Trains, not buses

December 1, 2025.Reading time 6 minutes.

I like trains. Buses, not so much. I’ve taken buses most of my life. To school in Alor Setar and whilst I was in university. For four years, I did a four-state hike of Selangor-Kuala Lumpur-Penang-Kedah. I travelled every three weeks, on a Friday, from Bangi to Kajang to Pudu Raya to Butterworth to Alor […]

Online, they or them

November 24, 2025.Reading time 7 minutes.

Sometimes it’s easy. Sometimes it’s not. And, I’ve wondered if it was/is I or me or ‘they’ or ‘them’ that make it not easy. To start with, it’s not easy to buy presents. For siblings. As they get older, they don’t want/need too many things. And, I don’t want to add to their clutter […]

Happy events

November 17, 2025.Reading time 6 minutes.

My husband and I were invited to two graduation ceremonies. The graduates were my nieces, number 4 and 5, brother number 2’s daughters. Coincidentally both sisters had their graduation in early November. One on the 1st, the other on the 13th. 1st November was niece number 5’s big day. She got a First in Mechanical […]

My mum’s celebration

October 20, 2025.Reading time 6 minutes.

It’s Deepavali today. I’ve been thinking about my mum for a while now. How excited she got at every Deepavali. It was her celebration. She said and reiterated how Deepavali was the main event in her life. Not Ponggal, Thaipusam or even her birthday. Nope, it was Deepavali. From childhood, all through her married life […]

Conversations

October 13, 2025.Reading time 6 minutes.

I’m not a talker or so I tell myself. I considered if that was true. I do talk. I ask questions. I engage in conversations. At work or rather when I used to work, I was vocal and I was heard. As a journalist, I asked or shouted out questions, depending on the situation. One-on-one […]

Thinking of my Booby

September 22, 2025.Reading time 6 minutes.

My days are quite full. I try to only do things that I can and want to. And, in amongst all of that, I think of my mum. I do. In the morning, during the day, when I go to bed. She’s permanently etched in my head and heart. Next Saturday, she would have […]

Clean running water

September 15, 2025.Reading time 6 minutes.

My husband and I officially moved back into our condo yesterday😊. We’ve been moving in since the first week of September, when the last of our ‘replacing-our-water-pipes-cum-renovation’ was finally completed. Briefly, for most of the 18 years since we moved into our condo, we’ve had to endure rust smelling, yellowish, trickling water from our […]

Collecting collectibles

September 8, 2025.Reading time 6 minutes.

They are everywhere. Almost. Well… feels that way. I first noticed them many months ago in a shop selling toys. Not the kind you play with. Collectibles, mostly. With dramatic features and expressions, they are cutesy and a tad creepy. Not in a bad scary way but in a quirky, appealing way. They made me […]

Insurance saga

August 18, 2025.Reading time 6 minutes.

I wrote about my shooting-through-the roof insurance premium in 2024. The saga sadly continues. In July, my insurance company sent out emails asking if I, its customer, wanted to save on insurance premiums. I said, yes. How? Deductibles, it said. The email, paraphrased, read as follows. ‘The higher the deductible the more you can save. […]

Taxes, aging, death…

August 11, 2025.Reading time 6 minutes.

Nothing is certain but death and taxes. Aging is also certain. If we don’t get hit by a bus or die instantly from a heart attack. Thanks to modern medicine, prolongation of life, the process of living longer is more certain than not. No so certain is the quality longer life offers. Aging is inevitable. […]