Sitting in the top deck of a bus, alone, watching the Christmas lights move past my window, I begin to realise that to move overseas to study entails the creation of a new life in that country, as well. That is not to say that those who move away move on and forget. But rather that once I am here (here being London, not Singapore), London stretches out before me, an empty book, a blank page. I can literally do as I wish here, or, I can choose not to. The voices of parents/guardians, ever present back in our respective home countries, fall away.

This is partly due to the distance that separates students overseas from their home country - in spite of technology, an email from your parents telling you to wear your boots in winter isn't nearly as resounding as having them in the same building or room as you. Now, I am the one who decides where I want to travel, if I even want to travel. I am the one who decides if I have enough money to travel, which groceries I'd like to buy, what to apply for, if at all.

Living overseas, completely unhindered by the old construction and hinges of my life back in my home country, I begin to raise a new building from the bare ground. It is exciting, and a little frightening at first, this gradual realisation, this empowerment. Being utterly removed from familiarity - though perhaps I am not utterly removed; even so, the present context is very different from my eight year-old London - has given me a perspective of distance. It is not perfect, but this stripped down, minimalist life has taught me that it is possible to live in absence of many things, and, perhaps, not as hard as I initially believed it to be.

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