Today is the end of Lent Term in Cambridge. It marks the end of our taught component in the MPhil programme. Another milestone in the Cambridge journey.
We will begin on a (quiet) 4-month individual research work for our dissertations. Would it mean lesser late-night sleeps, courseworks and tight deadlines? I really don't know.
But what I'm certain is that we have to complete (at least) a substantial part of the 12,000-15,000 word dissertation by July when the dissertation conference will take place. That is equivalent to 4-5 pieces of 3000-word assignment which we were already doing in the taught component.
Besides, we have spill-over assignments from Lent to work on. I still have a piece of 4000-word, 2 pieces of 3000-word and a pamphlet design assignment. All in all, a staggering 10,000-word assignment and 1 pamphlet design! It's really no fun yet, even though we have a so-called 2-week break from April Fool's.
I guess the silver lining in April's research work would be having 4 months (or equivalent to two terms) in doing a term's worth of assignments. So, it'd be less taxing on the hours. Besides, I could now wake up any time I choose to! Yay!! I must enjoy every moment of this liberation before working life starts again.
It's a mixed reaction actually. I am really looking forward to doing my dissertation as I think it's one of those controversial topics in the UK. Controversies sell. Biofuel's sustainability is widely debated here and I'm doing just that. I just can't wait to dwell into the dissertation and look at the issue.
On the other side, I am dreading it as I would be working all alone by myself. No more official contact hours with the lecturers, ESD friends and powerpoint presentations. It'd just be me, my laptop, my room and ermmm, my contacts in the palm oil industry. I would be doing my dissertation on the Sustainability of Palm Biodiesel in Malaysia.
Speaking of which, I did a poster similar to my dissertation topic for one of the assignments in the taught component. I thought that since I had to put in so much effort in the process, I might as well make it as my dissertation poster so that I could reuse it for the dissertation conference later on.
My poster
The end of term is also when vacation borrowing in the libraries begin. Borrowing starts at 8.45am and I thought I would be an early bird at that time to get the books that I wanted for my assignments. Heck no! I was so wrong! There were already people queuing as early as 7.30am (as told by the librarian).
I didn't get all the books that I wanted from the library but I managed to get all of them in the end from other (legitimate) "sources". **sneaky me yeh!**Hahaha... (email me if you need help and I'll give you a 101 tutor in sneaky book-borrowing solutions)
The queue at the library today.And people had always been referring to Singaporeans as "kiasu" (afraid to lose). Quite recently the term were already making its way into Malaysia. So I thought I was going to win the title this time but I lost! I bloody lost! Not to Malaysians, not to Singaporeans but to others. Even Singaporeans lost! Hahaha! It was just unbelievable.
But guess what, I bumped into one of my compatriots who was already checking out with the books at the counter when I arrived....(name withheld for his safety reason;) )*wink*
6 comments:
What books do you need to borrow? I'm a bit worried now because I haven't even thought of books to borrow...
wooooo cool!
gambatte ne kudasai!
exactly when does your masters programme ends?
sustainability of palm oil derived biofuels... very interesting. most articles on the subject come with a western bias and would almost certainly condemn it as environmentally unsustainable. clearing of jungles for oil palm plantations, etc. it would be good for someone to come up with some (hopefully unbiased) original thoughts on this. and of course, from none other than one who's seen and been through the good, the bad and the ugly of the West, East and in-between (i.e. the SEA region)!
Joan: It's for my Int'l B'ness Econs module.
Shirley: end August.
Gavin: I've been fortunate to have gotten contacts with the NGOs who'd be contributing their unbiased views and industry players about their claims on sustainability. By having two sides to a story, I hope to provide an unbiased view and give the two sides a platform to draw their conclusions. I noticed that existing debates are too focused on one side of the story. Orang-utans, pygmie elephants are always the focus of the debate and I really don't know what the whole deal is all about. UK is a strong opposition to palm oil products. They're claiming that palm oil is causing deforestation and the extinction of orang-utans. Let me fill you in with some statistics which I just found out. The tree cover in Malaysia is 64%, the US is 33% and the UK is 12% (FAO, 2005). Palm oil is covered with 4 mil ha or only 12% of land area in Malaysia with multiple crop production. I found this extremely strange that UK which coincidentally has 12% of its land area for cereals production alone is saying that Malaysia is destroying its rainforests and that orang-utan is dying. Another interesting finding: 97% of worldwide forest area is actually cleared for annual crops like soybean and corn. We all know where these crops come from, don't we? Why are these crops not in the radar screen of the oppositions then? Another case of the North discrediting the South? Another case of hypocrisy? I am not drawing conclusions yet but these are just preliminary raw datas which I found out for my poster and I am really excited to using it for my thesis. Paradoxically, these datas were not used as loudly by the palm oil industry as to counter the oppositions...sigh!
Hey Alden, I admire your preserverance. Good luck for the project. Make Malaysia proud of you!
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