Posts tagged "blog"
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Back in the SL
I have become one of those people. For the fourth time this year, I am sitting at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at Colombo airport drinking the world's worst coffee and the worst food. I am also strutting around in heels. Here. Also in Indonesia. In the Philippines. Everywhere. I walked into a TASMAC in dodgy…
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Another List of Things
(63 Random Things in 2012) 1. Causeway I still remember the day you drove me across the Causeway with our dog and all of my life's belongings in your little car. We made that journey many times, usually in the other direction. Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Happiness, not desperate anger. We were even talking back then. I…
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Living with Graves
A year and a half ago, my friends sent me to a local emergency ward in Singapore when I moved in and out of delirium in the middle of dinner. I had been unwell for a long time, but there had been no suitable diagnosis or treatment. I lost nearly 20 kilograms, had the shakes, became insomniac, and most of all,…
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Blazing the Trail
I got a mention in the Singapore International Foundation's magazine for some of the stuff I do on the side.
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Why I'm Hosting Culture Kitchen
This is a project which has been on my mind for some time now. We've been planning it for a while. A part of this is a response to a worrying trend of anti-foreigner sentiment (c.f. the responses to a drive to raise funds for victims of last year's Downtown Line accident: here and here). The other part — which I…
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74 Weeks Later
Once or twice in your life, something, or someone, gets under your skin and stays there. Most of the time it's because you have let them. It does not need to be tragic; it can even be, at times, up-lifting. All of the time it changes your life in some big, unalterable way. Then you learn to deal.Seventy four weeks ago…
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Over and Over
Some days ago, a boy I used to date as a wee teenager (yes, a boy!) reached out to me on Facebook. It's funny where we are now: he's now a hotshot international banker, I'm now an international vagrant (I don't really know how else to describe myself), instead of the awkward, school-uniformed boy and girl we once were.…
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The One About Having It All
Also available on Medium. If you were to meet me on the streets of Singapore, you probably would not peg me for ‘gay’. Apparently, ‘gay woman’ or ‘lesbian’ has to be one or several of the following: short-haired, oddball, butch-like; a flaming dyke. You would expect me to show up in a flannel shirt and in Birkenstock…
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Love, Singapore
I wrote a small piece for Elle Singapore (Sept 2013) about what it's like to be lesbian in Singapore. Available on the newsstands now, page 147. Mention to someone in passing that you're lesbian and one or all of the following are bound to happen: intrigue ("tell me more"), surprise ("You don't look…
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Before & After The Fire
1961. Rain falling on zinc roofs. Neighbours having sex Hoping they won't be suay again. They have no money. The news coming from the sole television set. Children peeping for a glimpse of world affairs. Condensed milk cans filled with coffee. Ah Ba will have to go to the office. The office is also a shed. He carries…
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Sitrep
Frak yes: my Battlestar Galactica tattoo. I got a Battlestar Galactica tattoo I'm pretty pleased about that It's one half of the pair of wings and Caprica constellation that Starbuck gets when she marries Anders Within a couple of hours of getting it, a random stranger proposed to me — saying she would get the other…
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A Weekend Getaway
As many of you will know by now, I have spent a substantial part of the past decade travelling through India. I still feel like I'm barely done with scratching the surface. There's just so much to see in that vast, amazing country that I call my second home. For some time now I've wanted to go to Coorg. Coorg, also…
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The Belated Bangkok Diaries
In several status updates Admittedly I have posted very little on the everyday occurrences in my travel. Here are some snippets, culled from Facebook. Day 1: Two sleep-deprived people board a plane full of evangelical missionaries offering ‘free healing' in the plane (true story), dinner in the streets and accidental…
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Gyanada Foundation Soft Launch
I've thrown myself headlong into work — real work, and then foundation work. India is an important part of my life and I owe everything to her. Over the past couple of months, my friends and I have been busy putting a little NGO together, the Gyanada Foundation. Today (Tues, 12 March) between 7 and 9 in the evening,…
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From the Fringe
I've had more thoughts on the anti-white paper protest since the weekend, I'll need to write it down into a slightly longer piece. But here's what I posted on Facebook that got passed around a fair bit. Point is, Singapore is at an interesting stage in our politics and civil society and it's going to take a while to…
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It Was All New
I have a tattoo on my lower back. It was given to me by the grandson of a tribal village chief. I grimaced for hours on the floor as he used the primitive tools and ingredients that had tattooed his Iban people for centuries, on me, a girl from a big city. I'd always wanted a tattoo, but didn't know what; this one…
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Five of Each
Five Places I Visited and Loved in the Past 12 Months Helsinki Copenhagen San Francisco New York City Stockholm Five Things I Learned in the Past 3 Months Diving Swimming Git Ruby Still looking for the fifth big thing. For now it looks like it's going to be Fightshape Note: I could swim, but badly. I took up Shaw…
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Left & Leaving
in hindsight Some songs I cannot hear again. Some songs make me think of you. Not of you in the general sense one does of missing one another. Not even in the way one thinks of losing a loved one or saying goodbye. Worse? Far worse? The songs of dread. The songs of the silence between us gnawing ever more loudly until…
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63Random
63 random things from the past 3 months (inspired by Michael Ruby's "Fleeting Memories") Arriving in Budapest knowing absolutely nothing about Hungary Drinking palinka for the first time, feeling the flush The Hungarian energy drinks I drank while wearing funny hats Walking with team Photogotchi along the…
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A Public Service
Recently, a friend from Bangalore messaged me on Facebook and asked me for some help. Her family friend, who was not very educated, had paid a lot of money to an agent in Bangalore to get work in Singapore. He had his work permit issued, and was told to leave for Singapore as soon as possible. There was a gap of a…
194 posts tagged "blog"