Creative Meanderings

My ramblings and wanderings through life

  • Money is one of those topics that is either an expression of love for it – when one has it – or a hate of it – when one doesn’t have it or has a jealousy of others having it. It is also one of the major stressors in relationships: marriages, partnerships, consumership, and even friendships. For the most part, I try to be as upfront about money matters with people as I…

  • I bet you’re wondering where I’m going with this after writing a bit of a ranty post a while back on etiquette? This pop socket is on my phone and I love what it represents. Yep, let me explain…. I still standby the need for basic etiquette like saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. However, I do not standby political correctness nor the bubble-wrapping of words to avoid hurting people’s oversensitive feelings in today’s…

  • Oh the sniffing, the sneezing!Thankfully, I’m not yet wheezing. It’s that time of yearwhen being outside causes fear. How long can I lastbefore the final pollen is cast? I try to stay upbeatnever wanting to admit defeat. But, alas, I cannot keep up the fightas my puffy eyes decrease my sight. I cannot pretend anymore it is funnythat my nose is always runny. So, it’s back inside I go losing again to nature…

  • Yesterday, I participated in an interview for someone doing research on the adoptee diaspora and was struck by a few thoughts stimulated by her questions. One of them is around my concept of ‘home’, which is a recurring question in my mind. Coincidentally, or not, I had just been talking to my brother for an hour before this interview. It’s the second time this year and already twice as many times as previous…

  • I love to travel. It seems like an obvious thing to say as an expat, but there are expats who live abroad and see the world and there are expats who live abroad as they would in their home countries. I am of the former.  Despite this love of travel, I detest the process of getting from destination to destination, especially by air. Even before C19 forced a return to isolationist practices and…

  • I have just written my second attempt to request information from my first adoptive father. This time, I hand-wrote a letter to send in the regular post. I tried an email address that I found online since post is a bit delayed and sporadic these days; however, after no response and no idea if it is even the right email address, I thought I would go old-school. Let me provide an update on…

  • When I first arrived in Abu Dhabi, I made friends with some fellow Couchsurfing hosts who are also Asians of Western culture, which at the time was a rare meeting. We stayed friends over the years with a few visits back and forth after they moved on. Our last visit, though, was around ten years ago. So, when we moved to Europe, I connected with S & Q again. Finally, after a few…

  • Before emails, we had typewriters and regular post for staying in touch or conducting business. Before texts, we had telephones requiring a voice conversation. Before social media, we had to face people directly to express ourselves. While I fully appreciate and take advantage of our modern-day advances, there are some ‘rules of engagement’ that I continue to hold basic to any type of communication. (In fact, this isn’t the first time I’ve written…

  • March is here already and I’ve spent the last couple of days focusing solely on the platform to get everything in line for the month. I’m not complaining, by any means, as I know that putting in the time now frees up my time later. Still, I find myself less enthusiastic about the platform as it is taking time away from my writing. How crazy am I? I mean, I have built up…

  • Since this year is my year of writing on my novel, M had suggested that I go on an “intentional” writing retreat somewhere, but the cost of them and the forced interaction with others did not appeal to me as I want to write according to my methods and in my way – real surprise, huh? 😛 So, instead I decided to schedule regular mini writing retreats away from home. My first one…

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