I know... People are never so busy that they don't have time to tell other people how busy they are... But it's still the truth -- life is very, very busy at the moment.

Teaching is as demanding as ever, and my first-year class is the biggest I've had at this institution; I have a very time-consuming set of admin roles; our departure at the end of the year needs a lot of management; and a surge of other personal stuff has thrust its way unbidden into our lives as well.

I hope we're still building something: plans, journeys, languages, experiences, relationships, knowledge.

But, like the construction outside our window, it has definitely all slowed down a bit. From a floor a week, we seem to have moved to a floor a month.





I also hope we're not knocking too much down.

Below is the site where Ampang Park Mall once stood, the preservation campaign having not been successful. New MRT stations are good, but we've lost a bit of history. New life phases are good, but some of our past will undoubtedly be lost in the process.



And I hope we're not shutting too much out...



Anyway, enough of all that. Here are the fine highlights of the week:

-- Top of the list was being presented with a really beautiful hand-painted scroll by a former student, who (among many other things) studies and teaches calligraphy. The characters (hou4 de2) are written in seal script. They mean: "With great virtue one can take charge of the world." I was touched beyond words.



-- Nigel went to our former condo to say goodbye to the Nepalese guards we'd got to know while we were there. They've not had a day off since we've known them, and their working day is a twelve-hour shift. Now, after four years of that, they're finally going home. They live in a variety of places in Nepal, so they'll probably not see each other again. They'll spend a year or so back home, and then they'll do another tour. Maybe back here. Maybe in the Gulf. They (unlike flaky me) are adamantine.

-- We went to our first Toyota Classics concert at the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas. This is a charity event, so in return for the (comparatively high) ticket price, you get an MC, a glossy programme, and refreshments in the interval. The guests were the UK-based Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and along with a fabulous solo soprano (Charlotte Beament), they performed Handel, Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart, using period (or replica-period) instruments. The different build was easy to spot where the brass and woodwind were concerned. But we were initially confused by the violins: although they looked the same, they sounded different. The conductor later explained that this is because of the gut (rather than metal) stringing. The whole effect is somehow duller but warmer.

-- It was such a struggle getting a taxi one morning, because of the rain. But the one that came was a mass of butterflies. It was a struggle getting home that night as well, still because of the rain. But there was a camaraderie among those huddled at the MRT entrance, glancing wryly at each other over the top of our smart phones. The umbrella sellers were out in force, and there was a beauty to the wet street scenes.



-- The Barn has slidden seamlessly from Hallowe'en to Christmas.

-- There are still bright sunny walks to be had.



-- We had a wonderful Saturday lunch at Isabel on Jalan Mesui. I really like this place. The decor is elegantly understated; the music is interesting but unobtrusive; and the food is just great. The smoked duck red curry is really flavoursome, and peas, lychees, little onions, and that-squash-thing-I-can-never-identify provide lots of texture. The Vietnamese-style young jackfruit salad complements it beautifully. And for pudding you can't go wrong with fancy banana fritters, gula Melaka ice cream, and an extra scoop of saporilla ice cream.





-- There are two interesting exhibitions on at the Ilham Gallery at the moment. One is Pago Pago, which features works from the sixties by Latiff Mohidin. I didn't warm to the colour palette, but the theme could not but resonate with me: an easterner leaves for Europe, is inspired by what he finds there, but returns east and sees his home region in an entirely new light. This is what merantau (leaving home to gain experience) is all about.







Particularly poignant was a poem scribbled across a sketch of a woman's face on a scrap of paper. "Sail on, my night boat..."



The other exhibition, evocatively entitled "We will have been young", was a thought-provoking riff on the topic of youth, vulnerability, and transience. And you can't get more transient than a pile of fallen leaves on the pavement...