idle me... or am i?

after leaving this site to rot for about a semester, i finally pluck up enough time and effort to replace my last entry with this.

the long inactivity is due to many objective and personal reasons... too busy with work, too lazy to tell everyone how i ve been struggling with work and most of relevant of all, too busy cocooned in my own little universe of blissful ignorance. its a scary business this world of the academia.... one must keep on producing and find ways to let others know ur result or else u ll fall out of the *circle*... one cannot help but recall the scene of Mr. Anderson taking the blue pill & that 3 episode long tumble down the rabbit hole.

i spent the past few months trying out many things but study... or should i say, productive study. the first month was packed with events and toil that came and went with every new semester i suppose. after the gradual lift of euphoria, reality took over and kept me busy for quite a while. by the end of may, i had completed the course work for one of the only 3 subjects i enrolled this semester.... yes yes... i m took it easy this time "round, but hey who's to say skool life is mere class related?

the end of the month i had found a way to keep me busy the rest of the year, i volunteered to represent our seminar class, applied for a joint research with shanghai & seoul, finally and surprisingly we were selected without much of a debate. this was an amazing coordination of personel at various department to which i cannot take credit... owing to the fact that i had only managed to submit a proposal to a foundation which we r still pending for reply. however, a decision *did* evolve after much crossing of opinion.

then came the time consuming, brain exhausting, nerve testing process of contacting prospective partners... its mainly a business of people: locating them, convince or even seduce them with original ideas, negotiate solutions, sometimes even leaning close to the business of espionage--well captured in Sunzi's words "know thy self & enemy...& thou shalt win 100 wars & more."

still there is goodness much of it in the recent past, one of them being a free trip to shanghai in june, yes yet again, my 3rd in a yr, to meet our research partner. the few weeks before the trip and after were nothing short of an unhumane strain of nerve. such was the stress and pressure that i had trouble going about my usual daily life... slumber never came, food lost its flavor=(for those who know me, i m not kidding...really.), entertainment failed its bidding... yet all those seem horribly acceptable now.

the sudden change of wind is due to, seemingly, our success in attracting our partners to stay and join us... both shanghai and seoul... hurray~!!! all this good news brought me out of that gloomy state of despair upon stressed out nerve. & hence in a tipsy state of mind i ve decided to celebrate this wonderful moment by removing the cobweb from this humble site.

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clearly there is much to be done and that feeling of underachievment still lingers in me. like a scar unhealed that stings, reminding the owner to attend due care; & that stenches, reflecting how rotten it has got for lack of regard. still i hobble along, fearing competition might catch up and that the momentum gained might be lost, fearing the present might be erst memory forever lost...

'tis indeed precious to find moments of leisure, even the thought of it reflects leisure in a way. why one should be so chased by time and opportunity i do not know, indeed all that i m made to believe is that there is much to be gained & nothing to lose. welcome to the rat race.

yours
idly N