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Italy Day 0/1: Singapore — Rome — Santo Stefano di Sessanio
It’s hard to believe I was walking through the Roman Forum not three days ago, but there you have it: going on holiday frequently feels like stepping through a portal where here and there don’t seem like they could possibly belong to the same space-time continuum. I am writing now, as quickly and unthinkingly as I can, to document my memories even as they exponentially decay, like light fading as it leaves a source of illumination. My hope is to capture some of the fleeting sensations I experienced on this trip, before they dissolve into shadow. I am sick before I get on the plane. In the back of my…
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The power of a story
It’s been a hot minute, hasn’t it? How are things going with you? Have you had time to rest and recharge, without feeling guilty? To check in on an old friend of whom you were suddenly reminded by a stranger you passed on the street? To sleep in until noon? To water that succulent that you bought because you thought it would never die because succulents are supposed to be hardy, but it now looks suspiciously like it’s withering from neglect and dammit, is it too late to get your money back? My point is that work will always be work, and there will always be more work. But there…
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Emo birthday thoughts about a tree
For my birthday this year I gave myself the gift of time and undivided attention. One of the great things about running is that you can’t start scrolling through Instagram when you feel bored, unless your intention is to put yourself out of your misery by getting concussed by a tree. Anyhow, I rose early on the morning of my big day to go for a longish run, wanting to take my mind off work and ease back into the swing of half-marathon training after a week of holiday in Japan. But where I was expecting to celebrate a return to the familiar, I found loss and mourning instead. A…
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Is it just me, or does A Man Called Ove remind you of Pixar’s Up?
I finally got around to reading A Man Called Ove this week, and lapped it up like the sucker I am for feel-good fiction and sappy rom-coms. In the swirling tempest of last week’s work, Fredrik Backman’s simple yet moving tale of love and loss lit a small candle in my heart. Perhaps my favourite line from the book was what cranky, reticent Ove mumbled to his radiant wife-to-be, on their first proper date: “I just wanted to know what it felt like to be someone you look at.” Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove Call me a hopeless romantic, but I felt at that moment like a freshly baked…
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I tried going vegetarian for the work week, and here’s how it turned out
Evidently this blog has stooped to using clickbait-y titles to attract views, but if a highly reputable organisation like BuzzFeed News can draw me in with the likes of “Bernie Sanders Walked Into A Woman’s TikTok“, who am I to eschew such tactics? Fair warning: This is going to be a rather boring post, more descriptive than introspective. But I undertook this little experiment because I wanted to understand why it has been so difficult for me to go vegetarian. I’ve been trying to cut back on meat, especially beef, for quite some time now, with mixed success. People have different reasons for doing this — to be clear, I’m…
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More thoughts on rain, running, Valentine’s Day and the Budget Speech
The past week has been so busy that I haven’t had time to collect my thoughts on a whole bunch of matters, instead letting them trail behind me like a haphazard flock of pigeons — pigeons that squawk loudly, peck at my heels and generally demand the attention they are due. By deliberately carving out time to sit down and write today, I guess I’m hoping that my half-baked reflections will be enough to quell their hunger for redress. And if anyone else enjoys reading this jumble of stories plucked from my stream of consciousness, that would be a (wholly undeserved) bonus. :’) If you’ve ever wondered what a sinus…
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The GIFs of drawing, or why I like doodling so much
It’s been ages since my last jog and I’m twitching with restlessness. I miss the feeling of my heart rate rising to match the rhythm of my legs. The initial discomfort at the start of a run, the shortness of breath as I my lungs work to overcome inertia and set my body in motion. The sensation of flying when you’ve settled into your groove, in that fleeting moment when your back foot has pushed off the ground and your front foot has yet to land. The sweaty rush of endorphins when you reach your own finish line. At times like these it’s admittedly a little difficult to disentangle my…
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10 things I’m grateful for right now
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On rain, angbaos, tradition and sustainability
The spell of rain that beset Singapore this past weekend has been a welcome change from the usual routine of scorching afternoons and muggy nights. I’ve always loved the feeling of being indoors when it’s pouring outside — there’s something pleasing about the rhythm of the raindrops, the way they make the air shimmer where they move, and the ground glisten where they stop. I can’t quite explain why, but one of my favourite sounds is the swish, swish of cars speeding through a freshly rained-on road. Perhaps I’m imagining the passengers onboard being spirited away to warm and cosy homes. Of course, being outside with the rain and no…
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Fun facts: A trip down my musical memory lane
Since hardly anyone visits this quiet corner of the Internet (I hear there’s this thing called TikTok that’s quite in vogue nowadays?), I thought it would be safe to unload a little fun fact about myself here. Well, I say fun, but you can be the judge of that. Whenever someone asks me if I play / used to play a musical instrument, I either tell them that I can strum a few basic chords on a ukulele, or, more often than not, I just say “not really”. The former is true, the latter is… not, really. When I was five or six, my parents, like most Asian parents, thought…
