Recent events have caused me to reflect on things, one of those things is the death penalty. Those who’ve known me for a long time know that I’ve been a fairly active member of Amnesty International for a long time. Anyone who knows Amnesty’s work well will know that they are opposed to the death penalty. Does this mean that I am also opposed to the death penalty? As a matter of fact, I am, but it was by no means an automatic following of Amnesty stance that led me to oppose the death penalty.

In my younger days, I was considerably more conservative than I am now on certain things. I believed that if you were poor, it was probably because you were lazy, if you were in jail, you probably did something very bad, and if you were on death row, then you probably killed someone. Wait, that’s not quite true – go through that last sentence and take out all instances of the word “probably”.

In the bubble I grew up in, you had to be very lazy to be poor (and even then, poverty was not guaranteed). I didn’t even know anyone who went to jail, that was something that happened to other people. But those bubbles burst, and your horizons expand, and you realize that there’s a lot more to it than that. You eventually insert the word “probably” into those sentences, then you realize the implications of a world where not everything is clear-cut, black-and-white.

Consider the fallibility of the justice system. Nobody likes to admit that they’ve made a mistake, but that doesn’t mean we should pretend that it never happens. When I was in high school, I acted in a play called “Twelve Angry Men” which, you might have guessed, is about a jury deliberating on the innocence or guilt of a man accused of murder. Two films have been made of the play, but the superior of the two is the black-and-white 1957 version.¹ I encourage all of you to go watch it. The play begins with a vote of 11-1 in favour of “guilty”, and as the discussion develops, inconsistencies are found in the evidence, prejudices are found in the jurors, and slowly but surely reasonable doubt wins the day, and they vote for acquittal. This probably doesn’t happen every day, and I think part of the point of the play is to show how easy it is for a jury to make a wrong decision. The point is that it is not so hard to imagine that an innocent person might be convicted, even with the allowance of “reasonable doubt”.

these developments cast a dark shadow of doubt over the conviction which I believe goes a long way past “reasonable”

The recent example of Troy Anthony Davis (pictured) is a good one. He was convicted of murder mostly because of eyewitness testimony. There was nothing else to link him to the murder. No murder weapon was ever found. Since the trial, seven out of nine eyewitnesses have either changed or recanted their testimony. Now, I don’t think he’s guilty, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that these developments cast a dark shadow of doubt over the conviction which I believe goes a long way past “reasonable”. In a flawed system, there is always a chance of punishing an innocent man, and the death penalty is irreversible.

How many innocent people are wrongfully punished? One for every ten guilty? Maybe one for every hundred? There probably is some ratio that society would deem to be “acceptable”, and I should hope that it is very high. However, when it comes to final and irreversible punishments, we could simply avoid it ever happening by abolishing the death penalty.

But what about the guilty ones? On the same day that Troy Davis was executed, another man named Lawrence Brewer was also put to death. His crime was the murder of a black man by chaining him to the back of a truck and dragging him until the body was so disfigured, that it was mistaken for road kill. In this case, he was convicted using DNA evidence which matched blood found on him to the blood of the victim. Surely people like this deserve to die?

Maybe they do, but it is not for us to decide. It is not the role of a state to kill people. The whole point of the law is to protect people, to guarantee our equality and freedom. Killing someone achieves none of those aims. Removing a dangerous individual from society can be accomplished just as easily with imprisonment. I believe the real reason we seem so keen on killing people is that we feel a need to satiate our desire for revenge. It is dangerous, and quite barbaric for a society to give into those feelings.

“…this is the point where I would have to abandon my support for the death penalty – it simply doesn’t work”

Maybe the death penalty could act as a deterrent. If this was the case, we would see a significantly lower incidence of violent crime in places where the death penalty is practiced when compared to similar places where it is not. If I really wanted to believe in the death penalty, if I really wanted to ignore all the wishy-washy philosophical and moral arguments about why it is wrong for the state to kill people, and concentrate on the facts, then this is the point where I would have to abandon my support for the death penalty – it simply doesn’t work.

Curiously, and counterintuitively enough, places that still practice the death penalty have a significantly higher incidence of violent crime than places that don’t. I don’t know why, but I can hazard a guess. If the state thinks it’s ok to kill people, then that sends a message to the population. People probably don’t even realize it on a conscious level, but the message probably goes something like “it’s ok to solve problems by killing people”. It certainly doesn’t act as a deterrent.

So we have a form of punishment that is irreversible, brutal, and final. There is always the chance that you accidentally punish someone who is innocent. In terms of protecting the rest of the population, it can be easily substituted. And to top it all off, it doesn’t even work as a deterrent. I understand that it used to be very common during medieval times (as was torture, but that’s another article), and maybe it worked back then, though I doubt it. It’s about time we pulled ourselves out of the dark ages and abolished this barbaric practice worldwide, once and for all, because it doesn’t belong here. We’ve gone to the moon, and we’ve sent probes to take our curiosity beyond the farthest reaches of our own solar system, yet we still have capital punishment… wtf mate?

Footnotes

Poker - is not at all about luck

“The man who said I would rather be lucky than good saw deeply into the world”

The line is the first uttered in Woody Allen’s film “Match Point” which, while a great film, is not a good first-date movie (a quick perusal of the synopsis of the plot will reveal why). It deals with the unsettling truth that a great deal of what happens in our lives comes down to nothing more than pure chance. Fortunately for me, since I am rather well-endowed (with luck at least) I do not suffer the common narrative fallacy where most people ascribe where they are in life to some combination of their hard work, learned knowledge, or talent. Obviously these are all important things, but luck, which in many cases would be the most important of all, often doesn’t even warrant a mention, or at most is only a footnote.

It has occasionally been hypothesized that I have what is called “Impostor Syndrome“. In a nutshell, it is a condition where a person has trouble internalizing their own achievements and ascribes their social/professional/academic standing to having fooled everyone around them into believing that they are in fact, better than they really are. While it is generally true that my own assessment of my abilities falls well short of where most seem to place me, and while it is also generally true that I feel like I’m an impostor who is continually being given opportunities which ought to be reserved for those with greater potential, I don’t believe that I have impostor syndrome. I merely have a more accurate view on the narrative which has governed my life, and led to where I am now. A view more accurate relative to the general population, especially with regards to luck.

You see, while most people believe that they got to where they are because they were talented, and worked hard, and were determined etc. I know that I got to where I am by a combination of those things and a very, very, very generous dose of luck. Almost every single significant event or achievement of my life, those turning points where I truly felt a different person afterwards, were the direct result of very large doses of luck. Luckily for me, a few of them were obvious enough that I was able to easily see the role that luck played. An obvious example is my crash in a formula ford racing car at Calder park raceway. Long story short: I lost control at the end of the main straight at 240km/h, spun out of control, and hit a concrete wall at about 170. I woke up in an ambulance with no recollection of what happened, a few scratches, (one of which needed stitches and passed perilously close to my Achillies tendon) and a fracture in my shoulder that was small enough that I didn’t notice it until weeks later. The car was obliterated. No amount of skill can control an open wheeler spinning at those speeds. If I had impacted the wall at even a slightly different angle, I would be dead.

At a brunch recently I learned that in the British military when two officers are competing for promotion, in cases where both the candidates are extremely closely matched on all regular criteria, they look back over the candidates history and choose the one who is “luckier”.¹ This got me thinking (and is actually the real reason I wrote this article) and I think I know the reason for this. If one thinks for a moment about the stereotype of a British army officer (think of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Modern Major General) one can’t help but imagine a person with an inflated sense of entitlement. Daddy owns a lot of land, therefore I should be an officer etc. The infamous “charge of the light brigade” lay bare the very worst shortcomings of this brand of thinking and I believe the use of the “luck measure” may be an attempt at eradicating it.

Say you have two cows. One of them is promoted to public office by way of competitive written examination. The other is promoted to public office by way of a lottery. The cow that took the exam is going to (rightly) believe that he deserves to be there and that it is his right. The cow that took the lottery, on the other hand, will have no such illusions. He will enter the job with a mentality similar to that of a person starting a business with a large loan, while the other cow will be starting with a sum of money that was given to him as a prize. Two distinctly different mindsets which would result in, presumably, slightly different results.

Perhaps this is where I get the feeling that I’m always living on “borrowed time”. Samurai used to enter battle with the mindset that they had already died. Strange as that may sound, the idea is actually very similar – you have nothing to lose. Curiously, if you are afraid of dying, you are more likely to die than if you fight with the kind of reckless abandon that a person who already believes their time is up would. So in fact maybe I am an impostor, but so is everybody else – I’m just much more acutely aware of it than others.

What does this all mean? I don’t know. It would be silly to suggest that everything happens because of luck. But it would be even sillier to suggest that everything happens for a reason. We really must learn to embrace randomness a little more. If we don’t, we risk being ambushed by it, but if we do, we can prepare ourselves for it. When I say “prepare ourselves for randomness”, what I’m really saying is to accept that luck plays a huge role in your life, don’t beat up on yourself too much when things don’t go right, and also be prepared to seize opportunities when they do come along.

There’s a great line from a film called “Good Will Hunting”, the screenplay of which won an Oscar. “I mean, you’re sittin’ on a winnin’ lottery ticket. And you’re too much of a pussy to cash it in, and that’s bullshit”. It describes the situation the lead character, Will Hunting, a genius mathematician, is in when his best friend confronts him and challenges him to recognize his abilities and use them. Meanwhile, he is facing a similar situation with a girl where he is afraid to confront the fact that he has feelings for her. The film is great, although the line bothers me slightly in that the kind of luck I’m talking about isn’t like a lottery ticket in that lotteries are fundamentally zero-sum and very predictable kinds of luck. For any given lottery, you can make a reasonable guess at the upper-bound for the prize because it will always be lower than the total taken from tickets sold.

Even though the kind of luck I’m talking about is fundamentally impossible to predict, it can still be harnessed. If I roll a fair die, I’m going to get a six about one sixth of the time. In other words, the chances that I won’t get a six will be five sixths. If I have ten dice, then the chances that I won’t get a six will be five sixths to the power of 10. As I keep adding dice, it quickly becomes almost impossible not to get a six. Where am I going with this? The real reason that I like living in big cities. The scope of human interaction is so much larger in a big city, and the rate at which “stuff happens” is just so much greater, that the chances that an unbelievable opportunity will come up, while still quite slim, are much greater than if you lived in a small town in rural Holland (just to throw an example out there).

And that, your honor, is why I want to move back to New York – to get lucky.

view from above

“I might’ve lived my life in a dream, but I swear this is real”
~ R.E.M. (from Leaving New York)

New York is a very special place. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, but it also has a very special personal significance to me. There are a handful of events in my life which really shaped me as a person. These are events which, had they not happened, I would be a significantly different person today. Many of those events are described on this website such as the one time I went for a swim and almost didn’t come back, while others are not, either because I haven’t got around to it yet, or because the content is not suitable for public viewing (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more). While I will make no attempt to describe it in detail here, the year-and-a-bit that I spent living in New York is one of those life-shaping events.

My first visit to New York occurred on March 20th 2007, during my 5-month odyssey through Latin America. I know what you’re thinking, “there may be many Spanish-speaking people in New York Daniel, but it is not in Latin America”. This is true. In the middle of this odyssey, I had a half-time break during which I traveled to New York among a few other US destinations. In fact, I came to New York via Boston on the chinatown bus – only $15. It dropped me off in the middle of a very dense chinatown where everyone was speaking cantonese, and all of the restaurant and shop signs were in chinese. For a moment, I felt like I back in Hong Kong.

I immediately warmed to the city. It was everything I imagined it to be, and more. It was surreal – I felt like I was walking around in a movie set. It really was a city that never slept, which suited a nocturnal being such as myself. The constant activity of the place was energizing, empowering even, I felt like I could do anything, anytime I wanted. And the food! Oh, the glorious food! On three consecutive nights, I dined at Per Se, Daniel, and Jean Georges (all of which are now 3-star Michelin restaurants) and during the day I just wrote down long lists of sights to see, and saw them. In fact, there was only one location on my list that I didn’t get around to – Columbia University. When I left, after four jam-packed days, I was exhausted but very satisfied. I wanted more, but I was also sad because my only real shot at living there had passed me by when Columbia rejected me for their PhD program in Sustainable Development.

Curiously enough, on May 4th that year, I learned that I was accepted to a masters degree at Columbia. I was ecstatic, moreso because I had actually visited New York and knew what the city was like. I returned on a warm August day under slightly unusual circumstances. I had just been to the world inline speed skating championships in Cali, Colombia and was not only very tanned, but very distraught because I had had the misfortune of having my laptop, camera, and ipod stolen from my (locked) hotel room. I arrived at 1am on a Monday morning, and by about 4pm, I had almost all of those items replaced, and then some. The feeling of being able to do anything, amplified by being at a university that I honestly never thought I was good enough to get into, was returning.

Leaving after that year was difficult. On the surface, the decision should have been an obvious one – I had been offered the opportunity to speed skate professionally, full-time, and train for a shot at the Olympic Games. But still, I hesitated, and it wasn’t until a few forceful “you must go” prods from my Columbia professors, did I really wake up and make the right decision. Before I left, I held a party in the form of a (surprisingly) well-attended karaoke night. That’s when I really realized how much I would miss the place. The city is amazing – I loved it even before I knew ANYONE there, but now I had made many friends, and friends who I may never see again owing to the transient nature of the place. It was never quite this bad with Melbourne, but that’s probably because, being Australian, there is always the (very likely correct) assumption that I will eventually return. With a place like New York (and the difficult visa requirements of the US), you just never know.

I’ve been back twice now, both times for brief visits. Leaving the city after these occasions was surprisingly the most difficult. Why? Perhaps it is because the brief nature of them, and the necessarily rushed efforts to see as many people as I possibly could in an impossibly short space of time reminded me of just how brief and fleeting life really is, and how important it is to really cherish every moment (trust me, when you’re sharing food with a gorgeous girl for what could only be two hours tops if you’re lucky, you learn to cherish every moment ). Perhaps it is the realization that you didn’t just make a bunch of new friends in the crazy city, but that you really meant something to them (or at least enough for them to appear ostensibly happy to see you).

Another thing that perhaps entices me to the city, is that it feels like “home”. A long time ago, at my first Amnesty International Australia Annual General Meeting (try saying that ten times in a hurry), I was sitting, chatting casually to the former president of AIA, Cathy Kingston, and she told me that I was a “misfit”, and that it was ok to be a misfit. (Incidentally, this is another one of those defining moments of my life). I had never felt that I really “fit in” anywhere. I never fit in in Hong Kong (where my relatives would constantly berate me for not knowing how to speak Chinese even though I did), and I didn’t really fit in in Australia either (although in several specific groups, namely MUMS and MUCAAS, I very nearly did). In New York I was probably the least-alone in my mis-fitted-ness, and that was probably a major contributing factor to why I felt so at home there.

I grew up in Hong Kong, a city of life which feels, in many ways, much like New York. But Hong Kong today is nothing like the Hong Kong I grew up in, and I’m not talking about all the new buildings. I’m not even talking about the switch in sovereignty from Britain to China. I’m referring to the fact that almost all of my friends from when I lived in Hong Kong have moved elsewhere, especially the ones whom I would consider close. Maybe I’m simply afraid that New York will become like another Hong Kong, another ghost town, because I recognize the transient nature of the populations in both cities. That transience, the way that the city seems to live and breathe and circulate with people as its nourishing blood, will always make it extremely difficult to leave.

I will get straight to the point – it is now mathematically impossible for me to make it to the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. I would like to apologize to all those who gave their support and well-wishes, and who had invested their hope in me. I would also like to wish those who are still in the chase the very best of success for the road ahead, and especially to the remaining Australians, I would like to say that I am still, and will always be, behind them all the way. As it is in life, sport – especially elite sport – can be cruel. I tried my best, but came in a day late, and a dollar short. I would consider myself quite fortunate to have even made it this far, and I consider myself especially fortunate to have had such heartfelt support from all my friends, without whom I would have probably quit by now. Believe me, if speed skating performance was a function of the belief that people had placed in me, the number of times people have said “good luck”, or even the volume of some of the cheers, then I may well have set a world record by now.

In the end, it came down to a handful of races which took place during the weekend just gone. I had the daunting task of having to skate world cup qualifying times in the 500m, 1000m, and possibly the 1500m. Each involved taking a slice out of my previous personal bests of about four seconds per 500m. Impossible as that may seem, my pattern of breaking old personal records indicated that it was possible, albeit highly improbable. In the end, I set new personal bests in all three distances, but was not able to break them by as much as I had hoped. It is strange world I live in where I can topple a previous best time by over a second, yet still be unsatisfied with my performance. It is frustrating to know that in terms of physical parameters (strength, power, endurance, etc.) I am able to skate at the required speeds, but my deficiencies in technique – and speed skating is a highly technical sport – do not allow me to skate at anywhere near my potential.

Without world cup qualifying times, it is impossible to skate in the next two world cups which take place this coming weekend and the weekend after. It is impossible to make the games without skating an Olympic qualifying time (generally, a second and a half per 500m faster than world cup qualifying times) at a world cup. These two upcoming world cups are the last ones before the games, and they’re both at altitude on very fast ice.

I will likely still be in Vancouver during the time of the games, so I can still meet up with anyone who planned to come to meet me (Vancouver is a truly lovely city). I encourage people to watch the speed skating (and cheer for the aussies!) as it is a very exciting sport, regardless of whether or not I’m skating in it. I will also be there in support of the many friends I have made in speed skating who will, no doubt, be there, and from whom I have learned so much. At least now I can be satisfied that there is no “what if”. Short of a black swan, it is unlikely that I will continue skating at an elite level after this season. I will, instead, attempt to continue my education in the form of a PhD (if anyone will take me).

“When you lose in life, don’t lose the lesson” ~ The Dalai Lama

The team has recently moved into our latest, and (hopefully) most permanent accommodation yet – flat oranjewoud. This move has caused me to reflect on my recent, rather nomadic existence. So I present a feature article on the various places I have lived in recently.

They say that a man’s house is his castle. I haven’t lived at “home” with my parents since I was about 14 years old when I moved from Hong Kong to boarding school in Melbourne. Accommodation took the form of dormitories shared with progressively fewer people as one advanced in years. While at Melbourne University, I lived in a three-bedroom apartment overlooking the Royal Exhibition Gardens. This is easily the nicest place that I’ve called home.

It was host to my 4-times-a-year solstice and equinox parties which took place on the saturday night closest to the spring/autumn equinox or winter/summer solstice. These gatherings were attended by a very diverse group of people and often included singing, dancing, and jamming on various musical instruments including, of course, the piano. Oh, there was also alcohol at these parties. I should probably mention that.

Possessing three bedrooms also allowed it to provide accommodation for visitors. For long periods of time, I would host a friend or two just for a bit of company. At parties, it was not unusual for people to spread themselves out over the living room floor.

After living there for seven years, I moved to New York. I lived on the upper west side of Manhattan on 86th street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave. Because rent in Manhattan is kind of ridiculous, I lived in a ground floor studio apartment with no natural light.

I lived there for about a year and slept on a couch (which I eventually sold to a friend, and crashed on it many times in subsequent New York encounters). There was actually another chair in the room which folded out into a stretcher-sized single bed (you can just see it in the foreground).

Even though this accommodation was considerably smaller and less glamorous than my Melbourne apartment, I still hosted many visitors who would visit New York. I think the fact that New York is a fairly major tourist destination helped a bit, and the location on the UWS was pretty darn good. Not that you ever really have to worry in a place as densely populated as New York, but the apartment was close to everything…

Except a speed skating track. So after living there for just over a year, I moved to the Netherlands. Now my choice in accommodation was non-existent here because it was all provided for as I was now a heavily-sponsored elite athlete (supposedly). Our first base was the “city” of Enschede, and our resting place was Resort Bad Boekelo, which used to be a giant water park but had since been converted to a complex of serviced apartments which were actually quite pleasant, even though they were a long way from everything.

Between two and three people shared a two bedroom apartment, and I had a bedroom for myself.

Although I did struggle a bit to fit everything in; that’s what she said.

After living there for most of the winter, we moved to apartments much closer to the city center (Bad Boekelo was a 40 minute bike ride from everything), although initially, we had a shortage of furniture.

These apartments were in a new housing development and lacked basic things like curtains, lights, and any furniture. For a week or so, I slept of a sheet of cardboard.

We eventually furnished these apartments and they turned out to be very spacious and liveable. They were also a 10 minute walk from the town center, which was very convenient. Unfortunately this was to be short-lived, because as soon as we came back from Calgary finale, we had to move again, to our current base of Heerenveen.

We lived at a hotel called the Heidehof for almost two months (we were told we’d be there for three days) before we finally moved into our new apartments at Flat Oranjewoud. It’s an old people’s home, which goes some of the way to explaining the smell. On the plus, I now have my own apartment, although the bathroom smells so bad that I don’t really ever want to go in.

Hopefully we’ll be here all the way until after the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. The old people are nice and the view is extremely relaxing. Location-wise, it isn’t bad – we’re about 5 minutes by bike from Heerenveen’s town center, and about 2 minutes by foot from Thialf, one of the world’s most awesome ice skating tracks (those who have been following my facebook photo albums should note that this is the same track where all those competitions that I shoot take place).

Jeff Widener/Associated Press

June 4th 1989 is a date that will forever be remembered in infamy in history. It was the day that the Chinese government cracked down violently on the pro-democracy movement began by students, but eventually growing to include a broad cross-section of the population of the world’s most populous people. That day, tanks rolled in to the capital to (quite literally) crush what was, in effect, a peaceful social movement with legitimate grievances and legitimate demands.

On the same day, unbeknown to most of the world, this date had a profound impact on the short history of one seven-year-old living in Hong Kong at the time. Seven years is not a long time to have lived for, but it was plenty a long enough time to die for, and in that context I was able to understand what was happening – that people were dying. It was a powerful lesson in political realism – two groups of people disagreed, the group with tanks kills the other group and wins by default. The brutality and injustice of this event so traumatized me that I remember crying. Twenty years on, the memory of it still traumatizes me.

Obviously nobody likes injustice. No reasonable person would dream of saying that they would prefer to see thousands of innocent people killed over such an event not happening. Yet many people are content to go about their daily lives without contributing the slightest effort towards alleviating the unimaginable suffering of others. This particular case of the brutal and unjust slaughter of innocent people was one of many, and I understood that at the time, but for some unfathomable reason, after June 4th 1989, I was a very different person, and was now destined to choose a very different path.

When discussing complex events in world history, the lines of cause and effect are often blurred. After all, who is to say what the cause of any given event is? World War I is the oft-cited example as it illustrates the point very well. Simple-minded folk often point to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary as the cause for the war, but to see it this way is like saying that electricity causes computer viruses. Many different things contributed to the start of World War I, such as the unification of the German-speaking peoples into a single nation-state, the creation of the Von Schlieffen plan, even the formation of numerous alliances in balance-of-power politics can be cited as causes for the first world war.

The reason I bring this up is because I am often asked about how I got into Columbia. If I am at a party, I will often answer with “I don’t know”, or something similarly vague. (If I am being “hit-on” by someone in whom I have no interest, I will often reply with “I majored in mathematics” which will kill almost any conversation, but that is another story entirely). The truth of the matter is that my path to Columbia University was a meandering and complex one, and one that is difficult to explain in a short time. Until recently, I don’t even believe that I had a good answer to the question, but reflecting on my life, and in light of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, I now feel comfortable in finally giving the long form of the answer.

My path to Columbia was not a conventional one by any stretch of the imagination. I was not a distinguished student as an undergraduate. In fact, my academic record prior to graduation was very poor indeed. At the University of Melbourne, my alma mater, there is a body known as the “Unsatisfactory Progress Committee” or UPC for short. The role of this body is to interview and review underperforming students and determine a course of action which is in the best interest of everybody, supposedly. One’s first appearance before the UPC is ordinarily fairly tame, with a slap on the wrist and a “change your study habits or else” message of some kind. The second visit is far more serious, and it is not uncommon for enrolment to be suspended temporarily, altered in some way (full-time to part-time study), or in some cases terminated. A third appearance is a rare occurrence, and one which ordinarily results in expulsion from the university. I am one of the very rare students to have emerged from my third appearance with my enrolment intact. But to understand how I managed this magic trick, we must first reflect on my past.

Just prior to commencing my first year at university, I attended, somewhat reluctantly, a speaker’s night hosted by Amnesty International. Although fairly liberal in many aspects of thought, I would have considered myself a centrist at the time, and looking back, I had slightly conservative leanings in certain areas due to my schooling and upbringing. I didn’t pay much attention to what was said, thinking Amnesty as just another left-wing organization with good intentions but no real substance. If I joined, it would likely disqualify me from any kind of high-paying employment in the type of large corporation that left-wing organizations typically take issue with. One thing that was said, however, did stick in my mind – that Amnesty may be ineffective, but if it accomplishes even 10% of what it sets out to achieve, then doesn’t even that small amount of good amount to something significant. I toiled with this in my mind for weeks but could only ever answer it with “yes”.

This eventually spurred me to join the Amnesty club at Melbourne University, but that was not the only reason. New York Times writer James Traub was a guest speaker during my Contemporary Diplomacy class at Columbia and, when speaking of the role countries played in the United Nations system, articulated it well thus, “you should not always insist that people do the right things for the right reasons”, an invaluable lesson in international diplomacy. And so follows my confession of the second significant reason that I joined the Amnesty club – there were a lot more girls than there were guys. After many years of involvement with the Melboure University group, I should add another important life-lesson to be learned from my experiences – increasing your odds does not always guarantee success.

Fast forward to my second (or sophomore, for you American folk) year, and I am now a regular member of the club. The annual general meeting had come around and it was time to elect the new committee. A new president was found quickly in Alice Pung (yes, the author of the book “Unpolished Gem” which I highly recommend) and it was now time to elect a secretary. I had no real intention of running but I decided that it couldn’t possibly be very difficult and that the experience would be educational. I seriously thought that! So a quick glance at Alice, and I got the nod, and with it the nomination. After joining the club partly for the favourable male-female ratio, all I could think about was the potential for self-improvement as a committee member.

The next year, I was elected president of the group. The election was a very close one involving a tied vote. In the end, I probably won out because I was the more charismatic of the candidates, and possessed a greater skill at public speaking. At the time, and because I was good friends with the person whom I defeated, I felt that these attributes had contributed to an unfair advantage. In retrospect, they were advantages, but they were not at all unfair. As president of a group, especially a volunteer-driven movement such as amnesty, it is very important to have a charismatic leader who is also a good speaker.

My tenure as president was something of a watershed period for the group, and I would only realize this years later. More out of laziness than anything else, I began having regular board meetings so that I could delegate tasks to people. We would have brainstorming sessions where all manner of audacious ideas would be dreamt up and planned out. Our membership grew, as did the number of regular attendees. Our presence on campus also expanded and I organized and MC’ed the first in a series of trivia nights which would eventually become annual fund raisers for our group. At the time, none of this seemed out of the ordinary to me, and it was only brought home to me years after I left when the group went through a particularly low period.

Of all the crazy things I envisioned, there was one whose significance was immediately apparent to me – “Stand Up For Your Rights”. The process of conception to fruition of this defining event is something of a microcosm of my life. It was an unquestionably audacious plan – fill a theater with a thousand people and have some stand up comedians perform for free as an amnesty fund raiser. I had gotten the idea from the DVDs to the Secret Policemen’s Balls (which I got for my 21st birthday a few months before), a series of similar events held in the UK, also for Amnesty International, and my ideas for the process had come together over the course of some very random meetings and telephone calls with complete strangers. At the time that I began organizing this, I was just naive enough not to know how difficult it was going to be. I’m not going to lie, it was very difficult. To cut costs, we would try to have volunteers run everything. Of course, if the plan is so ambitious that nobody believes that it can be done, nobody is going to volunteer for it. I’ll give you one guess as to who ended up doing most of these jobs.

The process of such a large event necessarily brought me into contact with the state, and eventually, national governing bodies of Amnesty International Australia, supposedly one of the younger, more dynamic country sections of Amnesty International, the global organization. The initial reception was cold, to say the least. I was literally laughed off – ironic. I continued to badger them, along with those in the comedy and theatre management industries. I don’t know what gave me the energy to do this. In three weeks of Melbourne International Comedy festival, I saw over 50 hours of stand up comedy. I made it policy to personally ask all the comedians and their managers to be part of my comedy gala.

After many months, people finally started to come around. My relentless passion seemed to be rubbing off. During this time, I learned many important lessons about politics, such as the importance of controlling the flow of information, and the art of diplomacy. Curiously, despite being 21, I suffered from a severe lack of credibility. Everybody seemed to doubt the one thing that I was actually confident about – my numbers. Did they really think that, just because I was 21, that I had somehow made a mistake? There were many heated arguments over this, but I was shrewd enough to keep my opinions on others’ negative attitudes to myself.

I asked myself, “why am I doing this”? I realized that amnesty may have been one of the only organizations that I would have done this for. Early in my tenure as secretary of the Melbourne University group I invited Saskia Hunter, at the time a board member of the state branch and co-convenor of the Asia-Pacific campaign to speak. Instead of giving a boring, depressing, technical exposition of the human rights situation in the Asia-Pacific region, she gave a moving speech about the founder of Amnesty International – Peter Benenson. I’ll leave his story for the interested reader (and I encourage even the not-so-interested reader to look him up, the story is extraordinary), but the point she emphasized was never to lose the belief that one person could make a difference in the world, and the example of Peter Benenson founding Amnesty International was obviously a powerful one. The real answer was that I was doing this for me, because I had to convince myself that, even in this cynical world, one person can still make a difference.

The committees cancelled my comedy night over some cold feet. But I would not relent, and brought it back to life with some creative mathematics and an iron will. When the 25th of October came around, Stand Up For Your Rights became a reality, and a resounding success. I cried. It seemed so trivial, but it was also so significant in my mind. Wave after wave of applause punctuated by deafening roars of laughter filled the air while I briskly walked to and fro backstage. I could not believe it. I could not believe that it was happening, and I could not believe that I was almost solely responsible for making it happen. We ran substantially over time, but nobody seemed to mind. Right from the bump in, through my strange motivational poem for the volunteers, right to the final curtain, the air was electric because, for once, I wasn’t the only person who realized the significance of that night.

It was the single largest expenditure in the Australian section’s history. I have always felt that that said more about the Australian section’s spending habits than it did about the cost of my night. It made almost ten thousand dollars in profit, but more importantly it changed the organisation. It made people believe that it was worthwhile to dream big, and to be ambitious. An organization like amnesty should not be afraid of organizing big events. It deserves to and, if it has any plans to continue to be relevant and keep its reputation, it really has to. I organized two more occurrences of Stand Up For Your Rights, and it has since become an annual event. I also joined the state’s governance committee and enjoyed being active in policy formulation and in continually stirring the pot by challenging accepted norms and ways of thinking.

Halfway through 2005, during the 6th year of what is normally a 5 year degree, I got the call. I was required to appear before the unsatisfactory progress committee for the third time. Shit. As I sat outside the room, waiting, I thought about what I might say to justify my lack of progress. The girl who exited the room immediately before I went in was sobbing uncontrollably as she came out. I went in and sat in the now-familiar intimidation/interrogation room. There are four large desks set in a roughly semicircular fashion with a single chair with no arms in the middle. Behind these four large desks sit three senior academics and one student. I wanted to stay standing in the middle, but was instructed to sit.

What happened? I explained. Why has it happened? I explained further. They didn’t seem very sympathetic to my cause. They told me that they had good reason to terminate my enrollment. At this stage, I had already accumulated enough credit to obtain a Bachelor of Arts, so to quit would simply forfeit my Bachelor of Science degree which I was one semester away from obtaining. In my daydreaming, I briefly considered this option until something that one of the academics said caught my attention and jolted my back to reality in a very uncomfortable way. “We cannot allow you to continue as it would damage the reputation of this university”. This made me very angry and I made a point to ensure that those to whom I was speaking knew that this made me angry.

Are you out of your mind!? I am at this university, taking on some of the hardest subjects that it has to offer, and sure, I fail a few every now and that, but you have the audacity to tell me that I would be bringing this university into disrepute!? (at this stage, one of the academics tried to say something, but I cut him off) There are drop-kick idiots out there who come here and do bullshit degrees in commerce, leech off their friends in group project subjects, learn useless managerial double-speak, and then leave with very decent academic records but having not learned a thing, and you’re trying to tell me that I am bringing this institution into disrepute (I think I was shouting by this stage). Now listen to me (at this point, one of the academics made a very concerted effort to interrupt me, he may have even stood up, but I stared at him, and he was quiet again, so I could continue), I am going to finish my degrees. I am going to take these four subjects next semester and I’m going to pass all of them, then I’m going to do honours in mathematics (one of the academics chuckled at that one, but I stared at him, then he looked away sheepishly), after which I’m going to graduate school. You can worry all you want about the reputation of this university, but there are better things you can do with your time, than try to intimidate me in this room, and kick me out. (my memory is strangely vague on the details, but throughout this paragraph, I may have used stronger language than this)

I was allowed to stay and finish my degree, and I did. The next year I went on to do honours in mathematics.

In early 2006, the Law Society of Victoria (the state of Australia where I live) opened the “Human Rights Law Resrouce Center” with a fancy gala dinner to which amnesty’s National Executive Committee was invited. As the youngest member of the state committee at the time, and having gained notoriety within the national governance bodies of Amnesty Australia, when word of a few extra invites surfaced, quite to my surprise, I was one of those who was picked. Perhaps it was out of convenience because I was a student with a lot of free time, or perhaps someone thought it would be amusing to see how out-of-place I would look at a law society dinner, nevertheless, I accepted with enthusiasm having been to boarding school and having quite an overinflated appreciation for free meals.

The dinner itself was good, as one expects from the well-heeled law society. The guest speaker was even better. Tim Costello, a baptist minister, brother of the then-treasurer Peter Costello, lawyer (of course), and CEO of world vision in Australia, gave a stirring speech about the need and neglect for economic, social, and cultural rights in favour of civil and political rights. Ordinarily, I am a very shy and introverted person (can’t you tell?) but the experience of years of approaching comedians after stand up gigs emboldened me to approach the night’s keynote speaker for a chat. I told him a bit about my background and that I was in the business of saving the world, and asked him if there was anything I could do. He asked me what I studied. I replied that I was a mathematician completing my honours year. He seemed genuinely excited, and he told me about a book I should read called “The End of Poverty” by the whiz kid Jeffrey Sachs. I did.

Towards the end of 2006, I was in a bind – I was applying for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. The scholarship was started by Cecil Rhodes in order to educate future world leaders (at Oxford, of course) and required the recipients to be particularly well-rounded. Part of the application process involves composing a “personal statement” of about 1500 words detailing why you wish to pursue whatever it is you are studying. I couldn’t get my statement to click. I was applying for the D.Phill in mathematics and every time I tried to write a statement, I couldn’t make my area of study gel with my life goals (if you’re wondering about those, maybe you shouldn’t be reading this, or my website for that matter). Then I had an epiphany – I wasn’t very passionate about mathematics. I mean, I really like it and all, but as far as passion was concerned – real passion, the passion that you suffer for – it was for saving the world. So I, instead, applied for the scholarship in international relations.

Needless to say, I didn’t get it. I still maintain that it is their loss (no, really, that isn’t just something I tell myself to make myself feel better). As an afterthought, I thought about applying to a few institutions in the United States, but where? I checked the inside cover of Jeff Sachs’ book – Columbia University. Ok, I’ll apply there. Where else? Harvard and Yale sound nice, ok done. In a very strange way, I never expected to get into any of these places.

Taking advantage of the 9-month gap in academic years between the northern and southern hemisphere, me and a friend who had completed honours in the same year, Nick Sheridan, went on a 5-month odyssey through Latin America backpacker-style. Nick had also applied to several institutions in the US and, along with me, would be eagerly watching our inboxes for acceptance/rejection letters. Unsurprisingly, I was rejected from Columbia, Yale, and Harvard. What was I thinking? Three appearances before the unsatisfactory progress committee probably isn’t part of your typical ivy leaguer’s life experience. We eventually went through the US so that Nick could visit all the places he had gotten into (which further drove home the significance of what I had missed out on). Curiously, when I visited New York City for the first time, of all the items on my “list of things to see in New York”, the only one that I didn’t get around to seeing was Columbia University – it would have been too painful.

Then a very strange thing happened. Just as I was about to leave Boston for Quito, Ecuador, I received an email from someone at the Earth Institute at Columbia saying that they had seen my application, was sorry that I wasn’t accepted, but wanted to know if I wished to be considered for a similar masters degree program which was also run by the earth institute. Initially hesitant about going through the whole emotional roller coaster of waiting with hope, only to be rejected, I reluctanty informed them that I would like to be considered for the program.

By the time we were about to leave Peru, I had lost hope. It was past the date that they said they would inform me of a decision, and I had received no news. I even began discussing options with Nick’s dad (who is an academic) about possible courses of action, people I could talk to about other graduate schools etc. Nick and I split briefly because we wanted to do slightly different things while traveling, so I kept traveling through Bolivia and Paraguay, and it was in Paraguay where I heard the momentous news – I GOT IN. (the experience is described briefly here)

Those who know me very well, know that I suffer from low self-esteem, and have issues with self-worth. One of the reasons I believe this to be the case is because I routinely get rejected from things. It is a little-known fact that, on finishing high school, I applied to Cambridge University only to be rejected. Even my comedy night was rejected many, many times… that is, until it actually happened, and when it did, it gave a small part of me hope that perhaps I was worth something to the world. Rejection from Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, while devastating, wasn’t surprising at all, I had come to expect it. When I was finally accepted into Columbia, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Being rejected so many times made me truly appreciate how significant this was, and how fortunate I was.

So that is who I am… what I am. While it seems impossible that the admissions office at Columbia could have extrapolated that from my academic record (which I maintain went missing at some stage in the process), CV, and 500-word personal statement, I feel sure that the events I have described contributed significantly to my admission. I am the guy who’s out there trying to save the world. Willing to endure failure after failure after failure. If history teaches us anything about success, real success – the kind of success that is significant, it is that it comes not to the most talented, or well-connected, or anyone like that, but that it comes to the most persistent, and it comes to those who are willing to put it all on the line. Twenty years ago, in Tianenmen Square, thousands stood in front of tanks and were crushed, or shot. But one man stopped a column of tanks in front of Jeff Widener’s telephoto lens, and that image is the one that endures in the collective consciousness. That image reminds me to this day that it is still possible for one man to make a difference in the world. That image, and everything that surrounds it, changed my life.

Maybe someday I’ll change the world.

I thought I’d wait a week so that the fact that I’m older really had time to sink in. How does it feel to be older? Well, it doesn’t feel very different really. I’ve been living in Holland for 59 days training for the 2010 Olympic Games. It’s not easy. As the previous post shows very clearly, I have a long way to go. I’m not going to lie, I’m a little worried that I won’t qualify – they don’t make it easy you know. So, not wanting to disappoint my loyal readership, I will construct a birthday post inspired by Janus from which we get the word “January” (and not “Anus”).

Looking back - A year ago, I was preparing for finals at the end of my first semester at Columbia University in the City of New York. Time does fly, dunnit? First snow was on the 2nd of December and I only had to pull 3 all-nighters during those final weeks. It’s funny the things you remember… breakfast at an ungodly hour of the morning following an all-night writing session, the beginnings of my New York karaoke obsession beginning in February 2008 and going until my goodbye party in October. What else… I got a paper published, spent some time developing my skill as a photographer, actually graduated on time, and worked at UNICEF. Not a bad year…

Looking forward - Where to from here? Immediate goals include getting faster and qualifying for progressively higher-level competition, culminating, of course, in the big O.G. Aside from that, however, my life lacks any real direction. I’d like to do some more reading and write some academic papers while I’m pursuing my quest. Eventually I think I may return to academia, this whole “real world” is a very strange place and I don’t feel like I really belong. I’d like to spend some time at the university here in Enschede, and get to know people outside of skating. This is the first time I’ve really only had one group of friends with whom I regularly interact, and it is very strange indeed.

Life lessons? I’m hardly the authority on that, I mean, I’m only 27. Two thoughts to take away though… “Never forget who you are”, and “Live with passion”. Whenever I have to make a big decision (and “big” means whatever it means to you) I ask myself who I am, and what decision would that person make. As for the passion, I don’t want to get to the end of my innings and look back on a life filled with easy-way-outs, “safe” choices and, dare I say, contentment. You only get one shot at life so you may as well get into it. Sure, I will probably have to endure a lot of heartache and disappointment if I’m always shooting for the stars, and flying by the seat of my pants with my heart in my mouth (I’ve got more clichés than you can poke a stick at), but I’ll be satisfied that I gave it my very best… and I’m sure Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson would have been well-pleased with that.

My feet finally returned to solid ground
from abstract worlds to which my maths had taken
me aloft and in many equations drowned

Relaxed anew, my mind it hath awakened
and to far-off lands I found my gaze renewed
my plans to travel, they could ne’er be shaken

So how to plan an epic? What to include?
so much there is to see and so much to do
so much of this choice would boil down to the mood

We start this in Mexico, to get a clue
on language, that is, to learn the Spanish tongue
or else we shall find our plans hard to pull through

In Guanajuato, short of breath, strained of lung
at Don Quijote we navigate our way
through verbs and nouns: language ladder’s first few rungs

After this, we trip through Mexico and stay
at some pretty ‘budget’ accommodation
all the while taking it all in, day by day

Highlands to lowlands, from station to station
we traversed the land, west to east by bus
then to Cuba with much anticipation

In Cuba things were different, it seemed to us
there was no hidden hand, à la Adam Smith
but now how to get around? by train? by bus?

No, a car we hired for the week and with
a sense of adventure we traversed the land
from town to town to find fact and dispel myth

As we drove, we gave to hitchikers a hand
and learned from them that Cuban life’s pretty tough
after this, to Venezuela we went, and

We had not enough time, so things were quite rough
but I was on a mission to come and see
the Angel Falls, and perhaps some other stuff

Following, we flew to the land of the free
the United States, ’twas but a short detour
from our Latin American travel-spree

The reason was that US unis would lure
my friend Nick and I into their hallowed halls
so we thought we’d visit, and receive a tour

Berkeley, Stanford, Caltech from the west coast calls
MIT, Harvard, Princeton rise in the east
and I to New York for Columbia’s walls

But Nick was accepted to them all, at least
and I was not, and sad was I for this fact
nevertheless, in New York I had a feast

But strange, just before I left, I had a smack
figuratively, of course, but still it shocked
me to find my application, still intact

And resubmitted – an M.A. to unlock
but I felt my chances were still very slim
and still the rest of my travels to concoct

Tired was I in Ecuador, on a whim
up to the equator I went to inspect
that red line that circles the globe – it was thin

To Peru, once again with Nick to connect
and so the long hike to Machu Picchu walk
and no walk in the park this, it needs respect

More than just a sight to see, one more to chalk
up on your list of places to travel to
the old Inca City lives up to the talk

Then, salt flats in Bolivia travelled through
to mines in Potosí where I felt quite ill
from the altitude, though it was nothing new

Through to Paraguay, through the Chaco to kill
my love of buses, for a fifty-hour
trip will make anybody’s guts want to spill

Not to mention the crazy girl who could sour
an already brutal transit through the heat
by hitting on me… all I did was cower

But Asuncion, Paraguay was pretty neat
for while there, I miraculously learned that
I was destined no more to accept defeat

‘Cause a place at Columbia for this brat
me, that is, was now on offer for a chance
to change the world, so to New York – where it’s at

So on to Iguazu falls I would then prance
in quite a deliriously joyous mood
while admiring the waterfall’s great expanse

Onwards to Rio, where some would dress quite lewd
for Carnival at least, and the beach so warm
and in Maracanã for a football feud

Then through Uruguay, the calm before the storm
it was May, and I was running out of time
so now a final plan I needed to form

Through Argentina and Chile, I would climb
at least one mountian, and a glacier see
and see how far south I dare travel this time

Of year, for winter approached and a degree
would be considered warm in some places here
so down I went, to Ushuaia the city

At the bottom of the world where I would fear
acute sea-sickness from all the boats I took
then northward went I, bigger mountains to near

Snow-capped cerros screamed adventure, begged a look
at three thousand seven hundred metres tall
Lanín would be the one written in my book

But alas, disaster struck and we would fall
short of the top due to inclement weather
the mountain, it knows how to make you feel small

Though we escaped, and lucky for our tether
of rope, but next through to Chile my bus went
where Nick and I would find ourselves together

But on one more adventure I was hell-bent
so in Coyhaique I flew a light aircraft
and lastly to Santiago – I was spent

We met and retold stories, we smiled and laughed
and marvelled that our trip’s months had numbered five
now set for home, to tell tales both smart and daft

So finally in Melbourne, we would arrive
but there was so much work that was to be done
if I was to have any chance to survive

My move to America, though it be fun
would be via skating world championships
so the pace of life, was still quite a brisk run

I had to pack up my home, pack up my scripts
and relocate my grand theatre of life
but without a clue, I would shoot from the hip

It surprised me, though, the emotional strife
that such a major life-changing move would bring
for this was not the first time in my short life

That I had moved like this, but nowhere to cling
to as home, yes – that’s the problem this instance
’cause home is where friends are – mine the world will fling

To its farthest corners, the greatest distance
and so my heart is flung, but I must hone in
on the making good of my small existence

So first, to Colombia to speedskate in
those darned championships where I have little hope
and in here, I witnessed one more deadly sin

Greed, it seems to touch us all so broad its scope
my laptop, camera, ipod some fool did steal
and sure was I of some athletes’ use of dope

Laptop’s loss was traumatic and hard to heal
but luckily’s New York is just the right place
to catch my breath, find my feet and keep it real

Semester starts, we must read at frantic pace
pity, for the campus has such scenery
but my uni work, I quickly did embrace

My research, location of much greenery
out of the city and upstate where we find
the heart of climate science machinery

But so much more on offer, we keep in mind
and so many new things in this place to learn
I must seize it all, lest I be left behind

But even our happiness takes time to earn
such life-shifting moves don’t come without a cost
to that intangible place – home, I oft yearn

Where is this place? I say, I do feel quite lost
in this big world, much of it I have explored
but my place in it, shrouded by winter frost

Though in this place, to mope, I cannot afford
I thank old frends, whose presence has been heaven
and new ones, and some like Cyrano adored

But now it’s finished, the hour reads eleven
’tis been quite a journey, more love and less hate
I bid goodbye to 2007
can I top this? Bring on 2008!

A typical week in the life a a Columbia University graduate student.

Let’s take a look at what life is like through the eye of my camera… in invite you into a week in the life of Daniel Yeow.

It all begins here, in my studio apartment on 86th Street. People often say that the state of one’s apartment is a reflection of the state of one’s mind or life. I’d have to say that I wholeheartedly agree on this particular saying. (do you like the panoramic shot? do ya? do ya?)

After a healthy breakfast of specially-imported Weet-Bix (do you KNOW how difficult it is to find cereal in the US with no added sugar?) my day starts with a subway ride into university on the 1 train. I ride from 86th street to 116th. The subway is a curious thing in that the stations are invariably warmer than the ambient outside temperature.

If you’re lucky enough to get to Uni at 7am due to an inexplicable bout of insomnia (that’s not technically true, I know full-well why it happened), you may witness the sundial without any sun actually touching it. Once upon a time, there was a huge granite ball on the very spot where I was crouching to take this photo… but it has somehow been ‘lost’ in the sands of time.

Turning around, I am greeted by this funny looking statue which sits in front of the Low Library… which hasn’t been used as a library since the 30s but must confuse many people because it has, written in stone, on the outside of the building “Library of Columbia University”.

Walking up the stairs and doing an about-face, we get an expansive view over Low plaza and towards the actual main library of Columbia University – Butler. It isn’t quite as impressive as Low, but functions well as a library. The Low library is home to the largest granite dome in the United States apparently… lets see if we can find it.

I journeyed into the Low Library in search of the dome, but could not find it. Instead, there is this lovely area in the middle called the “rotunda”.

Walking around uni at 7am isn’t all it’s cracked up to be… there aren’t many people around to talk to. The grounds are kept very well-manicured. On the left, through the trees, you can see Earl Hall… which is where many student meetings take place because there are lots of meeting room… which are good places to have meetings.

But life isn’t all about classes and study here at Columbia, it will probably come as a surprise that I have joined the well-known neo-conservative group on campus – Amnesty International. In fact, I am it’s webmaster (any title with ‘master’ in it isn’t likely to keep me at bay for long). Occasionally we have board meetings, sometime they turn into bored meetings, other times, we eat cake and write letters.

In amongst the many lovely old buildings on campus, there exists this oddity – Lerner Hall. A decidedly modern construction, this is the hub of student life… sort of. There are auditoriums, meeting rooms, various eateries and a ‘piano lounge’ where anyone can just come along and play. Technically, at any given time, there are probably many more people in the Butler Library than there are here.

Just across the road, is the School of International and Public Affairs – SIPA. They occasionally hold very poorly-organised events with high profile speakers where the object is to study the game-theoretic behavioural patterns of the students when several hundred students try to fit into a lecture hall which only seats a tiny fraction of that number.

Columbia is an odd place to be at night. Mostly because there are lots of people, not a common occurrence at Melbourne University at night. Perhaps this is just a follow-on effect from being in New York… where there are generally more people about at night.

And sometimes, there are even night markets to go to… yes, there is always “life” (whatever that is) on campus.

Those who have been paying attention to this website will know that my MA is in “Climate and Society”. So what of the climate science, you ask youselves (or perhaps I do, on your behalf). A short (free) bus ride away is the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory which is located upstate, away from the earthquake-observation-wrecking woes of the subway.

They’ve recently become big on recycling here. This year, we won an annual competition among American Universities to be big and efficient recyclers. The trophy is probably about the ugliest thing on this whole campus. But we’re very proud of if, of course.

As much as I like the hypermodern surroundings of Lerner Hall, the cafeteria at Lamont is simply a picture. The entire complex used to be the country estate of some really rich guy, who donated it to the university when he died. As a result of this, many of the buildings look like old manor houses… because that is exactly what they were. The cafeteria building used to be a swimming pool.

The food here is nice, and some of the ‘specials’ have interesting names. The seismology sampler is one of my favourites.

The building I work in is called the “Monell Building” and is one of the newer additions. It is the home of the IRI – International Research Institute for Climate and Society, which is where I do my research. Incidentally, they are also the reason that my course exists. My MA is not a SIPA course, but a GSAS (graduate school of arts and sciences) one which is centred around the department of earth and environmental science (DEES) which started when the IRI thought it would be a good idea to have climate scientists who knew other stuff as well. Possibly with the view that these interdisciplinary people would be able to more effectively implement good policy regarding the environment.

A short walk down from the Monell building is an area where some of us play soccer at lunchtime. The attitude here is very relaxed and the people here are pretty chill, despite some of them having very intimidating academic reputations. If I had to pick the perfect workplace, this would be it. Absolutely postcard-picturesque environment, good company, stimulating work, free shuttle bus to and from manhattan.

On weekends, I meet up with some of my Climate and Society buddies to study together (I’m such a geek). In true New Yorker style, we don’t meet at someone’s apartment (we wouldn’t all fit anyway), we meet at a trendy cafe somewhere and eat pancakes for breakfast.

…and occasionally we let our hair down and hang out and try to forget about all the reading and work that we haven’t gotten around to doing.

Well… there you have it. A week in my life… other things occasionally pop up, like trips to the UN and other such trivial matters, but this is the typical grind…

We arrived at the beachouse just past midday . The drive had been long but we had been in good spirits, initially singing along to the radio to keep ourselves awake as we set off at eight o’clock in the morning – very early for the holidays. It was a beautiful day, the air was crisp and the sky was practically cloudless. We stopped for a brief lunch at Wonthaggi before making the final leg of the trip to Brett’s beachouse at Cape Patterson.

There were five of us in all, Brett, Michael, his sister Lisa, who was going out with Brett, Angie who was going out with Michael, and myself. Angie was down from Queensland for a skating comp which was held the previous weekend. I had just returned from two weeks of backpacking around Europe and had thus not skated to the best of my ability owing to the fact that I hadn’t trained for quite some time. No matter, we were all here to catch up on some much-needed rest and relaxation. Angie, not being from Melbourne, asked us why we had to drive such a long way just to get to a beach. To put it simply, we didn’t have to. We could’ve hopped on a tram and been at a beach within thirty minutes. Cape Patterson however, was quieter and was outside of Port Phillip Bay and thus not sheltered from the ocean. In other words, the waves were bigger… this was to later prove an important detail in the events which transpired on that day.

We put our bags down and got changed, not wanting to miss a moment of sunshine. In a decidedly non-sexual way, we proceeded to rub sunscreen on each other. Brett revealed a sunscreen “miscalculation” which had resulted in some very artistic-looking shapes etched into his skin in swathes of red and… well… tan. We scampered out the door and realised quickly that the ground was quite warm. Me, having been blessed with very sensitive feet, quickly learned that the lighter-coloured sand was cooler in the sun, but the opposite was true in the shade funnily enough. We made our way down the walkway to the beach and, after trekking some distance to the west, we finally happened upon a wide expanse of sand which was, surprisingly, quite well populated.

We made preparations to sunbake having slip, slop and slapped our skins to sunburn safety. The fine texture of the sand on my skin was very refreshing after spending two months in the cold European winter. I lay down on the beach, belly up, thinking about the world – its people, cities, countries, everything. Thinking that it was now mostly behind me and all that was ahead of me was clear blue sky. The sound of the waves lapping at the shore was surely therapeutic as I closed my eyes and before I knew it, I was asleep. A fact which I only became aware of when I woke up two hours later.

I woke to the sound of Brett and Michael asking me to come for a swim. Considering the toasty nature of the day, it seemed like as good an idea as any. We walked briskly past several large clumps of dried seaweed on the beach before wading excitedly into the water. The waves had increased in size since midday and we were doing what must’ve been a very awkward looking bouncing moon-walk once the waves began to reach neck-height. I, thinking myself a fairly strong swimmer, began to swim out into the open ocean. With every wave I dived into the crest, relishing the refreshing salty sensation of the cool water over my body.

I stopped to look up, treading water briefly. Mick and Brett were now behind me, but not by much. They had also stopped and were treading water. I, being in an obviously excitable mood, began swimming again. I noticed that the waves I was so enthusiastically diving through were now bereft of the tickly foam that had dressed many of the earlier waves. I stopped again and looked back. Brett and Mick were now further back – much further back. I must’ve swum further than I thought. I decided that I would begin swimming back towards the shore.

I turned and began to make my way through the water. I put my head down and swam a short way in the normal freestyle fashion. I mistimed a breath and took in several mouthfuls of water so I stopped to clear my throat. I looked up, I wasn’t any closer to the shore. In fact, I was further out and had moved some way off the line which I believed I was swimming along. Then the realisation hit me, I was caught in a “rip”. I went to swim again but mistimed it in spectacular fashion as a fairly large wave caught me and sent me tumbling.

It took me some time to right myself and by the time I did, another wave swept me into a disoriented state. Floundering around under the water, I became entangled in some seaweed and, for what seemed like an eternity, couldn’t find the surface. When I finally did, I was gasping for air and even further from the shore. “Swim”, I said to myself “just swim”. I swam a bit sideways in an effort to get out of the rip which I must’ve done to a certain extent, because I was slowly getting closer to shore.

As I swam, I imagined that I was just swimming laps at training or something. One stroke at a time, just keep it ticking away, just keep it going. I looked up, I thought I was closer, but if I was, I wasn’t much closer. I started to quicken my stroke, I kicked harder. I was trying to conserve my energy, but I also desperately wanted to be on firm ground. I’d never been a big fan of boats, now my dislike extended to the ocean in general. At that moment, it was one place I’d rather not be. I wasn’t flailing around, but my arms were starting to get tired, they started burning.

That burning sensation was all too familiar, it was lactic acid. The aerobic fitness of my arms wasn’t quite the same as my legs and they were getting tired. I looked up. I was still a long way out. I started to panic. I started to die. All manner of morbid thoughts floated through my head. I wondered what my parents would think, how my friends might react, about all those people in the world whom I knew who would learn that I drowned because I carelessly swam too far out. I thought about my life, my short pathetic life. It was all behind me now, and, as far as I was concerned, all that lay ahead was nothing by clear blue ocean.

Something happened. A thought? A whisper? I’m not sure what it was exactly. There was too much to do, too much lay ahead. There were all my goals, my sport, my degree, and my lofty ambitions. There was too much at stake. In a moment of pure selfishness, pure arrogance even, I decided that I couldn’t die. I was too important – the world still needed me. I would not allow myself to die, I would not accept defeat. My arms, although seeming to have exhausted all their energy somehow managed to come back to life. “Relax”, I said, “it will all be ok”.

I swam like I had never swum before. I wasn’t traveling particularly quickly, but I was getting closer to the shore. I couldn’t relent, I pressed on. I was out of breath and the world was spinning, but still I persisted. I could only pray that I was still pointed towards the beach. Every muscle in my body felt the strain but somehow managed to husband enough strength to keep things going. I kept telling myself, “just a little more”, “just a little further”. I was increasingly out of breath, I started to take in water.

I could barely see when I dug a hand deep into the sand of the beach. After never being more afraid in all my life, I was now more relieved than I had ever been in my life. I swam a few strokes more, then I dug my limbs into the sand and used what little strength I had left to crawl up the beach, safely out of reach of the waves. I coughed and spluttered for a few brief moments and collapsed, barely conscious and breathing with great enthusiasm. I could hear my heart beating in my ears – easily over two hundred beats per minute.

Brett and Mick helped me up. We all gathered our things and walked back to the beach house. Nobody said anything, but both Mick and Brett knew what had happened although perhaps didn’t know just how close I came to never coming back. Angie and Lisa were probably wondering why I looked so completely exhausted. It was at least another half an hour before I was fully recovered. We proceeded to laze about the beach house and watch the tennis on TV for a few long, relaxed hours before driving back to Melbourne . I had survived, and with a new found respect for the open ocean.