The big Christmas to New Year’s holiday season is barely over and marketing has already shifted gears to focus on the next big date: Feb 14.  Of course, this year that’s both Valentine’s Day and also the first day of the lunar new year, so it’s big.

Today at 10pm, after an entire day of almost no food, I speed-walked a good mile to the nearest not-so-nearby McDonald’s and ordered a Mega Prosperity Burger upsized meal (and various other things, but we can leave that aside for now).  It’s a giant, double-beef-patty long sandwich with black pepper sauce and fresh onions, but that’s not the point.  The point is that it’s a Chinese/Lunar New Year offering that’s been launched even as Starbucks is still serving special holiday treats and I saw maintenance workers just starting to take down the boughs of faux holly in the mall.

And then yesterday I bought my first Louis Vuitton trinket of 2010, an adorable and probably utterly impractical coin purse/clutch shaped like a chicken!!  It’s part of the new Animaux collection that’s apparently meant to commemorate Valentine’s Day… and the collection was launched worldwide on 1 Jan 2010.

Source: ilvoelv.com

Isn’t it fantastic??  I *heart* hens!  Actually, there’s a more attractive “songbird” version in a lovely blue colour, but I had to get the chicken… of course!!  The LV website hilariously tries to justify this piece of frivolousness (after all, it’s based on toy animals that the Vuitton family used to make, supposedly) based on it’s practicality.  First of all, it’s called a “Bird Clutch”, as if it has any possibility of serving as an evening clutch bag – this is an item that would be hard pressed to hold a box of tic tacs, no joke…

From the LV website:

Inspired by the wooden toys from the 1950s found in our archives, the Bird Clutch is a playful design in glossy Monogram Vernis leather. A delightful gift idea as either a coin purse or a bag charm.

Size: 4.9″ x 4.5″ x 0.4″

-Large capacity for coins
-Room for several credit cards
-Golden brass chain to hook the coin purse to a D-ring
-Foam under patent leather for extra softness

PRODUCT ID: M91406

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Let me state for the record that I just tried, and not even one single standard sized credit card will fit in this “clutch”…  but I still love it!  And I guess many other people agree with me, because the hen is already out of stock online (on Jan 3), while the songbird is still available.

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In the past three days I’ve just about finished three books, so we’re off to a good start, at least.  And in three totally different genres too – a light-hearted breezy read about the world of fashion by a fashion journalist (The Meaning of Sunglasses), a pensive/sombre novella by Kazuo Ishiguro (A Pale View of Hills), and hopefully tonight I will wrap on the thoughtful critique of Harvard by former Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 (Excellence Without a Soul).

Reading the latter has really made me yearn anew for years past.  Or perhaps it’s just the comfortably fuzzy embrace of rosy nostalgia.

It’s three hours to midnight, and 2009.  Today I’m in Beijing, yesterday it was Xi’an, and three days ago it was Shanghai, with a brief day in Singapore.  In just four days I will be back in Singapore and then almost immediately back on a plane to Shanghai.  What a difference a year makes.  I can barely recall where I was last new year’s eve, other than at Zen’s house party, followed by a fun trip to The Butter Factory.  I had just finished up a long project in Malaysia, and would be staffed on a Vietnam case within weeks.

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The food here in China is very good, we had roast duck tonight, at what is apparently the most famous restaurant for the delicacy in Beijing (tracing roots back to 1864).

Weather-wise we’ve been pretty blessed with sunshine and not overly blustery or icy days.  Nonetheless at the end of today’s walking tour of the Forbidden City I was grateful for the warm car and the chance to thaw my frozen feet.

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Beijing is completely different from the memories I have of the city from over a decade ago.  My half-memories (mixed liberally with scenes from various movies and TV serials) of an ancient Chinese city crowded with bicycles have had to readjust to the shockingly wide streets (filled with Audis and VWs), striking skyscrapers and bright lights.  I suppose I should have expected all this, given the many mournful and/or nostalgic articles and programs on Beijing (and a mythic Old Beijing) I’d previously seen on National Geographic Magazine, Discovery Channel and even CCTV.  Yet the reality is still a little jarring. 

I also realise that many of the memories I had of my last visit to Beijing as a young boy are simply false.  For example, I had the strongest impression that the Temple of Heaven was in fact an annex to the Forbidden City.  It is not.

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It’s been a good year, I trust.  May 2009 be an even better year, the best year yet.

Here in Nigeria again, for work.  Who would have thought I’d be back here so soon?  Certainly not me.

Nigerian TV is surprisingly good, with top notch Hollywood films and the latest music videos playing seemingly non-stop.  To date, despite being fatigued every night, I have watched Meet Joe Black, The History Boys, and Blood Diamond.  Admittedly that last one wasn’t the best film to see while in Africa.

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I recently read an article about Inequality in America which commented that poor health among the urban poor is driven, among other things, by a lack of safe, convenient options for outdoor exercise.  It’s one thing to read it in a scholarly magazine, but it’s quite another to experience this first hand.  Here in Lagos we are often entreated by our hosts not to go anywhere unescorted, and the “roads” around the hotel compound in one of the nicest parts of the city are uninvitingly muddy, pot-hole riddled obstacle courses lined with discarded tyres, fallen lamp-posts and other debris.  I’ve been told the nearest big parks are an hour outside the city, by car.  In this I’m reminded of my time in Dhaka during the monsoon floods back in 2004, when we were equally restricted with few options for taking walks.  Even then there was a small park a block away from the hotel that was accessible for the first week or so before being flooded.

Here I’ve been making do with desultory in-room exercises, supplemented by energetic prancing around the enormous bedroom to music from iTunes.  I’m concerned that someone will embarrassingly see me through the balcony doors, but so far I think that hasn’t happened yet.

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I went to church today, prompted by my curiosity to see what is apparently the largest Christian church in the world.  Turns out it’s an enormous network of smaller churches under the “Redeemed” banner that meets as a huge congregation on the first Friday of every month.  On this Sunday we attended a smaller service near our hotel in Victoria Island.  It was more colourful, varied and fun than I had been prepared for.  I supposed I hadn’t formed enough of an image in my head of what it would be like.  The two of us that went were terribly underdressed.  Most of the women wore large hats with feathers and silk flowers, a la Ascot.  The men were mostly in suits or vibrantly hued local garb.  The singing was sensationally joyful, rather like attending a concert, or being on the set of an African Sister Act.  The large church band had an excellent saxaphonist, and a lot of stamina.  I’m glad I went, especially this will likely being the only bit of tourism I do on this 9 day trip.

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I pray I manage to successfully stave off excess eating these next few days.  There are many good restaurants here (two lovely Italian outlets in this hotel alone), and our hosts have been very insistent that we eat rather too well for my waistline’s liking 🙂

After two consecutive weeks of having my travel plans to Vietnam thwarted, I am left with just one week before the case wraps.   Will my final itinerary be foiled again?  True, I’ve managed to make two trips on so far, but I literally set up the trip for last week (told not to go with team at last minute – after I had already checked in for the flight!) as well as next week (plans still on-again, off-again).  Still, C is partly right, I am determined to see this water puppet show!!!

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In the meantime, being based in Singapore these past two weeks has given me the opportunity to fully benefit from the many free meal opportunities here.  In case I ever wondered why my pants are starting to feel tight (?!?!?!), I can remember the past week, during which I ate many rich meals at Relish (late meal), Les Bouchons (mentor lunch), Oso (buddy dinner) and Gunther’s (case team dinner).  I can actually still taste the caviar, foie gras, truffles, wagyu beef, lobster and valrhona chocolate that seemed to comprise the bulk of my meal tonight… it’s actually bordering on being /too/ rich to stomach.  Especially if you throw in some champagne.  No complaints from me though 🙂

I can’t believe I actually convinced myself that I had started to eat more healthily.  Argh!

So… I’m currently in a Hanoi hotel, gaping in disbelief at the TV, which I’ve turned on for the first time in three days in the hopes of finding FTV.  Instead, I’ve chanced upon a National Geographic documentary called “Wild S-x” that made me gasp.  Really, my inner prude is thoroughly shocked!  They’ve covered, and very explicitly descibed (along with suggestive background music) the notable practices of about three dozen species, including Bonobo monkeys, snails and sea hares.  The wry narrator has used lines  like “writhing”, “giving new meaning to the phrase ‘swinging in the trees'” and “shocking climax”.  Ugh. 

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Yes, so I’m in Vietnam and excitingly it’s my first visit here.  The catch is that I’m working on a case, so I’ve been running about non-stop doing interviews and checking-out price lists.  I’m not complaining though, although everything seems like a health hazard: the second-hand smoke, the hectic motorcycle traffic, the industry I’m investigating…

I want to go see the water-puppet show!  Apparently it’s a must-see, surprising and intriuging.  Maybe tomorrow, after we done the last of our planned interviews and site-visits.

Whew, I need to get some sleep.

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I finished Freud’s Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious as well as Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic and Baby this past week, and I’m fairly proud of myself of actually getting some reading in.  Now all I need to do is squeeze in a few more cultural activities and I’ll be a semblance of my old self 🙂  Although honestly who knows what I was thinking when I imagined that I might get to attend the opera or ballet at the Opera (directly opposite the hotel, I can see it from my window)??  Already I’m grateful that we even got to drive past Ho Chi Minh’s masoleum earlier while hurrying from one late-evening interview to another.

The pre-war architecture is beautiful, and I’m finding the city quite romantic and very picturesque, perhaps aided by the unsually chilly weather (I should have brought fluffier winter-wear!), and my admittedly selective vision and strong imagination.  I keep viewing everything through the hazy lens of a cinematographer dreaming about Indochine.  All of which I can easily see as perverse and astheticism of the worst sort (“ah, what charmingly decrepit alleys and crumbling French Colonial villas!”).

I’m thinking I must pick up a few glazed dishes and maybe a silk lantern or two while I’m here.

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The food here’s been pretty good.  I’ve only had the pho at the Hilton Opera Hanoi and I like it.  For restaurants I recommend Wild Lotus, Opera Club, Vine and Wild Rice (whose decor I’m in love with).  For bars and clubs I like Ibox (sp?), and Chic Mambo (more a cafe), as well as Funky Monkey.   For hotels definitely stay at the Sofitel Metropole Hanoi (the historic Opera wing is fantastic).

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I wanted to talk about nostalgia, and how nice its been to chat with people from college (K, S, R, and E), as well as visits by Kevin and Eric etc. etc.  Maybe next time.

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I have one fluffy now.  I call it “Puff Puff”…  perhaps I’ll say its name is “Puffin”, as inspired by Louis.  Puff-puff!!  I miss my fluffy pet.

We’ve been staying at a lovely house in Hyannis this past week, spending the kind of relaxing but constant-activity vacation that results from being the only designated driver in the family.  We’ve been to Salem and the MFA, to Martha’s Vineyard and the beach, and tomorrow enroute to JFK we’ll be making a last shopping-stop at the ever-incredible Woodbury Common.  We’ve had good food and taken fun pictures, and I’ve said various unwilling personal goodbyes to places and memories and habits and people.

I leave on Saturday night on the direct EWR-SIN flight.

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PS: Pictures to come, perhaps when I regain internet and computer access next week.
PPS: Jo and XY, I’ve been meaning to respond to your messages, but have been really tied up and infrequently online…  so sorry!  I’ll be back in Singapore in just 48 hours.

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Just because it should be recorded – senior move out was pretty much as bad, if not worse than The Great Move-Out Disaster of 2006, if that’s possible.  The hallways and courtyards of Quincy (and probably every other House) bore an eerie resemblance to the set of a disaster movie or urban refugee camp setting…  furniture, clothes, documents, food and luggage were strewn, abandoned and forlorn, as far as the eye could see.  Theft and looting felt rampant.  It wasn’t a happy place to be at all.

…takes a long time, and a lot of effort.  So many events: fun events, meaningful events, catered events, stand-around-waiting-for-hours events, jostle-with-classmates-for-a-good-spot events, feel-good events, noisy events, grand events, intimate events…  you get the picture.

Tonight was really fun, actually.  There was a party at the athletic fields, followed by Grad Jam.  I sang “Let’s Fall in Love”, which I’ve never sung before, so I partly confused the words and sang a hilariously confused bunch of lyrics at one point, although noone noticed and even on video it looks seamless, thank God.  I had a lot of fun, the singing was so relaxed (usually at the biannual concert we’re all wired up and rush recklessly through all the songs).

And then there was a random party in the Eliot courtyard, which was surreal, and fun and did I mention surreal?  There was very random food (burgers and oreos and Reese’s peanut butter cups) and fairly random drink (champagne and Budweiser and pineapple juice and brandy) and an even more random location (the partially set-up Diploma Cemermony tent for Eliot House with all kinds of random tables and lawn chairs lying sideways and in folded-up piles).

I had a blast.

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And here’re the amusing results of an online “gender role” quiz I just took:

Your Score: Androgynous

You scored 53 masculinity and 60 femininity!

You scored high on both masculinity and femininity. You have a strong personality exhibiting characteristics of both traditional sex roles.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on masculinity

You scored higher than 99% on femininity

 

Link: The Bem Sex Role Inventory Test written by weirdscience on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

 

I just got back from the Senior Soirée, which was beautiful in the rain, and I’m currently feeling deliriously wobbly.  Not because I had anything to drink (I stuck to Sprite), but because I’ve had so little to eat today. 

Emily and I were going to have lunch at Wagamama, which would have been a big meal, but it turned out we were there an hour before it opened for lunch at noon, so we went into Fanueil Hall instead, where I had a cookie and a bowl of chicken vegetable soup that I didn’t finish because it wasn’t very good.  Then after our visit to the precious-jewelry-box-like Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (a must-see!  Amazing!), I promptly took a nap until the Senior Soirée was already well underway (and I had missed all the pre-party receptions and get-togethers).

So essentially in the last twelve hours I’ve eaten two slices of brownie and had two cups of soda, all at the soirée.  That’s why I’m feeling wobbly.

Thank goodness Andrew has a huge box of barbeque pork jerky in the fridge and substantial leftovers from his dinner at Grendel’s 🙂

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In six hours I must leave to drive to New York… to pick up my family from JFK!!  🙂

I am not ready or willing to leave the excitement, the richness of resources and the very comfortable community that I’ve grown accustomed to here.

And that’s part of why I’m so busy all the time now.  I’m rushing to enjoy the opportunities that I’ve complacently taken for granted for years now at the College, the University and the Boston area.  The photos below offer a selection of these opportunities from the last couple of days (lots more photos on Flickr):

Today I went to an open brown bag lunch discussion at the Kennedy School with Kishore Mahbubani, currently the Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS (and for over a decade previously the Singapore ambassador to the UN).  The three of us seniors (Shi Ming, Xin Wei and myself) all arrived late from different places and settled for various nooks at the back of the room.

Another random but cool opportunity – on Monday the Food Network was filming a tangentially Harvard-related episode so whoever wanted to go to the filming could enter a lottery to go into Boston.  I made Ryan sign up with me  and while at the venue we recognised another half dozen of our friends in the crowd of about 90 Harvard affiliates.  Those were some fantastic sticky buns they made!

Here we are with the stars of the episode.  From left: Ryan, Joanne Chang (of Flour Bakery and Cafe), me, Bobby Flay (one of America’s Iron Chefs!), Tiffany.

Here I am playing tourist (after four years of living here!) right outside the Old State House in downtown Boston, which I’d never seen before.  We accidentally came across the building while walking from the filming to the Harvard Club of Boston at One Federal to Macy’s at Downtown Crossing; I’ve always loved the compact-ness of Boston.  Ryan (who took this picture) tells me that is the very balcony from which the American Declaration of Independence was first proclaimed in 1776.

I was struck by the incongruous discovery that part of the building now houses the State Street subway station (on the orange and green lines).

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Can you see why I don’t want to leave?  Sigh.

Tomorrow evening (Wednesday) I will be presenting my senior honors thesis as part of the series of informal “Senior thesis desserts” (implying the free Finale desserts which will be served).  Quincy House SCR, 7pm in case you’re interested.  Which also means I now need to go and re-read my thesis for the first time in weeks and prepare some slides and speaking notes.  What an anxiety-inducing task.

In a stroke of high irony, the Dean of Admissions at neighboring MIT has resigned after it turned out that she had lied on her resume.  After 28 years at MIT and about nine years as the Dean of Admissions, an anonymous phone tip-off launched an investigation that eventually forced Marilee Jones to resign, according to the Harvard Cimson and the US News & World Report.

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I slept almost all day today, which was sheer bliss.

Last night Andrew, John, Ryan and I went to the first Upper Hall at the newly-built Queen’s Head pub in the basement of Memorial Hall.  The atmosphere was fantastic, the pub looks gorgeous, and the food was lovely – we had buffalo wings and nachos (paid for with Board Plus, woohoo!).  The free-flowing beer and other drinks was an additional perk for us seniors; the specially-brewed 1636 was pretty tasty as well.  I’m glad the four of us went early enough to beat the long lines and find a place to sit.

Afterwards we stopped by the party in the suites next door, and then ended the night with an hour long chat in our own common room where I drank seltzer and ate cookies.  Or more accurately everyone else ended their night – I proceeded to watch various tv shows on my computer until it was clearly time to go to bed.