How have ur life been!?

Glad to hear from most of you :) Am interested to know what is your coming travel plans? Let me know if you guys are still interested in meeting up in Malaysia, although I can’t guarantee I can leave my workplace by 11pm and not work during weekends, because December and January is really peak period in finance and banking industry, but I promise I will definitely arrange for all your accommodations and transportations.

It has almost been one and a half year since I have met some of you (maybe apart from seeing Mark and Jin who were such great hosts when I was in Seoul : )). Am interested in how is your daily life like. E.g. I know Ant woke up 10 seconds before his bus arrived to pick him up to work. Jin is working 24 hours a day while Mark thinks it’s so wrong to stay in office after 6pm :P

Mine is sort of like living 2 extreme lives. During study leave, I'm very very free. Apart from lectures, I can go on cheap backpacking (don't tell my mum I went to Yogjakarta alone and stayed in a dodgy hostel), and to do some voluntary works (I was teaching some kids mathematics during my last study leave and this coming one I plan to see what I can do in old folk homes). Work wise, it was bad at the beginning but now it's getting better :) Love life wise, I'm still single and very very available...so if u have anyone you know, give me his contact number! hahahaha (Mark, you know my type right?)

Hugs and kisses...

New Forest Hermitage site

For those of you not keeping up to date with temple news, the Forest Hermitage and Bhavana Dhamma have a new website: www.foresthermitage.org.uk. If I was looking for meditation in Warwick, this is where I would go!

Hello all...now this has become manifest, the world shall know no end to our poetical power. i agree with you Mark, this space should be used very creatively....Love and Light xxx

From the land of morning calm

Wow! I thought this would be the first post! I'd been thinking of ideas for an introduction and so on but Ant and Kay seem to have done a pretty good job of that, so now I don't know what to write...

I just want to say that this should be a chance for all of us to write about whatever we are feeling, and nobody should feel they have to emulate Ant's wonderful prose, or even make any sense. If it brings us closer together then even reading inane ramblings will be worthwhile.

So, since my intended topic has been stolen, an ode to my bed.

When we're apart you merely furnish the room -
Cold, inanimate, unmade.
But bring us together and my heart starts to bloom,
My worries gently fade.

Oh! How I hate to leave your embrace,
From afar you call to me.
Oh! How I wish to end this rat race,
And lay down, eternally.


Peaches and love,

Setting the scene

Once upon a time, in a far away country where Buddhism was fashionably unpracticed, a group of Warwick students came together to cultivate mindfulness and friendship. While they were not always mindful (evidence will be cited in due course), they did succeed in laying down some deep karmic connections for this life, and probably the next. Like all worldly things though, delicious rice dinners, afternoon tea breaks, and weekend trips to the temple could not last forever. As degree certificates were handed out, individuals went their own way and the group became dispersed across all corners of the globe. Pain and suffering ensued. In time, each would adapt to their new surroundings and begin to build happy little empires...

Welcome on Board!

The idea for a group blog started a few years back. But just like any other attempts, may it be to distribute a written newsletter or to flood a victim’s mail box and emails every hour, it never happens.

Mark is now a professional husband, Ant is surprisingly so committed to his job (yeah I’m so proud of you!), Pie’s Wii and Xbox are collecting dust. Jin is working hard as usual (her lazy husband should give her massage!), Joob has almost done cutting rat heads and ready to be a wife *hint hint*, while Hema has always been my source of inspiration : )

Not to mention the crappy English I get from people who have been away from England for too long :P

Miss you guys loads, but I still don’t think I can get out of my office between Christmas and mid Jan…