One evening back in our apartment, H asked if  she could speak. This was unusual, because we rarely speak unless we need to.

“Is it personal or profesional?” I asked.

“Both,” H replied.

“That – is never a good thing,” I remarked wryly. H gave me a perplexed look. Yes, I know, I can be a bitch at times. As it turns out, I was right.

H told me she had just invited two of her staff to stay over at our apartment. I happen to know the staff in question. According to H they have been having some trouble with their housemates at the company dormitory, and they wanted to move out. They needed a place to stay until they could find alternate accomodations.

There has been different versions of the story going around the office. But the version I heard was that their housemates have a habit of partying into 3 am in the morning, and the two staff, being the shy, non-partying sort, have been having trouble sleeping. They come to work tired, and it has been difficult for them. There were other allegations that complicate the matter. But at the end of the day, H told her staff they could come over to our apartment until they find a place.

She didn’t exactly ask me before offering our apartment. Which again annoyed me a little. Yes, she did ask me. After the fact. I could have said no, and it would have been embarrassing for H to tell her staff they have to sleep somewhere else. The truth of the matter is: it was not within my nature to say no to something like this. I justwish H could have show more respect to the other party sharing the apartment – me.

Sometimes I think H has the social skills of a turnip.

But there is also another concern – which is the question of how this crosses a line professionally between H and her staff (and by implication, between myself and the staff) M, my department head, felt it sets a bad precedence. While we work closely with our staff, we are their managers, not their friends. He felt it was inappropriate for H to invite the staff to our apartment.

The way he put it: the next time someone else has troubles at home, does it mean they can also stay over at our apartment? If  Person X argues with her husband and needs a room for the night, can H say no, when she offered it to Person Y?

I see M’s point. The thought has occurred to me. But it has been done. I just hope it doesn’t come back to bite us.

ITHAKA

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery,
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon – you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with your pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbours you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

~ C.P. Cavafy (translated from the Greek by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

Where once stood the looming bookshelves of doom, now there is a wide blue space:

More blue space:

A wall of 34 boxes – and my backpack in the right foreground:

Meet Herodotus. He’s the little guy in the green jacket. You will be seeing more of him soon:

The books that are going homeless will be dumped closer to my departure. I have dismantled the bookshelves, and the room looks more spacious now without the looming bookshelves of doom.

My old pair of work-shoes look a little worn-out, so I bought a new pair of shoes for work this afternoon. Perhaps I felt that I needed new shoes to symbolize the beginning of a new journey. The Chinese are big on symbolism, and I guess I am more Chinese than I would admit.

I report to work tomorrow officially as a member of the Dubai project. The hassle is having to leave some work-clothes out of the luggage, because I still need to show up for work for the next two weeks or so. Right now I just want to pack everything and just go.

I have decided on the books I will bring over to Dubai. Or rather, the baggage allowance has decided matters for me. I will not be shipping any personal items over at all because of the cost involved. So for a year I will be living out of my backpack. Whatever I need along the way, I’m sure I will find it in Dubai. Otherwise, I believe I will just make do.

My room looks so spacious right now, it’s unreal. I have no bookshelves, no desk, no chair, no bed. There is only the wardrobe, the 40 boxes, my mattress, the books to be trashed, and some personal items on the floor. I am typing this post right now with my laptop on a stool. My alarm clock is sitting on a pile of books.

This feels so unreal.

Since my priority is to get rid of these books as soon as possible, I’m afraid this will only be available for people living in Singapore. Sorry.

Please note that all books listed here have been stored for a long time in a humid environment. So the pages are yellow with age, dusty and there might be the occasional notes and underline on the text itself]

Non-Fiction:

1. Frederic J. Baumgartner, Longing for the End: A History of Millennialism in Western Civilization (Palgrave)
2. William Black, Al Dente: The Adventures of a Gastronome in Italy (Corgi)
3. Michael White, Leonardo: The First Scientist
4. Haruki Murakami, Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche (Vintage US)
5. Ian Wilson, Shakespeare: The Evidence
6. Buddhist Offerings: 365 Days (Thames & Hudson)
7. Pico Iyer, Tropical Classical: Essays from Several Directions (Vintage US)
8. Postmodern Singapore, edited by William S. W. Lim (Select Publishing)
9. Louis A. Sass, Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the light of Modern Art, Literature and Thought
10. John Man, Alpha Beta: How Our Alphabet Shaped the Western World (Headline)
11. Diana Preston, A Brief History of The Boxer Rebellion (Constable Robinson)
12. Lonely Planet: Cambodia (4th Edition/August 2002)
13. Lonely Planet: Laos (6th Edition/Published August 2007)
14. The Best Buddhist Writing 2004, edited by Melvin McLeod
15. Let’s Go: Britain 2006 On a Budget
16. Rough Guide to Thailand’s Beaches & Islands (2nd Edition, November 2004)
17. Edward Said, Orientalism (Vintage US)
18. John Gray, False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (Granta)
19. Shunryu Suzuki, Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen (Quill)
20. Francis Fukuyama, The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order (Profile)
21. Richard A. Firmage, Abecedarium: Some Notes on Letters (Bloomsbury)
22. The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew
23. From Third World to First: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew
24. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilzations and the Remaking of World Order
25. Lonely Planet: Tibet (6th Edition/May 2005)
26. Alexia Brue, Cathedrals of the Flesh: My Search for the Perfect Bath (Bloomsbury)
27. Miyamoto Mushashi, The Book of FIve Rings (Chinese/English Bilingual version)
28. Rough Guide to Turkey (5th Edition/June 2003)
29. Let’s Go: Turkey (2003 Edition)
30. Lonely Planet: Istanbul (2nd Edition)
31. Lonely Planet Phrasebook: Turkish (3rd Edition)
32. Lonely Planet: New Orleans (2nd Edition/2000)
33. Let’s Go: San Francisco  2003
34. Lonely Planet: San Francisco (2nd Edition/1999)
35. Teachings of the Buddha, edited by Jack Kornfield
36. Thich Nhat Hanh, Teachings on Love
37. Sun Shuyun, Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud
38. Lonely Planet: Vietnam (9th Edition/August 2007)
39. Peter Riddell, Islam and the Malay-Indonesian World
40. Stephen Ambrose, Band of Brothers (Touchstone)
41. Siouxsie & the Banshees: The Authorised Biography (Sanctuary)
42. Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha (Bantam)

Fiction:

1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (HarperPerenial)
2. Kevin Smith, Clerks & Chasing Amy: Two Screenplays
3. Stefan Zweig, Chess (Penguin Red Classics)
4. W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (Pan) [I got the book second-hand, and there are underlines on the pages]
5. Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo (Oxford World Classics, old cover)
6. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Penguin Modern Classics)
7. Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (Harcourt Brace)
8. J.M. Coetzee, The Master of Petersburg (Penguin)
9. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenin (Penguin Classics)
10. Herman Melville, Moby Dick (Penguin Classics)
11. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Penguin Classics)
12. Storm Contantine, Stalking Tender Prey
13. Lloyd Alexander, The Book of Three
14. Lloyd Alexander, The Black Cauldron
15. Lloyd Alexander, The Castle of Llyr
16. Lloyd Alexander, Taran Wanderer
17. Lloyd Alexander, The High King
18. Tom Holland, The Bone Hunter (Little Brown UK)
19. Valerio Massimo Manfredi, Alexander Trilogy Vol I: Child of a Dream
20. Valerio Massimo Manfredi, Alexander Trilogy Vol II: The Sands of Ammon
21. Valerio Massimo Manfredi, Alexander Trilogy Vol III: The Ends of the Earth
22. Iain Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost (Vintage UK)
23. Amy Bloom, Away (Granta)
24. Bram Stoker, Dracula (Penguin Classics)
25. Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials Omnibus (Scholastic)
26. Nancy Huston, The Mark of the Angel (Vintage US)
27. Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes (Vintage US)
28. Haruki Murakami, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Vintage US)
29. Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase (Vintage US)
30. Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty (Picador)
31. Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory (Abacus)
32. Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions (Faber)
33. Caitlin R. Kiernan, Threshold (ROC)
34. Bernard Cornwell, The Winter King (Penguin)
35. Salman Rushdie, Shame (Vintage UK)
36. John Banville, Eclipse
37. Tracy Quan, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl
38. Will Self, How the Dead Live (Bloomsbury)
39. Jenny Diski, Only Human (Virago)
40. Chuck Palahniuk, Choke (Jonathan Cape)
41. Bruce Sterling, Schismatrix Plus (Ace)
42. Allan Massie, King David

Book Proof/Gallery Copy/Sample

1. Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
2. Jed Rubenfeld, The Interpretation of Murder
3. Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death
4. Michael Gruber, The Book of Air and Shadows
5. Jan Morris, Hav
6. Jon Fasman, The Geographer’s Library
7. Jeanette Winterson, The Stone Gods
8. John Berendt, The City of Falling Angels

Comics/Manga

1. Crying Freeman: Portrait of a Killer
2. Crying Freeman: A Taste of Revenge
3. Frank Miller’s Sin City: That Yellow Bastard
4. House of Secrets: Foundation
5. The Book of Magic: Summonings
6. Preacher: Until the End of the World, Garth Ennis et al
7. Sandman Midnight Theatre, by Neil Gaiman, Matt Wagner & Teddy Kristiansen
8. The System, Peter Kuper
9. Orion, Masamune Shirow
10. Earth X
11. Hellblazer: Original Sins
12. Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits
13. Hellblazer: Fear and Loathing
14. Bone: The Dragon Slayer
15. From Hell, Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell

Let’s just say: Ouch.

Once again, the sheer weight of my possessions begin to overwhelm me. I’m tempted to live out of a single backpack for the whole year in Dubai.

It’s tiring work to pack all those books. I’m now on 20 boxes of books and DVDs – and we’re still counting. During the shuffle, I finally found the CD box-set I was looking: Retrospective: The Best of Suzanne Vega, and I was seized with this irrational but insistent thought: I must download all the Suzanne Vega songs to my iPod to bring over to Dubai; Suzanne Vega MUST come with me!

I just can’t seem to let go.

When I first saw Carl’s post on the R.I.P. III Challenge, my first thought was that I would like to take the opportunity to read Ann Radcliffe. Except I’ve already packed my Ann Radcliffe into one of the boxes. So, I’ve packed myself out of the challenge. With the move to Dubai, and the logistics of moving, the cultural shock and uncertainty – not to mention the learning curve of a new posting – I doubt I will have time to read or blog in the next few months. This really feels like goodbye somehow.

I thought it would be interesting to see my whole life packed into cardboard boxes. Now my life is a solid and expanding wall of cardboard boxes, and I am overwhelmed.

I framed this postcard in a cheap Ikea frame.

The postcard itself: a picture of the painting, “The School of Athens”. Artist is Raffaello Stanzio, also known as Raphael. The painting sits in the Vatican museum.

What’s so special about this postcard?

This postcard is also a memento of my visit to the Vatican museum. The Vatican City has its own postal service, separate from the Italian Postal Service. When I was there, I mailed the postcard to myself via the Vatican City Postal Service. Note the Città del Vaticano on the stamp:

I thought it was fun - using the same postal system as the pope. When you’re a tourist you’re supposed to do stuff like this.

Hey, Jo, if you’re reading this post, look: It’s Josefina!

Wave to Josefina!

Josefina: “Bye bye, Jo!”

I’m packing Josefina with Proust and my vegan cookbook. So it’s not entirely bad.

Here’s where it starts: putting books into cardboard boxes.

While I was packing the books, I came across an old book that I haven’t looked at for a while – Peter Robb’s Midnight in Sicily. I remember it as the book I brought with me to Rome in 2002. That was a particularly bad year for me, and the book brought back all the associated memories.

So much memories in my books.

The book I brought with me to Rome in 2002

I carried the book with me everywhere while I was in Rome. I would tuck the ticket stubs to the museums, trains and even the airline boarding pass inside the book, as mementos of the trip. But I forgot all about them when I came home.

All the mementos, all spread out. I will have to put them somewhere. Maybe in a scrapbook.

This is not a good time to get nostalgic. I have a lot of things to do.

It’s not my birthday. On this auspicious day: 08/08/08 – the store celebrates its 9th anniversary.

If I make it over to Dubai, will not be around for the 10th anniversary, which kind of makes me feel a little nostalgic. But I’ll live.

Last Sunday, I met up with a couple of old friends from school (has it really been about 9 years since we graduated?) We had dinner at Original Sins – the Mediterranean vegetarian restaurant that proves just how flavourful and sinful vegetarian cuisine can truly be. I love that place. It will be one of the things I will miss when I leave the country. Will I ever find anything just as wonderful as Original Sins?

Meanwhile, some food porn:

On a more irrelevant and irreverent note, we spotted this sign outside the public toilet. They have an award for joyous toilets.

Oh. Do share: What is the criteria for a “Happy” toilet?

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is my home – where we have happy toilets.