A while back, I posted an essay to a Facebook group of women writers that I’m in. In a nutshell, this essay is about me — while I was living in Hanoi — dating a much younger Vietnamese man for 10 months, who turned out to be a covert narcissist. He almost killed me.
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With the prime minster and National Cabinet introducing caps on the numbers of Australians returning home and a user pays system for mandatory hotel quarantine for returning Australians from mid July, taxpayers may be relieved that they are off the hook for this particular bill. I believe that the government’s
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I started a PhD in 2008. A year later I quit, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about women, work, and career advancement. It’s about what I see happening again and again in workplaces. Where women overwork in the hope they will have career success.
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How do you meet people or broaden your social circle when you’re new in town? It’s the age old question for expats and foreigners who arrive in a city not knowing a soul. In Hanoi, where I was new in town, I turned to InterNations, which, I must admit, I had never heard of
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After all the doom and gloom of the last year or so, this is an “I’m happy in Hanoi again” post. It’s taken a Stupid Fucking Virus™ pandemic, lock down and a bicycle to start enjoying this city again. After a long winter, punctuated by brief bursts of warm weather,
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I first published this letter to civil servants everywhere on 29 January, 2017. In light of recent events — Black Lives Matter and the Stupid Fucking Virus™ — it seems timely to republish it because its more relevant than ever. Dear civil servants everywhere (but especially in America), You have
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Yesterday, I woke up with a familiar feeling gnawing at my insides, and it wasn’t the upset stomach that had appeared out of nowhere (and that I attribute to a veggie burger or onion rings from my favourite burger joint in Hanoi). It’s a feeling I’ve not encountered for a
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There is an old Chinese curse that says: may you live in interesting times. That curse should be updated to a 2020 version that says: may you live in unprecedented times. And that’s where we find ourselves, and will for at least the next few months — riding out the
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You want to write non-fiction — maybe a memoir? — because your story is fascinating and you want to inspire people by sharing it. Or you may have an idea for thought leadership articles because you have a vision for the how the world should be, not as it is.
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When I left Australia for Hanoi, Vietnam, I was in desperate need of a change. I’d lived in the same country for 53 years, the same city for 30 years, and the same house for almost 20 years. I’d been in the public service for almost 10 years, albeit in
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It’s no secret that 2019 has been one helluva year. I have lurched and free-wheeled from crisis to crisis, never feeling I was on solid ground. I felt like I was either wading through partially set concrete or scanning for shifting sands or watching out for storm clouds brewing on
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Confession time. I am going through what Brené Brown calls a midlife unravelling. No, it’s not a midlife crisis. It’s not a mental health collapse, either, although it feels like it. It’s an undoing. An uncontrolled and uncontrollable breakdown of what has been assumed and is assumed. What was certain
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