Well, the life in Berlin was fantastic. But now my body itches to get moving again, and I have to heed the sign.

I will be spending another year from June in Aberdeen, Scotland, as a Leverhulme visiting research fellow at the University of Aberdeen. Pete Stollery (an excellent EA composer who teaches there) graciously invited me to work there.

I have always been fascinated by the scenery and the landscape of Scotland (partly due to my imagination ever since watching Braveheart), and people tell me my fascination is not that far from what I will get. But I also get various warnings from them about its weather. We will see.

My research in Aberdeen is an extension of one of my previous thesis topics: Place. There are various and interesting leads that I had discovered, but could not dig out further, while I was working on my thesis, and I hope that my residency in Aberdeen will give me the time and resources to delve into them.

About the sign that I talked about in the beginning: one of my compositions during my DAAD residency was On the Way to Fwarrheu. When I was working on the piece, neither did I know the existence of the Faroe Islands, which is located about halfway between Scotland and Iceland. Nor did I realize that I would spend a year in Aberdeen. What will be the next? The Iceland, perhaps?

No: my cats will kill me if that happens!