Two Down, One More to Go

Tomorrow is the Matriculation Day for the academic term 2010/2011. Matriculation Day is the official event where a new student is officially and ceremonially enrolled to be a member of the university.

I arrived in the UK exactly two years ago, a day before the 2008 Michaelmas Term Matriculation. These two years have been an interesting and exceptional journey. There have been many "ups and downs". I have encountered frustrations where ideas were rejected, lived with a terrible amount of uncertainties, and grappled around the literature searching for a research gap or question.

However, on the bright side, in these two years, I have also learned many important lessons:
One, a PhD is a test of persistence. It is not so much about the intellectual abilities, but more about the persistence and emotional "stamina" to run this awful long journey.
Two, I have also learned to value and appreciate criticisms. Increasingly, I realised I actually enjoy being criticised and challenged rather than being praised, especially with my work and writings.
Three, I performed better under pressure. Although I knew about this many years ago while in university doing an undergraduate degree, I reaffirmed this finding about myself that I tend to be more efficient when I am busy and therefore will perform better. That is why I have been, and will continue to, keep myself busy.

Two down, one more year to go. Hopefully, and with God's grace, I will have more interesting things to share about this journey.

Internal Security Act

This is not an article about Internal Security Act. Just a thought about an issue related to this act.

There was a recent incident in the United States where a Christian Pastor planned to burn the Koran. I was having a conversation with a Singaporean, an American and a Danish, and we began to dwell into this topic. Then my Singaporean friend said, "I guess this will never happen in Singapore and the issue won't even get out of hand, simply because, when such a plan is revealed to the public, the Singaporean government is likely to arrest him under the Internal Security Act".

Although I do not agree to the principles of ISA to detain without trial, this could be a case where the ISA can be useful. This led me to think further about the ISA in Malaysia. I am very sure if this US-incident is to happen in Malaysia, the government will without much doubt use the ISA to arrest the person who instigated such provoking act.

However, let us assume hypothetically, there is a Buddhist monk burning the Bible and a Muslim cleric burning the Tipitaka (the sacred book of Buddhism), I wonder will the same ISA principles be applied in all hypothetical cases?