Summer Summer...

Haven't been blogging for the past few days....sign of me running around doing stuff and keeping busy before summer ends. Somehow life just kicked in as if the accelerator had been revved.

The highlights of the week were...

1. The PCON Picnic in the Park



Had a nice evening with the team in the park...D made her infamous carrot cake(or rather her daughter did)...extremely yummy and chewy. C's wife also contributed with a beetroot fruit cake thingy. It was good fun and a different setting compared to the boardroom presentations and everyone let loose with a bit of frisbee on the side too


2.MSPME 2006 Reunion



Finally we made it! (at least some of us did) 7 of us from the MSPME 2006-8 batch had a mini reunion in London last weekend. We were of course missing the other 19 who are all over the world or back in their home countries. J and V stayed over mine and we met up with H, N, A, and B for a picnic at Regent's Park. Although the moment have passed, we left a little footprint of the memory here at www.mspme2006.blogspot.com


3. At Hulya's



Had a very nice cooking class and lunch with H who showed me how to make dolma biber (stuffed peppers) which I was missing. Somehow the local Turkish restaurants don't have it on the menu...True to Turkish hospitality, H prepared a feast and it was enjoyed with gusto by myself and her housemate S. Cok guzel! Tessekkur ederim H canim!

4. Ultimate Frisbee Freaks



Got hooked on Ultimate when S introduced me to the Frisbee gang. It's fun, it's addictive, keeps your fitness level up with a fun-bunch of people and cost-free - what more could one ask for? We have a core team of regulars who keep the group running...thank you guys and gals for the sportsmanship and good times!

LOVE STORY (Taylor Swift) meets VIVA LA VIDA (Coldplay) - Piano Cello - by Jon Schmidt

Jon Schmidt's 7 year-old daughter loved Taylor Swift's song 'Love Story' so much that her dad covered this song with a friend.

Thank you Angie for sharing this - love it love it

The Scar

I have a scar on my upper lip. It's light brown about the size of a finger nail. I don't notice it until I face the mirror in the morning to brush my teeth and then I realise it is there, it is still there. I put Bio-oil on it every day and eat Vitamin E capsules (2 a day) in the hopes that it fades away.

I can look at it both ways:

I have a scar and I had been hurt.

or

I have a scar and I got over the hurt

Scars are a sign of health - the ability of the skin to repair itself from a wound. Scars are also mementoes of an injury - a past pain. There are the physical scars and then there are the emotional ones. That discomfiting memory of a harsh word and transgression, a betrayal. You don't realise it's there until something/someone triggers the emotion and then you remember. But then again, you are alive and well now and have survived it - thus a celebration is called for. I came across this passage which seemed appropriate:

"On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means,"I survived".'

~The Other Hand by Chris Cleave~

Jai Ho - AR Rahman and Pussycat Dolls

Turkey Reunion 2002

2002 THEN:



It all happened in the peak of summer in Istanbul in the year 2002. There were about 50 + trainees brought together by AIESEC from all corners of the world; name a country and they had a global representative. The trainees were placed as interns in Turkish companies and organizations for a duration of 1 to 6 months. Besides the internships, they went out on excursions all around the country, partied on weekends (or sometimes week days) on Istiklal street, lived in Turkish dormitories, ate kebabs, drank ayran and even printed their own t-shirts for it. A random bunch of people from all over the world tossed together for a split second : it was a summer in Istanbul which would shape their lives in the future.

2009 NOW

7 years later, we still kept in touch and had the good fortune of meeting (just a fraction of us) in London. Although we'd lost touch and had nothing in common at present, there was something we had shared once upon a time in a land called Turkiye. We retraced the threads of our lives that crossed then that afternoon in Covent Garden. The random memories within us started popping out of the blue; bargaining with Turkish taxi drivers, so and so person who we remember the face but not the name, the dorms in Maslak and the Bursa spor stadium, the mud baths in the hamam, the snoozes at work in the library, the roof top bar where we used to party... It was strange but mysterious how we'd carried a part of that fateful summer within us across borders and time up till today.