FC beckons

Attended the EAW course today, it's the econs pre-cursor to the FC and marks the start of my 10.5 week holiday from work. At least I hope it will be a holiday. Still have quite a bit of work that has not been cleared. Nevertheless, met quite a few new people today and I expect the FC to be a whole lot of fun.

On another note, actually found time to go for a jog today, I suppose being on course where one gets let off at 5pm is a good thing. I reached home at around 6 and did a short jog around my neighbourhood. Think it's time to start exercising regularly during FC. Pam, whom I met at the AS dinner said she planned to resume gymming during this period. So I guess I'm not the only one with fitness on my mind during this period.

Finally, chatted with Ms Tan last night. Was quite suprised to get a call from her. She wanted my advice on the state of life science in Singapore. Unfortunately, that is not my area of expertise and the conversation soon diverted to ways the Singapore Government can make it easier for overseas Singaporeans to return to Singapore. Ultimately, she wanted NUS Duke graduate medical school to make an exception for her to defer her return but they were unable to do so due to their policies. My reply was that NUS has been privatised and the CS does not have the necessary levers to force them to make an exception and that the CS should not be bending over to cater to every overseas Singaporean's request just to bring them back.

We also briefly discussed on the brain drain in the CS as well as whether it was optimal for scholars to return to Sg immediately after their phd when they would be better served doing their post-doc in reputable overseas labs. Not that I can recall exactly what was discussed, but I guess the over-riding factor has to be retention of talent. If bonding them and making them come back is the easiest way to achieve that, it is a necessary evil.