Oxford graduate, accountant, wife and mother. Also abbreviated as BSc, ACA, MRS and MUM in the title.

I’ve always belonged to the elite group of the world. Not only have I always had my own bedroom, I’ve not even shared a bathroom with anyone since I was born. Even during university days, all en-suite.

That’s a good indication of privilege, don’t you think?

One day, my seven-year-old step-daughter had a hundred yellow rubber ducks delivered to our door. As to how she found her way around Amazon, it’s a myth.

I came home, exhausted, and found my husband and his…

The biggest difference when we stop being an employee, both a merit and a curse, is that we now have control over our time.

The fact that we have control doesn’t mean we know how to control our time. It’s something we all need to learn.

Since we are born, our timetable is pretty much set. From school to our employment, we work set hours, usually more. And the rest of the time, we squeeze our friends, family and self-care in. For some overly-driven people (including myself), we even do some side hustles.

As we yearn for the so-called freedom…

Let’s start by saying, my beloved mother is a clever, compassionate and cut-throat woman. She’s a problem solver with novel ideas and bang-on analytical skills.

We’d all be lucky to get her advice.

Yet, she doesn’t think that. She’s now in her 60s and retired. When I discussed with her how I plan my life on the basis that we will live to a 100 years old, she was worried:

She has 40 more years of idle retirement life. What’s she going to do? Watch TV everyday?

For a long time, she thought that’s exactly what she will do, plus…

Olympics was delayed for the first time in history (cancelled twice during the two World Wars), and Tokyo Olympics 2020 finally opened on 23 July 2021.

I am from Hong Kong and based in the United Kingdom, i.e. I don’t have many affiliations with Japan, but damn, the opening ceremony was powerful.

So powerful, I cried.

The opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics didn’t make me cry. The former focusing on showing off and the latter was a tasteful celebration, even though the world was going through an economic crisis during those years.

But…

I moved to this beach town in England thinking I’d be like Samantha Jones from Sex and the City.

She moved from New York City to Los Angeles with her boyfriend. Then she ended up dumping her boyfriend and had sex with the constantly-naked-hot dude next-door neighbour, plus many others.

Beach people are blessed by the sunshine and the heat, clothes should become meaningless. Bikinis trigger dirty thoughts, and toned bodies are just ready for action.

But then, why am I’m not getting any? Where is my share of sex?

As I looked back at all the articles I wrote…

Our relationships, or the lack of them, reflect something profound about ourselves.

Just like travelling, as much as it is about the country and the sights, it’s also about us. How we grow and build ourselves through experiences, love is the same.

People who hop from one relationship to the next, which I used to do, shows a certain kind of insecurities. In this article, I invite all to pause this pattern for a second and go through the few essential stages of post-break-up that, if patience allows, will help us transform in powerful ways.

So hold on from installing…

When I tried to support my scientist friend through his mental health journey during the pandemic, it became very difficult for me, a social anthropologist.

I didn’t think the differences in our academic backgrounds will make such an impact in terms of how we approach things.

But it actually makes sense, an IT guy tends to see things in 1 and 0s, a humanity graduate is usually connecting dots, a scientist educated in the West focuses on substances with a form.

However, this scientist friend, let’s call him Faraday for funny’s sake, tried a specific type of meditation called inner…

Screw you, financial freedom.

If Medium recommends one more “how I make $4k a week from writing” to me, I swear I will fly to LA and kill Tim Jennings or Fennings, whatever (joking, I won’t kill him, I don’t even know if he’s an American).

Side hustle sucks, entrepreneurship sucks.

If you are, like me, lazy and just want to watch TV and drink wine, be an employee. A waitress on minimum wage in London is currently earning more than me. I shouldn’t have done that breakeven analysis, and now I’m defeated, not motivated. But it really wakes me…