JUST MY IMAGINATION

                                      I am at our local rock choir practice. It is allegedly rock, but we sing Christmas songs this week. Neither rock nor Christmas. But it is late October, so nearly there, right? The day after Halloween is Christmas for this part of the world. And I entertain this spirit. Or try to. I am wearing my cosy red sweater. Is it Christmas-themed? No. But it is Christmas enough for 27 October. But when I stepped into the room, I saw I was nearly the only one without a Christmas jumper. Hey, I try. We're singing a few Christmas songs. This time, it is different. Normally, we learn all the songs from scratch. But this time, because they are Christmas songs and because they are the same songs from last year, the teacher doesn't spend too much time teaching and goes straight to singing. And because the majority of the class is carrying on from last year, they all k...

It’s been almost a month since I moved to Aberdeen, and I’m trying to get back to writing. I am trying to remember what it was like to be in Singapore. Does one magically forget about one whole year, just like that? For this past month, I started my job as a lecturer, met with my students, and gave my first induction lecture. When I tell this to my family and friends, they say, “You mean introduction?” I say, “Yes.” So why don’t they just call it that? I guess “induction,” for non-academic people, means induction hob. I checked, and technically, induction and introduction are pretty close. So why do academics call it an induction class and not an introduction class?  Talk about diverting from the topic. Have I become a proper academic yet? Where was I? So yes, I started my job. Then, a quick flight to Turkey, brought two families together to put a nice ring on our fingers. Ate my mum’s delicious homemade snacks. Then flew back to our Scottish home. All the shenanigans just ...

Being overwhelmed working from the office yesterday, I decided to take the afternoon and work from a coffee shop. Sat there. Opened my laptop. Went to the counter and gave my order. "Could I please get a venti oat latte? And some tap water as well, please." "Hot or iced?" "Just normal water." Five minutes later, my water and coffee order came. One hot water. And this isn't even happening to me for the first time. I couldn't count how many times it's happened. For some reason, whenever I ask for tap water in Singapore, I get hot water. Unless you ask for iced water, which I don't want most of the time because it freezes my brain, they just bring a hot one. Could this be frustrating? For me, yes. At least, sometimes. I don't know why it's so hard to comprehend. At first, I thought it was a language barrier. Like, maybe they simply don't understand my English. Then the same thing happened while I was waiting for m...

“How can you be sure?” “Well, I am not.” How can anyone be sure of anything? Is there even a way to be sure of things? Through testing, experimenting, and doing actuarial analysis? I'm thinking about my own life. All the things I've done. I don't think there was a single moment when I felt completely sure before doing something big. Because isn't life like this? It isn't lived by objective standards. Whatever you decide to do, you do for the first time. There is only one version of you in the entire universe. So there is only one set of circumstances in which everything can be tried. You know how, in labs, they have test groups? They arrange the optimum conditions and keep everything the same, changing only one variable. That is how you measure whether something is successful or not. Now imagine how this would apply to one person's life. I'm thinking about my siblings. We all grew up in the same household. You could say under the similar testing conditions...

Getting off the plane, thinking a million things at the same time. How am I gonna resolve the visa issue? Will I be able to find a hotel at the last minute? Gosh, I'm so sick, I just want to go home. How could I have even booked a 28-hour layover? How silly of me. I know I've been very busy lately. And I know I booked this flight when I was hardcore homesick. But 28 hours, really? Approaching the transfer desk. "Excuse me. I have another flight to Singapore. But I accidentally booked a 28-hour layover. I don't even know how that happened. Do you by any chance have a complementary hotel option or any recommendations for me?" "Was your flight supposed to leave tonight?" "Huh?"  Meanwhile, I overheard the girl next to me saying the following. "Sorry, but our flight got delayed for 24 hours due to the war. What are we supposed to do now?" "Same! That happened to me too." I knew I didn't book my connecting f...

There’s a moment in everyone’s life when they think, ‘I should write a book.’ But not many people end up doing it.  I wanted to write a book since I was a little girl, and I had been writing since the day I learned how to write. When I was in elementary school and had just started writing, I went to my parents and said: “Mom, Dad, I wrote a story.” My parents got excited and asked what I had written, and I read it to them, ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ They smiled and said, “The story should be original, something you came up with, something that hasn’t been written before.” That’s when I realised that writing was much more than just writing. What we desire is not just the meeting of pen and paper. The ideas had to come from your core, not from someone else. During my middle school years, I wrote all sorts of things. Mostly stories with positive endings, characters from my neighbourhood, and poems filled with family love. By the time I entered high school, the rose-colour...

So many things to write about Vietnam… but this won’t be a long one. I just want to keep some practical points on record for the future. Vietnam was my first solo trip after a while, and also my first proper hostel experience. I’ve travelled solo a lot before, and I’ve stayed in hostels before, too. But this time it was just… different. I was truly sad when I left Hanoi. Exhausted after 11 days. Slightly sick. But also, sad. I think it’s genuinely amazing that human beings are capable of moving around the world and making connections. Like, I could literally meet a bunch of people from all around the world, have the most interesting and brave conversations, and then never see them again. Travelling is freeing on so many levels. And I think I’m starting to enjoy the human element of travelling more and more, even more than the “fantastic places” I’ve seen. In Vietnam, I felt that so strongly, and my extroverted side really came out towards the end, which is why I’m grateful. Some storie...