*Frozen* greetings from Maastricht...

where good news meant zero-degree temperatures...


*frozen* greetings from Maastricht.


Good news! We will finally have zero-degree temperatures this week, "balmy" compared to the previous weeks of subzero weather conditions. I've attached two contrasting winter-summer photos of Orleansplein from my room (the snow is a few days' old so it doesn't look very nice and are darn slippery to walk on!) for the pleasure of previous visitors to Orleansplein. =.)

(contrast first picture with this taken in September)


There are also several pictures from the holidays...

1) Ko, Domo and I in Torun (astronomer Copernicus's town not far fromDominik's hometown).
2) Christmas cakes during the traditional Christmas Eve dinner (before the presents and midnight mass). There is the traditional poppyseed cake ("makowiec"), cheese cake and homemade "halvah" which is a nuttier version of the unbaked Kek Batik or Marie-biscuit fudge cake. Ma should pay attention to the German porcelain set belonging to Dominik's mother. ;)
3) Me in Berlin with the "Dom" (cathedral) view
4) Dominik in the former East Germany socialist museum which featured a "socialist-period" living room and "Traby" car(http://www.channel4.com/4car/media/100-greatest/03-large/110-trabant.jpg).
I thought the living room reminded me of Tai Q's "retro"living room (e.g. wall cabinet set, Russian dolls) but in Europe, most things "retro" are associated with the technologically less-advanced socialist past. How peculiar - as if the non-socialist countries never had these "retro" items.

The strange thing with a PhD is that I don't have an official "back towork/school day". I've been in the office on Friday but the school has yet to completely recover from the holiday exodus to recreate the right "working atmosphere". I did spent 10 hours that day going through 16 thesis draft proposals (part of the work I do for the school's Master programme) so work for 2009 has definitely begun!

Over the weekend, I did loads of laundry, de-cluttered and cleaned my room (e.g. thrashing out useless papers, filing the rest, and storing away summer items in the basement). Then on Sunday, two friends came over for dinner (I made 1 litre of Malaysian curry soup noodles yet the three of us managed to clear the pot!) and they surprised me by announcing their engagement! If everything works out as planned, theywill be married in July, either in India or the States (where the girl and boy are from respectively). Since they met while doing theirMaster programme here, we joked that the school should host their engagement party. I will miss then when they leave M.

Ok, time to get back to my paper. *huge sigh*

Take care!
love,
Cheng