Posts tagged "blog"
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Our visa to green card journey
(A shorter version was originally posted on Mastodon here:) San Francisco as seen from Crissy Field. This is one of my favorite places in the place I now get to call my forever home. In September 2018, my wife and I arrived in the United States to build our new lives. After 7 and a half years of paperwork, visa…
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Year of the Fire Horse
We celebrated Lunar New Year a few weeks ago, and as usual, I was 8000 miles away from home. What does home even mean now? I have not left the U.S. for three years. That must be some kind of record for 'no international travel' for me. This month feels like the start of a new season of life. Our 8 years of 'visa…
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Making Things With My Hands
In a world that feels like it is coming undone, I find a lot of solace in making things with my hands. The biggest breakthrough I developed was when I decided I don't need to be good at everything that I do. I can just.. do things. That goes against my programming as a competitive over-achiever, but it was ultimately…
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My Talk at North Bay Python
In late April 2025, I had the opportunity to talk about my interesting career trajectory 'From Fintech to Fin Tech'. If you told me a decade ago that I would be working at an aquarium, I don't think I would know what to think. I hadn't discovered my love for marine life, puns, or marine puns at the time. My life is so…
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Belated New Year
In January this year, I wrote this about how I felt being away from 'home' for the Lunar New Year again: This lunar new year eve, I am usually home in Singapore. I am seven years old, and I wake up to the smell of roasted chilli, poached chicken, and cabbage soup. There’s a bustle in the kitchen. My grandpa is stirring…
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Intersections
For an all hands meeting at work, I was asked if I wanted to share a story about my life and how I got here. It has not been the easiest, holding all of these identities and selves, often in places that did not welcome me. I think sometimes of Merantau: of finding a home away from home. All of my parts and…
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Postcard from Monterey
I have a new job, which also means new views! Million dollar views, in fact. I so love this part of the world: when Sabrena and I first moved to California back in 2018, we were so excited to finally be somewhere where we could travel with our dog, Cookie. We booked a trip and came to Monterey for my birthday that…
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Cookie the Cavalier
A few things happened. The main one being, my soulmate, my soul, the love of my life, Cookie pie, passed away. I am bereft, but not afloat. It feels like a brand new chapter in my life. Cookie the Cavalier sitting under an airplane seat Cookie, born 1 October 2009 in Petaling Jaya, died 20 June 2024 in San Francisco.…
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The One About Scallion Pancakes
I have a weird story about scallion pancakes. It goes like this. Around this time last year, I was walking down my street in San Francisco when a woman waved something at me. I thought she needed help with something, so I went closer. Instead, she clicked something (she was waving a torch, the kind you ignite gas…
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Launch of Public Sector AI
I've been busy. Over the weekend, I launched: Public Sector AI and its accompanying newsletter The motivation for doing so is, I am noticing an increasing amount of YOLO and FOMO with regards to artificial intelligence. Government is at once trying to regulate, as well as to determine how to engage. I'm hoping my…
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Bawling at Birdsong
From a late night Mastodon thread about homesickness. Two years before I moved to the United States, I wrote something called ‘things I will miss when I have to leave Southeast Asia (because I am queer)’. I predicted that I would be deeply homesick, not for Singapore specifically, but for the entire region. Even though…
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The Internet Walgreens Test
I lived the bulk of my life outside the United States, where I have been for only 6 out of nearly four decades. There are many things I appreciate about the U.S.; San Francisco in particular, which gave my wife and I a wonderful place to build our home and welcomed us at every step. One thing that I am not used to…
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Seven birthdays with my wife
When my wife Sabrena and I first got together in early 2017, she said I was her early birthday gift. Not actually knowing her birthday, I asked her when it was: exactly two months from when we got together. You must understand, at that time I was a bit of a fuckboi and two months was a very long time for someone like…
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Chobanicore
Chobanicore: the style of natural, soft colors and airy composition in branding popularized by Chobani's 2017 rebrand is also known as 'paperback chic' and 'Chobanicore'.
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Spycraft and statecraft
Spycraft and Statecraft: A new article in Foreign Affairs by William Burns, Director of the US CIA says "China remains the only U.S. rival with both the intent to reshape the international order and the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so. The country’s economic transformation over the…
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Fish eyes
Lucas Sin shares how Cantonese chefs gauge water temp: shrimp eyes (80C), crab eyes (90C), fish eyes (99C about to go into a rolling boil). The video is also a good instructional resource on how to prepare and cook shrimp, especially Hangzhou style tea shrimp. Good recipe to come back to and try. Hennepin County,…
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A Year of Creative Endeavors
In 2023, I got to explore a whole year of creativity, namely in film photography, photographic darkroom printing, piano and saxophone-playing, and drawing Film photography felt like an old friend I was coming back to: I was already shooting film 20 years ago, but dropped off for the digital world In moving to San…
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Interview Waiver Experience for H1-B1 Visa
I've learned a few new things since I last posted about how other Singaporeans can apply for, and receive, the H1-B1 visa. In renewing my visa in Singapore this September, I opted for the new-ish interview waiver process (available since 2021). Although I have never had a rejection, going to the US embassy is always a…
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Merantau Cino
A scan of a film photo of a wooden table in Tretes, Indonesia with light coming in through the window, making it a very atmospheric picture Tretes, Indonesia (link to some photos I took I have been struggling with my feelings on and about immigration. Some time in mid 2023, a woman at a bus stop in San Francisco…
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Applying for Singapore Visa for your Friend
Citizens of some countries need a visa to enter Singapore. If you have friends or family that belong to those countries, you can do them a huge favor by applying as a local contact. As long as you are a Singapore citizen or Singapore PR with SingPass, or director of a Singapore-registered business, you can help your…
194 posts tagged "blog"