Have you ever had to camp outside an Apple store, waiting for the newest iPhone release? Do you have a tradition to stand in line on Black Friday? Well, we haven’t done any of that, but have you ever had to spend the night in a line outside an elementary school for school registration? We did (kind of).
The book made me realize how the ‘I might use it someday’ attitude had led me to keep things that were of little value to us but we just didn’t have the heart to throw them away. Ergo, there was only one answer to it: ruthless decluttering.
Do you know that there are around 17,000 public libraries in the US? In fact, there are more public libraries than McDonald’s restaurants here in North America. I have long heard how Americans adore their public libraries. After I migrated to the Bay Area, I knew I had to pay a visit to the local library.
Hamdanil is an Indonesian who moved to Bay Area a few years ago. He and 250,000 other muslims in Bay Area are observing Ramadan this year. It’s the biggest holy month that muslims worldwide are celebrating by leveling up their spiritual game. The main focus of Ramadan is fasting, as one is required to refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, and sexual intercourse from dawn to dusk. Even one sip of water is not allowed, or else the fast is invalid.
Dian Alyan is a founder of GiveLight Foundation, a global non-profit organization that takes care of orphans who are displaced by natural disasters, extreme poverty, and conflict conditions around the globe.
‘My doctor in Singapore was a perfectionist and very focused on her patients. She was also very busy, as many OB-GYN are, and because of that, I think sometimes she forgot to smile. ‘
Resettlement in the US is their only beacon of hope. It is discordant to what America has always believed in…Isn’t the Statue of Liberty a symbol that signifies freedom from oppression? What about refugees fleeing from persecution in Syria, aren’t they entitled to life and freedom too? They’re every bit as human as you or I.
When we moved to the Bay Area with our 10 month-old son, there was a burning question that we kept asking ourselves. What language would I want to teach him? Do we start with Indonesian first as it is his parents’ mother tongue? Or do we start with English? Will multilingualism confuse him?
