First Day of Work

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.

A Job Interview

I went to the Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) this morning to interview for a job as a research assistant. I will be working directly under two professors, and this job might well give me the stepping stone towards doing a Phd and an academic career.

Things were going pretty well (I think) until the following exchange:

Professor One: "One question, if I may, and please answer honestly - how is your mandarin chinese?"

Me: "Well honestly speaking it is pretty dire."

Professor Two: "Spoken like a true ACS boy!"

Professor One: "What do you mean by dire? Can you read chinese? Say would you be able to read a short newspaper article in chinese?"

Me: *shakes head vigorously from side to side*

Professor One: "Ah I am glad you are honest, it is just a minor issue but it would have been better for you to be honest now than for us to find that Chinese is incomprehensible to you later."

Me: "Well I actually failed Chinese at my 'A' levels despite having a Chinese teacher won had won the most inspiring Chinese teacher award."

I am still naive to be hopeful about getting the job?