there are, in truth, a few annoyances about blogging which some of you might be familiar with, e.g. the actual cumbersome webspace limitations of most ‘free’ blog accounts and i have yet figured out how best to integrate all of the different media options — flickr, picassa, vimeo, etc. etc. etc. — and the archival aspects are not straightforward either; you ideally want everything to be in one and the same place.

moreover, transferring from one blogging platform to another also messes up the formatting of the existing posts (many of which i have yet rectified — since it needs to be sieved and manually fixed). all in all a pain and not something i have time to deal with at present. and admittedly, i have been getting more out from the spontaneous gratification of ‘real’, interactive social exchanges in FB-land… sad but true. it probably is an indication that the contents of this blog needs to have a different focus…

i don’t intend to give up blogging though… rather, i am still trying to figure out how best to use it for my creativity, or my way of sharing my adventures, thoughts, and a desire to communicate.

meanwhile… happy fossicking through the archives… (and if you spot any silly formatting faux pas and typos please please alert moi!).

oh well. looks like this rabbit-ty year is going to be a rather challenging one… for many.

i am going to keep reaching for the stars

because they are the brightest objects in the dark sky…

i am going to keep on dreaming

because life without dreams would be like a wingless bird trying to fly…

because to everyone else it seems completely DAFT… this non-permanence and non-guarantee in the path towards a more stable (academic or other) research position… and the seemingly pointlessness in getting a higher degree.

some days, i truly wish i were more like the rest of you; living with that income stability, investing financially into your foreseeable future…

just so i won’t feel like an outcast for loving what i do.

Hogmany fireworks viewed from Blackford Hill, Edinburgh

apart from having been missing in blogging action… it appears that we have begun another year. how terribly surreal is this turn of time into a new cycle of day and night! a part of me did not really want to cross over to 2011, because while 2010 had a somewhat shaky start and some mind-boggling challenges, it turned out alright, and i am not sure if it could get any better.

in fact, i didn’t want the good times to end. because for a long long time, or as far as my (probably distorted) memory could recall, i actually got to enjoy a lot of laughs, mostly at myself but also with others. i also got to meet up with many old friends, and visit many places i had never thought i would manage to squeeze into the year nor within my modest income. but it worked out, thanks (in part) to the generous obligatory paid European vacation. and for a long time coming, i actually felt i could be efficiently productive, am given real responsibilities and work ownership, and felt genuinely appreciated for the efforts i made. and if i may say so, i am able to enjoy research and proper collaboration, again. what a difference a supportive environment can do for your self-esteem! i am most grateful.

i wish to hoard the good times. and if it is possible, grow and keep them blossoming.

— some happy memories of 2010 —

• heading back to SG for Lunar New Year with flights sponsored by painstakingly accumulated Lufthansa’s Miles and flying Singapore Airline’s mega jumbo-jet.
• driving north-east through some spectacular Scottish landscapes with Lucy in Zippy#2 to the Isle of Skye.
• showing my brother Wee and Lolli some of my favourite spots in Edinburgh and a wee bitty of the country even though their stay was super brief and they were completely not kitted out for any real adventures, culinary or outdoor-sy.
• made it to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in north MN with goofy goof companion, Alex, who did all the portaging between lakes! we cooked up a storm at the B&B but also enjoyed an amazing Swedish pancake breakfast prepared by the hosts.
• making it to Antje and Matt’s German wedding (after missing their hippie-Seattle celebration last year) and getting a personal-tour of Hamburg city from dear friend Frauke.
• flying more than halfway across the globe to be at Stella and her Pete’s wedding in Maui. travelling solo on the island, witnessing a spectacular sunrise, saw many breathtaking sights and waterfalls, enjoyed some incredible local cuisine, and discovered Hawaiian coffee — it is amazing!
• got to hillwalk again, properly! saw some very beautiful bits of Scotland: Loch Lomond & the Trossachs area, bits of the Arroachar Alps, bits of the Isle of Mull.
• Stelladoro came to visit me and we had a wonderful time catching up and a lot of fun on our walk through muddy bogs in Rannoch Moor with the hillwalking club which ended with a spectacularly manic  hitch-hike on a deer-stalking jeep-mobile to make the last train back to Glasgow that evening.
• made it to the west coast of USA, finally! i didn’t get to see everything i wanted but it was a good start, and i got to catch up with Ulli-baboooleee and meet her Antoine. we even saw some wine country and caught up with some old classmates from Tübingen and Wales!!!!! perhaps i’ll make it back someday… for i’d like to get lost in Muirwoods and camp at Point Reyes, be mesmerized by some giant glowing jelly fish at Monterey Bay Aquarium… and indeed, i’d like to enjoy another bottle of GundlachBunschu’s excellent 2007 Vintage Cabernet Franc.
• got to enjoy some traditional German cuisine again at Petra’s X’mas dinner and learnt how to make divine vanilla sauce — one of the heavenly treats on earth!
• made it to the Cairngorms and met some very gentle and adorable Reindeer!

2010 was a good year despite some trying times, e.g. the challenges of being-together-apart in long distance relationships, but there was a lot of happiness and delight to be found in everyday’s little simplicities and the many amazing adventures.

i hope 2011 will be a positively enriching and rewarding one, too, for everyone.

(i endeavour to put up some pics related to these happy memories in the next few days…)

- visiting Hamburg for the first time thanks to the wedding invite from my once-upon-a-time-in-Edinburgh flatmate!

- Hamburg also happens to be the home city-state of my once-upon-a-time-in-Tübingen downstairs neighbour so i got to catch up with her, stay with her and her mum, and toured some of her favourite places in her home town.

- got to be one of the official witnesses to another cross-cultural couple’s wedding solemnisation in Scotland… and found it both awkward and interesting. awkward in the sense that even civil weddings have their idiosyncratic ‘rituals’ and interesting that while others take years to feel that they are in the ‘right’ situation for matrimony, some seem to feel that they have found their soul mate in just a few months. the amusing thing was the other witness (who is a fellow colleague) remarked a few days after that the thought of such a long-term commitment was ‘traumatic‘ enough to require the weekend’s recovery! i thought that was hilarious even if not unexpected from a German — it is practically normal not to wed in Germany and live as partners and many people do that particularly if they do not have children. furthermore, the idea of marriage and its notion of ‘happily-ever-after’ are no longer something that well-educated people (e.g. Germans) take for granted or simply accept just because it is a thing that people do traditionally.

- interesting to note that even the Scottish Registrar for the civil wedding of my colleagues highlighted that Asian females tend not to take their newly wedded partner’s surname. whether this is for practical reasons or an easier ‘out’ (!) is not clear… but it is certainly something i had previously observed in my married female Asian friends’ names as well… at least if their spouses are also Asian. i wonder if it is some Asian feminism at work!

- visiting Germany again brought back many fond memories of my stint in the country as a foreign student. there are many things i like about the country and the attitude of the Germans in many aspects of they way they do things. they are long-term planners; they invest in quality and in the future; they are obsessed with details; they have a decent healthcare insurance system; they value their free time and indeed their holidays! they also work hard but efficiently. in fact, i was happily reminded of the idiomatic term “Feierabend“. traditionally, it is used for “closing time” on the night before a festival holiday but it is commonly expressed as “calling it a day“. literally, the two agglutinating words (‘Feier’ and ‘Abend’) when on their own side by side, reads more like “celebration night“! indeed, there’s much to celebrate if you work hard and smart each day! =)

- am glad i have more vacation and public holidays to be able to celebrate such happy occasions with my friends… and indeed that travelling within Europe does not take as long as within the US continent and you can see and do much even on weekends! but best of all, it is ‘expected’ that you have some ‘summer’ vacay here! =) i think we need to transport some of the modern-day European work ‘ethos’ to the other side of the pond… and QUICKLY! =P

some people just do it remarkably well and leave you in awe of how they manage it. there is a rumour/urban-myth that having kids forces you to manage your time and resources better… i am not sure how convinced i am on this. examples in life, i.e. those from friends and family, yield large variances in their relative successes.

however, if i may draw some tentative conclusions from my ongoing observations in life and those around me, it seems that the more adept jugglers are also more ‘focussed’ or ‘disciplined’ in their coordinating act… better at saying ‘NO’, better at ‘Prioritizing’, and then when they make time for others, it is often ‘Quality’ time they offer…

but, what is fundamentally driving all that?? a bouncy life philosophy that propels one forward with the daily zeal? i wonder.

• coping with road conditions and poorly salted pavements during the snowy winter here in the UK — which is now seemingly bygone. although in all honesty… i was secretly enjoying the sunnier and definitely DRIER spells in this normally drenched city of Glasgow.

• entertaining the visitors who stopped by last fall/during winter while i was settling into the new city i now call ‘home’…

• making an unexpected whirlwind transatlantic trip in mid-winter that seemingly led to an opportunity for a potential career change… and saw me spending lots of late nights dealing with additional paper-chase, and fretting about options and decisions… however, most frustratingly, all that evolved into quite a spectacular negotiation debacle…

• spending my due-to-expire Lufthansa frequent-flyer miles on Singapore Airlines to celebrate Lunar New Year with family and catching up with some childhood friends… and stuffing myself silly with the amazing local cuisine (including mum’s cooking) as well as entertaining my wee niece… although not entirely succeeding.

• making some progress at work although that entailed devoting quite a bit my time and very late long hours in it… but i am grateful that the toil is acknowledged and it did yield some rewards…

as usual… much of life goes on… and i keep struggling to find time to reflect on the many morsels of experiences that fill my ongoing nomadic adventures.

“continually empowering tomorrow with today’s positivity“

if i could keep doing that… and assuming that one could accumulate or create sufficient positivity (e.g. feeling of self-achievement / productivity / learning something / doing something good for the community / etc.) each day to fuel the following day… there is a good possibility that i’ll keep “moving forward”!

but it was quite ‘memorable’, only because i had to endure one of the worst headaches i’ve ever experienced while being suffocated in a living room with more Asians than i’ve ever surrounded myself with at any one time (apart from Chinese New Year’s at home) who were either more eager to sing their lungs out (even after having had a karaoke marathon for the previous 6 hours!) and deprive me of the little oxygen that was left in the area, or they were too engaged in their ‘national’ sport on a mini ping pong table to be able to do anything else. to add further misery to the ordeal, there was no count-down nor any enthusiasm for it (!), which left me feeling quite short-changed!

it seemed a little sad not to witness the obligatory fireworks nor to sip mulled wine while welcoming the new year. in addition to this rather unfortunate circumstance… initial plans to meet up with R in Portobello on new year’s day were cancelled abruptly… the start of 2010 has got to be better than this, i tell myself.

new year’s morning came and went. i slept in like a baby… waking up without the nasty headache, but a little sulky from the knowledge that the planned walk along the beach in the north of Edinburgh was not going to happen on what seemed like a rather lovely clear day… a feeling of regret seeped into my consciousness. … i could have gotten onto a plane last weekend either to the US or SG… to either celebrate the new year with A or attend the wedding of a friend and see family… *sigh*… however, living like a conjunctive didn’t make me feel any better.

i tried contemplating on the Open House at Lats&Phil’s that i had planned on going in Edinburgh… it would be fun, i coaxed myself. i could meet some new friends or re-acquaint myself with old familiar faces… and it’s unlikely that they will have karaoke! i called Lats to see how late their Open House would go on for and figured that arriving later wouldn’t be so terrible.

with some determination to make what seemed like a rubbish situation better, i got my act together. i did some laundry, baked a cake, and hopped into my Zippy-friend and drove the hour-long journey to good auld Edinburgh to visit Lats and i actually felt a million times better! there was no karaoke!!! and there was palatable food (i.e. no strange piggy anatomy, which are apparently part of the ‘normal’ Chinese cuisine in certain regions of China/Southeast Asia, that i dare not even consume) and fun games that engaged everyone… that’s more like a party i am used to attending! i also got to reacquaint myself with some old faces from undergraduate days… and was actually able to feel like a normal part of the ‘society’! it was certainly quite reassuring.

on my drive home, i listened to the  BBC4 Radio programme: “Great Lives”, which reflected on Hannah Arendt’s life (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pftm7) and her various (political, philosophical, and identity) struggles as a Jew in Hitler’s era… i couldn’t help but find myself being reminded of how i’ve struggled with my identity as an Asian, while living abroad… it is a complicated one for i’ve never really been terribly fond of cliques; racial or otherwise. while there is some sense of ‘security’ to be amongst fellow Asians, i also find it asphyxiating and a little in denial to be trying to recreate a sense of familiarity in a ‘foreign’ place. in my opinion, it could never be quite the same and rather than isolating oneself from the locals by mingling only with Asians, i’ve actually found it more educational mixing with the ‘locals’ or others… or perhaps i am just grossly repelled by quite a lot of Asians’ fondness for karaoke!

oh well, i hope you guys had a good start to 2010! and Happy New Adventures to you all!