08/08/08 plus 1

Last night we went out to belatedly celebrate Peter's birthday. Peter, a Malaysian Chinese, turned 60 on Friday (08/08/08). As undoubtedly almost the entire world knows dates with a series of 8's are particularly auspicious. Peter is a business partner of Ahmad, a friend of Lena's. Ahmad hosted the celebration at an Indian restaurant. We stuffed ourselves on biryani, dal, and cheese cake (NY classic cheese cake and it tasted like one!). There was some talk of the election scheduled for 26 August; the belief was that Anwar would do quite well. As one of my colleagues said that current political situation in Malaysia can be best summed up as "may you live in interesting times."

Today I will try to finish chapter 2 of a manuscript I have been helping edit. It has been really valuable in focusing my research plans. We have a meeting tomorrow with a major NGO and I am optimistic that it will help things fall into place quite quickly.