HELLO.

"Do you miss home?"

That's the question my Mum asks me on a regular basis. It's also the same question a concerned family friend asked me over the phone earlier this morning.

It's such a deceivingly simple question, but I hesitate to answer every time I am asked this.

Whenever I am forced to chomp on an excruciatingly dry sandwich, I think of all the food I had back home. Chicken Rice, Katong Laksa & Bah Chor Mee, just to name a few. I definitely miss them all.

Whenever my hands start to lose all sensation because I walked in the cold without my gloves again, I miss the weather we had in Singapore.

Whenever I go on Facebook and see all my friends going about their daily lives, I wish I could be back in Singapore with them.

Whenever I have to trudge back home with 6 litres of drinking water in tow, I miss the potable tap water we had in Singapore. OK to be fair, it's not like the UK's tap water is totally unfit for consumption. It's just that the water has a weird taste, and Laura tells me it makes you go bald over time. So I opt to buy drinking water instead.

But when I think of how I have more freedom here, and how I am finally on the path I've wanted for a while now. When I think of how I don't have to listen to the two of you yelling at each other over the most trivial matters anymore. When I think about how I get to start all over again, and have this opportunity to free myself of everything that has held me back.

When I think of all that, I don't really miss home anymore.

But, still, that's not what Mum (or anyone else, for that matter) wants to hear, is it?

So each time I hear that question, I extricate that model answer from the clenches of my gut.

"Yeah, I can't wait to be home."

It's only been a month, but being here has given me some clarity. When I do return to Singapore to work (assuming that I decide to do so), there are some overdue changes that I need to make in my life.