Life and Letters

I'm grateful, thankful and feeling truly blessed. I still am. Some of you might have heard but I did get the Scholarship afterall :D:D

From: Kenneth Hamilton <**************>
Date: Jun 15, 2006 3:19 PM
Subject: Money!
To: Ruth Rodrigues <*************>

Dear Ruth, You may already have been told this by Matthew, but if not I'm delighted to be able to let you know that you've been awarded a School Scholarship of ****pounds which can be used towards your fees for next year. Well done! Best wishes, Ken.

Ken is my supervisor btw.

HAPPPYYYY and VERY GRATEFUL!!!

Thanks and big hugs to everyone who prayed for me. And as with my promise to God, I'm offering a thanksgiving service this Sunday at church. :)

At least from now, I can concentrate on my PhD studies and not think about working so much to earn enough money to support my costs here.

Speaking of which, I had a rather interesting conversation with a friend yesterday. It seems that some people in Singapore are doubtful that I'm actually doing a PhD. I guess classmates and teachers might be surprised. I wasn't a very high profile student. Maybe in St Nick's I was. I was one of the few from my class to score the As at the end of sec school. But in college, i was really nothing compared to my classmates who really worked hard in maths, physics and chemistry. And I really admire them for being so smart and hard working and I'm even happier for them now that many of them have gotten jobs and graduated from NUS and NTU with good grades.

I have to admit that I wasn't interested in Maths, Chem or Physics during my A levels. Towards the end of my 2nd year in TJC, I realised that JC is just a step for me to get into Uni. And I wanted to do Music in Uni. I was awarded a MOE schoalrship to study maths and chem in NUS, but to do THAT would have been a huge joke for me. I'll fail university and even if i did pass, I would not be a happy person.

However, Music has always been my passion. I know it's cliche but it's been living in me since i was a little toddler. Since I held the violin at an age when I probably wasn't toilet trained yet, I think i was destined to do music. I came to the UK to do music and I never expected myself to end up being a postgraduate student, let alone a PhD Student.

Perhaps teachers other than my music teachers would be terribly shocked, perhaps that ONE teacher who thought I would not make it in University would think that all this was gained by fluke. But I believe that everyone has a chance in life and in their passion. Anyone who has the brains and passion and drive can do a PhD. It doesn't mean that a PhD student is smart. I'm not smart, I'm just good at music and research. Period.

I've been through many ups and downs in my life. From a kid, I was faced with problems as a child and with my family. But we overcomed every hurdle cos my Mum is a very strong woman. She is made of iron and steel and every hard metal u can think of. In many ways, I take after my mum. No doubt I've been through several hurdles in life, it doesn't make me weaker but stronger. If someone thinks little of me, it makes me want to work harder and prove it to that person that I'm not a little ant who can be crushed easily.

Anyway, enough of ranting.

I've just been back from Cambridge and London and it was wonderful! Lots of walking though... Lots of nice scenery and football watching. World Cup lah... It was brilliant :D:D As usual, Roger's parents were really nice and I got to meet Dale again! (roger's little brother who has really long golden hair now - like goldilocks :D:D) Will (roger's elder brother) came on tuesday and we had dinner together. It's so nice seeing a warm and cosy family together. Dale had to leave for the USA on Tuesday afternoon. He's working in MIT over the summer - so intelligent!


I was meant to meet A in london but we decided it was too much of a squeeze into our schedule and we bumped into each other 15 mins after talking on the phone. How random. HAHAA :D:D Met

I think i'm well relaxed and charged up again to begin another few weeks of work before i go home to sunny singapore:D:D:D:D Poot and Jess must be enjoying the WAARRRRRM weather. lucky them... For some reason it's FREEEEEEZING today. Right in the middle of summer.. hehe.. midsummer!!

Okie.. i shall stop taking rubbish now and go concentrate on work. Need to send some work to Ken before he thinks that I'm just slacking and having a holiday when i'm not supposed to. TTFN!