There was a cake, so it must be official.

Over the weekend Mrs. Phactor and the F1 organized a retirement party for TPP, and there was a cake.  It said: "Retired botanists plant themselves" (in green frosting script!).  Not sure what to make of that exactly, but when they get you a cake, it must be official. The exact point of my retirement is rather hard to pinpoint.  When you work on 9-month contracts, every year you have 3-months when you aren't under contract, when you don't have defined duties, and when you don't get paid. And no, it's not a summer vacation! In fact, technically speaking, TPP has never gotten any vacation, ever. Yes, TPP engages in some leisure activities, which at times are very similar to his job, and travel, which always involves some botany, but it's your time to do with as you see fit. Some of my colleagues think of retirement as a long sabbatical, and perhaps that's not such a bad model. TPP has one youngish colleague whose emeritus research career is now one year longer than his regular academic career, which is quite a notable achievement. For the record, TPP will not, cannot, beat that record. The food for this party was most excellent starting with a fried turkey, injected with a chipotle marinade, and a watermelon, feta cheese, and arugula salad. The amount of food was pretty impressive, but 50-60 of TPP's close intimate friends lent a hand, and a mouth. They also drank some wine, an impressive amount of wine, but not very impressive wine, which is sort of symmetrical, somehow. And of course they had cake. Now TPP will have to adopt a more retiring attitude. Right.  Now, gimme a piece of cake!

Out with the old

New Year's has never been much of a big deal; what's the point?  OK so you start a new calendar.  Mostly the New Year is just one of those sign posts or markers to indicate where you are, like one of those mileage signs along a highway.  And here the New Year will start some 7 hours earlier than at home making 2014 seven hours longer for us, if indeed, this is remembered a year from now. Resolutions are sort of lame; if you want to do something different, OK, then change, but why now exactly?  New Year's is a good excuse to have a party, to eat some food, drink some wine, and socialize, in this case with family and friends of our German students.  TPP once found out the official date in Thailand was based on a different calendar that is several hundred years older and offset from the Gregorian standard by a couple of months, but actually this is one of those things, how the calendar we use got to be the way it is remains unknown to this author. Somehow it never came up as a topic.  Shows us just how arbitrary the whole situation is especially as the new year is not pegged to any particular celestial event like the solstice. New year's works for many people as having a time to wipe the slate clean, an excuse to try something different, and maybe something to look forward to is all a survival mechanism, a personal jedi mind trick, something to keep us plodding forward.  So that's how it will be. TPP will keep putting one foot in front of the other and marching into the new year. Tonight's party should be fun, and not the usual party fare either. Staying up to midnight will be easy with a bit of eastward jet lag to help out. It will be fun to see how other people treat the new year celebration. and with fire works, so say the natives. So happy new year all; enjoy yourselves, and we'll see what comes. Tomorrow.