Edgar Allan Poe studied in UVA!

Edgar Allan Poe Memorial
Originally uploaded by metaphoric.

Obviously I must have been very ulu about this famous poet and author because I obviously didn't know that he studied in UVA.

Its hardly as depressing a place as suitable for Poe but like my sister in law said, it's just Poe.

Speaking of UVA, I'm also reminded of Yuteki whose parents were here and who had named his brother after the place. I'd wanted to take a University of Virginia photo for him but wasn't sure if he was reading this blog.

Stars are Out - Observatory Night

Tonight (Friday night) is observatory night, so we all huddled up to the McCormick Observatory to observe something that hopefully looked like a Hubble (telescope).

Now I've had the good fortune to have seen some many splendid astronomical things in my lifetime. I've witnessed:

• A total eclipse of the sun
• A total eclipse of the moon
• Mars when it was closest to Earth (once in some ridiculously high number of years)
• A meteor shower
• The full Orion's Belt with the nebula near Orion's trousers
• Many shooting stars (too many and too quickly to have made any wishes that would come true)
• The Southern Cross
• The full set of stars in my own star sign (try that one, I swear it's not that easy)

So this one was - I thought - going to be nothing too special but one more to add to my collection. But it was amazing.

What I saw through the telescope was not visible through the naked eye. It was a cluster of stars 25,000 light years away. The cluster swirled around the middle, with sprinkles of stars around the edges in a very clear, swirling spiral. At its heart was what appeared to be one very very bright star but which we knew were actually a collection of stars so close together they looked like one.

But what was really fascinating was the observatory. I don't think I'd ever been in a full observatory before, facing a telescope that is more than 120 years old (inaugurated on Thomas Jefferson's birthday on April 13th, 18-something). The telescope shifted slightly in the domed room as the day passed (a fact which totally fascinated me) and in conversation with the astronomers there, I've finally learnt how they measure distances from the earth (firstly as how the units of light years are calculated, and second, how they essentially do an equivalent of taking a very very long measuring tape between earth and the star in mention).

It was a good trip. And brought to mind one Hamlet phrase that I shall shamelessly quote here:

Doubt that the stars are fire,
doubt that the earth doth move
...
But never doubt I love (thee).

Not that I am declaring any endless affection here but what I'd really like to know is... how the heck would Shakespeare know what he's talking about?

Newly Discovered Frost Poem

Robert Shilling at the University of Virginia recently discovered a poem by Robert Frost that was never before published. The poem, entitled "War Thoughts at Home" was scribbled on the cover pages of a copy of "North Boston", a copy of which was purchased from the Frederick G. Melcher collections in 2005.

I attended today a symposium on the newly discovered poem, which was about, as the name may suggest, thoughts on an erstwhile war while being in home country. It's quite obviously one of the private scribbles of Robert Frost, and probably not something he had ever intended to be published, but is still quite a poignant poem on war - one that strikes remarkedly close to home. There would have been many critics, many literature professors and doctors and people with permanent head damage who would have dissertated on this to death, so I shall not do this. I would instead write about my impressions on the poem when I first read it - because it made me think, as many things often do, of you.

Here is the poem-

War Thoughts at Home

On the back side of the house
Where it wears no paint to the weather
And so shows most its age,
Suddenly blue jays rage
And flash in blue feather.

It is late in an afternoon
More grey with snow to fall
Than white with fallen snow
When it is blue jay and crow
Or no bird at all.

So someone heeds from within
This flurry of bird war,
And rising from her chair
A little bent over with care
Not to scatter on the floor

The sewing in her lap
Comes to the window to see.
At sight of her dim face
The birds all cease for a space
And cling close in a tree.

And one says to the rest
"We must just watch our chance
And escape one by one-
Though the fight is no more done
Than the war is in France."

Than the war is in France!
She thinks of a winter camp
Where soldiers for France are made.
She draws down the window shade
And it glows with an early lamp.

On that old side of the house
The uneven sheds stretch back
Shed behind shed in train
Like cars that long have lain
Dead on a side track.

January 1918

Reproduced here with special thanks to the Virginia Quarterly Review who has published this Frost poem, as well as the Estate of Robert Lee Frost and Peter Gilbert etc. etc.

It didn't strike me half as deeply when I read it as when I heard it being read out loud. It's typical Frost, of course, very much in his style (yes, not a fake) so resonant of roads less taken and snow.

From the onset though, although this is only alluded to, I keep thinking of war - as child's play. But more than war, there was that sense of all the people with a purpose in their minds, however small or large, a goal that drives them away from their homes, away from people they love and from the people who love them. This poem is about those left at home during the war elsewhere, it is on (as the Boston Globe says) about the soldiers who have, more than families and loved ones, friends who love them dearly. This poem is about the life that seems to stop and stretch into infinity, in an afternoon, when a loved one goes away for an interminable length of time.

I am one such person, as you well know. I cannot hope to promise that this road taken would not end up, like cars that long have lain/dead on a side track. I cannot hope to promise that this is not one such side track.

When I look at this poem, although many say the line "dead on a side track" alludes to the death of a friend in the trenches in the war in France during 1918, and the war being a "side track" in the friend's life - I cannot help but think that there is also a certain death and stillness in the life at home. It is as though death in the war cannot go on without war thoughts on death, and death itself at home. The final stanza has images of things half used, being left behind and abandoned, as if waiting for re-use that is not to come. It is the life of the woman (it hints at her being old, as she is bent with care) also stopping dead in its tracks. It shows the stillness of waiting for someone from far far away.

With this I somehow think that "War Thoughts at Home" was appropriately named - not just for thinking about the war, which if you think about it happens quite briefly in the poem, but thoughts on another war on the home front. It is the anger directed at shutting out the blue jays which, trivial though it might be, are fighting their own small, petty wars, and the hope and defiance in lighting an early lamp despite there being light. It is the anger of disuse and misuse - and the gentle, silent acceptance that, like the blue jay and the crow, it is a part of life itself that war comes to us, and gently leave.

The Petit Manseng

I know this post is food related, but I think as time goes by and I fail to have enough to update two blogs, I'm going to move all the Food Magnet blog posts over to this one. Yes, in case you really didn't know, I do maintain the Food Magnet blog as well (albeit maintaining being an over-statement).

I found a really nice new grape varietal in Virginia called the Petit Manseng. It's usually grown in limited areas in the southwestern area of France, particularly in the Jurancon region and came to Virginia perhaps only recently since it's a very little known type of grape. In fact, it's so little known that the vintner at Veritas, a vineyard that just started to produce this wine, mistakenly mentioned that the grape is called the Jurancon Moelleux, when in fact, it is not the grape, but the region where the grape (the Petit Manseng) is grown.

The Petit Manseng is a curiously amazing wine. It's a very fruity, a nearly Riesling like white that bursts in a floral fragrance on the nose, with a finish that is nearly mead-like or peachy.

It certainly made me curious enough to want to log on and find out more about the wine when I could. Think I'll be looking out for this wine more - if the reviews are going right, it's only upward from here for the Petit Manseng in Virginia.

Small white pretty flowers

Wildflowers in the Grass
Originally uploaded by metaphoric.

This one is for enuwy. It kind of reminds me of the photos that she would take.

Picture of the Day from Virginia

Old Fashion Gasoline Station
Originally uploaded by metaphoric.

Day 5 of my trip in Charlottesville, Virginia. This is from an old gas top up wayhouse in Crozet, Virginia.

I thought it was so interesting how they still pin up the prices using old metal tags and had gas pumps that still clicked when they topped up the gas in the car.

Anyway, this one is for you - you who love the clouds in my photos.

A Change in the Seasons

You just told me that this blog's style, sound, flavour, what have you, has changed from how it was a year ago. Is that any surprise? Change is as frequent and as normal as the changes in the seasons. I can see it from my window where I sit now, as the leaves turn from spring green to warm, toasty brown.

So many things have changed. I now drink coffee black, but with sugar, and bath myself in Dove instead of Shokubutsu. You've changed so many things, reminding me how one cannot observe a scientific thing without changing it. Your very presence moves me.

I wonder if you are ever amazed by how things are. J'assume les raisons qui nous poussent de changer tout, mais espérez que j'ai tort. Perhaps there are no reasons. Perhaps there is only one reason - the same reason that made me falsely and foolishly delude myself into trusting that you read French, without reason and without logic.

Monter sur [insert number] elephant...

This is for Thessaly...

Monter sur un elephant

Monter sur un elephant
C'est haut, c'est haut!
Monter sur un elephant
C'est haut, c'est effrayant!

Monter sur deux elephants...
C'est haut, c'est haut!

And if you like you can count to mille...

For the benefit of the non-French reading crowd among you - it means,

To climb on one elephant,
It's high, it's high!
To climb on one elephant,
It's high, it's terrifying!

It's a French counting song that I learnt in school to teach numbers to little children. Alf and Thess have recently gotten hooked to the song and want to learn it.

Oh, what's even more fun is that I taught poulet to the little one and she learnt it in one go!

T = 17 months

Reaching for the Apple
Originally uploaded by metaphoric.

Thessaly has reached the fun stage in her life - when she's beginning to start expressing herself (definitely expressive even without language), think for herself and start making choices.

She's surprised me so many times, from suddenly chirping, "Elmo!" to telling me with both hands that she wants to watch Sesame Street. I love it that she's gotten a sense of humour (something she's obviously born with) and has begun to crack some really mischievous jokes deliberately.

It was the only fish caught that day...

The Fish I Caught
Originally uploaded by metaphoric.

As probably anyone would know, saying that I know how to fish would be akin to saying that a chicken knew how to fly. ie. both are vague attempts at simulating the movements required to perform the action, without really knowing what went into really doing it.

But there it was. I made my first cast - very much aided by dad who said, "You hold the line here like this, and toss the line in with a flicking movement of the wrist..." And so I mimicked the action as best I could and the line went in. Quite a distance. "And then we wait." said the dad. That's the boring bit.

Sceptical brother in the background going "I don't think there's any fish around there."

And so I reeled the line in thinking there wasn't much point anyway and wanted to try again (the fun is in the casting I have to tell you).

The line came in quite a ways actually, but there was a tugging on the line like a weight (I thought seaweed) at the end of it. And then the rod started to twitch. "You know what?" said dad, "I think she may have actually gotten a fish."

"What?! Like on the first try?"

I pulled a bit faster. My reeling wasn't really in a rush anyway - I felt sorry for any poor fish that may have inadvertently gotten stuck at the end of my line. The sinker broke the surface and with it, was a shiny, flipping bluegill at the end of the line.

I was afraid of the flapping, flailing fish the whole time. But somehow managed to keep it at arm's length enough to take a picture.

That was my first (and probably only time) fishing.

As you can see, I'm not into fishing (under-statement of the year). But it must have been beginner's luck - as it was the only fish caught that day.

The Vernal Wood picture from my childhood

Fall and Forests

This season, cinnamon, hollies and Halloween are all the rage for Fall (aka Autumn to some peeps in the Northern Hemisphere). Bath and Body Works is cashing in on the theme of warmth, mulling spices, and pumpkins. Pumpkins are big and the smell of spices and apples are everywhere.

It's lovely. Fall is my favourite season in the year, and being immersed in it in a way that I've not been before, I completely know why.

My mum had a photo album when I was ten. On the cover was a photo print of forests during fall, with the verse (and I don't know why I remember this always - its one of those trivial things that stay in your long-term memory and wastes space there...) "One impulse from a vernal wood will teach you more of man/Of moral ages and of good than all the sages can". It was probably one of those photo albums that were made in Japan, but funny when I saw the forest today - that was what I was thinking.

The forest on the photo album looks like a picture in the next blog post I'm putting up - but this holly plant taught me something. It told me, "Grow despite, not because. And it is also saying to me, "Sometimes growing different to the background isn't a bad thing, it is in standing out that one finds oneself beautiful."

Leaving soon on too many jet planes

One of the side effects of travelling (too much) is that one soon fatigues of it. You asked me today if I was excited to be going off (last day of work and first of a vacation week hurrah!) and in a way I am. But I'm not looking forward to the 12 hours + 2.5 hours + 3.5 hours + 1.5 hours on a plane ahead of me. I don't think I've ever taken so many flights in sequence before, just to get to where I'm going.

Of course, I could have taken the direct route and simply flown LHR-CHO straight away, but obviously I had to bump into a business transatlantic, and obviously I had to take what seemed the cheaper (I doubt it now) option.

Yes, I am definitely your silly goose alright - I'm living up to my name.

I am not even counting the time I'm going to be spending on the flight. All I know is, more than 24 hours later after I take off + time zone differences, the frequent flyer miles had better be worth it. Every time I walk into a place that gives me Krisflyer Gold privileges, I tell myself that it was all worthwhile.

I want to honestly say what I'm looking forward to - because over IM, I didn't have an answer for you.

I am looking forward to walking towards my niece and seeing a broad, wide grin on her face. I'm looking forward to seeing her spring forward with a freshness of step one only sees in the very very young. I'm thinking that if only we had kids, they'd be so darn cute (looks like Isaac). I'm now laughing at the sceptical look on your face and your "no kids" policy.

And of course you'll say that our lovely white fluffy baby is totally worth it and enough trouble as it is. Which of course she is. I'm half thinking of borrowing her to snuggle against in bed - she'd be lovely in this cold weather.

A New Home!!

Luscinia View 002
Originally uploaded by metaphoric.

Finally, after much ado and running around, I've finally laid hands on my new house!!

Half of today was spent running around to Wokingham, then to the new place to do mundane but important things like sign the lease, get the keys released (and into my grubby hands...) check into the apartment, make sure the inventory listings are correct and everything is in good working order yada yada yada.

It's not easy, this moving out and moving into a new place thing. But I'm so excited!

This marks many "first's" for me,

1. First home of mine where I'm actually paying the rent with my hard-earned money and entirely able to invite my parents (imagine that!) to my home
2. First time furniture which I chose, and I paid for is going to be moved in,
3. First time I'm setting up my very own nest (all on my own - and you're like yeah yeah, *yawn* been there done that)
4. First time I've had a dishwasher, electric stove, food processor under the sink and a garbage compactor installed in my house (I'm going to have so much fun playing with these new toys...)
5. First time I'm living right next to a big 24 hour Tesco

Each time I see the house, it just looks better and better. I can't wait to move in! Actually, the funny thing is that I'm hardly going to even get much time to spend with my new house, but the year is still young (heheh). (tongue in cheek) But now I kind of know how a man with his new bride feels like (can't wait to move in).

You will probably be laughing but I had really never realized just how Cancerian I am until now. Cancerians are domestic and house-proud, but up until now, I've never had a house of my own to feel proud of.

This is a key part of me growing up. The first, and perhaps only, step that I will actually proudly take in a long ladder of self-domestication, viz.

1. Buying a house (Singaporean equivalent: registering for a HDB flat)
2. Moving in with a mate
3. Getting married
4. Having kids
5. Putting kids through college
6. Growing old
7. Having grandkids
8. Growing even more old
9. Starting to count down to the final days
10. and so on and so forth...

"15, there's still time for you, time to buy and time to choose - 15,
there's never a wish better than this... when you've only got 100 years to
live." - (100 years, 5 for fighting)

f.r.e.s.h.

Just in case anyone wondered what f.r.e.s.h. actually meant, it stands for:

• Food
• Recipes
• Enjoyment (of food)
• Supermarkets reviews and
• Household tips

Which are basically everything that I'm putting up here before I forget them myself.

In love with London, infatuated with Paris

In Love with London
Originally uploaded by metaphoric.

Quite honestly, Paris is quite a skanky city, all things considered. The streets are filled with grub, not quite clean, the city has well dressed people but dirty metro stations.

Yet all things considered, there's something distinctly sexual in the energy of the city. It features fast driving, slick talking cab drivers alongside ambling couples who stop to steal a kiss on a bridge as fast cars drive by.

I wouldn't say Paris is romantic, however, unlike how it is often portrayed. Try Prague for that one. Romance somehow is too clean a notion to be associated with Paris. But sexy - oui oui. And nothing summarizes that picture quite so well as this poster, plastered all over the Metro stations in Paris.

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I just realised that it has really been quite a while since my last blog post. And with good reason. There's plenty to blog about, but I just haven't quite found the time to write anything about it.

Without being too dry about mundane topics, here's basically what had happened in the last two months or so that has elapsed in my life.

I've...

1. Changed jobs in the same company.
2. Relocated to a different postal code, different district... in fact, different country and different continent.
3. Been in 3 different countries in the course of a week.
4. Attempted getting new bank accounts, rented apartments and a whole new life in the course of 3 weeks.
5. Dealt with a totally different keyboard configuration.
6. Changed the layout of my blog (its neater this way)

So yes, I've been busy. Understandably.

It's probably going to be easier to keep track of my life (where I've been and where I am going) through my Flickr page than through here - in the end. Since most of the time these days I'll end up travelling with little else than a trusty camera.

I'll try to keep up.

It's funny how far the extent one would be willing to go in pursuit of an old dream. I say old, because it wasn't even a current one, and it started with a strange and probably silly now in hindsight promise to move vaguely towards the land of the Oranje. Whatever happened to that, mij engel?

So many times I find myself on a distant shore, sings Sarah Brightman in my ears. Too many acquisitions along the way. Digital SLR, 60gb iPod, rented apartment to call my own, a one-way ticket to the EU. Too many broken promises, too many meaningless dreams, too much effort in pursuit of a "running away".

But I am still propelled along, like the backward cars of a headlong train, towards a future that I can only grasp as a good idea in the corners of my mind.