Tag: london

Status: Settled

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I know I look a bit miserable in the picture, but I can assure you that I was feeling rather merry. But I also think it captures my 2025 quite well.

I’m in the middle of working through a Year in Review exercise created by somatic coach Jonas, aimed at queer and neurodivergent folk, and it’s brought out some interesting realisations. Most significantly is that it has felt that this has been a particularly rough year (work, especially, has been hard), and I’ve spent the past 10 days on annual leave doing very little. Recovering.

But working through the exercise and reflecting on the year, I actually found more moments of joy and happiness that I allowed myself to remember (one of the therapist!). This year, for example, I have built and solidified some important connections in my life. I have rediscovered things I enjoy – theatre, running, travel.

Most significantly though is that this year marks one full year of me living in London again. Aside from my well-documented love for this city (and my childhood dream of making this place my home), it also coincides with what I suspect will end my over-15 years of feeling transient. I am, dare I say it, starting to feel a bit settled.

I still have a bit more to go with the exercise but I already know that I want to carry more positive memories and feelings of 2025 into the new year. Like the merriment I was actually feeling inside in the picture above. And this post, as ever, would serve as a necessary reminder. For posterity.

From Venice, with love

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A hand holding up a vase of flowers next to an artwork featuring a street in Hither Green in London.

This morning, I took a short walk out into Hither Green to buy some flowers. I can’t be sure, but it felt like the first time I’ve ever bought flowers for myself since I don’t actually own a vase. Well, I didn’t until recently. And that is the only reason why I got some flowers today.

A few months ago, mum messaged tai che, ee che and I to ask if there were anything in one of her glass cabinets we wanted to keep. The cabinet was coming apart, and she wanted to throw it out. One of the items in that cabinet was a beautiful vase I bought for her in 2003 on my one and only trip to Venice. It was the only item in there that had a story for me, so I said I’ll take it back to London with me.

The story goes back to when I was a young boy – maybe 11 or 12 years old – and it was the school holidays. My cousin Kevin had come to spend the day together, and as kids being kids, I knocked over a beautiful Venetian vase my mother had bought on her first trip to Europe (I think) decades ago. I remember the moment vividly, it still plays in my head in slow motion. Two young boys having knocked over something, and tried to reach out for it, but failed.

I don’t remember mum being too upset with me (maybe because a cousin was there) but I felt guilty for a long time. So, when I finally decided to visit Italy, I knew that I just had to go to Venice so I could replace the vase for her. I couldn’t find one that looked similar, and so I got this new one, which was hand-blown. She never used it – it’s sat in that cabinet on display all this time.

Over two-decades on, mum was ready to say bye to it (alongside the many things she’s been giving away/throwing out/recycling over the past few years). So now, it lives in my not-so-new-anymore flat and today, it has finally served its purpose: there are flowers in it now. T

he picture above shows the vase and the flowers I got, but what I thought was interesting was to share this artwork my friend Sean gifted me as a housewarming gift of a street in Hither Green. On the left side of the picture you can see You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, the cute little florist and coffee shop close to where I live where I bought the flowers from.

I tried to look for a picture from my Venice trip to include in this post, but then realised that in 2003, I don’t know if I even had a digital camera. I’ll have to dig out a physical copy sometime to get it scanned. It would explain why it hasn’t shown up in this little Tumblr I have on my travel memories, although I haven’t uploaded it in years.

All grown up

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On New Year’s Eve this year, I forgot that it was New Year’s Eve.

I spent the day with my mum and Ee Che on a day trip down to my late dad’s hometown Malacca to look into some family concerns. This capped off a month where I returned to Malaysia after an extremely long year at work, and finally took some time off to just decompress. It felt nice.

Once again, I found this year to be really tough, although at this stage this seems to be something I say at the end of most years since I started working as an academic (or maybe, even before?). Previously, in my year-end reflections, I used to go through my calendar and figure out which milestones I’d highlight for my future memory.

This year, I’m not doing that because as far as I am concerned, I just want to remember two milestones I achieved in 2024.

First, I was finally confirmed in post after three-years of probation in my role as Lecturer in Digital Culture and Society at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London.

Secondly, I have finally returned to being a Londoner … and being a homeowner at that.

The boy from Bangsar is finally all grown up, I guess. Happy New Year, folks … I really hope it can be one not just for me, but for you, and for the rest of the world.