This post has nothing to do with the delicious dish known as ‘Rojak‘ in Malaysia. Instead, I’ve chosen the title because I’ll be sharing my thoughts on a bunch of topics, without actually having the time or energy to write a proper post for each one of them.
Ready, set, go!
Ambushed With Cake
Boris Johnson is not fit to be Prime Minister. And yet, despite having zero integrity whatsoever, he will probably remain in office for the foreseeable future. How did it come to this? How did we lose our way so much that we tell children they must be truthful, loyal, kind etc. but somehow manage to make excuses for the exact opposite behaviour coming from the Prime Minister?
Consider the many ways his colleagues have had to deploy their creative sides to defend him over the Partygate penalties:
“Ambushed with a cake…”
“…like parking fines”
“I don’t recognise that as a party…”
“…has not robbed a bank.”
I wonder, if you actually talked to these people, do they even believe the nonsense that is coming our of their mouths? If their own children asked them what they were doing defending this sort of behaviour, will they change their tune or simply hide away in shame? Who knows with these politicians!
Speaking of politics, my own country Malaysia is due for a General Election. After all the backstabbing, betrayal, and party-hopping that have occurred in the last few years, I sincerely hope that we will vote out all the perpetrators. The Rakyat deserve better.
DPhil Mini-Update
Meanwhile, work on my DPhil is progressing along nicely alhamdulillah. I recently bought a 2 terabyte portable SSD (the Samsung T7) to backup all my data.
Yes, that’s 2 terabytes of space!
It turns out that analysing MRI data takes up a lot of space on your computer; I now have about 1.4 terabytes of data for my DPhil. That’s 1,400 gigabytes of data, by the way, although most of them are a bunch of intermediary files generated by the analysis scripts.
The next step for me is to prepare for my Confirmation Viva which is the second-last stage of assessment. Basically, this viva is meant to ‘confirm’ that you have done enough work of an acceptable quality to be included in a DPhil thesis. Wish me luck!
Spring in Oxford
If you want to see Oxford at its best, come in spring or autumn. The explosion of colours, the breathtaking surrounding, these are some of the things I will miss the most when I leave Oxford. I’m toying with the idea of printing out a bunch of the pictures I’ve taken, but instead of simply printing them out at Boots or something, I’d like to find a service that can produce high-quality prints in the form of a coffee table book. That might have to wait until I’m back in Malaysia though.
In the meantime, enjoy the pictures!
Imran Idris 