Politicisation and The Prajadhipok Series

A lot of things have been happening within and outside this little red dot; the thai-cambodian conflict, national day, the olympics and the list goes on. Over the past few days I began to realise that I haven't been reflecting much on things, largely finding myself lost in the drudgery of NS. And so, I decided that I needed to get a grip on my life (that is not characterised by NS-related work), grab hold of all the frayed ends and get it bloody organised and do something meaningful - even if it's gonna be hard not falling asleep everywhere I go after a day's slaverywork.

At least 'school window shopping' has been going quite well, and I'm finally sorting my German university choices out, with Heidelberg's double major in Germanistik im Kulturvergleich (German Studies in Cultural Comparison) and either Ethnologie (Anthropology), Kunstgeschicte Ostasiens (East Asian Art History) or Englische Philologie (English Philology) being my top choice currently. Took me eons to read through the curriculum for Ethnologie which was in German, but I'm glad that I did because it reaffirmed my interest seing how the curriculum offered by Heidelberg's quite similar to that which Cambridge offered me with an option to do some of my papers in English - and it's a bonus that both universities have joint-partner programmes, and are both eminent universities in their own rights. So perhaps I won't be spending my 4.5-5 years of studies overseas in one place, after all! Now all that's left is to sit for TestDAF/DSH, secure at least 18 points if I do the former, and apply to the three or four German universities I have in mind.

Anyway, in an attempt to stay plugged to current affairs and keep the apathy syndrome away, I was inspired to start a mini-series touching on socio-cultural and political issues after reading through some old JC works which worked up quite a bit of nostalgia and flashes of indelible images, such as that of Wangmo and I trying to be environmental activists and protest against the brutal chopping down of trees in NJ (fine, they were just pruning the trees according to Ms Oon, but it was brutal reckless pruning nonetheless!).

In light of the way this whole idea surfaced, I decided to name this mini-series on my blog The Prajadhipok Series, after a famous revolutionary Thai king. Southeast Asian History students may recall the revolutionary changes that Prajadhipok tried to effect during his reign, while some of my A01 homies will know the whole Prajadhipok-Vajiravudh shindig that we used to indulge in back in our good old NJ days. So there, a title with a mix of seriousness and light-heartedness, and one of the first few issues I'll be reflecting on will be several national issues raised by three journalists in the National Day edition of the Straits Times.

Oh yummy, I love dissecting articles and adding my two cents worth to it!