Stucked in Bucky Land

I'm currently stranded in Madison in this wee morning hours with no place to go. Does sound kind of pathetic, right? Well, I was supposed to crash at Suri's place for the night but somehow she was missing in action. I called her three times and left a couple of messages in her voicemail but still to no avail. Did she drop her phone in the toilet bowl? Did the mischievous squirrel swoop down from the tree branch, grab the phone, and run away with it? I'm sure there are plenty of plausible reasons why she didn't show up to meet me but it's not something I like to ponder for now. Presently, I'm seeking refuge in one of the libraries that opens 24-hours. Thank goodness I'm stucked in a major university campus since I can always find an open building to crash in since I'm sure as hell not paying any money to stay in a motel. I'm almost sure that there are at least over one hundred Malaysian students here at UW-Madison and Suri is the only one that I know.

The last time I came to Madison was back in 1999 for the Wisconsin AmeriCorps Leadership Council meeting, which means that it has been quite a while. Madison has always been one of my favorite places in the US; it's one of the few remaining liberal bastions left. I love the carnival-like atmosphere of State Street, the serene blue water of Lake Mendota (it's currently frozen solid), the vast expanse of the campus, the hike up the Observatory Drive, and most importantly, its liberal politics. Madison, which is part of the Second Congressional district, elected Wisconsin's first openly gay Congresswoman, Tammy Baldwin, to US Congress. By the way, she's a cool gal--a lawyer by trade--and I did help out with her re-election campaign back in 2000.

I spent a few hours today at the Center for SE Asian Studies talking with Dr. Mike Cullinane, the Center's Associate Director. It was an enlightening talk and a highly informative talk since it really fleshed out the direction of my research. Now I finally get to formulate a much clearer basis of comparison between the EU and ASEAN. The SE Asian librarian, Larry Ashmun, was also extremely helpful in guiding me through the wealth of resources that the university has to offer. I did say to Dr. Cullinane that I'm interested in joining the SE Asian program this coming Fall or next Spring semester, and his response was positively encouraging. The only downside that, if I am to apply for the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship, I'll not be eligible to study Indonesian since my proficiency level is considered to be native-like. It means that I have to pick up a new SE Asian language, either Thai, Tagalog, Khmer, Vietnamese or others. On the bright-side, learning a new language is very exciting and would be indispensible if the region ever becomes fully integrated. If I have to choose, it'll be either Tagalog or Thai, though I'm leaning more towards Tagalog due to its relatively lower difficulty level (it does have a lot of similarities with Malay.) Filipinos do share a long history with Malaysian and Indonesians as part of the vast and not-so-ancient Malay archipelagoes, before those damn colonial powers came and broke up everything.

Anyway, it's almost 2am now and my eyes are starting to betray me. I'm just going to go out for a quick smoke and then come back in to find a nice quiet spot in the library to catch some zzz's. I'll resume my research tomorrow and also I'm looking forward to see the Balinese Dance exhibition at Ingraham Hall later in the afternoon.