Snowy Welcome to the UK

It was about 2 months ago that I wrote my last post. At that time I had one month left until my big move and it'll soon be a month that I've moved to the UK. Crazy how time flies! This move was very stressful (as a continental move like this is supposed to be) and I promised myself I'm never doing this ever again in my life! In one week I travelled from Raleigh to New York, landed in London from NY, came to Brighton from London, travelled to Birmingham and from there to Exeter! 

Even though I thought I won't see more snow this year after that big snowfall in Raleigh, soon after I arrived the Beast of the East hit the UK and literally dumped the country under snow. I was stuck in Exeter for 3 more days for snow as the train system went down. After making three attempts at getting back and major delays, I was finally able to get back to Brighton. 

Yesterday was the sequel of the Beast of the East and we got more snow. It snowed more in some other parts of the country. It doesn't snow this much in the UK usually. I also read later that it's rarely once in 8 years it snows like this in Raleigh. Seems like wherever I go snow follows! Usually I love snow but it feels I had enough of it this year (especially after catching severe cold).

First day of snow was very pretty though. I didn't have my proper snow boots with me as I wasn't expecting that much snow. I still went out to play with snow and take some photos. End result was coughing for one week straight, but it was totally worth it! Here are some photos from first and second snowfall -

Looking forward to warmer spring days now. Also, looking forward to finally get settled in my own place. It's been the longest ever in my life that I've been in a transitional state. It's been 3 weeks but feels like prolonged vacation to me! Time to get back to my usual lifestyle and focus on what I came here for. Making slow progress, but surely getting there. 

Hopefully will start writing more regular posts from now on :) A lot of trips coming up in next few months, so more travel posts coming soon!

Rare Snowfall in North Carolina

It's almost the end of January, this whole month went by fast but it's been full of stress and anxiety for me so far. So much going on right now that I can barely get a grip of life. The year started with my dental surgery. After almost 1.5 years of dealing with this dental treatment mishap I finally took the courage to get it done. Given the cost of dental implant, it would be impossible for me to do if I were a grad student now. So, lucky to be done with this and I hope I won't have to deal with something like this in near future. Anyway, one good thing of this year was we had first snowfall of the season. On January 4th I was supposed to be on leave after my treatment. I woke up slowly to find out it was all white and pretty outside. In the South snowfall is a rare phenomena! Even if it snows an inch or two, everything shuts down here because they are not used to handling such situation. I didn't go out that day as I was supposed to rest anyway and enjoyed being at home. 

I thought that would be the first and last snowfall of this season (that's how it usually is here), but to our surprise we had a proper snowfall two weeks later. Raleigh had about 5-6 inches of snow, which is very unusual. Apparently it snows like this only once in 8 years! The whole area covered in white snow looked like a dreamy wonderland! I walked up to the Art Museum in that afternoon as it's one of my favorite places and it looked so beautiful! I'm sure that was the first and last time to see such view of the Art Museum park. Usually snow melts away the very next day here, but the next morning it was all white outside. So, we had two snow days and most public services were closed. Luckily it was bright and sunny, so it started to clear up the trees by the afternoon. I went for a walk again to the museum to take more photos. Posting some of my favorite photos here. Enjoy!

Pool in my apartment complex

Places I've been in 2017

We're just few hours away from starting 2018, so I thought I'd write a quick post on all the places I've travelled to in 2017. I travelled way too much this year - three overseas trips, two trips to the West coast (which almost count as overseas trip) and lots of conference trips within USA.

The year started with celebrating NYE in NYC. I wrote a separate post on that trip, which was quite fun visiting places in Manhattan and Brooklyn. February was spent packing and moving to my new apartment, and preparing for the Code4Lib conference in Los Angeles. LA weather was gorgeous in March. Apparently it was raining a lot for past two months, so it was unusually green, but luckily we had full sunshine and crisp weather during our stay. Right after I got back from LA, I had to go back to Santa Cruz in California for an interview. It was a short intense trip with the interview and my work Macbook being dead from soaking water on the plane. However, Santa Cruz was absolutely dreamy! It's a small beach town where you can see gorgeous blue ocean when driving back from campus. I'm not sure how people concentrate on their studies and work there, but it's definitely worth visiting for vacation! I wrote another post on my Cali trips here.

In May I went back home to get my H1B visa stamped, which was another stressful journey. After I came back I went the UK for a week-long vacation and to present at the Digital Humanities Oxford Summer School. On that first week I visited Dawlish, House of Marbles in Bovey Tracey and Exeter. Then I spent the second week in Oxford. This was my second time after 2015 and I felt very nostalgic re-visiting all the places. I wrote another post on my stay there.

Dawlish beach

After those summer trips I had a break for about three months. A lot happened in between. Then I had four conferences in a row from October through November. The first conference was in Winston-Salem. It's about 2.5 hours drive from Raleigh. We drove back on the same day but I managed to pay a quick visit to Old Salem, which is a preserved historic town. Then I went to Pittsburgh for the DLF Forum. Pittsburgh is a decent city with quite confusing streets. I didn't get to see a lot but made it to the natural history museum and some nice places to eat in downtown. From Pittsburgh I flew directly to Washington D. C. for the ASIS&T Annual Conference. That was very eventful but I won't go into the details now. D.C. has good food and cool museums but I got super exhausted from all the traveling and conference presentations.

Old Salem

Pittsburgh downtown

Washington D. C.

After coming back from conference travels I went to the UK for vacation in November. It was my first time to visit Brighton, Bristol and Portsmouth. I think I'll write a separate post on that. Hoping to travel less for work and see more new countries in 2018! 

Hope you all have a wonderful new year!

Painting is the Secret Cure - 5

Yesterday I wrote how crazy last couple of months have been and that it didn't leave me any time to write blog. Same goes for painting as well, but I found I did two more paintings since then that I didn't post here. Also, after almost three months I managed to paint today (Yay!). So, I'll post all three paintings here.

My today's painting was about a romantic walk in snowfall. I've always loved snow, it turns the surrounding into a wonderland! As long as you manage to not slip and break any parts of your body in that wonderland, I enjoy snow quite a lot! However, since I moved to the southern part from Illinois, I've barely seen any snow. Winter almost doesn't exist here, let alone snow. So, this painting is about a snowy night in a small town. This is also the first time I've painted a snowfall! It never occurred to me that I never painted snowfall all this time! I enjoyed doing it quite a lot and pretty happy with the result.

The next painting was done right before fall season. I really wanted to wear cozy sweaters and enjoy fall but it was still pretty hot outside in September (makes sense I guess since winter is so mild here). Autumn is my most favorite season and I love all the colors in nature. I hope this painting makes you feel the same way!

The last painting is about running while chasing sunset. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love watching sunsets and taking sunset photos. I also happen to go out for run in the evening most of the times and get to see some pretty sunsets if I'm lucky. This painting was also experimental as I had to get the posture of human figure right. I don't draw detailed human figure much, it's not my specialty. So, this was a test case and I think it turned out mostly okay. Need a lot more practice though.

Overall, I think I managed to paint more this year given that it was totally crazy. I need to buy both new colors and a drawing book as I ran out of them. So, this gives a decent ending to this year. Hope next year goes well in terms of productivity and I get to paint more! 

Finally Holidays!

Three months have gone since I wrote my last post! It's mainly because last two months were really intense with a lot of traveling and the time in between I had to spend catching up with regular life and work. Finally it's time for winter holidays and I can spend some time with myself. I found this quote yesterday and that accurately says what I mostly need in my life right now -- a quiet break and time to reflect on myself. 

Happy Holidays!!!

I've been down with cold for last few days, so I spent the weekend resting up, cooking, baking, watching lots of shows and movies, reading books and catching up with friends and family. I also decorated my house with the holiday Lego set and got myself pretty flowers to add more coziness to the home. I really love my apartment and it truly makes me happy to be able to spend time here. I don't think I'll miss the city itself when I leave but I'll miss my apartment for sure. 

#tistheseason! 

Flowers never fail to brighten up my day! :)

My Lego minifigure cake turned out mostly okay! :D

I'm slowly recovering, at least it feels better today than yesterday after sleeping a lot. Last year I was home at this time of the year. It was good to see family but since then the whole year had been full of traveling and I never had enough time to myself. Summer vacation is not a thing anymore as I'm not a student now. So, I've decided to spend the rest of the vacation doing the things I can't usually accomplish during usual workdays. One of which is writing my blog as a part of my self-reflection. I don't do those new year, new me shit, but as we mark a new beginning, I need to revisit my failures and focus on what I need to do to better myself. I'll try to read a lot during this holiday - both academic and pleasure reading. Also, need to get back to healthy lifestyle and fix my immune system.

I feel I'm kind of lucky to be in this situation right now where I can sit down, relax and focus on myself. This whole year has been full of struggle and stress. We often forget or don't have the opportunity to prioritize self-care and personal happiness -- it's very important. It's also necessary to find a block of quiet time just to focus on yourself. Confusion, self-doubt, anxiety, stress - these are all part of adulthood. If we don't know properly where we stand and what we want in life then it's very easy to drown in fear. It's not that you won't be scared but it's about being scared and still facing all the fears. I'm scared to death to face all the things coming up in my life. I know that friends and family will listen and say supportive words when I need them, but only I have to give myself the support to stand straight in the battle of life. My dad taught us a very important lesson since we were young - never depend on anyone, and I'd always be grateful to him for instilling that sense of self-dependence. I hope this never changes in the future and I can be in the position to lend a help to others. 

Painting is the Secret Cure - 4

Time goes by really fast! It doesn't feel like I last painted more than a month ago. I've been feeling the urge of painting for a while but couldn't make time for it last weekend. I had a lot to do this morning too but decided to spare couple of hours to paint. It was gorgeous outside yesterday with low temperature and lower than usual humidity. All I wanted to do was walk outside and listen to music or read book. Of course I was at work and didn't have the flexibility to just be out all day, but painting that mood made up for that (little bit). I found this quote from Blaise Pascal the other day -

"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing."

I decided to use this as the title because it just felt appropriate for this painting. However, I made a mistake when giving the finishing touch - got the date wrong. Also, this marks the ending of my favorite sap green color, almost ruined a brush trying to dig into the tube (-_-). Other than that I'm pretty happy with it :)

Going back to yesterday's weather, I ended up walking a LOT in the afternoon. I walked for almost two hours! Not all of it was pleasant as I had my heavy backpack and then grocery bags to walk with. But there was one particular moment I found very special. While walking by a busy street with construction site on my left, I looked to my right and saw this serene little green land. At first I thought it must be someone's backyard (may be it was) but there was no house too close and no person there. Little hesitantly I walked in and amazingly all the noise from the busy street was masked there. I could hear the birds chirping and insects buzzing. It was shaded by huge green trees and sunlight peeping through them was lighting up the green grasses. I'm not sure if others may find this little too poetic but standing there I felt that life is probably about collecting these simple yet beautiful moments. Life might be chaotic most of the time with our harsh realities but we just need to look for those little simple things that make it worth living.

That's the spot!

Cali Trips - LA and Santa Cruz

Could I start this post by saying how much I love Saturdays? If I could cwtch Saturday I totally would! So glad it's finally weekend. Falling sick last weekend made the week feel really long but I'm feeling a lot better now. While staying in bed last weekend, I went through thousands of my old photos from all three phones I ever possessed! I usually try to write a post after I visit any cool new place but realized I never did any for my trips to Los Angeles and Santa Cruz. Both of those trips were back on back, and right after I moved to my new apartment. So, it was pretty hectic and after I got back I got busy with unpacking and then again travel... Anyway, even though I was in a time crunch, I got to enjoy some of the charming beauty of California during those trips, so thought I'd post the photos.

I went to LA in March for the Code4Lib Conference 2017. I presented a talk and taught a half-day workshop with my colleagues. Also, I'm grateful to be recognized as one of the Code4Lib Diversity Scholars. We had few meet-ups arranged for the scholars and their mentors, so all in all it was quite busy. The conference center was located at UCLA campus, so I had the chance to walk around little bit. Honestly speaking, I wasn't impressed by LA as much when I traveled from the airport to UCLA. Everyone drives in LA, so traffic is pretty bad most of the times. However, I LOVED the campus. I really like big campuses with historic buildings. It reminded me of UIUC campus in many ways. Also, Cali had one of the unusually big rainfalls this year, so it was very green, apparently that's not how it looks at that time of the year. Luckily the weather was great the week we visited and I absolutely loved how crisp and fresh the air feels there. We had lunches outdoors under the sun every day, which was really lovely! (I know I'm overusing "love" but that's how it felt)

En route to LA, looking over San Fransisco

Lovely afternoon at UCLA 

Lunch time!

Gorgeous library!!

On the last day of the conference I made a quick trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Anyone who knows me should know that art museum is the first place I visit wherever I go. The museum was pleasant, they've pretty good collection. I went around the city little more but had to be back on time for my flight. 

LACMA entrance

Was pretty amazed by that water drop detail in that painting

 Oh, forgot to mention that we went out for a group dinner in downtown. LA culture and downtown area seemed very different than the other places I visited before in USA but it was interesting. Got to see a pretty sunset too (which is always a plus)!

Umm..?

Dreamy sunset

Immediately after I got back from LA, I had to go to Santa Cruz for an interview. That was a very stressful trip. Not because of the interview but because by water bottle decided to spill water while we were taking off and my MacBook happily drank it and died within half hour (my usual travel horrors -_-). That's whole another story but the only thing I want to mention here is that Santa Cruz is very beautiful. The beach was about 20mins walk from the hotel I was staying in, so I made a quick trip after I got back from the interview. It was really peaceful and de-stressing to be able to walk on the beach. I saw many unique plants on my way back too. I'm not moving to California but I'd love to visit again, especially San Fransisco and San Diego area.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Pretty plant!

UCSC Library

I've to get back to my weekend activities and more travel planning now but hope to be back with new post soon!