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Sunday, 15 November 2009

Updates:

- I handed in my dissertation at the end of August, and degree results will be out in early December. Please keep your fingers crossed for me, since I really have no other achievements in life aside from academics. My greedy heart longs for a distinction, though my brain figures a merit is more like it.

- I moved to Shanghai on September 1. This was the easiest transition I've ever had, because I'd already picked my housemates and we all arrived together and dealt with the bureaucracy as a team. I've never arrived anywhere with a pre-established social circle. It's good for obvious reasons, but bad in that I'm too lazy and unbothered to expand my Monkeysphere.

- Am quite disappointed with academia here, my heart's not in it at all. I spend most of my time looking for a job or trolling the internet for fun media-related stories. Alternatively, I stuff my face with soup dumplings, hairy crabs and bullfrogs.

- I went back to Malaysia for the Chinese national holiday. A few people wanted to come with, but I brought only one good friend from LSE whom I figured I wouldn't be spending much time with in Shanghai. We hit Redang and Singapore while we were down there.

- Will blog here even less than I did in London. Which is bad, since I feel like I'm losing touch with you guys. I saw Angie almost a year ago, while the time difference means I no longer have my marathon phone sessions with Ally. I do miss you guys.

- I do post to a blog set up by LSE for the Fudan cohort. LSE-Fudan Blog

Thursday, 27 August 2009

Editing done, hard copies printed, digital copy submitted. DONE! Final word count, 12,370.

Things to do now: Reconnect with friends. I've missed you guys.

Wednesday, 26 August 2009

I am the master of the 2-week dissertation! I rock! I rule!
...I am seriously editing now, but still, it's DONE.

Steve is back in London!
I am still packing!
I'm going to see Walking With Dinos on Saturday!
Moving to Shanghai on Monday!
Woot!

Monday, 24 August 2009

I've reached 10,559. My first 9000 are gold, now I'm just gibbering but I'm past caring. I need this thing out of my hands by Thursday afternoon. I'm almost there!

Shanghai is becoming more real now, since I know my address and looked it up on Google Maps. It looks like a really nice location right next to the Journalism School (Fudan is so huge you need a bicycle, luckily all our classes are in the J-School), we made arrangements to get our keys, I can't wait to go shopping for pillows and stuff on my first day there (after Kate's friend gets us registered at the police station... haha, commie state, commie state!).

I'm tossing out so much stuff as usual. If only Ally were here, I'd give her my Lust, Caution and an academic book called "Young People, Sex and the Media".

Sunday, 23 August 2009

9233 words! Only 2000 more to go and I have 5 days for that! Maybe I can get it done by Monday so I can enjoy my last week in London and mentally prep myself for Shanghai.

Shanghai.

SHANG. HAI. 上海。

My new home for a year!

(And this month is the 3-year anniversary of when I first entered Singapore to attend NUS. )

Friday, 21 August 2009

If I have an obsessive-compulsive disorder, it's my intense dislike of accumulation. I simply don't like to accumulate anything, because then I feel overwhelmed. Books, clothes, random friends. There will come a point when I simply feel the compulsion to get rid of everything, delete people off Facebook, clear up my Tweets, etc. Maybe I feel the urge to move because it's the best excuse to purge things from my life. I have very few things that I can't live without, and very few people - everything else, at the point of purchase or acquaintance, is scheduled for a dump, sooner or later.

I know very well this intense dislike I have for accumulation comes from my childhood. Our houses have always been small, or feel small because they are overwhelmed with junk that, whenever I go home, I feel the great need to throw away. It has always bothered me, and this OCD of mine has to be my inner protest of my parents' love of hoarding. My parents would argue that I hate accumulation so much, that's the reason I spend all their money! There's humour in all of this.

(That said, I readily admit I am an obsessive accumulator of Hard Rock Cafe pins. But only that.)

Thursday, 20 August 2009

Am going strong with my dissertation, now at 7,000 words. I think I can continue going because I feel that this is going to be amazing. Amazing in the sense that I may get a good grade and make my parents proud (even though they are still mortified that I am writing about comics) and all that jazz; not amazing because people will actually care.

In other news, I was today informed that Facebook is still pretty much banned in China. I feel like I've lost my life already. Of course I can get around it, but do I really want to make my computer vulnerable? Any tech geeks can help me here? You know you want me to remain in your Facebook life!

Wednesday, 19 August 2009

I thought it was really good that I started my dissertation so late, so that I wouldn't have enough time to reach a saturation point, to become utterly apathetic and frustrated. In a way, I was right; anxiety has pushed me forward and halfway through in a week. But the last 2 days have been unproductive, and to avoid work, mundane things have me fascinated. Such as polishing my shoes, sewing on loose buttons, picking at ingrown hairs, arranging my books by height. All I need to do now is the results and interpretation section of my paper, but it's a whopping 4,000 words minimum and all I can think is eff you academia.

Monday, 17 August 2009

I sometimes enjoy the friendship of those whose physical presence in my life has been very brief. I never realize the impressions I leave on them until I hear about it from others, others who know me well. I seem very exciting, very glamorous, very independent and quirky and morally flippant. "She moves every year to a new city! The freedom, the fun!"; "She's doing double Masters at ___ and ___, she's so smart!"; "Did you hear about that night she spent with a random guy and her best friend in the same bed?! Hahaha!"; "She travels so much! So much adventure..."; "She's having an affair with her professor!!! Only that girl!".

Well. Some things are true, some things only have a semblance of truth. But if I appear to be worldly, travelled, experienced, with a hint of moral decadence to add some glamour to it all, then I embrace the representation.

(P.S. I am 5,400 words into my dissertation, which took me 5 days to complete. I just need another 6,500. And my dissertation is now simply titled, "Comics and War".)

Tuesday, 11 August 2009

Last few weeks have been interesting. Went to Edinburgh and into the Highlands. Spent more time with my London family. Saw 7 naked boys singing on stage. Watched Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Waiting for Godot, and caught Tom Stoppard's Arcadia on the same day (I may stick to my musicals, as both plays required more brain power to comprehend than I'm used to providing). Said goodbye to another friend, who both amuses and exasperates me, as the best friendships tend to do. One of my uncles back home died. Hit by thoughts of how I have no more grandparents, and it's my parents' generation that is starting to go.

I started on my dissertation yesterday, meaning that after 8 hours on campus, all I came up with was a title page. "Visual Representations in Comics Journalism: The Suffering of Distant Others in the Graphic Novel Safe Area Goražde." What do you think? How do I cut it down and make it less academically pompous-sounding?

I move to Shanghai in 20 days. It doesn't feel like it. I feel like I'm staying in London forever.