MAS comes to Cambridge

After a rather interesting talk on memory politics between China and Japan, I headed down to the Harvard Career Forum to meet up with the folks from MAS who have come over to the US to recruit foreign talent. There I also met a former school-mate Benny Wijanto from RI who was promoting his company, APT, just next door! That was quite a blast from the past man!

After that, I headed over to Tufts University to experience the expert hair-cutting skills of Elizabeth, a fellow Singaporean also in the RSEA program. Considering that I also witnessed a girl trust her to dramatically change her hair style, I must say that her hairdressing skills are rather incredible. The interesting thing is that her salon of choice is the stairwell in one of the dorms.

My boxes from Chicago have finally arrived (or at least I hope they have). I apparently have a package waiting in the mail room. I hope it's not the Anti-virus software that I bought instead... :P Hopefully I won't have to shiver my way through the night any longer! haha!

$10 Concert

Just got back from a mega-cheap $10 Yo-Yo Ma Concert at the Sanders Theatre on campus. It was part of the Silk Road Project, which is a series of university and museum residencies and workshops held in North America, Europe, Central Asia, China and Japan.

The highlights from the concert included this "live painting" guy from Armenia who drew a whole bunch of pictures on the spot to some tunes from Azerbaijan. His skill was simply mind-boggling, although the music was rather sleep-inducing since all the lights were dimmed for the video projection of his work. The other highlight was the closing piece called "Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur" that was played by the Silk Road Ensemble, a bunch of Harvard kids, and this group of 3 guys from Iran (who played the santur, ney and kamancheh). Unbelievable!

(Yo-Yo Ma's the guy on the extreme left)

Free Stuff

This past couple of days have been characterized by free events here on campus. On Friday there was this enormous Harvard State Fair with a live country band, a mechanical bull, one of those throw-a-ball-and-dunk-the-guy machines, and one of those use-a-hammer-to-cause-this-metal-thing-to-hit-the-bell machines. The scale was incredible! Lots and lots of free food like hotdogs, sloppy joes, candy floss, etc... For those in Chicago, think Summer Breeze x 100. Actually, in terms of stuff you can do, I think summer breeze is cooler coz of all the bouncy castles and stuff, but there just seem to be alot more people here.

Apart from that, this afternoon we had a free BBQ with the GSAS (grad sch of arts and sciences) and I just returned from a free outdoor screening of Pirates of the Carribean. As I type, Batman is Begin-ning. Again, put into perspective, Chicago also has the same kind've stuff, just somehow the scale seems different. I don't think it's better or worse, just a different feel to it.

Down by the river

So I've reached the end of shopping week having finally chosen my classes after much deliberation. It's not surprising though that majority of the classes have at least a Singaporean (or in the case of Chinese Foreign Policy, 7) in them -- a function of the absence of interesting/relevant east asian classes offered this year :P

Anyhow, a bunch of us went down to the Charles River today for an afternoon of canoeing/kayaking. The weather was awesome and so was the scenery. Can't imagine doing anything like this in the polluted waters of Lake Michigan.

On the lack of morals

So this is the end of Day 3 (well, kind've) Today I discovered (to my horror and embarassment) that Moral Perspectives was a no-go since he wasn't letting graduates into the class. Apparently there is a similar graduate version of the class being offered this semester too. The only problem is that it clashes with Chinese Foreign Policy so I'm left stuck with a severe deficiency of interesting classes to choose from. Somehow everyone must have discovered that I was coming this year and decided not to teach their interesting classes :P

Anyhow, today I also had my first meal at Dudley House, which shall be my dining hall for the next 9 months. The food was pretty decent, largely because lunch works on some kind of 'point' system (you get 10 points to buy stuff with). I heard dinner is significantly worse since it belongs to the all-you-can-eat genre. I shall find out the truth in a couple hours...

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today (well actually somewhat late now due to time difference) is my Mom's birthday though it was pre-emptively celebrated quite some time ago :) Regardless, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

First Day of School

So begins my academic life at Harvard... Sat in on 3 classes today: Moral Perspectives on Economic Growth, Chinese Foreign Policy and Political Economy of Development. The first two were pretty good while the last was quite a let down. Nonetheless, it seems like I'm in for a lot of essay writing. The Moral Perspectives class alone is gonna require a total of 55 pages of deep insight on my part on top of frequent debates in class. Actually, from the syllabus, this class looks really interesting since it provides somewhat of a philosophical backdrop to all the econ I did at Chicago. Still, it's times like this when you wish you had an relaxing math class to ease things up abit, but then again, I would probably be complaining if I had one too :P

The picture on the right is of the East Asian Studies Department's humble abode, wherein lies the infamous Yenching Library. The dude on the left is the first Chinese teacher to come over from China (pretty awesome eh?)

The End of the Beginning

Ok, so I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, but I'm just going to give this blogging stuff a shot... As with most blogs, I have to start by saying I that I doubt my life is interesting enough to warrant having a blog. Nonetheless, I must admit this exhibitionism is kind've refreshing in a way, albeit somewhat narcissistic :P