The Unofficial Guide to Life
If you’re a bookworm, an intellectual, an artist, a dreamer, a deep thinker; come in. This is the place to share ideas, ask questions, challenge the status quo. We welcome an engaged and curious mind; one that has a thirst for knowledge, an insatiable hunger for understanding, and a passion for the people and issues that make up our communities. We know that the world has bigger problems than our own. Let the discussion begin.
There is someone on my street who has excellent taste in music. I don’t recognize half the songs playing, but all of them are evocative, sentimental, and oddly cheerful, reminding me of the type of songs a person would listen to in the olden days, or when looking back on life, or while in the middle of living a very colourful life, or because he knows a great deal about life, or because he just really like dancing or staring into space.
Continue reading “My Neighbour’s Music”
There is a running joke in my family that if I were a composer, I’d be Mozart. Even as an inside joke, there isn’t actually anything funny about it but we laugh like it is the most hilarious thing we ever made up. The reason behind it is that I always had to play Mozart because my hands weren’t big enough to play Beethoven. I couldn’t reach the chords without double-hitting notes and I definitely couldn’t play them with the power and energy that they demanded.
Continue reading “You Can’t Run from Mozart”
I used to think I should like museums because smart people like museums and I wanted to be smart. When travel ‘must-do’ lists said to visit this museum or that museum, I bought a ticket, and waited in long lines, and went. I went because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do. It turns out I’ve done a lot of things in my life simply because I thought I was supposed to. And I’ve developed a lot of opinions about things because that’s how I thought I was supposed to feel about them.
Continue reading “Pretending to Like Museums”
Normal People by Sally Rooney is a book that came to me highly recommended from friends, the internet, and even President Obama.
A quote on the cover from The Washington Post says, “A novel that demands to be read compulsively, in one sitting.”
Continue reading “What I Thought of ‘Normal People’”
I’ve lived most of my life trying to see the good in everything. With a sense of pride, I don my rose-coloured glasses, celebrating the accomplishment that against all odds, I didn’t become jaded or cynical like other grown-ups.
Continue reading “The Danger in Being Too Positive”
I always think of history as something that doesn’t happen to me. Instead, history is something that happened a long time ago, something that I read about in textbooks, something that might have museums or memorials dedicated to it.
Continue reading “How Will History Remember Coronavirus?”
Reading Oliver Twist was like being stuck in a 447 page nightmare.
Even before picking up the book, I vaguely knew what I was getting myself into, having seen various movie adaptations, including the BBC mini series, the hit musical Oliver!, and Disney’s Oliver and Company.
Continue reading “The Darkness of Dickens: Oliver Twist”
I read Breakfast at Tiffany’s in the glow of candlelight, blissfully submerged in a hot bath. Seemed fitting, considering the glamorous lifestyle of Holly Golightly herself. The only thing missing was a cocktail, a tawny cat, and a handful of millionaire playboys and/or gangsters waiting on me hand and foot (thank God because I hate cats and feel much the same way about playboys and/or gangsters).
Continue reading “The Truth About Holly Golightly from ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’”
In anticipation of Mother’s Day, I wanted to write a mother appreciation post to pay tribute to my favourite mothers in literature. I’ve picked these mothers based on their strength, wisdom, selflessness, and their undeniable love for their families. Here are the best loved mothers who’ve inspired me and touched my heart in one way or another:
Continue reading “My Favourite Mothers in Books”
Things I Learned Growing Up 