In Amsterdam, I went to the van Gogh museum. It’s pretty impressive and well worth the price of admission to go there and just see the entire history of van Gogh’s works, from his earliest studies to his later, more abstract works. But I couldn’t help but wonder, towards the end of the museum: was […]
The National Concert Hall (NCH) in Dublin is a very imposing building. It is a massive stone structure which would not be out of place as a Monarchial residence. It reminds me of the majesty of some buildings in places like Paris or London: buildings fit for Kings and Queens. Wikipedia tells me that it […]
Out of all the cities I visited on my Europe trip, Paris was the only one that I had visited before (other than London, but I barely spent any time there at all). I was heading there specifically because of a gamelan that I’d found when searching up groups to go and visit – gamelan […]
I always thought the UK was a train country. By that, I mean you always hear about how good the trains are there, how easy they are to take, and how connected the country is. I also think the Victorian steam era of the UK heavily features the development of its rail network, so it’s […]
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 […]