Previous Lives

I was born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia and never left the island of Java in the first 17 years of my life.
In the midst of what was similar to a civil war, my parents sent me to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where I lived for 15 months. I did not speak English before this.
Eventually my whole family (parents and 2 younger brothers) and I moved to Australia. I went back and forth between Melbourne and Sydney. Australia is the country I call home.
I received a scholarship to do a year of Game Programming study in Vancouver, and convinced my parents to pay the rest. So I took a year off Uni and flew across the world with $15,000 notes sewn by my dad on the inside of my jeans.
I did the whole ‘backpacking around South East Asia’ for several weeks and came back with limbs full of bed bugs bites, which took months to clear off.
I flew to Singapore with two suitcases and came back with a husband.
I was married to my high school sweetheart for 10 years, before realising we just liked the story more than anything. People still tell me how good the story is.
London was the 7th city that I lived in. What was supposed to be a year gig turned into a decade of love affair.
I’ve changed my name (not because of marriage), I’ve changed nationality and added another one. All in all, I have had 2 names and 3 nationalities.

Walking into the past