Does anyone recall this really 90's film starring Brendan Fraser and Joe Pesci? Fraser plays this cocky bastard of an honours student who loses the only copy of his thesis to the hobo man who 'lives' in the Harvard library (Pesci). Long story short, he gets it back only to realise he doesn't 'believe' in it anymore and ends up rewriting his dissertation overnight. All inspired by the witty hobo man. I remember watching it in highschool thinking to myself, "aww... how touching".

Now I can tell you he is an effing nutjob who needs to be committed. To a loony bin.

My father wrote his masters thesis in international relations in the space of two weeks. It was on Indonesia's policy of neutrality during the (then-emerging) Cold War. The key was, he said, to trick the college professors into thinking you had actually done consistent work. So a month out from his due date, he embarked on a fortnight's holiday to Washington DC and New York, under the guise of doing research that would confirm his previous findings. I knew I got my bullshitting skills from somewhere. He still has the black and white pictures of him standing in front of the Jefferson memorial to prove it. Who's the pretty girl, I ask.

Mom (not the pretty girl in the fotos) wrote her honours dissertation on the catalytic effect of antibiotic strains on a particular class of microorganisms that I now forget. She can never talk about it without some reference to her unfortunate supervision. But apparently it changed her. I guess that was a good thing. Plus she mastered all this technical stuff that she never thought she could.

It's nice to think there was some determinism at play with this year's honours experience. Or at least extreme parallels with those in my gene pool.

The exact moment that two copies of my 73 page volume were placed on Mel's desk, something inside me screamed: "Take it back!!!!! Take it back, you stupid dumb bitch!!!!", as though I had voluntarily spliced my head open to make public the vaccuous cavity where a brain should normally reside. My secret is out. And available in the Mauldon for future generations to mock. I refuse to read it myself for fear of finding all the things that could have been fixed but weren't.

My conclusion went along the lines of: "So dudes, I've done piles upon piles of empirical testing for these non-existent cycles but whoopsy daisy, my models all suffer from some crazy endogenous technical bias thingy so my results are pointless and you have just read 17,000 words for nothing. So gimme good mark?" Please Lord, let no one but my examiners read it ever ever ever ever ever. Or maybe by some miracle, after it's marked, let it spontaneously combust into a gazillion molecules of nothing.

Ok, now that I have that out of my system, my Acknowledgements:

I am most grateful to my supervisor, Professor Ken Clements for his wisdom, time and understanding in the writing of this dissertation. My thanks go to Dr Timothy Kam from the economics department and Associate Professor David Denemark from the department of political science and international relations at UWA and Associate Professor Mark Crosby at the University of Melbourne for their comments and suggestions. Errors and judgements are entirely my own.

To those who made the year what it was - Stephane Verani, John Gould, Tedy Gunawan, Lim Huey Ying, Ang Yanen and Tan Khee Kwong. I am greatly indebted to James Chia for his careful reading of my work, and to Zaneta Mascarenhas, Sam Hurst and Astria Wilson for their amazing support and friendship throughout this time.

To my beloved mother & father - I am continually awed by your boundless love, faith and sacrifice. It is the source of my strength and person and what made this happen. Words could not suffice.

And finally to my maker who is 'Divine Authority, Highest Wisdom and Primal Love".^




^Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto III, 5-6.

This morning's journal entry:

It is 04:27 on the 28th day of the first month of this allegedly 'new' year. I don't know about anyone else but things from where I'm sitting still feel pretty old.

My thesis is due in 12 hours and I'm still writing here in the post-graduate lab. My final conclusion chapter and abstract to go but I couldn't be happier than if I'd already handed my paper in.

No... actually ask me again in 12 hours and I'll probably answer different.

Papa is horizontally suspended across 5 cushy swivel chairs.
He's been sleeping in the lab keeping me company for days. I am freezing from the uncontrollable air conditioning but my rugby jersey is covering his cold legs. As it should.

It occurs to me that to some random outside person this scene would appear quite pathetic. Some loser near-lone person spending her entire frickin summer in this 15x6 hole. When my ma, Ash, Z or Sam have come to visit, they comment like the room is some cocoon plane due to the spastically regular buzzing of the 30 or so computers and sealed windows [ma]; the fact that you can't get in or out without my swipecard [Z]; and that the florescent lighting and faintness of Miles Davis' trumpet playing in the background is "like Changi" [Ash]. So tonight its me in my bali pants and favourite fadded radiohead tee that's so comfy it's falling apart taking swig after swig of stimulant and nervously shaking my leg as I type... And then there's the old man in his burmudas, polo shirt and serious chair hair letting out the occasional faint snore. But its not so bad. It's even kind of comforting. I might even miss doing this. Cause it reminds me that I'm too blessed for words. Spoilt with love and divine friends and so many other good things I hardly deserve. It sets your expectations up for a big fall when you're met with people from the real world.

Right now things are good... enough. And they have to be at least for one more day. Am I going to have another nervous breakdown? Can't see it happening. It's in control. I'm just so happy to be done with this.

No... actually ask me in 10 hours time and I might answer different.
Although if the stability of my handwriting is anything to go by, things could turn out yet.

_____


Update:

At 08:00 I wandered from the lab to my pigeonhole in the department where my supervisor said he would place his review of my 27 page core empirical chapter. I keep reminding myself to take a pathetic little foto of that wooden box with my name printed on the front because it will be the only time in my life that a physical space in a place of higher learning belongs to me. Even if it is only temporary.

Good things:
Stephane's burned a DVD of the House of Flying Daggers for me!
And two of my students left me nice little notes in there at the end of last semester.

Smile.

Bad things:
My supervisor has (quite rightly) torn apart my empirical chapter. Among other things, it requires more explanation of the material, was too technical to grasp quickly and would perhaps benefit from repetition; That my summary stats suggest my data may be completely off whack and my probit analysis is really no great variation from the preliminary least squares tests unless I can prove otherwise. In other words, my work is superfluous and my results spurious. These are what he calls "minor changes" and that I should "do what [I] can" in the space of 24 hours.

Cue breakdown.
And who would've guessed... seven hours ahead of schedule.

My honours coordinator has given me the weekend without penalty and I'm taking it. Ash, I'm so so so sorry. Please don't hate me. HY and I planned to have a huge celebratory night out tonight and its not going to happen. Instead, I'm at home in recovery. My brain is melting. After this year, I shouldn't be surprised how quickly things can turn around. And I'm sorry, the neglect is going to persist for at least another three days. First, sleep.

Mercy.

Well I can't seem to do anything right. Following another (well-meaninged) charge against my postings, here is my retort:



Go on, just try and complain about this hunny.

In another lifetime, another generation, another ethos, I believe people took the 'growing old together' concept quite literally. Last year, I told a friend that those myths you hear about one elderly partner passing and the other following suit not long after, was perhaps the epitome of true love. As if they had no other will to exist after their love had died. Like a natural resignation. She in turn, told me a story about her grandfather. His wife had passed away some fifty-odd years into their marriage. He too began to suffer ill health so the family placed him in an aged care facility that could provide the medical attention he needed.

While he was in the centre, he met an old woman who was suffering from cancer and alzheimers. They formed a warm friendship and shortly decided to get married. The hospital staff disapproved but my friend's family and the woman's niece thought why deny an old man & woman their final happiness. So they wed in a simple ceremony. Not long after, grandpa's condition got to the point where the centre did not have the facilities to treat him. He had to be moved to a hospital for some time. While he was there he would ask about his new bride and asked my friend to check on her. On her visit to the old lady, the alzheimers had appeared to advance too... to the extent where she didn't recognise anyone, couldn't hold a conversation, muttered a lot and my friend and the centre staff were sure that she wouldn't recognise grandpa on his return. She effectively appeared to have lost her mind. But grandpa was adamant. He returned and went to see his wife. Surprisingly, she responded to him and they embraced and engaged in what seemed like a loving and earnest conversation. It was the last time they spoke. Grandpa died the following evening. He had specifically requested that his wife be released to attend his funeral. When she didn't show, my friend thought it was the staff's objections or oversight. But when she went to check on her, it turned out they had prepared transport for her but that she too had passed shortly after her husband did.

Maybe the tale was an unconventional take on the myth seeing as it was technically a young, sorry, new love and they were already of ill health. But I like to think that love helped give her the will to wait til he came back to her. That she saved her last moments of sanity for him and that ultimately, it was a natural resignation of the heart that saw each of them pass in turn.

***

Yesterday, tears were shed and a man was buried far too soon before his time. He reminded me a little bit of Chacko in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things*. His young Australian wife had separated and taken his adorable little four-year old girl with her to Sydney. He used to be the one to bathe her, feed her, change her when his diabetic bride couldn't do excessive housework. He assumed this would be his family and it was to be for ever.

* "Those last few tortured nights before he left her, Chacko would slip out of bed with a torch and look at his sleeping child. To learn her. Imprint her on his memory. To ensure that when he thought of her, the child that he invoked would be accurate."

They found him on new year's day. He 'died of heartbreak' was all that was said. And she and the little girl didn't even come to the funeral. His North-Indian father and mother couldn't stop weeping. My mother always said it was the scariest sight seeing a big strong man weeping. His siblings, large extended family and so many of his friends all mourned alongside them. The kind of cry where your chest heaves so violently you think that all your capillaries would have burst. I bet he didn't anticipate so many people to bleed inside for him, like he bled for her.

My rational side wants to recognise how unfair it is for me to be angry with this woman. Because I'm obviously biased and there's probably more to her side of the story. But sometimes, it's worth sacrificing your reason if it means being loyal to someone who deserves nothing less.

I'm convinced that romantic love is a two step process. That most of us have to fall in love with the idea of falling in love before it can actually happen. The ones who've taken the first step maybe look too hard for reciprocity and before you know it, it's too late. You've given away your heart to someone who's convinced themselves that they can try to love you back. All you can hope is that they will be gentle. More than ever, I'm convinced love is a risk you take, from which you may never recover.

There's just far too much sadness in the world at the moment. I don't know how mere mortals are supposed to take it.

Sometimes I find such liberation in making blatantly judgmental statements, particularly in the jurisdiction of this space, so much so that I don't really mind what it does or doesn't do for people. However, some of my right-wingèd comrade(s) have complained about my interpretation of Gonzales' pro-torture stand from the last post. Warning: this is a concessional and they're not really rightists (except for my dad of course).

Well, I was thoroughly impressed by the way they've put their case together and am willing to acknowledge certain merits in their argument so will deal with it and take a momentary break from the political indoctrination that is this journal.

PG: "... his statements really do need to be taken in context. The idea of the convention is mutual agreement over the terms of engagement. There is no such understanding with terrorists."

True. Context for those who have bothered to read this far - Gonzales had been an advisor to GW Bush since his time as Governor of Texas. During the insurgence in Afghanistan, his memo to the US president advised that the Geneva Convention need not necessarily apply to the people in this conflict. The Convention of course referring to the treatment of prisoners of war and these people referring to Afghans. The memo is frequently referred to as the 'torture memo'.

I could counterargue that you need to reconsider the definitions of war that we learned in Strategy, Diplomacy and Conflict 314 but instead, I agree that terrorists don't conform to the rules of warfare (which are admittedly trite for such a dirty occasion). However, if you're an Afghan chieftain - albeit misogynist, corrupt and many other four-letter words - you are technically being invaded, may not be directly responsible for the attack on US soil and technically have a right to defend yourself. Its more complicated than that with mujahideen obviously but I think it's jumping the gun to take the human rights card completely off the table.


Pa: "Even David Brooks [NY Times journo] agrees with his statement!"

See, just because I like someone doesn't mean I think they're always right. It might be conducive to my listening to them (even then not always... sorry I try) but that's really about it.


PG: "I think there's a fine line with Abu Ghraib. I quote David Brooks on Newshour, "Abu Ghraib, those people were not interrogating anybody. They were just torturing people. That was just sadism. That wasn't part of any interrogation process. It was the middle of the night. And it wasn't any part of rational effort to get information. I don't even know if they asked questions. They just were out of control."

That is really true. See above answer re:Brooks. But I quote from the same Newshour transcript you provided: "...how you feel about it depends on how you feel about Abu Ghraib. If you really think that's an open wound in the United States, that the pictures and the photograph of the evidence of what was done here has hurt us permanently; hurt the United States and its mission and its efforts in the Muslim world, then I think you probably, you know, were not satisfied with Gonzales's answers." (M.Shields).


PG: "And hence you must see that he is not advocating torture per se. But whatever means necessary to obtain vital security information."

I will admit that my turn of phrase was crude if you will avoid from sugaring it up. 'Whatever means necessary' just says do what you want just don't kill them. Take a finger, a limb, an organ, mutilate and scar them for life. While you may feel that it's a small price to pay for countless lives (and there are times I agree), I can't help but recall barbaric stories about water torture and electrocution from the cold war and Vietnam and not wish that upon any soul. Sorry if that sounded too moral-highground but I'm soft about these things.

PG: "I have too much time on my hands"
Yes, my comrade you do but I always appreciate the discussion.

Aside
I once used the word "comrade" in an ABC radio interview. It did not go down well. But its funny that's all I remember about it. I don't recall what the interview was actually about.

Compromise is occasionally necessary but I will end with this:

'Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post as soon as there is no enemy in the field' (I mean that enemy bit figuratively of course).
JS Mill.

'The middle of the road is for yellow lines and dead armadillos'
Jim Hightower.

The rest of the world probably already knows this but I just found out that Bush's newly appointed Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales advocates torture as a legitimate government policy!! Nice legacy. I didn't think you could get any worse than Ashcroft but I seem to be proven wrong about a lot of things these days. You never know, his karaoke might be better.

Checking my email is driving me completely distracted. Five out of the 7 emails I opened a minute ago were courtesy of friends travelling in as diverse and far away places as the US, Mexico, Italy, Kenya, Singapore. The latter is mainly because everyone's home at the moment anyway and that's normal for summer. But when reading the witness of a pride of lions tearing away at a water buffalo during a Kenyan safari, you somehow think getting your cinammon donut twists to rise perfectly isn't really so great. Photos of deserted white beaches along the Mexican coast don't help when your view mainly consists of cream walls & you're so far from completing this s.o.b of a thesis.

"ps-" Ags writes, "i have been told repeatedly that i´m giving ppl the travel bugs...
well GOOD! so this email is working!!! just to let u know, i WILL be
on the road for a while, feel free to runaway n join me ;)"

Don't tempt me. I can't venture far.

At least for another 22 days. That figure thrills and scares me simultaneously.

There are of course far more terrifying numbers. I don't want to hear arguments over governments downplaying mortality figures. The debate, while necessary, almost seems to trivialise the affair. Adding one more to the count doesn't truly reflect the loss of one life. Or maybe, its the least we can do to ensure no soul is forgotten.

A friend from my parish volunteered in one of the tsunami affected areas of Chennai last year and had already applied for placement back with the same women & children she had been assisting when the disaster hit. She had come back because her volunteers permit was up but also to fundraise for an old schoolbus for the community's kids and she was just waiting upon the amount being available before she was going to leave. Mercifully, she's here and fine but is itching to go back to see who remains. The government is rumoured to be assisting volunteers make the trip over so she won't have to wait til her agency funds her place.

A far nobler reason to want to leave.

I'm not quite sure why people get cranky when there aren't any updates here. Like I have anything relevant to say anyway. Having said that, I do apologise to those I should see but haven't seen. Those with whom I should've spent new years but didn't. Those whose calls I haven't returned and coffees still outstanding. There have been some rather interesting developments of late, but for the moment, thesis is all I'm allowed to indulge in. Thanks to those who have been so supportive. Keep the tiramisu & coffee grinds coming. But maybe less alcohol.

My routine usually involves waking up in a hot sweat at 3pm. (Yes, pm).
15:15 Shower before trowling through the mounds of unfolded and unironed (clean) garments in the den;
15:30 Using K&N's fabulous little pamper set that they gave me for xmas (thank you!! I <3 it!).
16:00 Ritually panic over empirical work and fret over model specification & tests that I need to run
16:30 Change my model to the reverse of what I had it yesterday
17:00 Remind myself to postpone the anyeurism given that there's nothing I can do til the lab reopens on the 10th
17:30 Review last night's chapter additions and delete the 15% that is crappier than the other crap
18:00 Hunt for food
19:00 Write
20:00 Delete
21:00 Start making cake/cookies/roast
21:40 Go crazy on overseas phonecalls while cake/cookies/roast is in oven
22:30 Go back to writing
00:00 Do dishes & make strong drink
00:30 Mom comes out and starts telling me story from a) her childhood b) BBC radio c) Oprah d) Bold & the Beautiful
01:00 Try to fix Ch 4 & realise I don't understand my own thesis
01:30 Write a little
03:00 Cry & take nap but yet woken up by dad feeding dog.
03:30 Write & delete while discovering new track in my itunes library
04:00 Mom comes out & accompanies me at the dining table strewn with paper - fighting the urge not to put it in order
05:30 Go for jog
06:30 I have great shame in admitting this but Aerobics OZ style.
07:00 Write again & delete again
08:00 Eat & shower
09:00 Sleep

Rinse and repeat & that's basically it.

But today, I was kidnapped by some crazy boys who drove from Sydney to Melbourne to Adelaide to Perth in a car that surely should have exploded somewhere along that journey. Kidnapped is not too strong a word because I was prevented from returning home to do work. But it was fun. Maybe too fun cause I'm back at my empirical drawing board. If I didn't have this frickin thesis, I would've jumped into that car myself. Explosion or no explosion.

On that note, I'm thisclose to booking my flight. Pending some details about applications (and certain approvals). I need something to look forward to. My head & heart are all bled out.

Bye for now. Lv, N.

Jan 03: I have a new research assistant and her name is mom.
At 4:47 am, she says "hey, we have left-wing tonight"

Was she referring to cooking chicken? Reading too many of my partisan texts? Nope, The West Wing. Oh dear. My mother is turning out conservative jokes on me. This is a bad sign.

=

Jan 01: I've been feeling particularly imbecilic of late. The thesis is a leech and it unfortunately has the effect of repelling me from doing anything productive. The heat does not help. During one of my breaks at the computer, I retook the quickie IQ test that I took in June. And I have proof that I have gotten dumber over the last 6 months. My IQ has dropped 3 points.

=

Dec 30: Adrian messaged me about dropping hints to certain people to watch the Oprah-ganza that was the "He's just not that into you" show tonight. So I dropped myself a hint.

During a commercial, I told mom the story our university secretary's husband told me at the chancellor's xmas party about how two PhD candidates at Oxford, one from Perth and one from London, got together. Before I knew it, every old world couple around me was opening up about how they and their significant other got together. It was a romantic world so far removed from the one we live in now. I love those kind of stories.

But then the spikey haired dude flicked back onto our screens & told some teary broad how she need to get back to reality. Talk about subliminal messages. Can they get anymore subtle?

=

Dec 27: Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security advisor talks about the upcoming elections in Iraq:

Let's not kid ourselves. Most Iraqi's are enthusiastic about the elections because they see it as a chance to be rid of the Americans. This is not democracy. Democracy is a product of political dignity and an occupied territory is devoid of political dignity.

Ukraine. The sense of ecstatic emancipation we see in the rallies... that's a genuine democratic development.

His turn of phrase was quite exquisite. God how I wish I had it. Or something that even vaguely resembles it.