to The Twin Cities...

[view from Minneapolis along the Mississippi before passing through St. Croix where Garrison Keillor of the Writer's Almanac once lived.]

i suppose i ought to mention that my visit to Minneapolis and St. Paul a week ago culminated in the proposed relocation from Edinburgh to the city of lakes where i will try to finish my PhD research with a different project since the current work does not appear to lead to anything conclusive (perhaps D, my supervisor, would beg to differ but i seriously question his views on this)... an unfortunate detour which i'd like to call history... sigh. the woes of research.

i am not sure if i am terribly excited about the move... you'd think that having lived in so many different places for the last decade, another relocation shouldn't really be anything worth fretting about... but you will be wrong. the fact is that, contrary to all logic, it doesn't get any easier moving from one place to another, from one city to another, from one country to another... and this probably extends to moving from one planet to another. it's just ain't easy... and often, the consequences are not easily predictable.

while i am glad and very relieved that the idea to explore another area of brain research has been well-received in the research center as well as the enthusiasm and kind hospitality that were bestowed on someone insignificant... i am saddened by the fact that i will have to leave the haven of familiarity and embrace the world of unknown... i am reminded of all the instances of new-beginnings... first in Wales, then Edinburgh, then Germany and then back in Scotland where all that was once familiar seemed somewhat foreign... all the people i've come to know and then bade goodbye and possibly never to meet again in my life...

i recalled returning to the hotel room one evening during my visit and breaking down in tears... not because the research idea i proposed was thought to be completely inane and that i'd better give up pursuing my phd completely --- something which i had thought of in the last few months --- but that i hadn't foreseen the reality that it would realistically be more appropriate to stay much longer so as to run the experiment and then analyse the collected data with the help of the expertise there. it is something with which i wholeheartedly agree, except of course everything else seemed as though my life's apparent 'cosmos' has just been hit by an enormous astroid and turned into utter chaos.

it's funny how people sometimes tell me how envious they are of me having the opportunity to live in differen places... yet i don't know if they ought to for the life i lead is nothing worth envying... sometimes, i wish i had never ventured so far... yet the irony is that it will be just as difficult to return to whence i've left...

there will be so much to get used to... silly aspects like: paper sizes (A4 vs letter), temperature scales (celsius vs farenheit), units of measurements (metric vs imperial), electrical plugs (UK vs US), tea vs coffee..., walking/cycling vs car/petrol..., little quaint shops vs huge supermarket/retail malls..., british accents vs american twang... and the list continues.

[a scene from Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge... i heard woodpeckers, and saw some geese and egrets... but i missed spotting the five deer that the two toddlers and their mum saw along the same path but much further back where i've long passed and then returned a little later...]

sigh... i sure hope things will perk up on the research front... one can only tolerate so much anguish and agony... don't you think?!

posted by ~overacuppa~ on Thursday, 14 April, 2005 at 07:22 hrs