to diz-connect

in our pre-dating days when su and I were developing our friendship/courtship through lengthy email exchanges, there was a one-liner that caught my attention ever since: "young man, you do not need to stay so connected!" I can't quite remember what my reply to that was.

so yes, I do not actually need to stay so connected. for now at least. After 3 years of a blackberry world since graduation from Penn, i realized back to more primitive roots of having a simple cell phone and daily email access may do me some wonders in terms of restoring some sense of quietness and reducing the noise in life.

Particularly after 2+ years of the consulting/travel/commuting life always armed and aided by a mobile device which in some ways becomes an extension of yourself, it might actually just be helpful to become slightly one step more removed.

blackberry, bbm, gmail, facebook, etc. there are a tons of ways to stay connected, and each of them very usefully so. But now that I am temporarily unemployed (i use the word very carefully as I would like to think that I am still being somewhat productive!), there really isn't that much need to be so connected; to check whether or not the red light on the top right corner is blinking each morning or each night; to get caught in the midst of random social emails and a lot of noise and chatter; or simply just to feel that you are so intimately and intuitively connected to the outside (digital world). Being so digitally connected, I realized, may also in some ways be as much as manifestation of social identity rather than the absolute, utilitarian necessity.

Also because I will undertaking a series of mini travels the next couple of months: Singapore, Thailand, Japan, India and Nepal (such is the plan thus far!), diz-connecting may actually prove to be better than now than ever to make these travels even more worthwhile, and introspective. To allow a more heightened sense of self-awareness instead of being so constantly plugged away, more concerned about the depth and actual value of social interactions/meet ups/catch ups when they do happen rather than planning for the next email/event or chatting away on BBM, and just returning back to the old fashioned modes of communication and interaction before I start work again and return back to the very-plugged-in digital world.

so yes, the young man, is, diz-connecting. somewhat, for the next 3 months.

what a difference a year makes

somewhat fitting a title as I step back into my HK apartment, after 2 weeks on the road in the US and reflecting how things not only in the broader world but also in my own personal and professional life have evolved over the last 12 months. Being back in the US this time round at once brought back memories of the past but also a different awareness for the future.

the title is an excerpt taken from a CNN review on the 1 year report card on barack obama: if there is one guy i would love to be for 24 hours and yet also hate to be, it might just be his job.

the american home

the first post of my new one-thousand penned items!

Am now writing from San Francisco, where Su and I just finished a very satisfying and fulfilling 2 week tour through the US across Boston, New York, Portland and a final last stop in SF before heading back to HK tonight. If anything, it was a trip of thinking and talking - meeting up with so many friends along the way and spending a lot of time catching up and well just, talking. And talking happens on different levels in different forms - with singaporeans and non-singaporeans, with the corporate america and not-so-corporate america type, with investors and entrepreneurs, with younger college buddies and older professor friends - the myriad of interactions and conversations we have had day in day out and of course with each other was probably the biggest takeaway of this trip. Pardon the platitude.

The US is how I remember when I left it year plus ago - still open, still free, still dynamic. yet there is a sense of coming back through a semi-tourist lens that I feel one foot in the door, one foot out. Having spent 5+ years here means that there is a implicit sense of americanness in me (whatever that means? Culture? food preference? Wassup bro? diners and pancakes?) but also an increasing consciousness that as of right now, I am not longer fulfilling the role of the international student not H1B1 visa employee but rather somewhere who is quite vaguely and contently familiar with the inns and workings of what america is all about.

It is also refreshing that for 2 weeks we did not stay in a single hotel at all! Friends houses and apartments, pull out couches, floor mattresses and extra bedrooms have been the transient home for the last couple of days - which definitely makes a difference to the entire experience being one much less about doing touristy things but rather settling into a nice way of life.

tonight - heading back east!

wow. thinking anew, the thousand.

I have not blogged anything substantial in the last 3 weeks as everything is changing and new and interesting an I feel young and restless again. There has not been a rather consistent/coherent chain of thought that has been running through my mind rather the last couple of weeks; rather it has just been a lot more exposed and open-minded given this new found freedom without the baggage of a full time job.

in the last 10 days or so, i have completed my last and best OD triathlon of the season, been to hangzhou and back to see yung, spent more quality time wherever possible with su, spent more time catching up with friends, finished 2 books by Richard Branson (very good!) and the story of the Four Seasons chain (very disappointing), spent a lot of time on swim, bike, run, judged the finals of university business case competition, sat in on meetings with potential bankers and investors, sweated in out in a hot yoga studio, plotted my sabbatical for the next couple of months to India and Nepal.

Sounds like a lot, but also sounds like nothing much. Maybe such are the dualities of being relatively free again. But if anything, I find my mind somewhat refreshed - thinking renewed.

So yes, THIS was my last 1000th post. wow. nothing as grand nor splendid nor distastefully nostalgic nor unbearably cliche as I would perhaps have liked it to be, but rather just simply the promise and dedication to myself to keep fresh, and keep new.

Off to san francisco tomorrow night, for the great escapade back west!

relieved, exhausted, grateful.

buying time

so what i have tried to trade in terms of a steady stream of income is instead more time - for myself, for friends and people, for training and reading, for writing and thinking. It seems like the first time in a long while that I can afford to think a bit more, and especially during a semi-long couch convo with su last night, made me realize how for quite a while i just have not had the time and space to just chill out and not operate on a rolling basis.

but being unemployed also means emphasized financial prudence - less eating out, less taxis, and thinking twice about the value of a dollar!

moving on

i will miss the people, the memories, the friendships. That warm camaraderie, the ever-winning team spirit and sense of culture, the individuals and the teams. The place to call a second home. The only other organization and sense of belonging i have known since graduating from college. The late nights and early mornings, the slide editing and re editing, pre-wires and post-wires, last minute deadlines and work-planning, the questions, the answers, the problem solving.

I am now an ex-consultant, but so proud to have been part of it all.

now, life ensues.

of three trees - notes from a brother to mother

all children are born
blown, by the wind, little seeds
between two lovers

sun and moon dancing
in reverie, in starshine
nobly kissing three

plants that sprout from ground
with their light. fatherly moon
would lull their flowers

and with the sun's cloaks
she feeds the stalks, teaches the
way of gentleness

and yet with the strength
to sway in the wind, but hold true
with undaunting roots

all children are born
some lucky to find the sun
to love them like we

blown, across many
fields of your sunlight. Mama,
you raised up these trees.