Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the OOC AHRC DTP conference at Cambridge. If your first thought was “that’s a lot of acronyms!”, you are 100% right and it is a bit of a mouthful to write out or say. Essentially, the conference was for HDR candidates primarily at Oxford, Open, or Cambridge […]
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Indonesia Higher Degree Research student workshop. This is essentially a mini-conference with students studying Indonesia from all around Australia (most of the students were Indonesian and studying at Australian universities). Talks were quick, only 10 minutes, and then we got feedback from an experienced discussant (often […]
The past two weeks I’ve had the pleasure of taking part in a marimba ensemble workshop. These marimbas aren’t orchestral marimbas, though, which I have some very minor experience playing. These marimbas are Zimbabwean: handcrafted and in four different ranges (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). It was a lot of fun to learn an unfamiliar (ie […]
The worst productivity book you’ve ever heard of…
I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of “fun” recently. For most of us, “fun” is a concept that is reserved for our relaxation time outside of work or study. The things that we do aren’t considered “fun”, that’s “work”, and work cannot be fun (or if it is, it is usually in the […]
After spending 2 months with just a backpack in Indonesia, I’ve had some time to reflect on the most useful travel gizmos, gadgets, and accessories that I had with me. My hope is that if you also need to travel at some point in the future, then this list will help you, particularly if you […]
I just got back from Indonesia, after nearly two months on the road. I really enjoyed my time over there, and it showed me that travelling (especially travelling solo, with just a backpack) makes you learn a lot about yourself and about the world more broadly. Here’s a few things I took from this most […]
Last weekend, I went to Borobudur Temple, which is a famous sightseeing attraction near Yogyakarta in Java, Indonesia. Now, when you book the tickets, they have lots of different options. When I was at Prambanan Temple the day before, you could buy a combo ticket, which gets you entry to Prambanan and Borobudur for a […]
For the final two weeks of my study trip, I’m in Java, which is an incredibly important island as it is the host of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta (although not for much longer), and as such is quite politically powerful within Indonesian government. I’m spending a week in Yogyakarta, which is something of a study […]
The past few days, I had this as my view (all for about $25/night): I realise, typing this now, that it doesn’t look like much – in fact, it looks rather like a dead garden at the front with the bin – but the main point was actually that I had this beautiful view of […]