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Living up to my name

I have a Chinese first name that sounds like an English name and means comfort. Ten years ago,…
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Asian pride, or lack thereof

If I’m honest, I’m probably more proud of my parents’ law degrees than they are of mine. I’m…
A woman paints on a canvas while a man plays guitar in the background.
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Embracing my inner artist

I have this theory: that our society tends to view being academic and being artistic as mutually exclusive.…
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Changing my narrative

Me and punctuality When my boss said to me, “You are not a late person. Let’s change the…
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Under (or over) the influence

The difference between a celebrity and an influencer I’m not sure when we stopped using the word celebrity…
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The H is silent

My first name begins with a silent letter so alliteration exercises in primary school weren’t fun. “Happy Hsu-Ann”…

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Nomad no more

Australians boast the inglorious irony of being the best off people in this pandemic and yet we’re potentially…
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How to edit your life

It’s one thing to love writing; it’s quite another to love editing. Editing is a passion I only…
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To tweet or not to tweet?

Sometimes I wish I was good at Twitter. It would be proof that I'm not just intelligent but super witty and have something to say about the state of the universe. There may be no "I" in team, but there is definitely "wit" in Twitter. If I was a tweeter, here's what I would tweet Here are a few things that have crossed my mind to tweet but never made it to the Twittersphere ...
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Turning on TED

It was only 18 months ago that I publicly wrote that one of my deepest dreams was to…
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On recovering Anglicans, vegetarians and nomads

I like to say my boyfriend is a recovering Anglican. He's actually not even Anglican, he just happens to go to an Anglican church and I just happen to enjoy having a go at Sydney Anglicans. What I really mean when I say he's recovering is that he is no longer doctrinal about his faith and how he practises it - in fact, he's ardently against legalism. Similarly ...
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Made to wonder: string theory and the resurrection

What does string theory have to do with the Resurrection? What's the difference between wanderlust and "wonderlust" (is that even a thing?)? Why do adverb particles matter? This Easter I really went down the rabbit hole ... String theory and the Resurrection I was listening to a podcast the other day, an interview with a physicist who was explaining the holographic principle. Based on string theory, one of the concepts is that our lived reality is two-dimensional data expressed in three dimensions. In other words, reality is a hologram. It made me think about dimensions in general. If two dimensions can express three, and it's generally accepted that we inhabit four dimensions (the fourth being time), what would 5D* projection mean? Because I'm convinced the material world isn't all there is to existence. As a person of faith, I believe we exist in more than four dimensions. But for most people - Christians, followers of other faiths and those of no faith alike - our active engagement in the fifth is limited. This Easter I was reminded that the Resurrection invites us to walk beyond the four dimensions and live a bigger, richer reality.
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Notes from a champion tickboxer

Sometimes I think I might have made a great bureaucrat. But alas, I don't like ticking boxes. And so it is that since graduating, I've given up ticking the boxes and being boxed in. Instead, I'm beating the box and I'm boxing the ticks.
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Australia: Not the place I thought you were

The other day after work, I was flowing with the peak hour crowd down Anzac Parade, when I witnessed something awful. An Aboriginal man was heckling and shoving an East Asian man. The Indigenous guy was yelling obscenities and things like "Go back to where you came from!" to the suited up Asian guy, who was trying, literally, to shake him off. That was Awkward thing Number 1. People just watched. And did nothing. That was Awkward thing Number 2. By people, I mean mainly Asian people. The University of New South Wales appears to be predominantly Asian, even the law faculty - a contrast with the College of Law at my own alma mater. That was Awkward thing Number 3. And I did nothing because, frankly, I'm both Asian and female. I actually thought I might get hit. That was Awkward thing Number 4. It made me think about how Australia is not the place I thought it was when I was little.
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On Dev Patel’s hair

My Oscars tie-in post is essentially an exclamation mark about Dev Patel's hair, not-so-cleverly disguised as a film review. This post contains zero references to La La Land and/or Moonlight.
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Crazy Baptist Girl

Apparently among some of my classmates, I had a reputation as the Crazy Baptist Girl at school. After…
Re-entry. Still from the movie Gravity.
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367 days after re-entry

Ten years ago, a lady named Debbie asked me if I was studying Spanish because I wanted to be a missionary in South America. At the time it was a seriously long bow to draw - I in fact had no better reason for studying Spanish other than Age of Empires and the Spanish national football team. Once I started learning the language, I discovered how beautiful it was to the ear, the mind, the tongue. But even then I didn't have any particular interest in Latin American culture. I had even less interest in becoming a missionary. Debbie and I are unlikely to cross paths again, but what she said turned out to be rather prophetic.
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80% Australian

Approaching this Australia Day, I’ve been thinking a lot about my Australianness. Or lack thereof. It’s not that…
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How South America messed me up good

People always ask me about my time in South America. Some are genuinely interested, while for others it's the polite and logical thing to ask. In either case, the truth is that these conversations have started to get a bit repetitive and I'm often left wishing I could say more than: that Latinos are warmer; that Andean dishes contain too many carbs; that working with survivors of child sexual abuse was hard as you'd imagine but so rewarding; that I'm not sure how to answer your question about how good my Spanish is. The worst thing is that I can't seem to do Bolivia and Ecuador justice - not in a brief conversation that could turn to a different topic at any given moment. So below are a few noteworthy things I don't generally get to share about the impact that my time in South America has had on me as a person and who I am now.
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2016: Resolving me

I’m an anti-resolutionist. I’ve always been sceptical about the value of New Year’s resolutions. Occasionally I’d humour my sister…
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Next stop: Sydney

Tomorrow will be my first day in Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, paid employment in Sydney. There is…
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Still twentynothing

Almost-no-longer-twentysomething. That’s how I described myself a month ago. Since then, I’ve done some soul searching, some job searching…
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Almost-no-longer-twentysomething

“You’re not 25 anymore, y’know,” my sister says. She’s being gracious. After another year abroad, I re-enter my…
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Travel delusions

Note: I was pleased and privileged to have this post published on A Life Overseas. In that process, I was…

Is that MY voice?

So there is this hilarious line from The Emperor’s New Groove we always quote. The villainous Yzma turns into a…
Black and white photo of a young Asian woman hugging her legs and looking at the camera.
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About my body

One of the differences I’ve noticed between Bolivia and Ecuador is that people don’t stare at me here.…

What’s in a name?

In certain cultures, names are pretty important. In ancient Hebrew culture, names carried a lot of weight –…
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Self-censored

I’ve always valued my education, and I know a significant part of my identity and beliefs are shaped…

boring Christian music

This afternoon, for the first time in a long time, I listened to Christian radio.  And tried to…
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Yo soy mujer (I am woman*)

In preparation for this Saturday’s pijamada (slumber party), I’ve just started reading Mentiras que las jóvenes creen (Lies…