggles

Being at Cambridge is definitely a blessing in disguise for I know anywhere else, I would probably be asked to push through a subject which I couldn't grasp after the long nine months of struggle. Today is the mark of the start of my 10th month here. An embarrassment that half the time I was too depressed to work on anything, a quarter of the time I spent worrying how to cope with the strangely foreign subject of human evolutionary genetics. I thought I love genetics enough to do anything, even if it means working on bioinformatics of a highly foreign subject of evolution. It was humbling to know that I had overestimated my ability to cope with research interest which is not of mine.

I spent a month struggling to make sense if I should just give up on doing a PhD. At the moment, I don't even know if I could make a swap despite being assured by my supervisor and college graduate tutors that it is totally understandable if I really couldn't cope. If I am accepted by Cambridge, it means I do have the qualifications, so I am not stupid. Indeed, I am sick of feeling stupid all the time.

For the past one week, since a proper chat with a new friend about his research group and what they are doing, I became more hopeful that maybe I am not so stupid after all, and that I do possess something which makes me someone worthy of Cambridge education. It is a second chance to research on something which was so close to my heart since university days. After a week of thinking through and reading up, it is time to wet my feet and start swimming.

I learned something about myself today when it comes to research. If I am bad at it, I can eventually be good enough, but I will not excel in it. If I fell in love with it because I have come to know it and am good at it, then there is a possibility to excel in it. Good enough is not enough. I may not be the creme of the top, but I don't want to be the bottom of the food chain forever. PhD research is a marathon, and the journey is long and winding, yet limited by time. If I do something which doesn't make my heart stirs right from the start, I will just probably be so-so (bottom of the food chain) and eventually drop it after a while. If it were to be the delight of my heart, no matter how hard life gets, the love will keep me going.

Source: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1414

I guess it is similar to marriage and relationship. I may not have experience enough to describe how it is like, but it's probably like a PhD.

Happy 5th Anniversary in Heaven, Dad!

Source: http://a1.s6img.com/cdn/box_005/post_15/626250_5475478_lz.jpg

This was the psalm I read to my dad 5 years ago when we know it could be his last night on earth. This was the only bible passage one could find hanging in my family home. Yet, it is the same psalm being one of the bible passages which keeps me going after 5 years. The knowledge of his cancer diagnosis shattered me from within, accompanied by some weird allergy rashes daily for that 6 months of his battle with cancer. At that time, I could only let him go if it was his time, as much as I didn't want to. I know he would be in a better place. Nevertheless, grief and sorrow persisted within. Who would guess a person with such strong forefront like me would be heartbroken and in pain? Not even family members who hurled vulgar words at me would understand me I guess. With the strength from God, and the support from some very close friends of mine, I carried on with life.

My dad left us at 7 am, 26th August 2009. Life without him is never the same. He was that silent pillar of mine, shielding me and protecting me from many things which were only uncovered after he was gone. There are many things which I couldn't share publicly. But yeah.. I did love my dad, despite the heated arguments we used to have back home. I still do love him.

He was a multi-talented man: not just an English teacher, but also a swimming instructor, an artist, a chess master, a carpenter, a linguist, a counselor, a breadwinner. From him I received my gift of faith in Christ through his conversion to Catholicism when I was 6. I was baptised together with everyone else in my immediate family. He was a good man with an awfully soft and kind heart. He was my dad and I would always be his baby girl I guess.

A gift I appreciate from my dad was his selfless act of finally letting me go and accompanying it with his blessings when I asked if he'd allow me to go and further my studies when he was sick. It was just another random what-if chat I had with him. I used to have a long-time standing offer to do my MSc. whenever I wanted to from a research institute in Korea. He said he gave me his blessings even if I wanted to go. Of course, I didn't go immediately. I was teaching back then anyway. Though the decision I took to continue working in KK did cause me to know who were my real friends, and who were just thrash whom I discarded. It was a few months later that I lost him to stomach cancer.

Maybe everyone in my family would think I'm pompous and selfish to think this way... Yet, I am very certain my dad would be thrilled if he knew I got the scholarship to further my studies in Europe from Sept 2011 to Sept 2013, and now another funded opportunity to do my PhD here at Cambridge. I could imagine how excited he would be for my achievements. I could imagine how he would want to pick up Skype, email, Facebook, Whatsapp, etc., so that he could communicate with me even if I'm so far away, unlike my current situation now. My dad would be annoyingly persistent about visiting me in Europe for sure. This is only what I could imagine, and I have limited imaginations.

I know he's with Daddy God, praying for me. This brings comfort to me, knowing my dad is with God.

One of the last few photos I took with my dad, back in November 2007. It was nearing his birthday (might be on his birthday), so I bought him a very tiny cake. We already had a birthday dinner some days ago.
Photo courtesy of Victoria Ang, a great friend of mine since forever.

 So yeah...

Happy 5th Anniversary in heaven, late Mr. Augustine Chan Kiew Chai, my beloved dad! Till we meet in heaven, pray for us here on earth.

Follow Up: Journalism in Malaysia

I apologise to delay this follow up post about my interesting experience with journalism in Malaysia. This is the reply given by their news editor:

I'm appalled at the media etiquette in Malaysia. Instead of apologising, he actually accused me of being an idiot? Fine, I accepted the fact I was an idiot not to have thought of idiots who would extract information from such an unreliable source. I won't take legal action since I've withdrawn my comment on the Facebook page where the journalist happily extracted it for her/his article without my consent. Honestly, using FB as a source of information for a national news article is like downgrading our knowledge of what truth is all about. Malaysians, beware of what you read!

Being Marlin of Finding Nemo

I had an interesting bantering with an old friends of mine from high school. I was a little taken aback on how some just couldn't see what many of my like-minded friends would have seen after this decade of globalisation. I, too, have come to a realisation how much my mentality had changed over the years, shaped by the travels and conversations with the global community due to my study requirement.

Source: http://soezooscope.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/nemo-1.jpg

Indeed, some people just can't see it at all. I don't blame them all together for not seeing it. Maybe less exposure to global community is equivalent to less understanding of global job market and its trend these days. Being in our comfort zone forever also brought us more disadvantages by blinding our eyes to see what's really the truth. I used to be in my comfort zone, until I decided to follow God's call to explore the deep waters and swim with the sharks. While writing this, I am reflecting on my life for the past 12 years since I left my family home to embrace my personal journey of young adulthood. And I would liken myself to Marlin in Finding Nemo for now. If not because of a changed circumstance, Marlin would not have embarked on a journey to find Nemo, and he wouldn't have met Dory, and every other sea creature who he spoke to and befriended. And he wouldn't be who he was by the time he returned home with Nemo (and Dory tagging along).

Let's go back to the bantering topic:

Source: Facebook page of JUICE Singapore

Quoting a friend's response to this picture: Why must fluency in Mandarin be important? Our national language is Bahasa Melayu, and the international language is English. Stupid racist people...

My response to this topic stands as my very personal opinion, and I don't wish to be quoted by any format of journalism, especially by The Star Malaysia. If I found my opinion being quoted by any journalist, I will take legal action this time. The Star Malaysia has a couple of journalists who aren't very ethical, so I am stating that I DON'T WANT to be quoted and I DO NOT GIVE CONSENT to be quoted by anyone.

Firstly, national language and internationally accepted languages are two different cases. For certain countries, their national language is also an internationally accepted language used for trading, e.g. English and Spanish. Thank God! Unfortunately, some countries would only have national language which is spoken mainly by that country, or maybe another two other neighbouring countries, e.g. Malay Language is mainly spoken in my home country, Malaysia, and other branches of Melanesia languages spoken in Indonesia and Brunei. Similar, yet different. It is natural to be fluent in the national language of our own countries, because we live in that environment since forever! If we're not, then perhaps we should take a look at how we perceive our own country. Honestly. One of the emerging economic giants is China. With a huge population, and the booming economy, Chinese from PRC are the global target of consumers. There is nothing racist about picking Mandarin as a foreign language.

Secondly, if I were to be an employer, my first thought when I need to employ new staffs is the ability to cater for both local communities and international working relations of my company. If I also have possibilities to collaborate with organisations in PRC, I'd look into employing people who could cater for the needs of my local community as well as my collaborators (or potential ones), which means ability to speak the language of my collaborators. If China is an emerging economic giant (which is already a fact readily accepted in the Western world), shouldn't I be equipping my organisation with employees who could readily speak Mandarin? I didn't see how important it was to be fluent in speaking Mandarin since I grew up speaking all three main languages in Malaysia fluently, until I started working as a marketing executive and my clients comprised of local community with a sprinkle of international walk-in customers. Despite the ability of local customers to speak English, but since their first language was either Mandarin or Malay, indeed, they prefer us to serve them with their preferred language. Many excellent service-based companies provide a preferred language option in their forms so that customers' needs could be fulfilled. There's nothing racist about requiring someone who speak Mandarin in the organisation. It only helps to improve the organisation's image of being global.

Thirdly, there are various definitions of "being fluent in so-and-so language". According to Oxford Dictionary:

fluent

Line breaks: flu¦ent

Pronunciation: /ˈfluːənt 

  

/

ADJECTIVE

1Able to express oneself easily and articulately:a fluent speaker and writer on technical subjects

1.1Able to speak or write a particular foreign language easily and accurately:she became fluent in French and German

1.2(Of a foreign language) spoken accurately and with facility:he spoke fluent Spanish

2Smoothly graceful and effortless:his style of play was fast and fluent

3Able to flow freely; fluid:a fluent discharge from the nose

It is a logic (unless you're some schizo dude who is illiterate), that the first definition is applicable to my statement here...

In this case, it is Mandarin. Sometimes, one is both a fluent speaker and writer in a subject (could be a technical subject, e.g. Science, or a language, e.g. Spanish). Or he/she could be only a fluent speaker, but read nothing of that language. For many years, I could only speak Mandarin fluently but read only very few words (e.g. my own name, the names of my immediate family members, big 大, small 小, middle 中, that's about it...). Of course, over the years, I found my special delight in learning languages, and now I could read Chinese (with slower speed) too. So, why not publish a job employment opportunity in a non-Chinese newspapers? Putting myself in the shoes of the employers, I would need workers who could converse fluently in the foreign languages of my collaborators to keep them happy and well-communicated with the things they need to know, and if the worker is unable to prepare the paperwork related to the project because of his/her inability to write in that language, I'm sure my company would have another worker whom I can distribute this task to. If I can afford it, I could send those paperwork (prepared firstly in English) to professional translators who would do the task properly and professionally. Honestly, no big deal if the company is established enough.

So now, if I recount my own language abilities, I speak and write fluently in English, Malay and Mandarin, able to hold rather fluent conversation in Cantonese. I picked up a bit of Spanish, Japanese and Korean along the way too. I guess I could consider myself a linguist. Perhaps one day I will improve the other three languages which I started to pick up as a young adult. I use my abilities to my own advantage, really. I know I could at least read scientific articles written by Chinese scientist published in Chinese journals because I could read it. I wouldn't worry buying a foreign product without English instructions because I can always decipher it as long as it is available in any of the other languages which I am fluent or semi-fluent in. Oh well...

My take home message for you guys out there are these:

• Why should you despise people who could converse fluently in another foreign language?
• Why should you place the "racist" label on those who require employees who are fluent in another foreign language?
• Are you sure you're not the one who is racist?

Source: http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/43820342.jpg

It's not about calling potential employers "stupid racists" when they specifically looking for people who could speak these languages which would benefit their companies, it should be about US MAKING OURSELVES EMPLOYABLE if you are seeking for employment. C'mon, we're not living in stone age where the demand for workers is more than the job vacancies. You should know by now how competitive the job market is like out there.

Journalism in Malaysia

I have tonnes of friends, and some of them are worthy Malaysian journalists. However, this morning, I woke up with a message on my WhatsApp messenger informing me that my name and the comment I made on a viral video was quoted on The Star Malaysia news. A moment of fame, indeed, but I don't rejoice in it at all, because my consent was not asked. In fact, I was totally disgusted and horrified. You might think I made a big deal over a small matter, but looking at how degrading the morality of my own homeland is right now, it is time that we make a difference by being logical and objective about it. Protecting and defending what is wrong is so outdated and we should adapt a more transparent and radical attitude if we truly want to see change and transformation in the country. And oh, whining about those "issues" on Facebook statuses doesn't help much if we remain as the complaining citizens who do nothing else but to complain day and night.

Source: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--o1VmQnph--/17ks7uyvm3198jpg.jpg

I can be open about what I think and I stand to be corrected if I am wrong, but I do not appreciate being named in news article if it weren't something worth mentioning, though I have nothing to hide, really. I find the experience of unprofessional journalist who didn't even bother to request for consent to quote my comment and my name in a news article prepared for the public utterly horrifying. I wrote to the Chief Editor and all other editors whose emails I could get hold of in order to raise the alert in that company of such non-existence consent/permission request. Chances are, they signed it off for publication because they thought their journalist in question had asked for consent, or worse still, they are not aware that asking for consent is logical and people of Malaysia have rights to remain anonymous in this kind of news.

I'm utterly disgraced and disappointed with the ethics of some journalists in Malaysia at the moment. Or at least, on this particular newspaper and its attitude on the rights of those whom they quoted. My opinions about this company will remain critical for a while, until I see improvement on their news.

Here's a copy of the email I sent to the Chief Editor of The Star Newspapers:

Dear Chief Editor and editors of The Star Malaysia, 

          With regards to the subject mentioned, I would like to request for official apologies and sound action taken from your company for using a previous comment I made on Facebook about this video without having your journalist, L. Suganya, asking my consent to use my comment prior to publishing the article. This is utterly unethical for a journalist and a national news channel who would (hopefully) like to report true public opinion on a piece of national news to not have the policy of first requesting for consent from whom she/he is quoting from. Besides unethical, it is very unprofessional. To my utter surprise and horror, it was not myself who found out about this as I am not residing in Malaysia at the moment but I was informed by a friend of mine that my name was mentioned in a news article of The Star.

          I feel insecure to freely comment on anything from now on if there is such unethical and unprofessional people working in this line of profession. Asking for consent from anyone wouldn't take her/him more than a minute, since she/he would have the link to the profile page of another person. Consent matters because we have rights to remain anonymous in this kind of article. Unless your company thinks that any Malaysian who voiced their opinion doesn't have right to decide whether or not they want to be in the news. I strongly suggest that you'd consider revamping your idea of what the rights of the public is, if your company does have such idea about us. The morality of your newspaper is subjected to my critical view of how unprofessional can your journalists be when it comes to personal consent on quoting people, and the images you used for your report, etc.

          I do not want to lose hope in my own country's national paper, but with these kind of news published, I can't help but to wonder aloud to you, dear Chief Editor. I do hope such thing do not repeat itself again, giving a bad name to Malaysian press in the international community. You probably already know that Malaysian press doesn't have a very good name in the international community anyway.

          I do hope that wise action and proper scrutiny of your news articles are done prior to publishing any form of news.

          All the best. 

          Thank you for your attention.

As We Entered the Mid of July...

I sometimes seemed to have neglected this blog. I'll try to update more frequently, but looking forward for the times I couldn't do so because I'm deep into my PhD work. I've been sick for the past one week and it had been a torture to miss going to the department every morning. Initially I thought it was mere upper respiratory tract infection, then I'd be up and running within two three days. Unfortunately, after being in bed for three days, it worsened where my nose was blocked and cough sounded horrifying. GP to the rescue indeed! I saw the GP on Friday, and the initial diagnosis is throat infection which didn't need any antibiotics. I did double-check with her to ensure it wasn't due to my previous history of acute sinusitis. Her reaction changed totally when I mentioned I had acute sinusitis and she went through my medical history to eventually decide to prescribe me with antibiotics. My GP is on maternity leave, so this lady GP is taking over her patients for the next 6 months. I have no idea why she had such a big change in her decision, but she said that it could be that my sinuses are infected and the coloured phlegm came from the sinus rather than the throat since my lungs are clear. Praise God! If not I'd be still half-dead rather than half-alive.

A friend of ours will be going on a pilgrimage to the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, so I plotted and planned with his girlfriend (also our friend) to give him a surprise farewell. I suddenly had the whim of wanting to bake, so I searched and found the butter cake recipe on Rasa Malaysia website. Made a few tweaks, including changing the usage of only AP flour to a 1:1 ratio of AP flour to self-raising flour, melted the butter slightly using the microwave for less than a minute then mixed with caster sugar by hand (since I didn't have an electric mixer), and accidentally added the milk before I mixed in the flour instead of after.. It all went well and my friends loved the fluffiness of the cake, which I slathered with Nutella on top to cover the imperfections.

Speaking of surprises... This was one of the tinier ones.. Ewa and I planned that somehow they would come over and I shall take the cake out. Simple surprise. Matteo and another friend were to come earlier to my place, and they were supposed to "happen to be there" when Ewa and Pol turned up. It happened so the other friend couldn't make it, so it was just Matteo. It all worked out well. Everyone was happy and Pol was delighted to have the cake.

So all the best in his pilgrimage of the Way of St. James! Mission accomplished.

Looking forward to watch finals of World Cup 2014 later, and yeah, to go back to work on Monday!!!

From left: Yours truly, Pol and Matteo; far right Ewa.