Today marked my first day of work as a research assistant at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). Apparently my lack of mandarin was not that serious an impediment to my getting hired.
After the obligatory tour of the building and the introductions I soon found the usual series of amazing coincidences. First of all, Iqbal, a newly appointed Research Fellow received his Dphil from Oxford where he studied under James Piscatori, who was my tutor in Middle East politics. I found that there was only one other person in a similar position to mine - a Research Assistant to the Dean - Vinita. I did wonder about how isolated this position was going to be and it is refreshing to know there is someone else doing the same thing.
The coincidences continued when Emrys Chew, an assistant professor specialising in colonial history came to talk to us. I soon realised that he was the son of former Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at NUS Ernest Chew and the brother of current ACS(I) teacher Alistair Chew. He was also quite hilarious possessing a lovely dry wit. Someone I would love to have further conversations with in the future.
Despite the fact that the two professors I am working under were not in the office, they did leave me a stack of material to read through. I got started on the readings for Professor Emmers, but me and Vinita both decided to leave early thinking that it would be perfectly possible to do the readings at home as well as in the office. Altogether, not a bad first day.
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This being a collection of thoughts and musings of a somewhat random nature.
Rambler in Chief
- Caleb Liu
- enjoys reading and is perpetually trying to find space for all of the books he owns in his room. He also enjoys films, and in particular, going to the cinema. Although a self-confessed trivia buff, reports that he is an insufferable know-it-all are completely unfounded. He enjoys a nice glass of tipple now and then, be it a pint of beer, a glass of wine or a single malt whisky.
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6 comments:
Why are you so proud of your ignorance of Chinese? Perhaps it would be better to spend your time learning a new language rather than name-dropping?
To Anonymous:
Firstly, I am not proud of my so-called "ignorance" of Chinese. I do however make it plain to everyone that despite struggling with the language for quite a number of years I don't have a great facility with the language. That hardly makes me unique.
And I do have plans to learn another language though I don't believe that I have a facility for languages in general. Perhaps, given your penchant to criticise, you are not only fluent in Chinese but a number of other languages as well? Such as Mongolian or Icelandic perhaps?
Secondly, as for name dropping, the last time I checked this was MY personal blog and my redundant ramblings. Which means I am keeping it as a personal record of not only my thoughts and feelings but also things I have done and people that I have met. If you are of the view that I am resorting to dropping names to impress overly sensitive individuals that do not even have the guts to leave their names when leaving comments to bear responsibility for the criticisms they make - like yourself - then you are of course sadly mistaken.
Are we to understand you're of the belief that only those fluent in Mongolian or Icelandic are suited to criticise those who deem it unworthy to spend time learning their mother tongue?
...that's certainly a strange belief to hold.
No, but we are definitely given ample evidence of the fact that you are clearly not acquainted with a commonplace literary device known as 'sarcasm'. You might want to look it up.
The above paragraph, just in case you were wondering, is a example of said literary device being used.
Ah... the cut and thrust of academic repartee... charming...
hmm... a stereotype it may be, but i can't help but glow warm with pride when someone asks susipicously," are you from ACS?" when i do mangle the language in public.
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