Nuraliah Norasid's Blog

 25 Feb 2021, Thursday I did not manage to wake up between 5.00 – 5.30 a.m. Frederick needed some help with his car’s camera system. As such I had to skip out on sleeping at 9.00 p.m. the night before. I was only able to get to bed past 10.00 p.m., and it took me … Continue reading Morning Journal: 25 – 26 Feb 2021 →

I. Having it and then losing it There was a time once, some time in the early 2010s when I had a daily morning routine down pat: Wake up between 5.00 – 5.15 am. Groggily put on running clothes, socks and then shoes. Run 8 km around Yishun Park from 6.00 to 7.30 am. Usually … Continue reading Trying to get back at it again →

Short, slice of life story Sofyaa stands convinced that the fuels of hell are not fire and brimstone, and that the people who inhabit it are not wretched sinners or their tormentors, but the maker of women’s shoes and their gullible, “pain-is-beauty” customers. She entertains the idea for too-long a pause as she stands in … Continue reading Bag and Shoes →

Short, slice of life story Sofyaa stands convinced that the fuels of hell are not fire and brimstone, and that the people who inhabit it are not wretched sinners or their tormentors, but the maker of women’s shoes and their gullible, “pain-is-beauty” customers. She entertains the idea for too-long a pause as she stands in … More BAG AND SHOES

First published in The Karyawan: Professionals for the Community, Volume 12 Issue 3, July 2017. Even if you’d grown up far away from it both geographically and culturally like I have, New York rings a familiar bell, owing its iconism to the slew of popular cultural material on the cinema and television screens: the tall blocks … More Binds and Fissures: Reflections in the Big Apple

A little homage to my earliest characters in chronological order.  Fus Duty and honour were Orc edicts before the Nords adopted them. Before cities of Man, there were their villages without walls, camps without ramparts to look out of—unprotected, primitive beginnings they were always so willing to forget when faced with “lesser kinds”. I used … More Unrelenting Force

First published in The Karyawan: Professionals for the Community, Volume 13 Issue 3, July 2018, pp. 42-44.  Souvenir Dari Angkasa Lepas, (or A Souvenir From Outer Space)is a collection of short stories, also known as cerpen in Malay, written by local Singaporean author, Hassan Hasaa’ree Ali. The collection features new stories alongside those which have been … More Book Review: Souvenir Dari Angkasa Lepas by Hassan Hasaa’ree Ali

First published in Karyawan, A Magazine by the Association of Muslim  Professionals (AMP), April 2018, Volume 13, Issue 2. “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are … More In Defense of Reading: Need for Culture of Literary Literacy in the Malay Community

It has been a while since I wrote here, and sometimes it has been a while since I feel like I have written anything of note. For a few years now, days feel like they have been wasted away and every morning sets off another false positive. I have found it difficult to get anything … More Getting Back on Track, Farm and Building Edition

First published in Perempuan: Muslim Women Speak Out by Aware (2016). Step I: Choose a Class I am an Orc Tank. Not a thundering beast on caterpillar tracks shooting artillery at 500 seismic chicken miles a quantum hour. A tank, in common gaming lingo, is a fighting class characterised by a large amount of health, a high … More The Gamer’s Guide to Self-Image in the Modern World