Auld Lang Syne

Photo credit: Anh Khuat

The relative silence on this blog is best explained by the end of semester exams that I have had to struggle through painfully over the last couple of weeks. The good news is that they are now done, the holidays are here, and most importantly, I am leaving very soon on a jetplane for warmer climes to meet family and friends. Life is good again.

I started writing this blog seriously last year with a new year resolution to keep it alive. Coincidentally, this last year has been a particularly eventful one. I decided to change career track, in the process, moving continents and quitting my job to become a student once again. It hasn't always been easy to keep the blog going with all these changes churning through in the background. Only the fact that writing each post brings me (unexplained) happiness made it possible.

Photo credit: Anh Khuat

When I first started writing, it was because I wanted to catalogue the strange experiments I was conducting in my kitchen and the variety of cuisines and restaurants that I encountered in London, which is where I was then based. Along the way, I rediscovered a childhood love for writing, which I thought I had lost long ago. As a bonus, my cooking and baking skills are now a few notches better, and my photography skills no longer leave me embarrassed in polite company.

I love this time of year because it offers a chance to reflect on the year gone by, and to plan for the year ahead. Plans have a strange way of not always working out, but then the odd one springs a surprise on you by coming together exactly as you had hoped it would. Although I am stuck in cold, wintry Boston for a few days more, the chance to reflect on a year that has gone far beyond expectation, and the promise of a new one fresh with possibilities, give me plenty of reasons to smile.

Photo credit: Anh Khuat

This is also the season to reconnect with family and friends. I've neglected more than a few over the last few weeks in a mad rush to the end of semester finish line. Now is the time to make amends. As I go about making my phone calls and writing my emails, here is a song to inspire you to do the same: Auld Lang Syne, traditionally sung at New Year's eve in the English speaking world. It is based on an old Scottish poem but the message is timeless and universal: old friends aren't meant to be forgotten. For auld lang syne, goes the first line. In English, for old times' sake.

And before you conclude that I am making a habit of writing recipe-less posts, I promise to reverse the trend  in my next post. :) I do believe I am more than making up by posting some pictures that my wonderfully talented friend and classmate Anh Khuat took over the fall in and around school. He is our resident photographer and can rarely be seen without his trusty camera. He has a lovely photo blog over at http://khothanoi.wordpress.com. As you will see, all the pictures are breathtaking, but I picked these images of fall colours because they capture new beginnings, which is what this season is all about, far better than words possibly can. 

Photo credit: Anh Khuat