My voice was off-pitch. I was too nervous. Though the casting directors for Singapore’s nationally televised talent show for children, “One Minute of Fame,” gave no obvious reaction, I realized the problem the second air left my lungs. Still, with all the boldness of an 8-year-old covered in makeup who’d…
Wandering the Lines — Sherry Toh
Sherry “Elisa” Toh (she/they) is a journalist who lives in sunny Singapore. Her diagnosis of SMA type II was in 1999 at 13 months old. Kyphoscoliosis and chronic neuropathy later developed as complications. As a hopeless romantic, her loves include fairy tales, tea, and gaming — the last being the primary focus of her work. She has bylines in PCGamesN, NME, and more. In 2023, her essay “Virtual Progress: A Disabled Journalist’s Thoughts on the Video Games Industry” was published in Singapore’s first printed disability studies anthology, “Not Without Us: Perspective on Disabilities and Inclusion in Singapore.” She writes in hopes of offering community and catharsis. Find her @sherlisass on social media.
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“Do you remember when Dad took us kite flying?” I asked my brother, Gabriel. We were on a train ride home from the Sands Theatre, where we’d just seen an international production of Disney’s live musical, “Beauty and the Beast.” “Nope,” he said. “I thought that was with the…
Once upon a time, I was a child who grew up with fairy tales, love songs on the radio and CDs for my Walkman, young adult romance novels, and romance dramas on TV and in films. Romance was — and is — as ubiquitous as Valentine’s Day discounts for chocolate…
The staff at the fictional Manhattan magazine waits with bated breath. It’s a make-or-break moment for reporter Vivian Kent, who’s on a call with Kacy Duke, the personal trainer once in the inner circle of Russian-born con artist Anna Sorokin. Kent had been working on the story of Sorokin’s exploits for months,…
White, male, formerly nondisabled: That was the typical profile of an explicitly disabled character in pop culture when I was a kid. Even then, I can only recall two who made an impression on me. The first was Charles Xavier, also known as Professor X of the “X-Men” movies. The…
Winter in Singapore isn’t like winter in many other countries. Not much changes in terms of the weather. It might be cooler on days when the Fates are kind, but for the most part, conditions stay hot and humid. We don’t get glittering blankets of snowfall or sheets of ice,…
My parents used to joke that I should’ve been born an American. As a kid, I loved burgers and fries, I was enamored with Disney movies and country music, and I spoke “proper” English better than anyone else in my family. That’s not to say I didn’t love it here…
Since billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter in late October, I’ve stumbled into the role of being my family’s resident reporter about all things related to the site. It started when Musk gutted entire essential teams with a mass layoff. Then a new verification system allowed people to impersonate public…
Damn Taylor Swift and her lyricism. I had a different plan for this column, with a different title in mind for it. I was going to ramble about moving out of the condominium I’ve been staying in for almost two years. There was to be a farewell to its inaccessible…
Many a think piece has been written about what Twitter, and social media in general, does to our brains. Experts have even weighed in on what doomscrolling, a term Merriam-Webster defines as “the tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening,…
I was going to have a cardiac arrest. That’s what a doctor told my mum during my latest hospitalization for an infection, preparing her for the worst. My acid levels were too high, confirmed by a blood test and my struggle breathing. In his decade of experience, the doctor…
Of all the works of art in the world, the one masterpiece with an undue influence on my writing is the Broadway production of “Hamilton.” Maybe it’s a cliche for a writer and musical nerd in her 20s to say this, but when I listened to the “Hamilton”…
Note: This column includes thoughts about suicide. Resources for help are listed at the end of the column. On a brown and white display cabinet in my living room are two framed pictures of me. One was taken in a professional studio when I was about 6 years old. I’m…
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