Sigma’s Simulacrum of Reality

Today I can finally dispatched of my teammates after the completion of our assignment. This group, in which my bad karma must has destined me to be stuffed in with, has got to be THE WORST teammates that I have had the privilege to work with so far in my uni life.

So amazingly incompetant that I could hardly believe it.

Fuck them.

Fuck them.

Fuck them.

Wow, it seems lately that all the world uni rankings are being released this week! I popped down to Lim Kit Siang’s blog today, only to see that Shanghai Jiao Tong has released their 2006 edition of their top 500 world universities rankings.

As usual, Harvard tops the list. Here’s the top 10 list:

1. Harvard
2. Cambridge
3. Stanford (which produced George W. Bush. Ok…)
4. University of California, Berkeley
5. MIT
6. Caltech
7. Columbia University
8. Princeton
9. University of Chicago
10. Oxford

Again, it would seem that only Oxbridge is deemed good enough to belong in the top 10 list of universities. American universities are really pounding all comers, especially their British predecessors. Short live the Queen then.

In Australia, it was:

1. ANU
2. University of Melbourne (nooooooooo……..)
3. University of Queensland
4. University of Sydney
5. University of Western Australia
6. UNSW (yes! )
7. Macquarie University
8. Monash University
9. University of Adelaide
10. La Trobe University

Well, at least Sydney Uni beat UNSW this time We’ll get Melbourne next time

Just read another set of 100 world uni rankings, this time compiled by Newsweek. Check it out here.

I took a quick glance, and was devilishly happy that that infernal University of Melbourne (boycott it, fellow Malaysians! ) lost out to it’s elder brother, the University of Sydney, my alma mater. Sydney Uni also took out UNSW in this one. However, again, ANU took the top spot for Aussie unis.

I have serious doubts about this ranking though. It seems that it is very heavily biased towards American unis, with 8 American unis in the top 10. Yeah, sure the twin British bastians elitism, Oxford and Cambridge University, are sometimes a tad too traditionalistic, but hey, they still produced a certain Stephen Hawkings, did they not?

Plus, they seriously underrated Asian universities. There are no Chinese unis in the list, not even the ultra-competitive Beijing University, as well as Korean ones, which according to my Korean friends, are also a pain in the ass to gain admission into.

But in regards to the Aussie unis though, I feel that it’s quite a fair representation of the uni’s standings here.

Footnote: UM and USM did not make it in this rankings. Lim Kit Siang was quite pissed about this. Read about what he has to say here.

My friend Keith has asked me to join his futsal team that he’s assembling this sem. Apparently there’s a futsal competition that runs from Week 3 onwards, where 7-players team field 5 aside team every Monday at 1-2pm. There will be two 8-minute halves.

I have been placed in midfield. Hope my batteries can hold up. Haven’t jogged since… oh God, ever since I can’t remember. Think the last time I pounded the pavements was last year.

My fitness prognosis ain’t that good, man.

The thing is, I’m not very familiar with futsal. I’ve played plenty of amateur 10-people-chasing-one-ball football during high school, but not a lot of futsal.

The only time I played it was in Cherrybrook Tech HS, for intra-sports. I remembered it being pretty intense. Although the field is much smaller than outdoor football, the fact that there’s only 4 outfield players means that you have to do a LOT of running, dribbling and passing. Very tiring stuff.

Plus, I used to rely basically on my speed (as I lack much of anything else…) when playing football, but I can’t do the same for futsal anymore, since it’s so tiny. You have to rely more on your skills, hich is bad news for me. I can do step-overs, but the ball seems to go to the opposing team once I’ve done that…

So anyways, wish my team luck! Btw, my team’s called FC Kalac, in memory of Kalac’s terrific performance for Australia against Croatia in the World Cup.

A talk that sounds interesting is coming up in Sydney. I got an e-mail from the Politics Society regarding this dialogue on how Singapore will manage after Lee Kuan Yew. It will be presented by Dr Yao Souchou from my uni at 5.30pm on Wednesday, the 16th of August.

There’s a brochure on it, but I don’t know how to upload it in here

I think it’s free and open to everyone, so any Malaysian or Australian students in Sydney can just rock up to the talk on that date. Dress code is smart casual or business attire. But before you do that, you have to call Eugene Sebastian on 02 9351 8567, or e-mail him on esebastian@riap.usyd.edu.au with your name, contact number, and organisation you belong to.

There’s also a talk on “The Future of Iraq” on the 3rd of August. Still thinking whether I will go to that one as well or not.

There was an article on The Star’s Education Section on the University of Sydney last week. Rare expose for NSW universities, IMO.

Considering how Malaysians seems to have this irrational obsession of going to Victorian universities (thinking of Melbourne and Monash University).

I think the reason for that can be found in this excerp from that article:

“Founded in 1850, and located in the heart of Sydney, the university has forged partnerships with several Malaysian educational institutions including Universiti Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and International Medical University. “

Notice that USYD’s Malaysian partnerships only include UM, UKM and IMU. Unlike Monash University, and to a lesser extent, Melbourne University, both whom have heaps of partnerships with many Malaysian private colleges, such as Sunway College, Taylor’s College, etc.

Got my results for two assignment back today. The first one was for my Management Accounting A’s online quiz. 20 questions, involving a horsecrap number of calculations. Needed to be completed under 20 mins. Was initially doing alright, then ran into some serious time trouble. Found out later than I went over by 1 min and 52 secs!!! Penalties: Over 1 min = minus 4 (!) correct answers!!! F….C….U…..K!!!

Luckily, lecturer announced today that due to many people having the same problem as me, everyone got an extension of 3 mins before being penalised.

Was quite happy with this news until I went to my Commercial Transactions A tut later on. Got back my previous assignment. F…..C….U…..K!!! I did so horrendously that even a cat won’t drag my results in. Still don’t have the mood to read the marker’s comments on why I crashed, burned, and detonated with an almighty explosion.

Like I’ve said, God/Creator/The Sims player (?) possesses a sadistic streak man…

I went to check out a debate held by Sydney Uni’s Socialist Alternative and Labor Club on ‘Can Capitalism Be Reformed?’ at uni today.

I was actually a bit late for it, and so I missed the beginning. But there were a number of participants who raised some good points on both sides, I thought.

But first, an aside. The Socialist Alternative is this club which would undoubtably be banned in Malaysia Simply put, it advocates revolutions in order to rectify the injustices in today’s society by utilising mass street demonstrations and strikes, things which would give our Malaysian authorities a heart attack I’m not even sure whether they even subscribe to democracy or not. The way I see it, I don’t really know how are they are any different from a Communist Club, for all intents and purposes! Interesting how there isn’t really a communist taboo here in Australia, even though they were under the ‘red communist threat’ too in the past. This club is lead by a few hardcore socialists (I’m suprised there species of people still exist today…), and they’re super-active. They constantly organise all sorts of talks from Leninism to anti-Muslim-scapegoating, and their posters can be seen everywhere on campus. Gotta give them credit for their passion, at the very least.

So anyways, debating against those ‘revolutionaries’ were the ‘reformist’ Labor Club.

The Labor Club argued for utilising democracy and your vote in elections to vote them into power. They argued that this avoids violence, chaos, and that it has been proved to work in many countries. They argued that Labor governments (generally) managed to introduce minimum wages to improve the standard of living for workers, taxing the rich to redistribute society’s wealth to the needy, liberalise societies by embracing homosexuals, eradicating racism, etc. They also argued that there aren’t any successful revolutionary socialist models in the world today which has proven to be workable.

In reply, the Socialist Alternatives argued that the labour movement and social democracy originated from the concept of socialism in the first place, and were merely watered-down versions of it which has sold out to capitalism. They argued that capitalism cannot be reformed through that way, as since it pandered to rich capitalists and corporations, the leaders of Labor governments would be reluctant to truly defend worker’s rights by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. They gave examples such as the Hawke-Keating government, whom through The Accord, actually, restrainted unions and favoured corporations through privatisations, and Whitlam’s quote of “your payrise will cost someone else’s job”. They quoted the Iranian Revolution and the French student’s strike as examples of a successful revolution. They also argued that the concept of socialism appeals to the ‘good’ side of people, and that those failed socialist states failed not because of the socialist ideology, but rather because of flaws and shortcomings in their application, leaders, or version.

Anyways, it was a no-brainer to me from the start. I am 100% for the Labor Club and democracy. Nevertheless, the debate gave me an interesting insight on the minds of revolutionaries though. Enjoyable.

Just felt like introducing my uni today

I read accountancy (sad, I know ;P) at the University of Sydney, in *duh!* Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Main Quadrangle

It’s conveniently situated at the end of Broadway, and just a 20 minute walk away from the city central.

Walkway towards the Quadrangle

The Clock Tower

Main Quad again

Merewether Building, part of the Economics and Business Faculty

Tennis lawns, behind Manning Bar

The university lawns, as viewed from City Road

The University of Sydney, founded in 1850, is Australia’s oldest university. It was established then to help raise the standard of education among the new NSW settlers there. Since then, it has grown and expanded, both in campus size as well as student enrolment, to become one of Australia’s largest universities. Its main campus is the Camperdown/Darlington campus (where my Economics and Business faculty is situated), which houses most of the faculties. Other campuses include Cumberland (health sciences), St James (law), and the Sydney Comservatorium of Music (music). It currently has 45,966 students enrolled in it, and a body of 8,770 international students.

The university crest. The motto (in latin) reads: “The stars change, (but) the mind (remains) the same”

If I’m not mistaken, my university is renowned for its medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, science, arts and law faculties. It also has one of the strongest political traditions among all Australian universities, with a majority of Australian politicians being alumnis of it, including the present Prime Minister, John Howard.

Sydney Uni from Google Earth

The University of Sydney is also a member of the Group of 8 of Australia’s leading universities.

Well, that’s it, I guess

Although I did find something a little odd, though. It seems to me that a disproportianate number of Malaysian students, when deciding on studying in Australia, prefer to go either to Melbourne University (especially this uni), Monash University, or UNSW (Sydney Uni’s arch nemesis! ) instead of Sydney Uni. I wonder why?

Anyways, any Project Petaling Street users who are also Sydney Uni students out there? Give me a shout by leaving a comment here! Maybe we can meet up on campus sometime Cheers!