Sherry “Elisa” Toh (she/her) is a Singaporean native navigating life with SMA Type II and chronic neuropathy. She was diagnosed at 13 months by none other than Dr. Lee Wei Ling, after a referral from a GP. Sherry is a hopeless romantic whose loves include fairy tales, mythology, antiheroes, video games, and tea. She is planning on pursuing a BA in English Lit, but for now she’s enjoying freelance work and volunteering for communities and causes she believes in. She hopes her columns will offer community and catharsis to those who need it. Find her @musiquevers on social media.
This Pride Month, I recalled an old friend from England telling me, “If anyone thinks being gay or bi is a choice or a lifestyle, they’re probably not straight.” It’s a broad statement, one I believed then, but not anymore. In the years since I’ve heard it, I’ve known people…
For the past several months, I’ve been obsessed with stories about financial fraud by perpetrators of elaborate schemes. Hence, I fell down the rabbit hole of the story of Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced CEO and founder of Theranos, a startup company Holmes promised would change the face of healthcare…
As you get older, proper rest tends to become an appointment you have to schedule. It’s something you have an abundance of when you’re an infant, but its presence steadily decreases in your life once school, work, and social engagements take up increasing space. I’ve witnessed this phenomenon among my…
I had different plans for this week’s column. As I write this, I have a spreadsheet open with my column schedule. Next to the deadline date I’ve typed “TFIOS column,” which stands for “The Fault in Our Stars,” a young adult romance novel by John Green that explores how…
Editor’s note: This column discusses suicide. Please find resources for help at the end of the column. I wish the call had been an April Fools’ prank. As readers of my column will know, I’ve been very vocal about the need for SMA patients here in Singapore to access…
Back in 2019, I signed up for an online women’s health and rights course by women’s rights activist and Stanford teacher Anne Firth Murray. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision; I’m not even sure I was truly interested in it back then. While I considered myself a feminist, I was wary…
How would you expect someone with a disability to react upon reading an account of a nondisabled man essentially telling a disabled woman she shouldn’t exist? Would you expect them to react with despair? Fear? Rage? I reacted by laughing hysterically. The chronic pain and increasing fatigue caused by the…
If Broadway’s Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a musical based on my column, the word “value” would be a leitmotif with its own melody. Anyone who reads my column regularly will know I talk about the value of disabled folks often, that it’s what every one of my arguments boils down…
Like all young girls, I was part of the target demographic for romance. Disney and Barbie movies, pop music, young adult novels, TV dramas — you get the idea. Romance was sold to me everywhere, and I bought it happily, if ignorantly. Hence, like all young girls, I grew up…
The morning of Dec. 4, 2020, my life changed forever. My best friend, fellow columnist, and work wife, Brianna Albers, burst into our private Discord channel. “YOU SHOULD APPLY,” she yelled at me through the messaging platform. Attached was the link to the application form for a columnist position…
