Short stint this time (2 weeks) for some official work. It’s going to be hectic on both the work and social fronts, so there probably won’t be much time for the blog. Till next time.

I had lots of fun working with .Net, AJAX, JQuery, Subversion, Trac, etc. Loads and loads of frustrating fun… all for the sake of saying, “This is so cool.”

The first build is just out the door for testing and I’m already scheming of a way to incorporate another cool bit of tech. This is so cool.

No, I wasn’t born shooting perfect code from my finger tips. It does get a little better after Year Seven though…

Sometimes.

My new favourite online comic. Because

… until the flip-flops come out to play. I’m even thinking about making ice-cream just because it’s summer and there’s nothing like digging into a bowl of ice-cream on a hot afternoon. Hmm…

Even with a little over 4 months left for me here in Bhutan, this is my fourth season here since arriving at the tail-end of Autumn last year. To sum up the four seasons:

Autumn - Pretty blue skies!
Winter - Snow!
Spring - … When?
Summer - Re-introduced toes to sun. And rain.

It’s been 229 days / 7 months 16 days / 5496 hours / 329,760 minutes / 19,785,600 seconds since I arrived in Paro. I thought I would be writing a grand piece summing up all my wonderful experiences to celebrate my 6-month anniversary here but instead, that flew by and flew well under the radar since The Parents were here.

So here I am, a month and a half late, sitting in front my laptop, thinking. And wondering.

But mostly waiting for inspiration to hit.

Uhm nope, not happening.

I guess I will do my grand piece thing in a couple more months.

Love,
Card-carrying Member of Procrastinators Anonymous

PS: My apologies for the recent lack of content. I did upload lots of new photos though.

I just finished with tagging and captioning the photos so that the Parents can remember the names of places we’ve been to. The painful process of uploading to Flickr have started but at the rate I’m going, it might be faster if I burn them all on a CD and send them home via good old post mail.

Au Revoir Papa, Mummy. I’ll see you home in a bit.

Monday marks Bhutan’s final steps in her march towards a modern democracy. It’s D-day tomorrow as Bhutanese all over the country head to the polls and cast their vote for the party that will form the new democratic government. Thimphu is unusually quiet over the weekend, as many leave the country’s capital to return to the villages across the country to cast their votes. Many shops and restaurant are closed and it wasn’t easy to find lunch in town today.

I wasn’t in Thimphu to witness the local National Council elections in January, so I’m absolutely thrilled about the opportunity to witness the birth of the world’s latest democracy tomorrow. Photo opportunities are a little tricky, so I’m keeping my fingers-crossed.

History will be made tomorrow, my friends, are you excited?

On the serious side, I spent Saturday afternoon at VAST where we discussed at length about VAST’s future steps. Concrete details are a little sketchy at the moment, but suffice to say that there are some big plans and prospective projects for the year. I am particularly interested in a potential microcredit-like project. I also found myself appointed as “Advisor” (along with Yannick) to the newly-formed VAST Committee. Gulp, how would I contribute?

On a lighter note, much of Sunday was spent at Yannick’s place for a very extended lunch with a lovely bunch (with Verdell, Kuenga, Tashi, Passang, Phuntsho). Yannick introduced us to the Raclette, a table-top grill that melts cheese in small pans. You then scrape the cheese onto your choice of food item, like bread or boiled potatoes. Yannick outdid herself in the kitchen again. It was all very very yummy, and I ate too much as usual.

It was a little harder than I expected to come back to Bhutan. *sniffle* I expect that this will pass after a while… although listening to sappy Chinese songs from home is not helping. I am looking forward to getting out of Thimphu in the coming long weekend off (this Thursday and Friday are public holidays here in celebration of the Fifth King’s birthday), it will definitely take my mind off home.

Little has changed since I left. My apartment is still as frosty as ever. We are still pretty much in the middle of winter, with hail greeting me on my first morning back at work. Oh Spring, where art thou?

I walked out of the apartment this morning to be greeted by two inches of snow on the ground. The white scenery, however, was rather short-lived. As I type this, the snow has all but disappeared. Even the pitter patter of water dripping from the melting snow on rooftops have ceased, leaving behind puddles and muddy patches on the ground. It was nice to see the sun emerge and clear blue skies everywhere, but I was a little sad that my winter wonderland lasted only a day.

I managed to take some photos of the Thimphu Dzong before the snow disappeared. The small photoset of the snow we got here in Thimphu is here.