SHERLYN SCRIBBLES

Hey there. I'm a not-so-recent college grad who used to enjoy documenting her life on this little slice of the internet, from the mundane to the marvellous. Nowadays time is short, and life is more mundane than marvellous, it has to be said. Fairly typically for a millenial, I love travelling, photography, and food (both making and eating it). I especially love engaging in all three at the same time. Just as typically, I am a terrible procrastinator, and for that reason am several years behind on writing meaningful blog posts to accompany my photographs. At this point I've just given up and accepted that some experiences will go undocumented and forgotten. The most recent thing to catch my attention is art, so I've posted my rather rudimentary attempts at drawing and painting. Posts on cycling, or more specifically, the Land's End to John O'Groats cycle, may be found here. For posts about the Clipper Race 11-12, click here.

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Elliot's here! And this is his birth story as told in 10 Instagram stories. The full story begins a little earlier though, at the first time we went into the hospital because of reduced foetal movement. That was on Sunday 24th November, at 37 weeks and 4 days' gestation (or 37+4 in pregnancy parlance). I hadn't felt El move as much as he normally did that day, and to be on the safe side we decided to call up the midwives. The one I spoke to didn't even ask any questions and just told us to head into the hospital so they could monitor El. Once we got there, they strapped two monitors around my belly - one to track his heart rate and one to track contractions. The instant the monitor was put on, El got extremely active, and so we were sent home after 45 mins of monitoring, reassured that everything was normal.

Just over a week later on Tuesday 3rd Dec (on my second day of maternity leave), we returned to the hospital for another round of monitoring because El had again had a quiet day in the womb. As before, the trace showed that he was perfectly happy and active in there. However, one of the consultants we'd met previously had mentioned that they usually recommended induction for babies that had repeated episodes of reduced foetal movement if they had reached full term, as at that point it'd be safer for them to be outside the womb than inside. So at our 39-week appointment the next day, I asked the midwife about the possibility of an induction, and was told that our consultant Dr Amer Raza was available the very next day!

Sam and I went for an additional ultrasound just to make sure that everything was okay (recommended after 2 episodes of RFM), and also to consider our options. One unremarkable scan and about 30 mins later, we returned to let the midwife know that we wanted to go ahead with the induction. I felt a lot more at ease once we had made that decision, as it was preferable to have the end in sight (and soon!) rather than face the possibility of up to 3 weeks more of excruciating lower back pain, which I'd been experiencing since 36+3 weeks. So, that brings us to the series of Instagram stories. They don't tell the full story though, so I'll fill in the details in a separate post.

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Sam and I went back to Singapore to visit the family, and had a wonderful time!

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Twenty-seven!

I turned 27 today! My birthday comes at the start of my first week on the beach, after another very intense study, albeit one that got truncated. The study was a cost-cutting exercise for an EPC company and was meant to last ten weeks until March 15th, but it ended earlier than expected. Despite the long hours, though, I enjoyed this study much more than my previous one, largely because the team was great and there was more client interaction.

Last week was an odd week because we felt like we were in limbo, with the future of the study being uncertain. Up until Thursday it was looking like the study could either be discontinued, or alternatively extended for another 10-12 weeks. After having worked a couple of weekends and 80-hour weeks prior to that, though, the slower pace was very welcome. I actually managed to have a social life during the week, meeting Sam and his colleagues for farewell drinks on Thursday night, enjoying some solid udon at Asakusa, and then indulging in Herman ze German before watching Don Quixote on Friday (thanks to my lovely EM Assem who gave me a ticket for my birthday).

This evening, Sam managed to get us a table at A. Wong, a one Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant in Pimlico which we’d been wanting to try since we first walked past it. Highlights for me were their 63-degree tea egg with shredded filo (pictured), Xi’an City “lamb burger” (self-assembled), and Sichuan aubergine dish. Sam also really liked the sweet and sour chicken, but I thought that was solid but didn’t particularly stand out.

We have our trip back to Singapore booked for the 15th of March, since my study was originally supposed to end then. So the premature end has left me somewhat adrift, with three weeks being too short to get staffed (I’m avoiding DDs), and the cost of changing our tickets prohibitive. So I think I’m going to settle into three weeks of being on the beach, and try to be productive while also enjoying some downtime. My aim is to get through some of Kaggle’s micro learning courses on Python, machine learning, data visualisation, etc.. There are about 40 hours worth of courses in total (all for free!), so I’ll try to fit those around any proposals I get staffed on. And Zwifting, of course. I’ve fallen behind where I’m supposed to be at this point (~850 km given my weekly goal of cycling 100km), and need to make use of the beach time to catch up with training!

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My 2018 in sport. I got off to a decent start last year, fitting in long weekend rides while working weekdays in Myanmar, peaked in May with the 3 Islands Tour, and then went embarrassingly dormant after that. It picked up again slightly after Sam and I started Zwifting at the end of the year, but not enough to mitigate months of sloth. I'll try to do better this year.

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Day 2

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Winter break 2018 - we took a train journey around Austria!

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After a very intense 5-week study, during which I fell sick twice (yes, I'm a weakling it appears), I decided to take a week of leave to recover, as the alternative was a 1-week long due diligence study. I had grand plans to do indoor cycling every day using our new smart trainer (we invested in a Wahoo Kickr Core) and Zwift, a program that gamifies workouts and creates a social experience by means of an MMO-style in-game community. Unfortunately, I spent most of last week still feeling rubbish, so I only got on the bike once.

This week, though, has been an unexpected blessing - I've been on the beach but without any proposals to work on. So after going into the office for some admin on Monday (expenses, replacing my stolen phone, making a police report, etc.), I went to get a haircut. The stylist may have been slightly over-zealous with the blowout, but I quite like how it looked after a sleep and a Zwift session the next day.

Sam and I started a juice cleanse yesterday, so I've been doing these workouts on nothing more than a green juice in the morning. I signed up for a 5-week long FTP Builder training plan, which involves about 5 hour-long sessions each week designed to build a solid foundation as well as improve my threshold through anaerobic/neuromuscular Z6/7 interval training. It's been not too bad so far, as I've always worked up a good sweat even with the window open, but have felt okay the next day. The virtual courses I've ridden on have varied dramatically, from the epic Alpe du Zwift with a 15% climb (and 88kph descent whoohoo), to the Prudential RideLondon route which took me past Big Ben and into the Surrey Hills (perhaps I should do that for real too), to the Volcano Circuit in the Zwift homeworld of Watopia. I decided to try a 20km race today, and quickly realised just how horribly out of shape I am - I got dropped embarrassingly quickly even by the other Cat D riders. Here's hoping the structured interval training will yield some results, so that I can actually race meaningfully - it definitely adds some fun into what would otherwise be tedious indoor training!

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We've managed to try a few different restaurants since getting here, and some of them have been really good!

1. Murger Hanhan - Xi'an cuisine with their famous biang biang mian: wide, handmade noodles drenched in chilli oil and so so delicious (albeit a heart attack waiting to happen). The eponymous Murger (an ancient Chinese version of a burger, apparently), though, wasn't quite as good.

2. Rovi - Ottolenghi's latest restaurant which has his usual vegetable-centred menu but with a focus on fermentation. We had the tempura stems and herbs, which were lightly battered and irresistibly more-ish, especially paired with a tangy kaffir lime dip. We also got the halibut to share, which was succulent and perfectly seasoned, but I didn't love the shawarma. The meal as a whole felt a little overpriced, unfortunately, and the inevitable comparison to Nopi left me slightly dissatisfied.

3. Stalls at Spitalfields Market - a multicultural smorgasbord where I variously picked up Moroccan pastillas and flatbreads, Spanish empanadas, Sicilian arancini, Argentinian alfajores and French macarons for my team on Fridays.

4. Market Hall Victoria - a collection of diverse offerings, ranging from dimsum to fish & chips to salads to tacos; kind of like a fancy food court where the stalls have more individuality and identity. Sam and I went there during its first week when it was relatively quiet, and I had the kinoko (mushroom) udon from Koya Ko while Sam had a lamb kebab from Fanny's Kebabs, and we shared a couple of dimsum dishes from Baozi Inn. The udon was quite good, especially with the tempura topping, as was the lamb kebab, while the dimsum was underwhelming.

5. Home-cooked food - Sam and I have been doing a lot of roasted veggies and curries, as well as my favourite - oyakodon. We tried a variation using tofu instead of chicken and added some miso to amp up the flavour since tofu is so bland on its own, and it was amazing. Our Zojirushi rice cooker has been one of our best purchases yet, turning out perfectly cooked Japanese short-grain rice, basmati, whole-grain rice, quinoa and even steamed gyoza.

6. Roast duck - we've had incredible roast duck from Little Four Seasons (the Chinatown branch), and a slightly less amazing (albeit still solid) version from Haozhan, both along Gerrard Street. The Little Four Seasons duck was decadently fatty and aromatic and the sauce was less sweet than Haozhan's, I think. We'll probably try a few other places before settling on a favourite.

7. Duck and Waffle Local - the more affordable version of the restaurant with a view, still with a duck-based menu, obviously. Sam had the duck and waffle while I had a burger with duck confit, and both were pretty good. What amused us, though, was the roasted cauliflower starter - it was literally an entire head of cauliflower, served in a lake of tahini and zhoug. Not quite Zahav-level cauliflower, or even what we regularly make at home!

Food aside, we’ve also managed to meet up with Sam’s dad while he’s been here and visit the Tate Modern. We checked out The Clock, a creative 24h-long film stitched together from various movie clips featuring timepieces, the permanent exhibits including some Dali, Monet and Rothko and some geometric abstract art from the New Tendencies movement in Zagreb, as well as the German magic realism exhibition showcasing pieces from Weimar Germany. Some of it was interesting, but I can never get too into museums really - I’m just not arty enough to get it.

One thing I have got really into, though, is Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive - he's the genius behind the Mistborn series which I enjoyed tremendously. As before, Sanderson's world-building is incredible, his (hard) magic system creative and compelling, and his characters (both protagonists and antagonists) complex and sympathetic. I started reading the first book of his magnum opus while back in Singapore - The Way of Kings - and continued on through Words of Radiance and Oathbringer over here. Much like Mistborn was my escape during my Vietnam study in June 2017, Oathbringer was my escape during my morning and night (or very early morning) commutes to and from work during this past study. After completing the ~1200-page tomes, each over weeks, I devoured Edgedancer, a novella set in the same world, and was surprised at how quickly it was over. Now to settle in for the long wait until Book 4 is published.

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During our 2nd month in the UK, we did the following:

1. Went to Battersea Park for Guy Fawkes day fireworks, where I tried tartiflette for the very first time. It's an amazing mixture of potatoes, onions, bacon and Reblochon cheese served with tangy cornichons, and the perfect comfort food for a chilly night.

2. I took my first work trip, albeit only to Edinburgh for a day. The study went on to be one of the worst I’ve ever done, with too many 2am nights, and made me question my career choice. Again.

3. Both got new bikes - me the Canyon WMN Ultimate and Sam a single-speed. Mine is black and sleek and I’ve named it Toothless because my sister gave me the idea (a trusty, speedy steed), while Sam’s is bright blue. Toothless rides like a dream and I’m looking forward to doing some great miles with her.

4. Explored our surroundings by bike - indulging in Scotch eggs and fish and chips at Borough Market, and marvelling at stags butting antlers in Richmond Park.

5. Celebrated our second wedding anniversary at Rovi, Ottolenghi’s new restaurant. I’ll do a separate food post I think, but it wasn’t quite as amazing as Nopi (another of his restaurants, North of Piccadilly) was.

6. Met up with Sam’s friend Ed and his partner Maddie at Whitstable, a little town known for its seafood. Sam and Ed tried some oysters and we had surprisingly good tapas for lunch. We then visited Margate, a sleepy seaside town on the eastern coast where we unexpectedly discovered the Turner Contemporary Museum and Malayan food, but instead spent our time in an arcade.

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Sam and I are just over a month into our 12-month stint in London. To use a hackneyed phrase, the time has simply flown by, and I suppose this is as good a time as any to sit back and take stock of what we've done since getting here.

We spent the first couple of weeks bouncing from hotel to Airbnb to hotel, before finally moving into a flat in Pimlico. Funnily enough, it was the first of 17 places we viewed over two days in Pimlico and St. John's Wood. There were a couple of other options that we considered seriously too (Cecil Grove!), but a combination of price and availability led to us moving in here.

Accommodation sorted, other admin included taking a trip down to Southampton to apply for a National Insurance Number. That brought back fond memories of the early days of our relationship, and of course while we were there it only made sense to catch the ferry across to see Sam's mum and her partner on the Isle of Wight. It was wonderful to see Sheila and Richard (after almost two years, no less!), as they welcomed us home and took us out for a lovely brunch over the weekend.

Work-wise, we've somewhat adjusted to our new offices. Our morning commutes are pretty decent by London standards (at least if I'm going into the McKinsey office). Lifestyle has varied for me, as I spent the first four weeks on an internal study where I left the office around 7pm on average, but have just started on a much more intense strategy piece for an actual client. The joys of cooking dinner with Sam most nights were short-lived, I'm afraid.

Outside of work, we haven't quite had the chance to see too much of London yet. We both got commuter bikes, and discovered Battersea Park last week, which is close to us and beautiful. It got quite a bit colder this weekend though, so we decided on a short jog instead of a bike ride to Chelsea to fulfil my sudden craving for M&S' Belgian chocolate milkshake. We'll need to come up with a plan for keeping fit throughout the winter, seeing as we've tossed the idea of doing a triathlon at some point around.

So that's the one-month update. I think I'm in a weird place because the goal for a bit was to get to London, and now that we're here I'm left feeling a little aimless. Looks like I need to figure out another set of goals quickly before I fall into a slump.

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Here are some photos from Sam’s and my holiday to Europe, when we spent three weeks cycling down Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily.

It’s been such a long time since I last posted here, and I’ve all but forgotten what it’s like to write something other than a PowerPoint page. In the midst of applying for a visa for my impending move to the UK, I had to search my Tumblr for clues as to when I entered and left the UK, because I couldn’t find the corresponding stamps in my passport. And that reminded me of how much I used to enjoy posting words and photos to crystallise moments.

Work life hasn’t given me much time to post regularly, but I think I’ll make a renewed effort, especially for the new chapter of our lives in London. Perhaps I’ll take a leave of absence before moving and use that time to synthesise the past 1 year and 9 months of working at McKinsey.

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Day 0: We’re off on our holiday! Sam and I are taking a three-week break from work and cycling across 3 islands in the Mediterranean - Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily. We arrived in Bastia in the north of Corsica late yesterday, after a long journey from Singapore. The timings were pretty tight, really, as I rolled off my Myanmar study on Wednesday, flew back to Singapore, had a 9-hour turnaround during which I met Lukman and packed, and then departed for Paris CDG just after midnight. But now we’re here - in the land of sunshine and good food. Here’s hoping that my legs hold out over the next three weeks!

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My 2016 on Strava, which was kind of poor. And yet I have the sinking feeling that 2017 will be even worse, what with being a working adult and all. The only reason I’ve managed to do a couple of short rides this past week is because I’m on the beach, in consulting lingo, and so am working on a proposal rather than an actual project.