2023

It's late, but here it is. My annual recap. January 2023 Some time in the middle of the month, our whole family traveled back to Malaysia. It was the first time we were traveling so far as a group. First time visiting Malaysia for the children. First time Pei Ying and I were back in...

2022

January 2022 Just entering the new year, weathering another Albertan winter. PY was about 6 or 7 months pregnant at this time. Also, PY and I got our booster COVID vaccine shots (so we both had 3 shots each). February 2022 We visited a friend in Calgary. Immediately after the trip, Wynnie developed some symptoms....

2021

Highlights of the year 2021! January 2021 The entire world was still coming to grips with the temporary reality of living with COVID-19. The lockdowns, restrictions and social distancing was supposed to be a temporary measure but at this point, it felt pretty permanent and I think I was ready to concede that it was...

“Slaves to our social biology”

The topic of this blogpost is going to be about something else altogether. I just wanted to use that poignant statement made by a friend of mine as hook to pique the reader's interest. Haha. I'm going to talk about "inertia". Inertia is a characteristic of matter that tends to stay still, or to continue...

2020

Highlights of this year. January 2020 My parents were visiting; they arrived late November 2019. They departed for home towards the end of this month, which happened to be Chinese New Year as well. As we ushered in the Year of the Rat, the news about the quickly-escalating novel coronavirus situation was swirling furiously across...

My Name Confuses Mat Sallehs

Typical mat salleh names are [First Name] [Last Name]. For example, John Smith. Sometimes they have middle names. For example, John Doe Smith. Asian names are different. In fact, in some countries, you can consider their syntaxes backwards or opposite to Western names. Let's look at Chinese names. (Note 1: because I have a Chinese...

Eye opening

After I moved to Canada, I learned that no matter how much "salt" you've eaten in life, there are still things out there that would surprise you. For example, it never crossed my mind that there could be many different utilities companies to choose from. I was used to what it was like in Malaysia...

I Hate Steamboat

"I hate steamboat." That is what I always tell my wife whenever we're having steamboat. Ironically, it's among her top, most favourite types of food. Honestly, I don't hate steamboat all that much. I admit, actually I find the fish balls, pork, fish paste, fishcakes, boiled cabbage, and occasional imitation crab sticks pretty tasty. In...

2019

Hello 2020! It is my annual review again. Looks like this will be the only reason I post on this blog LMAO. January 2019 We spent a few weeks in California with my wife’s family. Visited a bunch of touristy places (San Francisco pier and had some clam chowder, Google HQ, Facebook HQ, Intel museum)...

Truths

Recently it dawned upon me that people tell two different kinds of truths: the "political" truth and the real truth. Political truths are things you say to avoid offending the person to whom you're telling. You would say things that aren't the whole truth, yet aren't outright lies - just riding in the grey zone...