Sunday, January 14, 2007

Another Sunday, Another Pub

And we found ourselves at the Euston Flyer along Euston Road, facing the new British Library complex and the striking Victorian masonry of St Pancras station. Greeting us was a diverse lunch menu selection, but what stood out for me was the chilli con carne. It’s been ages since I had Mexican food, and the mix of rice, minced meat, beans, nachos and guacamole was marvellous.

We talked, and we bantered, and we laughed. These are moments difficult to come by when you’re back home. Caught up in the harried hustle of each day, you don’t really have the latitude to stand aside and think deeply about who you are, where you stand, what you believe in.

Coming here to London changes the rhythm of one's days right away. Yet it takes some time before the new life fully sinks in. And that happens very gradually, almost imperceptibly. And then you realise you’re no longer a person plucked abruptly from elsewhere. You begin to feel, instead, that you have a rich, full and entirely organic existence here as well.

This is, for all of us, a transient moment. It will not last. But for now, this is real life, as we know it. This is where we are, even as we may be anchored to the past. And when the next phase comes, as it will surely come, we’ll step forward, as we must, and we’ll face it.
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This has been a quiet day. After a week of sombre grey, we were welcomed with a sunny, blue sky amidst Spring-like temperatures, although, as I write this, darkness has descended upon Mecklenburgh Square, and soon, a new week beckons.

I’m now mid-way through my preparations for a seminar presentation tomorrow in my Globalization and Global Governance class. I thought I’d focus on how globalization, as a phenomenon, can best be measured. Is it principally an economic process? Or should we consider other dimensions as well, such as the technological, the cultural and political? As part of my material, I plan also to highlight the AT Kearney/Foreign Policy Globalization Index, which currently ranks Singapore at number one.

The Index commands attention in its own right. But perhaps there’s a part of me here in London that's lingered on from my time in Washington. Because I do want to tell the Singapore story to audiences here, although, this time round, I shall do it my way.

1 Comments:

Blogger lucid247 said...

Loved this entry. A lot of positive energy about it.

1:21 PM  

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