Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

The schedule of an educational consultant unaffiliated with a regular school can be an odd one. With students occupied with their classes until late afternoon on weekdays, the consultant is not in a position to speak to the same kids until their evening hours and weekends. The result is that the consultant's work becomes not so different from a barman: busy from the dinner hours late into the night, with no possibility of a free weekend. For someone like me who has always worked in corporate jobs where weekends and holidays are almost sacred for otherwise busy employees, the service industry work schedule is new.

China and the United States negotiated a temporary truce in their ongoing trade war, slashing the tariffs they had imposed on one another for 90 days and lifting stock markets worldwide in its aftermath. However, analysts from various news outlets, and surely, investment banks, continue to see uncertainties as the two sides left largely unsaid what will happen after those 90 days expire. Will the tariffs go up and send business and markets downhill once again, or will the vaulted idea of "continued negotiation mechanism" established during these talks help dial down the temperature permanently?

It is hard to keep marriage exciting sometimes. Having been together with my wife for more than three years now, we need to find some way to spice up our ways of conversation. And I do not mean that in a sexual manner. Just the day-to-day conversations about "how are you doing" and "what do you want for dinner" become a boring routine if it is done the same way, about the same content, and happen in the same context. To make the everyday a bit more exciting sometimes requires a bit of outside support, a tool to make the normal slightly more abnormal.

Less than a week ago, the European Union ruled that Malta's so-called golden passport scheme, through which the world's richest can invest a large sum in the country in exchange for citizenship, is illegal. The Eurocrats' objection is that Malta treats access to Europe as a "commercial transaction" through which those with money can simply enter and stay not just in the island country but anywhere in the bloc. On a continent that is seeing increased popular skepticism of foreign presence in recent years, perhaps it is not surprising that the move would be politically palatable.

It feels like I have been sick for quite a while now. Every night before sleep, I cough up phlegm. And when I wake up, a dry mouth awaits me. A constant stream of lozenges during the day may suppress the itchiness in the back of my throat during meetings. However, their too frequent usage has led to occasional bouts of diarrhea that forced me on a soup-and-bread diet for days at a time...graphic as this may all seem, it is a rather apt description of the week I have had since returning to Malta from an intercontinental journey less than a week ago.

A few days ago, a marathon held in Beijing marked the first time that specifically designed humanoid runner robots participated alongside actual human runners. Rather than a display of technological prowess, the publicity focused on just how much the humanoids lagged behind the humans, with the fastest robot finishing more than an hour after the human winner, and three-quarters of the robot entries dropped out of the race. The event became a testament to just how difficult it remains for robotics to fully mimic such basic human actions as running, despite advancements in AI and precision manufacturing.

Having lived in Malta for over a year, I visited the famed Hagar Qim Temple for the first time late last month. I was spurred on by unexpectedly waking up to a sunny and warm weekday without work. My trip was well worth it, as the UNESCO heritage site’s enigmatic beige stone blocks contrast beautifully with the yellow flowers in full bloom amidst the green grass and the blue Mediterranean in the distance.