Sakinah Abdul Aziz

I've had far too many unpublished drafts on this blog about my experiences living in London. Perhaps when I've managed to muster the energy to properly structure and finish those writings, you would be able to see them in my earlier posts. Most of them would include my observations from sociological lenses - how living in inner city London affects my expressions of identity and my sense of belonging in this new world. From time to time, I struggle with not having the social capital and routine I was so used to having back in Singapore. This easily includes close friends I get to meet occasionally and the interest groups and communities I can fall back on. A few of my close friends would know this struggle I face. I suppose to a large extent, I have gotten used to living a very much quiet life in London. It is not exactly always the same like the life I had in Birmingham because now I have my husband by my side. Having a job here in London and sharing my struggles with a colleag...

Since I moved to London last summer, I've been living in an area in Hackney called Stamford Hill. If one starts to look it up, one may encounter documentary series on the Hasidic Jewish community in London. I live not just alongside them, but at the very heart of their community. This means that I see numerous synagogues, Jewish-owned shops selling groceries, kosher meat and yummy pastries, I hear beautiful hymns and chants on some evenings of the week, I hear upbeat music during their weddings and other festivities, and of course I encounter the very people that make up the community everyday. When I get lucky, I manage to catch glimpses of beautiful stacks of books and libraries inside their homes when the front doors happened to be open. I see children running around freely, because it is the community's responsibility to watch over them, even if they are not theirs. This is the benefit of living in a tight-knit community. Recently while under lockdown during the Easter week...

My experience returning home temporarily made my experiences in Birmingham felt like it was a distant memory - like it was a dream that was quickly fading away. Singapore has its ways of reeling me back into its fast-paced dominant lifestyle I've come to know. Nonetheless, Singapore will always be home and I was happy to return to familiarity despite my criticism over some aspects of it. Its terribly poor work-life balance, its pace which has inadvertently defined the norms of "success" and "productivity" and hence causing me to be very impatient and discontented when I experience the UK system and its flaws (read: inefficiency), the vicious cycle of work and subsequent hyper consumerism to appease ourselves, as well as the restriction of expression of dissent and alternative voices in public and political spheres. While Singapore was familiar, it was not entirely familiar anymore after I've been given a fresh pair of lenses to see what could have added mo...

Time flies and it's already 1st July. Just 2 more weeks before I'm packing my bags again to embark on big milestones. It has been rather challenging to articulate certain things and to feel understood. When I left for Birmingham last September, what people saw is how amazing that journey would be. Yes of course there are those amazing elements, I can't deny how my 8 months away have shifted my perspectives in so many ways and how much I have learnt. Sometimes people don't see the struggles, risks and costs that come with that decision. Leaving my job, being away from home, starting anew and self-funding comes with many sacrifices. Similarly, choosing a relationship that is unconventional and the other aspects that come along with that isn't easy either. Moving, settling and living in a new city isn't easy. I can understand why people desire and romanticize these images. But at the same time there's so much flaw in that outlook because we tend to see just the...

I finally understood what it was which truly bothered me through this passage of time where I was feeling bits of dissatisfaction from being in some social groups. It has to happen when I was abroad and living a much quieter and simpler life in order to realise the type of conversations which tend to dominate some group text conversations from friends back at home. It then became more obvious when I return to Singapore, and having to be in a few social gatherings to observe with a fresher pair of eyes, the types of conversations which hold those social gatherings and social bonding. It is worrying how we have allowed certain lifestyle come to dominate our lives and how we have normalised it. The dominant lifestyle I'm referring to is one that is driven by capitalist forces in feeding into this so-called rosy version of what life is supposed to be, which entails the modern notions of 'productivity' as well as hyper-consumerism and hedonism to appease us and compensate for ...

I had one of the most interesting but harrowing conversations today with one of the interviewees for my research. She is one of those people known for her bluntness and tends to say things in the most candid and unfiltered manners. During our exchanges, it sounded like she had a lot of frustrations and needed to ventilate about many things. For some reason, the conversation became something about death. She was trying to make a point that death is inevitable and can happen at anytime. So she told me that, death can even happen after I left her place. While I can understand where she was coming from, I really shudder at the thought. I walked out and made prayers. I returned home and told myself that if I die that same day, that woman must really have an impeccable intuition and superpowers i.e. premonition. May God have mercy on us all.

Before I forget the jobs I may want to venture at some point in my life, I think I better start listing them. I was thinking about the whole settling down in UK and how it must be like to start anew and to find jobs. I know that I need to start paying my dues first, and that means I may not land in ideal or dream job at the first attempt. This got me excited because then I could then explore all the other random things I want to do: - Tour Guide. Yes this is an irony because I am a traveller who avoids going with a tour group at all costs. I take on tours only when some places I'd like to go to are inaccessible and challenging to go to on my own. This is also an irony considering that I don't like how the places tour guides tend to bring you are the MAINSTREAM and touristy places. But I tinkled with this idea for a bit when I was going through a serious burnout while I was Probation Officer. I looked at the Tour Guide courses they offered in Singapore. So, if I'm going to...

One of the things that has become a part of my lived reality living abroad is the reduced noise - probably in every sense and meaning of it. Besides the literal meaning of noise, which is quite a given considering that I live in a quieter neighbourhood with lesser number of constant people I have in my physical life, I am really far from the noise and conversations from people back at home. Yes, I do have exchanges with them through video calls and text messages from time to time. But it's really not the same, though I'm aware that what I'm perceiving is something imagined and may not be the full reality. Particularly when it comes to friendships. Sometimes it feels like I'm always the last to know about things, sometimes I'm not even aware about anything at all, unless my friends choose to tell me the things they want to tell me or I see some updates on the social media. But back in Singapore, because we are in touch from time to time, it feels like I get almost th...

There's so much sadness and pain when we keep hearing of tragedy and atrocities happening in this world. It is even harder not to want to cry when we witness the outpouring of support and acts of solidarity across the globe in response to the shootings in Christchurch last Friday. There is something in such an energy of shared humanity and the spirit of solidary. It moves you, it makes you want to cry. Goodness and kindness trumps evil.

Yesterday reminded me of an incident which happened when I was 7, remembering the Primary 1 version of me who was trying to fit into her new environment. I remembered requesting my two Chinese female classmates, "Can you speak english?". They responded with peals of laughter and giggles, like laughing at an inside joke I wasn't a part of. I remembered even questioning them what was so funny about it. When I thought about this incident, it just reiterates how we are all social beings, and that this desire for belonging and wanting to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, could be felt even at a young age. People often think that fitting in is easy for me. I can understand why people perceive me in this way - I think I'm generally easy when it comes to breaking the ice with any stranger, initiating small talks and even holding deeper conversations steering to the interests of the other person. My openness, warmth and friendliness make it easy, and I have recei...