Cosima Underwater

My reaction was similar to that of mama bear’s…lol
Thank you so much for the giggle, Bowleserised!

CeeCi, Leo Solo, and Lime gave me a Thinking Blogger Award… gosh guys, you obviously have no idea about the chaos in my head. I am extremely flattered. Blogging is mostly a way to keep my insanity at an acceptable level…

… and being part of a wonderful community. I have met so many interesting people living in all corners of the world, expressing their thoughts and creativity. People I would have never met, had I not stumbled upon this medium. I think, this meme is a wonderful way of creating new links around the blogger world, of making the web a little denser.

Onto the task of passing on the torch…

Keda at mamahog ‘n the lets blogs from Istanbul about the beauty and madness of life, and rounds it all up with the occasional political rant when the world deserves it. She does it in her own, wonderful style, which inspires me and always leaves me feeling happier than I was before visiting her blog.

Anastasia at Sexualité has already received a dozen Thinking Blogger Awards… here is another, I can’t help it. She writes erotic short stories and posts with sexual topics, but doesn’t stop there, which I like very much. She eloquently steps over the lines that some draw between our sexuality and the rest of life. In her posts, Anastasia discusses social and political issues as well, all in a very intelligent and independent way.

Mustang doesn’t blog often, but when he does he always finds beautiful, simple words to express the most profound. His blog is titled Zen Bunny… don’t know about the Bunny, but Zen definitely hits the mark. I found him via Lecram, who will get a golden thinker from me as well, after he has freed some shelf space next to his golden soup bowl.

Goodthomas in Chicago writes poems and short stories, which show the extraordinary and beautiful in daily life. His posts remind me of detailed paintings, drawn with words instead of paint. Poetry for me is the expression of a world of emotions in a few, well chosen words, and Goodthomas does just that.

Clarsonimus at Observing Hermann is an American living in Berlin, slightly baffled by the Teutonic experience. He posts daily comments on political news and social idiosyncrasies in Germany. His political views are on the right side of mine (only politically speaking, Clarsonimus!), and sometimes make me fuming mad, but are written in an entertaining style, and certainly make me think. His blog is also one of the few places I have found where Americans and Europeans, right-wing and left-wing, discuss things in a civilized manner… most of the time.

Istanbul, Sydney, Fresno, Chicago, and Berlin… wow, it truly is the word-wide web.

Should you want to carry on the tradition, please play by the following participation rules:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

The stomach bug of my little man turned out to be a throat infection that also affected the lymph nodes in his stomach. We went to see the doctor today, who gave him a suppository and a prescription for antibiotics. The “butt rocket” helped wonders. It decreased his fever, restored his appetite and his energy, so much so that he wanted to show me all the football tricks he had learnt while I was away. I am not a fan of antibiotics. They tend to be prescribed too often by Hong Kong doctors, but this infection has been scary and long enough to let me think that tougher measures are justified.

Unfortunately, the antibiotics come in the form of medicinal-tasting white syrup with small lumps in it. Why? Why in hell? After a small lick at the spoon, this evil fluid was outright rejected by my son as too disgusting. What followed were more than thirty minutes of coaxing, reasoning, bargaining, tough talking on my part to get this into his mouth. Even the offers to mix it with juice and even sweeter things were rejected. I think it was utter exhaustion that let him finally agree to gulp it down. Wish us both luck for tomorrow and the following days, when we have to repeat the procedure… twice daily.

Thursday, as I read through Osbasso’s post about the death of his blogger friend Betcha, I couldn’t stop thinking how unpredictable life is. You can have the best of plans, and having the most of fun, and then suddenly in a second everything changes. We kid ourselves that we can somehow direct life, and sure we do have choices, but there are times, moments when life is out of control, and all we can do is watch, paralyzed in stunned silence.

As I thought about Betcha’s family and her friends, I just knew that they must have felt something similar, when the mind knows the unthinkable and worst has happened, but the heart just refuses to believe in it.

I didn’t know Betcha, but from reading Osbasso’s and Stealth’s posts I could sense what a wonderful and fun-loving person she was. My heart goes out to her family and friends.

-The longest word you can type using only the letters on the top row of a computer keyboard is “typewriter”.

-The longest words you can type using only the right side are “homophony”, “homophyly“, “nonillion“, “pollinium“, “polyonomy” and “polyphony”.

-The longest words you can type using only the left side are stewardesses”, “desegregates”, “desegregated”, “reverberated”, “reverberates” and watercresses“.

Aren’t you glad I shared with you this piece of pretty useless information :)? And no, I didn’t think this up on my own. Geesh, I have a life… sometimes.

Now, what would be the longest word you can type using only the middle row of your keyboard… fad, gala, hall, glass… where is my Oxford Dictionary…

I am all jittery with excitement. In front of me is an entire day all to myself. I am going to do some extracurricular body maintenance and pampering, will surf the internet to my hearts content, will try to finish the book I have been reading for the last three months, go for a swim, will read at least one newspaper from front to end, and try to do some writing.

What to do first? Aaaah, all these wonderful choices.

I came home from a grueling day at work, kicked off my shoes, sat down on the sofa, and turned on the television. The screen showed the World Trade Center, one of the Towers was burning in the middle. One part of my brain was hoping it is a movie, the other knew it was not. I had turned on CNN, and it was live coverage from New York. A reporter was telling that a kidnapped passenger plane had crashed into the Tower. I cannot remember thinking anything, I just watched in shock. Shortly afterwards my boyfriend came home. An American friend living in Hong Kong had already sent him an SMS, telling him to turn on the television. He was home only a brief moment, when the second plane crashed into the South Tower.

For the next hour, we watched in shock, in near silence. The only thing, I remember we talked about, was how the people trapped in the top halves of the Towers could be rescued. With helicopters? With the fires burning, probably not feasible.

The journalists were reporting about the rescue efforts. Fire fighters going up the stairs to assist people getting out of the buildings. Then the cameras zoomed in on small black dots falling off the towers. People, trapped between the fire and the windows, jumping off the buildings.

People trapped in the top halves were calling their loved ones.

Then the first Tower collapsed. Half an hour later, the second.

The next day, Hong Kong, normally a very loud city, was eerily quiet. People went to work and opened their shops, but no one talked much. The shock and sorrow people felt was visible. People were trying to get more information, watching television, reading newspapers, or directly calling relatives, friends, and colleagues in New York and the US.

I have visited New York many times and always feel at home when there. I know, that so many people around the world feel the same, because it is a true world city.

My heart goes out to the families, who lost their loved ones on September 11. I feel that today should be about remembering them and celebrating their lives. Only about them.

tags: 9/11

Today, half of the day passed without me. Yesterday evening I brought my son to bed around nine o’clock, and after I read him his bed time story I fell faster asleep than he did. I woke up at half past eleven, lying next to him in his bed. Despite the late hour, I was wide awake and ready to go.

I always have a hard time getting over jet lag. When flying westwards, it is not so bad, because you just wake up earlier, but going back to Asia from Europe turns my inner clock upside down.

Yesterday night, I entertained myself with some easy house cleaning and then went to bed again and tried to fall asleep. I wasn’t successful. After listening to the regular breathing of my sleeping man for half an hour I gave up, and went into the living room. What to do? Watch television? There was nothing interesting on at this hour. Reading a book? My brain was too jumbled to concentrate. Mindless computer games? Yeah, let’s try! I am embarrassed to admit, but I played various silly games until it was three o’clock in the morning (I recommend www.zylom.com). Then I dragged myself to bed, and was rudely awaked by the alarm clock at eight o’clock (normally only used as back up, because we tend to start the day much earlier).

Luckily, the man in my life is self-employed, and after taking one look at me in my delirious jet lagged state, he decided to let me sleep (thank you!), and get my son off to kindergarten on his own.

I woke up around ten o’clock. In panic, because of the late hour. After realizing, that the family had organized the morning without me, I passed out again. At half past eleven, someone in the house started to renovate his flat. Judging by the tremendous noise, I am guessing they took off bathroom tiles with a jackhammer.

So this was my morning today, and I am already afraid of the coming night. I hope, I will manage to fall asleep.

Sorry guys, there will be no HNT picture today, because of my jumbled up day. I make up for it next week :).