A Library Is Many Things

I've been doing two things in Kuching since I came back: programming and friends. (Well friends here include family, and of course the lion share's of time is with Ida /wink).

What I haven't been doing is writing: any and all writing I've done since I've been back has been constrained to emails and the occasional Pandamian feature release. And so I kinda-sorta miss writing. Which explains why I'm taking some time to write this short missive.

I am constantly surprised by the sheer number of books in my bedroom. I came back from Singapore and my first reaction was 'God it's so big!', followed by a rummaging of the huge number of books I've stacked up over the years.

I'm now in the middle of three books, and two ebooks, and they make me absurdly happy. I read them when I'm sick of programming.

I think I've forgotten how nice it is to buy and keep books without care for space — in Singapore I never have enough storage space, and so I only keep five that are dear to me:

• The New Turing Omnibus
• The Bible
• What's So Amazing About Grace?
• Osotogari
• The Mythical Man Month

Here I have dozens. And all kinds of exercise books and diaries and old scrapbooks from my time at St Thomas's. Some of them are ridiculous: e.g. my diary circa 2006, page 170: 'Draw bio (the one you forgot last wk), Kimia 4.2 Eksperimen pg 191, Do Math 10.2b!'

And this is how — at night, when I'm lying on my bed with only the street-lights from outside to illuminate their spines — that I know I am home.