I'm still reeling. I can't remember such a difficult institutional arrival. The admin is unrelenting. Clawing my way up the learning curve feels like scaling Everest.

There's no time to read. There's no time to write. There's hardly time to sleep.

So, at the moment, I experience my environment in snippets, which momentarily break up the long, long hours of work or commuting. These are the moments of real world that sneak into those small segments of time when I don't have a screen in front of my face.

They feel like a handful of scattered mosaic pieces reaching out to each other across a vast tract of grey concrete wall.

This is what helps me survive:

-- Sprawling in the comfy leather armchairs at various branches of Dome (and you get biscotti with your coffee there, too -- nice touch)

-- Making the San Francisco cafe at the foot of the Chulan Tower my home-from-home on post-grad days



-- Getting very decent blueberry pancakes from Chilla Cup

-- Experiencing Sogo... (We arrived just as the store was opening. Martial music plays; a phalanx of waiting staff stands ready to greet you; the stirring music segues into a rip-off of Petula Clark's "Downtown"... Kind of surreal...)

-- Doing my first Ikea -- on a Saturday, when the whole of Malaysia seemed to be nest-building...

-- Walking to Kampung Baru via Chow Kit, and then taking the LRT one stop to KLCC (it would be hard to find more city contrasts than you get in this little trip)

-- Ambling the pleasant walkway between Pavilion and KLCC (why are there not more of these?)

-- Hearing the chimes from the clock tower on the campus at Semenyih

-- Finding new breakfasts... (Loh mee, which is the one with the thickened soup; lo shu fun soup, which is the one with the rats' tail noodles; tasty nasi campur from places near Chow Kit market...)



-- Finding new lunches, such as Laksa Johor or Laksa Sarawak (and here are a couple of handy laksa guides) or kung pao chicken (from the restaurant in the temple complex not far from the Semenyih campus)

-- Getting apam balik and real sugarcane juice from our Tuesday night market

-- Discovering pulut tai-tai, another wonderful Nyonya dessert, made of sticky rice and blue pea flowers, and served with a dollop of kaya



-- Taking in an exhibition at the Petronas Gallery in KLCC ("The City: Becoming and Decaying" -- a really interesting look at cities around the world, and an inspiration to document our own little piece of city living)

-- And going to the movies (but more on this another time)