Returning to Nerd-dom...

I found some old essays and writings of mine when I was going through the dark recesses of my computer.  Remembering the various times that friends had been curious about my writing, I thought I would dust them off and load them up onto the web.  It's actually a fairly bizarre set of essays, encompassing topics such as zen, art, social change and fish hearing.  So feel free to have a browse if you're in the mood. (it may cure you of any curiosity fairly quickly!)

http://www.scribd.com/michaelchew

Moving in – Choy house

Today I finally moved into my home-to-be for the rest of the year – called ‘Choy house’  ('choy' is six in Bangla which was its previous number of occupants). It’s a five-bedroom flat at the top of a five story building in the heart of the Gulshan, one of the weathier areas of Dhaka. ‘Wealthy’ here seems to mean a larger polarisation between rich and poor – slick and ostentatious mirrored and pillared white apartments peer down on street sweepers, beggars and dilapidated shacks. The AYAD program, being government-run, has tight security guidelines around where we can live, and most AYADs are in and around this area. This apartment block is on the moderate to medium scale – the rooms are big, the floor and walls are clean, with the added touches of wiring bursting out of the sockets and numerous holes where fans or lamps may once have been. (maybe that’s where the mozzies (mosha) are coming from.  My room has a gorgeous west facing balcony – today the sun set like a glowing orange sinking to kiss Dhaka’s dirty pink horizon.  

 The view from my room

 The room itself!

Arrival/Singapore airport

Singapore airport proved an interesting 4hr stopover.  It has a walking tour connecting various small parks, including a butterfly house and sunflower rooftop garden (the latter that was unfortunately moonlighting as a smoker’s garden).  There are various interactive exhibits where you can practice rubbings (the stall was secondarily advertising a paper with green credentials, interesting given the amount of discarded paper it seemed to be generating), and a science learning station. Even fire hydrants were treated with respect. Melbourne airport needs to get its act together.  After six hours in the air, the aircraft starts on a slow circle around a sprawling metropolis, its thousand upon thousand lights burning below.