SEAArch - The Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog

Let’s face it. If you’re reading this site, you’re probably going to watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - and love it.

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Just a quick one from me - am up in Penang these few days to register my candidature at the Center for Archaeology at Universiti Sains Malaysia. Won’t be in the internet for very long these few days, so expect archaeology news to resume on Thursday when I return!

In the meantime, you can visit a few of the more favourite posts like:

• The Ancient Script of Southeast Asia
• Nei Xue Tang: A Museum of Buddhist art
• Download some wallpapers of Angkor for use in your desktop
• Check out what’s for sale at the bookstore

I’ve been playing around with a site redesign for a couple of weeks now - I thought it was high time to give the site a revamp. The changes are mainly cosmetic, but I’d love to hear feedback from you if you see anything out of place.

If you have any comments and suggestions for the new SEAArch, do leave a comment as well!

After nine sessions and 37 papers, the final day was certainly about letting our hair down and enjoying the new friendships made - along with taking the obligatory photos! Day 3 was a tour of the various cultural sites of Johor: the morning was a visit to the Johor Art Gallery as well as the Sultan’s palace museum, while in the afternoon, I hitched a ride with an international group of archaeologists who wanted to make a quick visit to Singapore. In lieu of the free ride home I gave them the grand tour of Singapore (abridged for the five-hour time frame).

Johor Palace Museum

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Seeing how it’s National Library Week in Singapore, I’d like to post a short kudos to the National Library Board of Singapore. I spent the afternoons of last weekend at the Southeast Asian Collection of the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library looking up some research, and every time I go to the SEA collection at the 11th floor I’ve always had an enjoyable and productive time.

The SEA Collection has a good range of archaeology books including many that you can’t find in the stores anymore, which is really impressive since archaeological literature for this region is generally hard to come by anyway. And it was great to spend time in a library that had the Journal of Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Journal of the Siam Society and Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums all under one roof.

My compliments to the staff especially for being so helpful - from the librarian who suggested other libraries when I couldn’t find the book I needed, to the other librarian who let me deposit my stack of microfilms at the counter while I went down for a coffee break, to the staff at the photocopy room who fiddled with the settings of the microfilm printer until I got the best quality possible for my prints - without charging me extra.

I [heart] my library!

There’ll be few updates this week as a leave for Malaysia this evening to visit my MA supervisor as well as make a side trip to Kedah - what used to be called Kadaram or Kataha in ancient times - to take a look at the Bujang Valley.

Of course, I’ll post about it when I return! In the meantime, Wednesday Rojak will be up as scheduled on, of course, Wednesday, and then look forward to Angkor-themed wallpapers that you can download for free on Friday!

Update:
You can see my Bujang Valley posts at
An archaeological region older than Angkor Wat
Bujang Valley Archaeological Museum

I don’t usually write personal posts on this blog, but seeing how this is archaeology-related, I should. When this blog started, I had intended for it to help me keep track of archaeology news in Southeast Asia to prepare myself for a future plan to pursue postgraduate studies in archaeology. Over the weekend, I received a letter from Universiti Sains Malaysia notifying me of my acceptance into the postgraduate programme to pursue my MA in archaeology. I expect to commence my candidature in July of next year (2008). Seeing how this is an archaeology blog as well, I hope to be updating my research progress in time to come, as well as my adventures in studying in Malaysia.

In the meantime, I will still be working at my current profession as a writer for the next year or so as I raise the funds to prepare me for returning to student life. As I will be supporting myself fully for postgraduate studies, I would also like to make an appeal for information about sources of funding, grants and scholarships that I can apply for. If you know of any such programmes, please send me an email or leave a comment. Thank you for your support!

Tags: Universiti Sains Malaysia, postgraduate study, education