I had an unsettling experience the other day. A week ago, I was out and about running errands when I got to talking with a guy. We had a decent conversation, he was kind of cute and somewhat witty, so when he asked if I wanted to grab drinks with him later that evening, I […]
Author Archives: chooiyen
Balm
I’m sorry. Fire extinguisher to flame. I’m really sorry. Ointment to wound. I could’ve done better. Lifting the lid off a bubbling pot. I’m so, so very sorry. Glue to slow-spreading crack in delicate, delicate glass. * * I’m sorry too. I want to be better for you. Gloriously soothing balm for the thorns in our words. […]
Chinese place
I haven’t seen an Indian person all day! My dad, after spending a night in Kepong, commenting on how Chinese the whole place is.
Snowfall
Nighttime after snowfalls always has a magical quality to it. Very, very late at night –when the rest of the world is indoors and tucked in– the activities of the outdoors die down, and a soothing stillness takes its place. The snow reflects the precious scant moonlight, bathing the world in a purple-orange hue; it’s a scene […]
Aceh
Flying off to Bandar Aceh tomorrow. In a flurry of messages on a Whatsapp group chat, my boss reminded us to pack long-sleeved, loose-fitting tops, long pants or skirts, sleeping bags, headscarves, along with an assortment of other directions, like “no nail polish”. And buried somewhere in the middle, in a nonchalant, casual-sounding text that […]
Curl
Curling into you. When the alarm goes off in the morning, and the only sounds I can make are groans of great reluctance to get up, I just want to curl into you. Because you are warm, and because you are soft. Because I can scent the you-ness from your shirt, and it is intoxicating. […]
Meander
Even though my internship in Ghana is a time and place very, very far removed from my current realities of air-conditioned apartments, eat-all-you-can dining hall meals, sociology class readings, and white people discourses, I still think about that little town in the north of Ghana very often. Written 1 year and 2 months ago, and […]
The Card
“It’s not love, and it’s not not-love.” I sometimes feel like we’re in a limbo here, doing a dance in which one is confident and sure-footed, the other uncertain and stumbling. We go through life expecting to be dealt with a few tough hands. But occasionally, life deals you with cards you completely did not […]
Mid-blog-life crisis
I am quite positive all owners of personal blogs go through this one phase, in which they wake up one day and decide that they have too much crap on their blogs. You can usually tell someone has hit this phase when their blog, once full of widgets and links and images, and moving bits […]
Unwritten
I’ve spent the past four years writing academic papers, pieces of writing that ranged from 2 pages to something crazy like 40 pages. Works that needed a ton of research, and a ton more of analyzing and synthesizing, referencing and citing (always a huge pain in the buttocks). Writing research papers is not new to […]