When I started my first academic job at NIE in the 1990s, I remember a conversation with an older colleague on the cusp of retirement. Ageing wasn’t a linear process, he said, but came in sharp steps. For a long time you hardly noticed the transformations that were occurring, and felt that nothing had changed. And then suddenly a series of changes came at once. I’ve felt this sense of

When I left my job at NUS almost nine years ago, I slowly cleared out the books that had accumulated in my office, talking some to the National Library, and using several balikbayan boxes to send the best academic books to colleagues at the University of the Philippines. In both Vancouver and Singapore, we only have one major bookcase, and for a time the shelves of each were relatively bare.

During the last couple of months in Vancouver, as winter’s moved decisively, although not without some backtracking, into spring, I’ve been cooking oats most mornings. During my annual health check-up in Singapore my doctor announced that my cholesterol levels were on the border between healthy and unhealthy, and suggested that I start by modifying my diet. Oats are one easy change to make. There’s art to preparing them, I’ve learned,

At some time each winter, fog descends on Vancouver. In the West End, you walk out to blue sky and only a wisp of cloud, only for the mist to catch up with you on the street before you reach English Bay. Burrard Inlet shimmers with a patch of sunlight. Kitsilano and Point Grey loom out of the mist, only their trees visible, the suburbs seeming to have shed their