thinking cities...

Big Art Book 2012

2012-03-02T09:22:00.003+08:00

Scarborough Arts just launched its Big Art Book 2012, a digital anthology of visual arts, poetry and prose. It's a really immense publication; I'm definitely going to take a while to finish it!

Three of my poems have also been included - In a Pool of Starlight, Up the Lonely Stairs, and Home. I particularly like those pieces, so it was nice to know that they chose to include them.

Here's the publication, conveniently opened to pages 294 to 295. :)

Open publication - Free publishing - More anthology

Quiet Rain

2012-02-01T19:02:00.012+08:00

Sometimes my poems emerge from a phrase, a line or a stanza that invites itself into my consciousness; other times they arise from an image - usually one emotional or at least intriguing - in my mind. But sometimes, both: the first stanza of this piece blossomed in my mind one day in a matter of minutes, but the image of a broken, tired man in the rain developed with the poem. What inspires your works?

somewhere in
the silent storm
safely shackled
sandals torn

flinches at
the hint of rain
burning tears
streaks of pain

molten shades
and burning dark
lashes broke
your quiet heart

lying still
the cruel claws
tearing through
your carrion flaws

distant thunder
quiet rain
wash away
the years of pain

Also shared at WWP #91. More poems.

Into the Dark

2012-01-14T13:38:00.005+08:00

He walks a barren ground
somewhere along the valley
of grief, some tenebrous place
past the jagged plateaus of fear,
towards the inky thresholds
of the unforgiving night.

He walks a broken dreamscape:
in the pale, fading moonlight
piercing cries of carrion wings
circle in the cutting light,
silhouettes of shattered trees
slash the cold, shifting path.

He walks, cracked leather
straining in the dirt, the cold
wind toying with his frayed tie,
whistling through the tears
in his ragged jacket; chills
with every laborious step.

He walks, murky mountains
mock his transient shadows,
the paths on his weary face
etched by dripping lashes,
each cavern on his brow
a storehouse of darkness.

He walks the fury of lives,
crashing along the swelling
tributaries of pain, rushing in
free-fall through heavy clouds
leaking despair, each tear
burning, glinting in the storm.

He walks the dimming tempest
as it breathes its final thunder,
consumed by the irresistible dark
of the night; he walks to his doom
as shadows merge into the dark
of despair, as the stars perish.

Darkness falls.

Shared at WWP #90. More poems.

Beyond the Watching Skies

2012-01-07T11:57:00.004+08:00

This piece is special in many ways, not least because it's the last poem I began in my very busy 2011 and the first one I completed in 2012. What a journey it all has been, and what a way to mark it - with a poem about the beginning of a journey...

The glimmer of the aircraft's wings;
the shimmer of the breaking sea:
we pierce the cloudy canopy.

Take my hand,

We fly, we rise, we ride the dark,
we dare the brazen, flaming lights;
we'll hide somewhere beneath the stars
beyond the watching skies at night.

step out with me;

The clouds our floor, the winds our walls,
unbound, the world beneath our wills,
the fearful sun behind the hills.

close your eyes.

A tremor, yes, a trembling heart:
a kite of steel a-sway at night.
All dark, all smiles, a lovely start,
but rest for now until the light.

... and more than half a year later I return to find that yet another wonderful poetry site has closed down? What a year it's been. Also posted at We Write Poems. More poems.

To the Fury of Lives

2011-04-22T15:09:00.002+08:00

I just rediscovered this lovely piece I wrote almost two years ago that has since been collecting metaphorical dust in my archives. Have any of you ever looked back at some of your older work and wished that you could write as well as you used to?

I lost her in her haze of glory
entranced by musky melodies,
mixed amongst synthetic sillhouettes.

Wandering wiles, carnivours stare,
silently savouring, appraising;
entering, a skirt provacatively plays
about its smooth, warm partners -
a dancer's legs tentatively sashaying,
brushing past the doors of the den.

Stalactites stab in jerking strobes
of misty rainbow hues, swirling
tongues of flame leaping and swaying,
cavorting to the fanciful winds;
I lost her to the dreamy vortices.

Stirring the cocktail fools hardly
notice the blending fluids. She tastes
the touch of tequila and caresses
the strong orange-skin scents.
Flowing, the throng pulses in
that heady temple of delight.

She succumbs, loses the fight;
I lost her slowly, gently,
pulled by pleasure, seduced
by the kindling of caged senses
in that dark, unseeing womb.

I lost her to primal humanity;
I lost her to an essence of being;
I lost her to the fury of lives;
I lost her to a madness.

I wander while my memories stir;
caressing scented skin. I enter
the comforting darkness, feeling
my being succumb to the fury
of lives. I wait for her rebirth.

Also posted on Big Tent Poetry. More poems.

A Song for the Infinitude

2011-04-18T18:27:00.005+08:00

"Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away." ~ Dinah Craik

I hear a silent song in your eyes:
the glint of a forgotten memory,
the tired glow of a dying star.

It is a mournful tune, a dirge
of the half-recollected dream
of our light, our life; a lament
of the words that defeated us.

Yes, I spoke the chaff and grain,
poured from an empty heart;
I burned your faithful, sifting arms.

It is a requiem for the joys,
stalled, for the love, lost;
a song for the infinitude
of the caverns of regret.

For I bound your loving hands,
weighing them with a measure
for my cruel, unthinking words.

Sing: its verse is despair,
its chorus sorrow; I burned
the book before its happy
ending: I drowned us in tears.

I surrender: no longer seeking
a breath of kindness; it is all
to listen to your song.

Also posted on Big Tent Poetry. More poems.

In the Starless Night

2011-04-12T21:04:00.006+08:00

Rejoice, for it rent the soul from
my heart, this void, this blade
the colour of the darkest night,
this jagged knife of despair.

It sings of its conquests; fools
and sages, abandoned and loved,
fall to that intransigent grip,
the inexorable pull, the fire
consuming, the blinding dark
beyond the dream of a sliver
of hope of a mote of light.

Rejoice, for I entered the dark,
and under the fist of despair
I will live and I will die.

Build the cage around my heart,
and crush the hope of a lying key
in your jubilant palm and rejoice
at the darkness of my prison,
within which none shall find me,
beyond which none shall know me:
despair shall befriend me.

Rejoice, for your tormentor found
his place in the starless night;
dance on the empty corpse, triumph
over the vanquished soul felled
by words, the agents of despair.

More poems.

In a Pool of Starlight

2011-01-31T09:00:00.009+08:00

                      There is a man
in his darkest hour, alone;
only the slightest of movements
by his weary chest betrays
the unforgiving, harsh truth:
that he is still alive.

                      He breathes, he sits
in a pool of starlight, gently falling
through a solitary window. He is
curled up, knees held close,
huddling for warmth, denying
the murderous cold.

                  And the odd chill
passes as a lonely tear, thawing
quietly, shivers unsteadily by his
frosty right eye. The broken dawn
eases its way through the glass
like a thief.

                   The probing light
casts its criminal gaze as beams
resolve from the inky shadows.
It is an old house, broken-hearthed -
fireplace silenced, mantel memories
long forgotten.

                   It is lost in time:
swirling, dusty rays pierce through
gaps between broken tiles, grasping,
fanning across the room, searching
as the morning sun strides across
the changing sky.

                         Now the afternoon
winds mock its geriatric frame, whistling
through cracks, shoving the old walls,
and as the supports sway a rope,
hanging, slices the beaming sunlight
like a demented knife.

                            There is pain
in the house; the man remains
still, seated alone by the setting sun
in the window, streaked by watery
tears. His empty eyes travel again
to the hanging rope.

                            Now it is his
darkest hour as the midnight chill
begins again. The man is still
alive, still alive: his weary
eyes come to rest upon the old,
comforting noose.

Also posted at Big Tent Poetry. More poems.

The Doom of the Stinky One

2011-01-29T15:49:00.002+08:00

Here's a whimsical poem mostly written in a span of five minutes! I guess I wanted a change as I continue working on my other considerably more difficult (and serious) piece.

Oooooh, such evil!
I prod you with my finger.
That stink! that stench!
I'm off to get my hammer.

Seated in silence,
a-waiting to be eaten.
Unhappy, ungrateful
you're waiting to be beaten.

I'm back, my beauty!
Daddy's got his hammer!
Look now, no crying,
I'll only crack you open

Bang! It's done!
Your stench now fills my room
I scoop! I lick!
My durian meets its doom.

Also posted on Big Tent Poetry. More poems.

The gardens of grief

2011-01-14T02:10:00.008+08:00

Could a garden come up from all this pain? Grief is powerful. It overwhelms like a torrent from within you, driving you powerfully to other lives. But when that is depleted, at some point it forces you back inside your heart, compels you introvertere - to turn inward.

Grief forces you to rebuild, if only for fear of losing your mind. Grief, when unreleased, whips up an angry maelstrom within, and you are tempted to let yourself be tossed and battered by the storms, to give in to the madness: to lose your mind, or worse. Do the mad have cares? The dead? Grief brings you to that tipping point, that test, and it takes courage to pass it.

It is like trekking in the middle of the hurricane: you seek shelter, or you perish. In the midst of chaos grief forces you to clear a small but precious plot of soil in your mind and plant a seed, and it is all you can do to cling literally for dear life to that soil and that seed and the first shoots, watered by your tears.

Grief makes gardeners of us all. We find ourselves within ourselves in a battle for our sanity: tend the seeds in our hearts, or give in to the madness of the storm. Some days we see hope more clearly, the beautiful gardens driving the storm away; but others are tear-stained battles between peace and beauty, and grief and destruction.

It is a battle often lonely, always painful.

But what's important, I think, is that we find that seed, that idea or place or Person to hold on to, and that we cling on to that sliver of light we find even in the midst of the storm. A battered garden is still a garden, and there still is beauty to be found. As Proust wrote, Le bonheur est salutaire pour le corps, mais c'est le chagrin qui développe les forces de l'esprit.

Goodnight.

Up the Lonely Stairs

2011-01-12T13:28:00.004+08:00

Inspired by a set of beautiful photographs taken by a friend.

I'll take you there, love. A place
the world won't find you, within
these crimson walls. I'll take us up
the lonely stairs, the misty barge
in ocean dreams; we'll walk the dark.

*

I launched resolute, my craft carving
its prow through the yielding, fearful
waters, scratching its mark upon her
flushed visage. We tamed her brutally,
machine and man trampling her exquisite
curves, slashing in relentless arcs.

I am alive. I breathe. I sing. I return
the horizon's unyielding stare,
accepting his insolent challenge.
I pierce the ruddy heart of the sea:
onward, and the waters and the winds.

*

Lives lay upon the ground, dying
slowly, poured on the rocks, spilled
on the cold stones. Little hearts waiting
to be swept away by uncaring arms;
little loves lost to the amusement
of time - petals cruelly to peat.

Yet they are beauty, even in death.
Their lifeless forms slowly folding as
they lie on the cold slabs dispassionate,
silent. Loves broken and discarded,
lives uprooted. It is a delicate passing.

*

And we walk under the tear-stained
shadow of young trees in the dew
of the dawn. A new day, and ours,
and our hearts'. Along shaded paths
by the resilience of abandon, we clasp
gently; rapture in the embrace of beauty.

The curious light probes as fingers
caressing through comforting canopy,
and we shelter in the glow of
the shadows of the morning, resting
together in the breeze of hope.

*

I'll take you there, love: somewhere
they won't find us; we'll embrace
the sapphire ocean. I'll take us up
the skyward branches, we will hide
in emerald dew, under the mountains'

cloudy sighs.

Also posted at Big Tent Poetry. More poems.

The Stranger and the Threshold

2011-01-10T03:16:00.005+08:00

(This one's still a work in progress at the moment!)

His boots
                    were worn by roads and time;
the moonlight framed his swaying form
against the angry wind that bore
a stranger's silhouette to my door.

My threshold declared not only a shadow,
but eyes that glinted beneath a brow,
                    one furrowed, one sad,
                    one wizened, one clad
in the wisps of the stranger's greying hair.

A step
                    and I heard the pulse of a staff
and my heart beneath my bated breath;
he moved in the flicker of dancing flames
enthralled by a phantom, a ghost, a name.

A stride
                    and the winds decide to howl
and slam my door in brazen wrath.
The crash resounds within my home
as the stranger reaches into my soul.

And yes, that night he told me his name,
it was fantasy, dreams, that he came to stay
                    "for life, for love,
                    for paths above"
this cavern within the hollow earth.

Now his boots,
                    those worn by road and time,
once hung upon the broken door.
And my sillhouette, framed in the threshold, catches
the moonlight and glinting stars.

I step,
                    the staff in callous hands,
beyond the door and swirling flames
and plunge into the dark of night
and onto the forking, hopeful road.

I stride
                    and the winds introduce themselves;
I tell them my story, my name, that I came
to stay for life, for love, for paths
above this cavernous ground and earth.

The stars declare not only a shadow,
but crossroads and choices and paths to walk
                    for wisdom teaches and wisdom knows,
                    for wisdom comes and wisdom shows
the eyes that glint beneath a brow.

Also posted at Big Tent Poetry. More poems.

Falling

2010-12-04T17:35:00.006+08:00

I stand in the lamplight,
my heart coalesces;
the raindrops resume
their unending caresses.

The shattered lights wand'ring,
meandering, dancing;
the jewels are joining,
the teardrops are gath'ring -

they fall, they fall slowly
in the cold winter winds.

Deficient hearts,
unknowing glances.
Too many sorrows,
too many defences

that fall so, so slowly
in the chill, as I ask

Could I bury this heart?
Could I smother these burdens?
Could I search for your comfort
or tarry uncertain?

Should I stand in the winds
of the wings of the future,
or treasure the fragile,
the torn caricature?

We frame these lives,
these wind-tossed branches.
We stride beyond
the lingering snow.
No second glances

as they fall, ever so slowly,
in the winter night.

Yes, they tear, so, so gently;
release.

More poems.

The Wanderer (Part 1)

2010-09-24T22:22:00.004+08:00

I've been posting far less than I would have liked since Read Write Poem went inactive. It's quite sad that such a great (and important) community site had to be closed, but I suppose it must be for the best. Anyway, I've been trying to get back into the stride of writing poems again so here's my latest one. It's the to the first of a series (hopefully).

He is the personification
of the dark.

But you can tell as much from
his garment, sweeping
the winds like great wings
of the darkest nights,
pierced by the starry
glint of knowing eyes.

And he walks slowly -
no spring defiles
his purposeful stride,
no noise marks his steps
but the pulse of his
gnarled branch. His feet,
sandaled like the ancients,
push into the rocky earth:
no axe shall fell him;
no storm shall break him.

And he is walking to you,
child, you are his
destination, goal; you
are his purpose.
You face him, afraid.

You stand at the confluence
of night and the light of day,
at the crossroads of the dawn.
The wanderer's stride slows
as your head's dark doppelganger
rises in the earth to meet
the ancient wanderer.

Suddenly he raises his hooded countenance,
wisps of hair carving the heavy breathing
of the viscous wind. Your eyes meet his.

More poems.

My Duty

2010-08-08T20:45:00.005+08:00

My first poem after a long hiatus from this blog. This was scribbled in a notebook - one of those poems birthed from a plethora of emotion.

My duty lies
before my will, singed
by the impending.

These coals - the dark
burdensome caskets unfulfilled -
these heralds, the prophets,
these seers gazing
into the crystalline dark.
This road untrodden.

The trail now blazed
by a lifeless flame:
we, blinded, stumbling past
the hopeless, the dreamless
striding into emptiness
from the ember light.

Now it arrives. Against the cold
I set my resolve.
My heart holds steadfast.

More poems.

The Morality of Profit

2010-06-14T05:31:00.002+08:00

I've had the opportunity to think about morality over the past few months, and to take part in an essay competition where participants were to expound on the morality of profit. I chose to use Singapore's Integrated Resorts as a case study to explain the usefulness and applicability of Aristotelian morality, and an excerpt of my essay can be seen on this post at the Morality of Profit site.

Why Aristotelian morality? Well, in short, I believe that morality cannot be disjoint from the people's experience, or the human narrative; it is ineffective impose external rules upon mankind if each person is expected to uphold those rules. Aristotelian morality is about morality arising from the interaction - in the form of deliberation - between members of a community, and about the transformation of people from within, rather than from without.

Phew. What a mouthful. Maybe I'll post more about this next time. :)

Security

2010-05-29T00:31:00.003+08:00

The most secure of men
often appear weak
to the untrained eye,

because they need
no other armour
than what is within their hearts.

In the Shadow

2010-05-19T21:23:00.003+08:00

It is satisfying to hide.
You know

the grotesque tapestry behind which
peeled peering eyes live shadows -
here darkness, here forms -
and boundaries distinct,

beyond the darkest thoughts? Questions,
that ponderous rabble; hope,
that intricate silence.

But no. Moribund

callings reach beyond my
walls, my cave, my sanctuary, my keep;
secrets shun the light.

The vagaries of time shall rouse me,
the reprisal of day shall find me,
I know.

More poems.

To the invisible

2010-02-13T23:41:00.004+08:00

I had the privilege of stumbling upon yet another beautiful Dickens quote today. They seem to be strewn about like so many diamonds waiting to be discovered and savored.

All is going on as it was wont. The waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the sea-birds soar and hover; the winds and clouds go forth upon their trackless flight; the white arms beckon, in the moonlight, to the invisible country far away. - Dickens, Dombey and Son, Chapter 41

... and I picture doubt and a tinge of despair wandering a starlit beach while pondering the past and hoping beyond the glimmer over the horizon. Maybe it is just me, but I find a beauty in words chosen with probing precision that when coalesced tug at emotions and imagination.

We poets craft worlds and wonders with words but deep within we are hedonists, sensualists - stimulated by sounds and writings and pleasured by meaning. And in drinking this pleasure we hone our craft, shaping language to vessels for hearts and ferries for the imagination.

Gently, we launch to that country invisible, that land far away.

Home

2010-02-13T22:54:00.005+08:00

Hi everyone! I'm back after around 2 months of being more busy than expected. Here's a piece I originally wrote some time ago for a contest but that has since been overhauled. Enjoy!

This incessant tug on the strings
of my heart pulses sanguine joys,
draws long notes and deep gazes,
and captivates my soul. I’m trapped,
bound within these walls, clouded
logic repressing certainty, imaginary
chains linking generations, and lineages
tied surely and silently; we know
why we don’t fly, don’t leave. Family
matters, dictating our culture, our lives
and our hearts. Deep within we know

no place like home: the crimson
links flow redder on this side;

shared moments are etched deep
in our memories. And I gaze within
often, finding multitudinous worlds –
a panorama of twinkling thought
in the darkness of my mind, a sea
of floating lights, gently waving,
beckoning; I am a moth to a fire
that burns in my mind. I bask
in the safety of self; I hide within
cities I built and forests I grew;
I live within my thoughts for there’s

no place like the home in
my created worlds. Withdrawing,

I feel alive. I taste, I touch, I see.
I sense possibilities and dreams
branching like the oldest trees, reaching
the sky. I find limits are meant
to be broken and hopes to be
realized; I want to know secrets
and mysteries: the colours beyond
the night lights and the planets’
conversations, the shape of sound
and how time passes in relentless
infinity. This world is endless:

there’s no place like home.

Also posted on RWP #113. More poems. Picture: Home, own work.

Beyond the Eternal Gulf

2009-12-30T21:59:00.010+08:00

Seokmo-do, or Seat of Fur Island in Chinese, is a small island off the coast of Ganghwa-do, itself an island near Incheon in South Korea. It is a mysterious, sleepy place, so small it is only famous for one temple, yet full of the vibrancy of business, youth and travellers. This piece will be the first of a series of poems based on pictures I took during my travels in South Korea.

Like thoughts hidden
in wooded valleys
or a smile in sylvan mists,
your elusive allure
beckons across the waters.

Seokmo-do, my stranger
in perpetual bow,

Daily children play
upon your tranquil flanks,
and tourists traverse
the lines of your visage.
Forever turned seaward,
you keep your counsel;
your stoicism holds fast.

But tonight,
tonight we will dream
of the rocks and the winds;
tonight we will speak
of the secrets of islands,
the messages of the waters.
We will walk, together
in the shadows of mountains.

Tonight, my friend, we rest
beneath the roof of the world,
in the embrace of the Earth.

My regard wanders over
the shimmering waters;
a cold wind stirs as I gaze
across our eternal gulf.
Still, I stand in the breeze
unchanging, enduring.

The evening rains trickle
slowly down my sullied face;
within my tear-stained vista
the water’s glittering games
ebb quietly into the night.

Also posted on RWP #107. More poems. Picture: Seokmo-do and Waters, own work.

10 p.m. by the Singapore River

2009-12-16T18:54:00.006+08:00

This poem won second place in the 2009 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse. It was the first poetry contest I ever entered, so as you can imagine I can't be happier. Judges' comments are here and the poem was first posted online at winningwriters.com.

10 p.m. by the Singapore River

Night, illuminated
by the multitudinous fragments
of a thinking city.

Languid giants tower over
cruising bumboats breaking through
the river's reflective reverie.
The waters, skirted seductively
by vibrant shophouses, stir
closely-guarded memories;
and people, going about
various little lives.

He looks around.
Solitaire in that cubicle.
Gossip at the pantry.
Supper orders.
No one's leaving.
"I'm still at work, dear;
maybe midnight,"
he tells the telephone;
it doesn't reply.
I'm making a living for them,
he thinks resolutely,
earning my family's keep.
He gazes out his window,

its light gently caressing
the dreaming river.

He looks behind
as his mind drifts momentarily.
I'm making waves,
the bumboat operator thinks,
each turn and bob
adds to the dance on the river's surface:
I am a brush
and the water is my canvas.
He smiles to himself.
It's only his second day on the job;
he was retrenched last month.
But tonight he's riding his wave,
tending his flock,
serving his customers:
Elgin Bridge, Coleman Bridge,
and the winds, always the winds,

mixing the sounds of lovers and lives:
the clinking and laughing and strumming.

She looks beside herself:
her second guitarist chats
with a pretty face in the sound crew,
the drummer is lost in some other rhythm,
and her bassist carefully tunes his guitar
as the emcee finishes his speech.
She smiles at her audience,
at herself, and at the river;
a little connection before a show never hurts.
She's been doing this since she was eighteen;
"something about the love for music,"
she always told her fans.
Now the emcee has introduced them.
It's the thirty-second gig of her career,
and it will be her very best.

This is a city alive: the old waters
observe, remember;
young giants stand firm
like watchtowers over a fortress;
and people—precious, fleeting ones—
wander along the river's dreams.

Each night sparkles
with the little lives
of the thinking city.

Distant Blossoms, Transient Beauty

2009-12-04T02:16:00.007+08:00

Given that I am leaving for Korea in a few days, I think this is an appropriate time for a first attempt at Sijo, a traditional Korean poetic form. I'm considering writing a series of Sijo poems based on my experiences in Korea, but we'll see!

Cherry trees' transient blossoms wax like delicate sprinklings of paint.
Sunlight shafts gleam through branches - the sky is tinted gently with pink.
But I dream from a foreign land; my eyes have not beheld these.

I look up and find the sky clothed with cloudy cotton baubles.
In my dream I tell myself, remember and cherish this sight.
For beauty is for a moment - next week the ground is coloured.

Also posted on RWP #103. More poems.

Creation

2009-11-29T14:47:00.004+08:00

As mentioned in my last post, I think there are few higher callings than to create knowledge.

Darkness descends
as I withdraw within;
in the solitude of night
I craft dreams.

A city stands guard
on the edge of cognition -
its angles impeccable;
scrutinize the unreadable
gaze of its gargoyles.

Twisted oak forests
emerge grasping at streaks
of broken moonlight
reflected by the rippling
of a glassy lake.

Angry roads burn
charred curves through
moist grasses; they wait
infinitesimal eternities
for wandering lives.

I travel wildly,
my words and I, along
the capricious landscapes
of my creation;
blossoms line our path.

And slowly stars start
winking provocatively:
finishing touches upon
these new lands - the birth
of new understanding.

Like minds gather
like congealing words:
a conference of creators
of knowledge.

Also posted on RWP #102. Other poems.

Friends, holidays, and the creation of knowledge

2009-11-28T20:53:00.009+08:00

You know, one of the problems with having a poetry blog is that real-life friends hardly visit. Of course, I fully understand the phenomenon - someone who's not terribly interested in poetry will be hard-pressed to cough up comments on, say, a hiaku-like poem portraying the act of photography as gods eating light.

Hence the slight awkwardness I feel when writing posts about myself, which on reflection reminds me that I am now immersed in a new community altogether; this blog has allowed me to make some lovely friends from all over the world, bound by a common love for our only medium of communication: words. Lovely stuff.

The most common words on this blog over the past six months; by Wordle.

That said, I'm flying to Korea in a week! I'll be sightseeing in and around Seoul, and then heading to Gangneung (a smaller city at the East Coast of Korea) for skiing at Yongpyong and more sightseeing. I might even climb a mountain or two. *grin* After Korea it's off to Beijing where I'll be presenting a paper I co-authored at an Accounting conference. I'm a bit nervous since it's the first time I'm doing this!

And yes, I'm heading for a career in research - either in Accounting or Economics, or even both. I think that the sign that a certain career is suitable for you is that you wonder why more people aren't aiming for it! And anyway, I've felt that there are few higher callings than the creation of knowledge. We'll see; I'm no stranger to big dreams, and also no stranger to working towards my dreams.