My social media feeds have been flooded with various St Patrick’s Day-related photos, videos, well-wishes, articles and more. They are making me very nostalgic for the good ol’ days when I celebrated the festival with much gusto, as well as certain level of silliness, with my friends.
Today, I found a folder of photos from St Patrick’s celebration back in 2008 on my computer. These photos are precious to me. I have not been in Dublin for Paddy’s Day since 2009 (I was elsewhere, then I moved to France) so this was more or less the last time I properly celebrated the big day with the whole shebang: parade, céilí, pub crawl! (Previous years I even hosted parties at home – fun, but a lot of work!)
I woke up in the morning with things strewn all over my soon-to-be-former bedroom floor. I was supposed to have put everything I wanted to keep into boxes and nicely stacked in the conservatory (to be pillaged every time I go back to Dublin, of course, so I can bring more things over), set aside books and clothes that I planned to give away to charity (with my cousin assigned the duty to bring them over to the charity shop), threw everything else into the normal and recycling bins accordingly (mostly recycling), and the top priority of all – pack my suitcase!
A couple of animated short films came to my attention in the last few days, and they have been nominated for the Oscars 2013. Without a single spoken word, both of them – Paperman and Head Over Heels – made me smile and teary at the same time. The former tells the story of the whimsical side of falling in love, of fate and what’s meant to be. The latter shows how love may yet bring people together after drifting away in separate yet intricately linked worlds for many years.
Paperman went on to win the category but Head Over Heels had me reflecting more on the issue of love in a relationship. Love for the sake of love does not sustain a healthy relationship. It requires nurture and effort, a lot of give and take, but most importantly never to be complacent and assume that love will always be there.
There will be times of disagreement and hurt, disappointment and anger, but there will also be times of consideration and care, small (yet significant) gesture and joy. The path which the relationship takes depends on us to steer it in the right direction. The hope is for continued banking of love, no matter how little, because it will all matter.
I am not saying I’ve got it all figure out (far from it!) but I have learned how easily one can take things for granted, and inevitably resentment will follow when things go pear-shaped. And perhaps at time like this, it is even more important to remember why one love in the first place, and find his/her way back towards the guiding light.
Unfortunately she’s about 5 hours – an RER trip, a flight, and a bus ride – away; else I would be throwing her a grand good party to celebrate her first birthday! I trust her parents to do a good job of it nonetheless, so will be waiting for photos and videos to come my way soon.
If there is one certainty in life, it is that life is uncertain.
This time three years ago – 2010, that is – I was at the brink of finishing my thesis and completely ignorant of how the year would unfold. In my stressed-out mind, there was only one thing to focus on: hand in the thesis already! I figured once that was out of the way, I can take a deep breath, have a much-needed break, start job-hunting, and we’d see how things would go.
Earlier in January, I wrote about working on life resolutions and tasked myself on 12 little things to do. Let’s have a quick recap on how that went, and then I’ll let you know my opinion on this endeavour.
Oh they were bold alright. Very bold. Had I not witness it myself, I would have a harder time believing it.
Paris, for many, is an idyllic and nostalgic city. And romantic. And classic. And [fill in appropriate adjectives as you wish]. On a recent drizzly afternoon, Frédéric and I were out on a walking tour of Île de la Cité after which I decided we should extend our time out with a stroll towards the general direction of Place de la concorde. Despite the weather, he humoured me and went along my whimsical request.
From Pont Neuf, we took a scenic walk via Jardin de Tuileries and had just detoured onto Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor when we saw an old gypsy woman trying to persuade a couple that they have dropped a massive gold ring. As if watching an episode of a telenovela, we sat down at a bench nearby and I whispered to F that the couple had just been had when they accepted the ring. He was confused.
I know I’ve been a pretty sporadic blogger for a few months now. A good deal of things happened, and there are so much that I really want to share with you, whether it be about Paris or elsewhere or something else altogether. So I’m working on catching up on the news right now, new and old. Yup, running parallel time lines. It is not easy to try to juggle it all, but slowly and surely I’ll get there.
It would be easy for me to just decide to forget about the last few months and get on from where I am right now, but I made the decision not to. Just bear with me for this couple of months while I get things sorted, and then we should be on smooth sailing. Yell at me then if I fail to stay disciplined ;)
In the mean time, I know it must not have been easy for you to keep track of my haphazard postings. One post I’m talking about the most current thing, and the next I’m back to something which happened in March (and back-dated as such too). Even I had to create a list so I can keep track myself of what I’ve managed to share and what else I need to write about!
A couple of ways you can follow this blog without missing any of the posts: (1) follow this blog on Google Reader, as it compiles the posts as they are published regardless of the date stated on the post; or (2) via the comment system of blog entries, tick “Notify me of new posts by email”. If you notice the lack of mention of RSS feed, that’s because it comes in the order of the dates of posts. I don’t think that’s going to be very helpful at all.
Thanks for sticking around – I really appreciate it!
I have good reason to believe, in most countries of the world, my name gives a clear indication that I’m female, owner (or carrier?) of XX chromosomes. In the past, I’ve used the title “Miss” and “Ms” interchangeably and still there wasn’t an issue of mistaken gender even for someone who hasn’t yet met me in person to confirm that I look like one.
So imagine the great fun I’m having in France where Lilian, sans E à la fin, is famously masculine in nature. This country even proves it by putting forth a famous international export in the form of Lilian Thuram. Here, the pronounciation is not how you’d imagine it’ll be pronounced elsewhere. It’s a guttural-sounding “Lee-Leon” that’s correct given the orthographe.
Liliane is how they like to change things up here for me.
It has been a well-charged fortnight with one visitor after another (it’s like we’re running a B&B, but free!) and this week, it’s time for a little family vacation. With my brothers and I living in different countries, a get-together for all of us has never been easy. We’d be so lucky if we manage to all be in the same place together once a year for a few days. Even more precious is when we could squeeze in a rare holiday within this period of time. They are in town to visit and I, for one, am very very happy!
While I’ve always maintain the philosophy of playing tourist on a regular basis – you know, visits to various (lesser-known) museums and walking tours to explore different neighbourhoods – this time, we’re talking the major sights. We’re even talking chez Mickey! Ultimately, our schedule will be dictated by a toddler, otherwise known as my adorable niece. Lucky girl gets to visit Paris at 8 months old!
For now, as time is precious, I’m just going to share this one photo which I adore. Beejay took a series of these by stealth when I offered to hold Elise while her parents worked on snapping some holiday shots. I normally shy away from the camera and prefer to stay behind the lenses, but this works out really well and I think this photo will be printed very soon for safekeeping.
I’ll be back in a few days with more posts (accck all the drafts sitting there which I really really should get out!) and till then, have a wonderful week. :D
