A new dimension

  The Cologne Cathedral I'm writing this post from a rather fancy hostel in Maastricht (south of the Netherlands, right at the border with Belgium)! From March 2022 till now, I've been fortunate enough to travel to 13 different towns/cities in Europe: Peak District (UK), Lisboa (Portugal), Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Marseille (France), Edinburgh (Scotland), Iceland, Riga (Latvia), Mallorca (Spain), Dublin (Ireland), Brussels, Li è ge (Belgium), Cologne (Germany) and now Maastricht! In all of them except Mallorca (which was a field trip paid by my university) and Marseille, I stayed in hostels and got to meet people from an incredibly diverse range of backgrounds! I thought it would be nice to share some of my experiences for any of you guys who are considering backpacking: first, basic hostel tips and second, what I have learnt from these experiences. Let's start with the basic hostel tips: 1) Choose a highly rated hostel (HostelWorld is your best friend) Hostels aren'

Yesterday I did my first ever full day fast! It was actually longer than 24 hours because I finished dinner around 10pm on Monday and only ate breakfast this morning around 9am. Anyway, I'm sure you guys are curious as to why I chose to fast: 1) I have been eating wayyyyy too much since winter and especially over Christmas and CNY. Just felt like my body needs a bit of a break from food. 2) I was inspired by my friend who fasts 3 days every 6 months 👀. That's pretty damn insane.  I was not crazy enough to attempt to do a 72-hour fast so just 1 day was enough :) It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, maybe that's a sign that I have really been well fed recently? So once you stop eating for around 8 hours your body starts burning fat (ketosis) instead of carbs and any glycogen stores. Accompanying this is a whole host of other benefits such as removing toxins. If you're interested just do quick googling and read up widely (just make sure you don't a

    Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash So I wanted to write some reflections on 2022, but I got caught up with work and other stuff so I decided since I missed the timing, I might as well write something about the year ahead! It's always better to look forward rather than back.  I'm not a super firm believer of new year resolutions, but I do admit that they keep one on track (especially if you have them written down somewhere visible!). I did do up some resolutions too but I guess what I've been doing for the past 2 years is to keep post-it notes on my laptop for 'long-term' goals. I update them regularly when I feel they don't apply (let's face it, so many things can change in the course of 1 year). The key idea here is that I see them frequently enough to keep me grounded towards my general direction. So far it's worked amazingly well for me! Just make sure to keep it rather simple and achievable; don't give yourself too much stress by targeting

Hello! I know it's been a really long time since I've last written anything (more than a year in fact) and I apologise if you have missed my writing. Somehow I just haven't really felt the motivation or urge to write. Writer's block maybe? I don't really know. It's not that I haven't really reflected or wrote down anything, it's just that I didn't feel like publishing articles on things which I don't really find interesting. Of course my other excuse is that life just got busy since I'm in university. But face it, I could probably have written an article a month if I just wasn't spending so much time on Instagram.  Whatever. Doesn't really matter now anyway.  It just feels nice to be writing this at 10.38pm on a random Wed evening while it's storming outside in London. There really is something about writing at night - it somehow keeps my brain active and in a reflective state of mind whereas studying at night is just sleep-induci

 这篇文章非常短，完全写之此刻的心情。。。 明天我就飞去英国了，开始生命中的另一个阶段。我真的很兴奋认识各国的朋友和接触新的文化。在新加坡生活了21年，偶尔也会觉得闷，因为新加坡真的太小太小了。有趣的地方，适合观赏夕阳黎明的地方，也就只有那些。对于即将面临的新阶段，我想提醒我自己这几点： 1）保持乐观的态度 许多事情都不在我们能控制的范围内 ，也不应该为每件事情烦恼。既然生命随时都可能结束，那何必闷闷不乐，愁眉苦脸呢？ 2）思想开方，永远学习 世界太大太辽阔，智慧也是无限制的。只要我们肯乐意每天学一件新知识，累积的智慧是非常珍贵的。 3）尊敬每个人，每个生命都有价值 我们应带着慈悲的心，感激我们拥有活在地球上的机会。每个人都有自己逃不离开的绳索，想在各自的范围内超越自己，做个更好的人。 目前就只有这三点，在飞机上也许会再想一想，日后补充。

  Photo by Fab Lentz on Unsplash Just scroll through LinkedIn and you will see posts of 'successful' individuals receiving thousands of likes. Some overcame their financial situations and are now multi-millionaires; some overcame workplace discrimination and created their own start-up; some never received formal English lessons but are the first in their families to graduate from university. Regardless of their narrative, there is one central and consistent theme: They overcame all the odds stacked against them, worked their asses off and are now 'successful' - which unsurprisingly, seems to be only defined by 'landing a job in a famous company or matriculating into a good university'.  I'm sure you have seen such inspiring stories on the web. I used to and still find them inspirational, but they also elucidate the problems with a capitalist system: only individuals who achieved a sufficient degree of 'success' dare to come out and share their st

                                                                                                                                 Photo by Minh Pham on Unsplash How many times have you been doing somehting you like only to get distracted by the thoughts of something you have yet to do, and start worrying whether you need to cut short your leisure activity? I miss the times when I could just dive into a book for the whole day without worrying about 'work on the waiting list'.  We feel the urge to keep working because we feel good upon completing each task. We seek this steroid. We must excel. We must improve. We must put in our best effort in everything we do. Only then are we justified to be happy and post a #hustle on our IG story. A large part of this stems from our society; 'make the most of your time' is emphasised since we were young. This statement isn't wrong: we really do have a limited time on Earth so if we are productive in everything we do, then we can do

    First night in our cozy room   During these COVID times where we all itch to travel but are confined in Singapore, where better to have a staycation than in the 'rural countryside' of Lim Chu Kang? So, together with two of my friends, we stayed at Oasis Living Lab for 9 days (thankfully, with a weekend break at home). While we're nowhere near professional urban farmers, there are definitely many lessons we learnt from this short journey. So here's my take on urban farming in Singapore and why we should all start farming, or at least grow some veggies:   1) Farming connects the grower back to nature's roots Honestly, I can't remember the last time I touched soil before staying at the farm. Despite my parents growing a plethora of plants in my backyard, I rarely got involved. My life revolved too much around the Internet (which I'm certain applies to most of you too) and I looked at environmental issues through the lens of a pragmatic Singaporean: I care

  An empty Changi Airport departure hall. Photo by Grace Lim on Unsplash.   When Covid-19 first arrived on Singapore's shores on Jan 23 2020, the government took swift action: taking the temperatures of all visitors to Changi Airport, stocking up masks and other essential medical equipment. The DORSCON level was also raised from yellow to orange on Februrary 7, when the first cases of community spread were suspected. A hitherto unprecedented amount of $93 billion (over four Budget packages) - with $52 billion taken from the country's reserves - was spent to alleviate the dire situations of affected businesses, citizens and the healthcare sector 1 . It was commensurate to the urgency of the situation, which could have severely damaged Singapore's economy to a state worse than it currently is. As always, the Singapore government responded promptly to the threat of an economic crisis, something that both Singaporeans and the government try to avert at all costs. But this then

We subconsciously endure a ton of bullshit in our jobs, consoling ourselves with the narrative that 'it's all part of the work'. When will we challenge this belief?   By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57348232 Damn this was a good book. Seriously. I had an epiphany after reading it. Go borrow it from any library, or just download Libby (a totally free ebook app). You won't regret it.  Why am I advocating for this book so aggresively? Because it brings to light a problem that is so prevalent yet is barely ever talked about. If you haven't guessed yet, it's the occurrence of bullshit jobs. Jobs that are absolutely useless, or as Graeber defines more explicitly,  "a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is the case"