Bonne année à tout le monde!

Am back - after exactly an entire year away from writing.
It feels good to finally be back – for sporadic posts at least, I am hoping, given the events at present.

So much has happened within the past year. Some quick updates, for friends (and personal record, and posterity, too?) on what has transpired since January 2011. I took a break from work – a long-forged dream (and old goal) to pursue my M.A. back at my alma mater. It took quite a bit of courage to wrench myself away from the routines of work I’d slipped into by then, the familiar faces and expectations, the unfamiliar but surmountable new challenges to rise to. But even moreso, even as the official handling of affairs itself took awhile - it was the packing up, clearing away of my staff desk (of five-ish years of precious notes both created by and for my old kids, gifts, memories of hard work and well-spent time and toil), spending more fast-fading time with cherished colleagues, friends and students, and the goodbyes that remain evermore precious to mine heart.

With the onset of August 2011, I have begun my major adventure of postgraduate studies back at NUS. As before, I am blessed with awesome Professors and tutorial-mates as well, and even though our classes are mostly evening classes (which mean I get home pretty late into the night), I know that getting to be a student again – this temporary break from work, a sabbatical of sorts – is a blessing in its own right – and I have since resolved to cherish it by the day.

And I picked up French. Et le français est une belle langue, oui! J’aime le français♥ :) Another quiet dream of old – to keep learning languages – taken up, another sweet little adventure begun. And so, thanks to my lovely lessons in basic French, I do love speaking in my (admittedly, primitive) French and belting out fave songs – Pink Martini‘s gorgeous French – and even Italian songs are unmissable, do check them out when you can.

Also, picked up quite a wealth of knowledge (on photography, a latent interest until then), inspiration and sweet friendship through Instagram, a nifty iPhone photo-sharing app. Je savoure les petits aventures d’Instagram, aussi

Perhaps, many achievements of 2011 remain unsaid, but just one more: I have finally mastered the sari, I think. (En fin, ouais!) I’m no longer perplexed by the exacting demands of symmetry it seems to proclaim, and discover this newfound maneagability to be – strangely, I concur – very much like my reaction to…Tolstoy! Heh heh

Here’s to a blessed, brighter and more beautiful 2012, dear all! Bonne année à tout le monde! Take care and signing off with J’y suis jamais allé, a gorgeous track from Amelie, and composed by Yann Tiersen.
minerva*

Beginning Anew and Gratitude

Ma went for her endoscopy (for her recurring heartburn) earlier this week (November 21, 2011) at Raffles Hospital. It’s a minor procedure, over in twenty minutes, and I’d even gone through the steps with her the night before to allay any fears she might be harbouring.
Turns out I’m the one who was shaken from seeing the woman who’s all I am, love and believe, so frail in her sedated state of under-an-hour. On the good side, both the results (no other complications or need for further surgery as I’d feared) and her reactions to her high dosage of medication have been good.
But, it was difficult to see the woman who’d always been strong for those whose lives she’d reforged her own identity for, sedated on a hospital bed. (She’d warned me not to come see her within the hour of her procedure for the same reason, even as I was regaling her with my fave parts of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.)

I know this is difficult, but I don’t think I could bear it if anything at all were to happen to the dear souls I’ve been blessed with in my life – my mother, my twin sis, and every dear friend and old kid I have met in my life. It would jar my world so.
Why is it easier to discard fear when it is about oneself, yet so very difficult to do the same – and detach – when it comes to dear ones?

Am thankful for the time I get to spend with her, to learn from, to be chided by, to laugh and muse with this woman who taught me my first words, and assumably my love of languages and stories, too.
Let every dear soul in this world be safe, healthy and loved.

To more beautiful mysteries

Hey all, here’s wishing all dear souls a lovely New Year, with many more beautiful mysteries and wonderment in life!

As for me, I began the new year watching the loveliest cast of Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and Brandon Walters drove cattle across the beautiful Australian outback in Baz Luhrmann’s awesome “Australia.” Narrated as an uber-beautiful epic of love, courage and hope in a land rich with the traditional stories of the earth, it’s one of the most gorgeous movies of our time, truly.

Left me musing that… at the end of it all, what most of us are indeed looking for is the one who is able to share one’s pain and suffering, and accept us as ourselves, in this journey we take together.

On a more personal front, am going to keep to what I began in late November-December last year. Am proud to have tried something beyond my usual circles of comfort, and gone ahead to just give it a go to see how far I could enjoy the journey.

So, for this year, am gonna try to keep to this newfound joy in trying out hobbies that might have their own share of exciting mysteries, let’s see. And yes, I shall aim to be nicer (more forgiving, more relaxed towards trying the new) to myself this year.

Take care all!