While waiting.

Whiling away time, I have an 11am meeting and I thought it probably would make no sense to dive into my research now, since that I would be interrupted 20 minutes later. And I hate being dragged away while I'm at it because it takes some time for me to settle down and actually start doing it again.

"My spring has come," I told the girls yesterday. Because it has. I mean, finally I can do my own research without worrying about other coursework which, I told my supervisor last sem in a rather presumptuous manner that were only distractions to my real work. In time I found that it was not true, the coursework that I did, especially the one by Prof K was really useful in giving me the theoretical foundation, of what was available out there. But I'm glad that's all over and December, although cut in the beginning and the end for homecoming purposes, will be my "spring" for all the ideas frozen underground to sprout and to take shape.

Already I've found this guy Eric Uslaner who works on trust and social capital, whose work is exactly what I'm looking for, and he provides this huge list of papers which I am going to comb through today, syokness!

Oh yeah I watched Muallaf yesterday! (Wikipedia contains spoilers! I recommend you read only after you watch the movie - here.) It's directed by Yasmin Ahmad my favourite director, showing at The Picture House. It was really good, although I'm not really spiritual or religious but the movie gave me goosebumps anyway, it shows faith with forgiveness, with love, with beauty; which is a far cry from the contemporary media portrayal, what with the banning of yoga and suicide bombing and religious warfare and etc. For the first time in perhaps ever, I thought maybe I'm missing out, being an agnostic. No I'm not an atheist, I have this really vague idea that might be considered as my religion, of karma and of a personal guardian angel who looks over me. But I don't belong anywhere and there's no verses that I chant nor hymms that I sing - upside is that there's no religious bigot to tell me what to do and not, because I'm the only one belonging to my religion and I make the rules. Downside, well, I suppose there are reasons why the big religions are big. I just don't know enough about them to actually believe in them.

OK gotta go.