Happy new year! 2011, I don't know what I think of you yet.

Savouring quiet moments

Mmm.. I've just been trawling through the internet like a web bot and enjoying reading anything I come across. I've been lying in bed with the laptop on my lap for three hours. My back is starting to hurt. And yet, I haven't bothered to get up.

All of a sudden, the enticing aroma of warm food wafts into my room. What is it? I have no idea, and now after doing nothing for so long but looking at this screen and pondering life in its many forms, I have to get UP. Start my day. To see what the delicious smell is.

I caught up with Zhan from high school last night for a Spanish style dinner at 10pm. We discussed how at the reunion some people appeared to have changed so much or not at all. I was in the 'unchanged' category...

Yet I have in some ways- I remember when I couldn't stay at home for two days in a row. That's changed. If I learnt anything in Denmark, it was how to do stay at home and be more content being less busy. I've come to enjoy the quiet moments.

A good book. Amazing hot chocolate. Warm bubble baths. Haha. Perhaps not that much has changed after all.

Bring back the old fashioned love letter.

Getting personal on Facebook was something which was written about in a feature article today. The author was talking about the new interpretations of monogamy. Technology has changed the way that we interact with others. It has allowed us to get back in touch with old flames. Develop artificial (yet real??) relationships online with people we have never met.

How does this affect a real life relationship?

I read somewhere last year that Facebook helped to break up relationships that were already going to break up. It wasn't Facebook per se, more the online interactions that were occurring were questionably 'morally' grey. A flirt here, an online wink there.

How far is too far?

Can old flames still talk with a wink and a tease, and reminisce about good old times?

If you are in a relationship, how much are you allowed to have even ostensibly platonic interactions with a person, if you are downplaying the fact to your partner, that you are talking to this person at all?

I have in the past talked with important people in my life about emotional cheating. That is in my opinion, much more complicated than physical cheating. There is a set rule when it comes to physicality. The boundaries of emotions however, blur between loyalty, fun, trust, anxiety for the other person, your current circumstances and who you are talking to. And why.

How much is too much, and why do people seek this high?

The sexologist quoted in the article said that it is up to each party to negotiate the boundaries of acceptability between themselves.

I've already cut myself off from Facebook where it hurts the most. I'm also tempted to restitch the connection, because really, I'm just curious to know what is happening!

Forget the naughty email.

Forget the thrills of talking with stranger Icebreaker09 in the open chatroom (does anybody still use this??)

I think it works in this case to do to others what you want done to yourself. That is easier said than done.

Bring back the yesteryears, and the weeks of no communication. As if the person was in Africa in the middle of nowhere. Where accessing the internet is difficult and expensive. No thanks!

But a good old fashioned love letter, snail mail style? Yes please.

Blogging vs FB posts

Today has been a sugar overload. Melting moments, I love them.

Recently I've been surfing the internet more than usual, and getting in touch with my old blogs and friends' blogs. I came across my cousin Sulyn's blog after having not read it for years. It is so nice that she does update sometimes. I feel like I'm closer with her, even though I never comment.

These days, I usually condemn my ridiculous thoughts to my diary using the traditional pen and paper. My urge to express my opinions or feelings online however still sporadically appears. These days it manifests in the form of a Facebook post. I haven't really gotten into the tweeting. These days, I feel old. These days. These days. Back in the days...

The thing about the FB post however, is that you even though you might have something clever to say, you still have the stress/option to consider who you want to share your witty piece of information with. I have so many contacts on my FB who are from different walks of life. Family, friends, work, school, uni. I'm not sure I want everybody to know what I think every time!

So FB has developed, chopped and changed its privacy regulations over the years. It's become much easier to regulate privacy. I wouldn't bet my life on it that these regulations aren't always working. So better to play it safe, and not slag my workmate online. Not that I would ever do that anyway.

The blog is different because you don't really need to care about your thoughts and opinions popping up on someone else's feed, every time you write something. Those who want to read your blog will read your blog, and it is open access if you choose it to be, or closed if you don't. Kinda like FB, but I think the difference is that not everyone knows you have a blog. You're not so easy to find. It's personal, but not as in your face(book)? I don't know why I'm debating between the pros and cons of a blog versus Facebook.

The thing to remember at the end of the day is that no matter what, you will be judged by who you are online.

The case of bodies as conductors of heat

I've considered this theory on and off over a few years now- At my dinner last night, somehow this topic came up again and I was arguing against my original usual position, simply because no-one else seemed convinced and I love a good battle for the 'underdog' side. Anyway, since I was first introduced to this topic a few years ago, I think I have become more n more convinced that this theory could be correct...read on.

Men have always tried to convince me that sleeping naked in bed was the better way. Sorry to say, I've had to question this in the past as one must always be a little suspicious of bias. Still, they put in good argument that there were also beneficial elements to it.

BENEFITS

1. You didn't need to invest in pajamas. This could be a costly exercise (esp. if you were a girl)

2. The less clothes you wear in bed, the warmer you will be. This is due to the heat from your body being 'captured' by your blanket, if it is a down blanket.

3. If there were more than one person in the same bed , this is even better because the body heat generated from both bodies would be even more effectively utilised to keep each other warm. Clothes would not be a barrier. Point in fact that not that many years ago, it was common for Icelandic families to share single beds in pairs, naked, to keep each other warm. 8 people in 4 beds, in a tiny tiny room.

It was the 2nd benefit that was the hypothesis in question. Although I sleep in various 'styles', I never consciously thought about the effects of clothes/no clothes/thin clothes/thick clothes and its relationship to warmth. Last night I was to try to record my experience with just the bare basics (yes, consciously, in my sleep).

Except as the control, I stuffed up. I was too hot to sleep under my quilt, so I slept on top of it with a thin bedsheet over me. During the night it became too cold but I couldn't be bothered to move under my blanket.... so I caught a bit of a cold.

Haha. Maybe it's an experiment better kept for cooler nights. It's probably a question of the naughty control also trying to be a variable. But that's why I've been feeling woozy all day.

Oh my. My blog has rather been neglected.

I think I'll work on a photodiary instead.

Edinburgh tales

Edinburgh claims to be the most haunted city of the world with many spirits who suffered from the black plague still lurking in dark crevices and underground tunnels. Yesterday I visited Mary King's Close, a small section of a series of an old city which was decapitated to make way for a new city, which they built on top. The mazes of the old city are still intact, and it is hard to believe that a few hundred years ago there was a completely different lay out to the city.

I am impressed by all the old black buildings I see. Street after street, there are rows upon rows of apartment houses, castles, grand manors. The Edinburgh castle, of which the city is built around, casts an imposing imprint on my memory. We climb up jagged and beautiful crags, which are tall rocks and cliffs, in order to see the city from a bird's eye view.

I climb up 823 feet onto the city's tallest crag called Arthur's Seat. Uncertain about why the place has been dubbed so, I imagine it to be King Arthur from the old legends claiming the area for his own when he was blown away by the beautiful expanse of Edinburgh city. The rough wind whistles through my ears. The greenness and historical wonder of the city amazes me.







Coming from Australia, Edinburgh is nothing like I have visualised before. I have seen old buildings but not in this wondrous setting, with the crisp cool air and blustering wind from the top of the hill. The entire city looks like something out of a Hogwarts movie. I can see why JK Rowling mused and pondered over Harry Potter from Elephant and Bagel Cafe, which has a view overlooking the castle. It is no surprise that Rowling was inspired by the land she lived in.

In Edinburgh, Catherine cooked a haggis dinner feast for Jonas and I one night. (Definition: a steamed pudding made of finely minced sheep heart, lungs and liver, boiled in a sheep's stomach). It was not as revolting as I imagined.

A few days pass and my companions Catherine and Jonas travel to The Highlands to meet Ailsa, our mutual friend from China. Sitting on the train we pass increasingly dramatic scenery, with crags seemingly looming higher and higher as we journey north-west. When we finally reach her village, Glenfinnan, she meets us with her newborn Finn.

Ailsa, in her lazy Croc shoes, and a relaxed slingback to carry Finn, blends well into the pleasant scenery. She looks at home in a village where 60 people live, where everybody says hello to passerbys, where the peaceful lochs are just a few hundred metres walk away. We walk to an old church which is peeling paint and where the tired wooden pews are looking in need of more visitors, but there is charm with its stained glass windows- and when we walk out of the church, a view with unassuming beauty is laid out before our eyes.

The next day we adventure out to the Isle of Muck. We alight on the train upwards, and then catch the ferry Caledonian MacBrayne. It takes about two hours to reach our island destination, and my companions are the only ones to alight the ferry to arrive onto Muck, an island which can can boast a few cows, green farmland and one visible cafe. The rain patters away as we trod onwards, following the path that leads us to a beach. I can imagine that on a drier, sunnier day, the scenery might even be called gorgeous, but as it is, it is still beautiful in its wetness. It was fitting to experience rain in the wettest area of Scotland, and as we catch our return ferry, the sun mockingly shines upon us again.

Edinburgh gives me a taste of the coldest summer I have yet experienced. Perhaps my lack of appropriate clothing helped me to imagine that Scottish weather was like the beginning of Australian winter. However, a small reminder of home did beckon: The midgies find us in the Highlands (small mosquito-like insects that like to bite humans and suck blood) and like home, I meet their greeting with scratching.