This post is adapted from a carousel post

I’m tempted to throw all of the images into a PDF then ask AI to help me rewrite. But it doesn’t seem honest for a personal blog.

My first Manila Improv Festival was in 2015. I couldn’t make it for the auditions so I was envious of those who could go. But somehow, I was asked if I could make it for the festival–and I could.

(But I was also not picked for subsequent shows in Singapore so I don’t know what happened in between.)

This MIF2026 was special because I flew in only on show day. I used to judge people who fly into the festival with very little time to spend, but now I am one of them because I had class on Friday.

I napped a lot too so I missed some shows. I guess after 10 years of festival-ing, you know how to pace yourself.

This festival I had a stand-out song. Last festival I had a stand-out scene.

Improv is still something that’s more intuitive for me. Something that is felt more than anything.

I have teammates who do “good improv”, knowing what to do to continue a scene.

But my sort of improv comes from feelings in my body. A white light that symbolises luck. The resonance of a door knock means that the door is particularly heavy.

Things I can’t really put into words or even into training. It feels more negative than positive because what if I lose that spark–which I did for a period.

It’s been 10 years of improv–I don’t know what might happen in the next 10.

(#2/XX) #manilaimprovfestival wrap-up: Fiery Tales (@fiery_tales_improv)

[I had multiple drafts/ hours of unconnected thoughts that I was planning for the @fiery_tales_improv wrap up but I can’t fit them well enough for a post. I’ll keep the words for another essay for another day!]

Fiery Tale was galvanized by Kashmira @kashmira_chawak who wanted to set up an all-women team with a focus on personal stories. We have the wonderful Si Hui @sihui who patiently directed and gently steered the team along.

It’s super cheesy but for Fiery Tales, I felt that the journey was more important/fun than the destination. (And that is ok–I remind myself–Not all shows have just the destination like PPTK.)

I enjoyed the lunch when ladies whipped out makeup to get ready for the show.

I enjoyed practices where we get to let loose and just be rowdy women. I enjoyed seeing how our different life experiences seep into our characters and scenes.

I enjoy having lots of ladies on stage.

Here’s to more practices and more shows!

(#1/XX) Writing my #manilaimprovfestival wrap-ups (I really like reading other people’s posts so I thought I’d write some for future-me to relive.)

First post is dedicated to PowerPoint Karaoke @pptk.tv The weird little show that was inspired by a Wikipedia entry of the same format–I even took the name wholesale and have no shame saying so.

BIG BIG thank you to the @manilaimprovfest team for giving PPTK a chance and such a BIG BEAUTIFUL stage to perform.

Next thank you’s go to the speakers (by order of me asking them if they’d like to do the show):
Nicole @nicole.comedy our PPTK mainstay who’s been through more shows than some of the clickers.
Cheryl @cheryl_sherirun who gamely said “Yes” to PPTK in the DMs
Chao @chao_impro who did it despite this being a one-person + English segment
Balasree @blala_land whom I’ve wanted to get for the show since she had been on PPTK Online but thought she’d be too busy/tired after her workshop. Turns out she could do the show too!

Third thank you goes to Darren @sgfunnyman who built the PPTK that was presented on stage–the opening slides, the jokes, the PPT PPT chant, the “I stole this from your IG” image/video that surprises/delights the speakers”, the idea of themed slides for each speaker (if it was up to me, everything has a black background) and all the hosting prior before this. I took the template and ran it at MIF without a hitch.

Also a thank you to 2017/2018 YQ who said “yes” to a crazy Wikipedia idea just because she thought it would be fun. To the many YQs who just co-ran shows after shows.

Final thank you to the Last Standing Clicker that didn’t give up when its sibling decided to not work 10 minutes before the show while at the second slides–prompting the tech crew to whisper to me that my opening slides are wrong.

Off Book (with the brilliant Zach and Jess) is an improvised musical podcast where the two hosts (Host in the sense that they are hosting the episode, not that they ask the people questions) are usually joined by a guest and they create an improvised musical together along with musicians.

I first knew of Off Book when Joel, the musical director of the musical improv group I’m with–Les Musicables, introduced us to some songs from their episodes.

Since then, I’ve followed their podcast. They recently stopped posting weekly episodes as they move on to other projects but thank Internet Ceiling Cat that their episodes are still available.

If I send you to this blog post, congratulations, you’re about to listen to musical greats. I envy that you’re able to hear them for the first time.

First episode to listen to–Pillaging For Your Dreams

Selfishly, the first song that I listened to was from this episode and maybe I just want you to have the same journey as I did.

It’s one of the earlier episodes so there’s something “pure” about it.

For the improv nerds, the part where they misgendered a character and just made it work is hilarious.

The actual first episode to listen to–Attorney at Love (with Nicole Parker)

OK, this episode is good because Nicole Parker is such a good singer.

Plot-wise, I really love the last part in court. The evil character’s song is really good (and so crazy).

I play this full episode back the most–Pump the Stakes (with Jon Gabrus)

This episode is so much fun! Jon Gabrus cannot sing well but he just dives into the character and scenes so enthusiastically.

“Janette Woman” (23:10) is a really good song.

The love song in this episode [“Work-Love” (37:40)] is SO GOOD. People die in it but it’s very romantic.

I’m obsessed with one song from this episode

I really like this one song “Couldn’t Get Over You” (37:29). I am a sucker for love songs and love plots. And this episode has the twistiest love plot with the most stupid (but romantic???) song.

MY TOP FAVOURITEST SONG–“The Song of Daedalus”

(from 18:10) Context for this episode/song: Every Place I Cry is a (fake/real???) emo band made up of the emo alter egos of Zack, Jess, Ross Bryant and Nick Mandernach who sing improvised songs. This episode was a live recording at one of their shows.

The Song of Daedalus (a name I made up) is the best song ever because it has Greek mythology and the music and lyrics is just so so so good.

MY TOP FAVOURITEST MOMENT–Skrillex beat drop

I lost my mind when Jess improvised a beat drop in this episode. I love that so much I listen to the whole episode to get to it.

For the (musical) improv nerds/students–Switched Off Book

Zach and Jess walk through how the beats of a musical improv episode come together.

Also fun to see how they structure their songs so that there’s a comical twist at the end of the song. (Something we’re not quite encouraged to do because not everyone can hear what’s happening.)

The one public episode with video–OFF BOOK: The Improvised Musical – LIVE from The Curious Comedy Theater

Beggars cannot be choosers so I take everything I am given.

I really want to do an improv show where I can sit down most of the time. PLEASE!

I really didn’t like this episode–“Electric Daisy Jamboree (with Matt Besser)”

I’ll probably be black listed somewhere but this episode featuring improv comedy legend Matt Besser was not that great.

I felt that he wasn’t a “good” improviser–in the sense that he wasn’t really working with the others in their scenes and just made himself look good.

I won’t link to the Spotify episode since I don’t like it that much.

A newish episode

I realized most episodes I like are earlier ones. Maybe because I get to play them back more.

A more recent episode I remember liking because of one song.

If you’ve been told that you have odontogenic myxoma, I hope my story can help you during this period.

How I discovered I have odontogenic myxoma

A bit of background on my health. I’m a healthy person. I rarely get the flu or colds. I’m quite hardy.

I’m also a bit vain. I had been worried about my slightly protruding front teeth which kept cutting into my lower lip so I decided to get braces in June 2020.

During the jaw scanning, my orthodontist discovered that I had a small tumour that was pushing my wisdom tooth away in my right jaw.

There was concern that the tooth’s placement meant that my jaw bone was too thin and could break. So I went for surgery to remove the tumour, the tooth and four other teeth so I would have space for my teeth to move during my braces.

Thankfully the surgery went well.

It was a day surgery and I could walk normally after being discharged on the same day.

The doctors ran routine tests on the tumour. I didn’t give it a second thought.

Then I was called into the doctor’s. They said the tumour seems to be odontogenic myxoma which is a very rare tumour. They’re having another test done just to confirm.

The doctors told me not to panic about this.

I didn’t panic, at first, but I thought about reading up on it. There weren’t much information as most articles are by medical experts with no patient first-hand account.

Here was what I found:

Odontogenic myxoma is a very rare benign tumor that may arise in the maxilla or mandible, but which can be locally aggressive. It accounts for 3–6% of all odontogenic tumors.

Wikipedia

Wow, an interesting tumour! How fascinating.

Then I got called into the doctor’s. I was sure there wasn’t an issue with my tumour. Then the doctors confirmed that it was odontogenic myxoma.

My hands turned cold and I didn’t know what to do.

Treatment options for odontogenic myxoma

I had three options for this:

1. Don’t do anything and only treat it when it becomes worse. But we don’t know when that would happen. [One of the research had a man who didn’t have any reoccurrence for 20+ years and counting.)
2. “Chemically” treat the bone area. But odontogenic myxoma is “wet” so we aren’t sure if we’re able to get rid of it 100%.
3. Saw off the jaw area and replace it with my leg bone.

At this point, I was still at the private hospital so there was a plastic surgeon who would help with transplanting part of my leg bone to my jaw to make sure that the jaw still has blood supply.

But, the whole cost was six figures. I thought to myself, “I’d rather die than pay that sort of money.”

Thankfully, my braces doctor suggested that I get a referral to the National Dental Centre of Singapore (NDCS) for subsidized treatment.

I had to wait a while before I was scheduled to meet with a specialist at NDCS–you can skip the queue if you’re willing to pay the price as a private patient.

I was told the same ways of treatment for odontogenic myxoma, the only difference was for Option 3: We’ll saw off the jaw but replace it with bone graft.

The original option from the private hospital was a lot more complicated as it involved taking bones from my leg while bone graft is harvested from my hip bone.

The doctor also said he’d rather split the sawing of jaw bone and bone graft in two sessions since he’d rather have the wound recover well before the bone graft implants.

I also needed a dental implant as most of my jaw bones were going to be sawed off.

(Later, I had complications with my healing so I had two extra surgeries.)

A quick summary here about my surgeries:

• I had my first surgery in January 2021 to saw off a part of my jaw bone to remove the affected areas. The doctors placed two metal plates and a silicon in the affected area.
• In March 2021, I had a second surgery to reconstruct my jaw. A metal plate was taken out (because I complained how it made my jaw look bulky). The silicon was removed and bone graft from my hip and other sources were placed.
• [In May 2021, I had a weird swelling but no bacteria was found in the surgery site. The swelling has caused my bone graft to slowly dissolved.]
• In October 2021, I had a surgery to plant my dental implant’s root and minor bone graft. [Some swelling occured after this too.]
• In April 2022, I had gum graft surgery to fill up the affected area with my own gums.
• In December 2022, I had bone graft surgery since most of the bone graft from March and October were dissolved.

Healing from jaw surgeries

Recovery from the first surgery was the worst. I had a feeding tube for two weeks and the tube had a kink at the back of my throat so I was constantly in pain.

Tube feeding was also a nightmare since I never felt full. I’d lose the will to live if I were required to be fed through a tube for the rest of my life.

I’m thankful that I have hospitalisation leave so I’m able to rest while still having a job.

Why I chose the surgery route

I’m about three weeks after my last surgery (December 2022), my face is messed up and my braces is taking longer to finish.

I don’t like living in regret so I don’t regret my choice to go for the “sawing off my jaw bone” route but the road to recovery isn’t smooth.

I chose the surgery option because I wanted it out of my body. I don’t want to live in constant fear of “what if odontogenic myxoma spreads?”

I don’t regret the surgery based on that. (Though I keep thinking about the man who didn’t have a recurrance for 20+ years.)

I’ll pause the writing now and add in more when I’m inspired. I’m not sure if I’m ready to become the go-to person to answer any odontogenic myxoma questions. Do ask your doctors for more accurate informaiton.

I had a contractor help with the renovation. I didn’t want to spend extra on an interior designer since what I want is not that complicated–Japandi feel kind of home.

In the video, I talk about the biggest change I made–tearing down the store room and pushing the space in so I have a bigger living room space.

The walls still need to be painted and the floor needs to be vinyled (is that a word?)

I hope to film more of the house renovation progress. And also make more videos after moving in.

Let me know your advice for renovation.

It has been nine years since. I’ve stopped travelling intensively after the trip–just too tired. And I’ve tried many other things.

I sometimes get hit by jolts of memories of my trip while I’m doing regular old stuff:

• feeling (and almost slipping on) the smooth cobble stone pavements of Arequipa
• seeing a little girl in Athens scream for her lizard toy as the bus door shuts on her

The YQ(travelling) then feels so distant from the YQ(magic) now.

Who am I today?

At this point, I’m in a state of limbo when it comes to actively living off my life.

I’m at a cruising point–doing the same thing again and again without making any changes.

I have the excuse that I will start living more consciously after I move into my new house. (Oh, I became a Singaporean in late 2021 so I could buy a house on my own.)

I am working as an e-commerce operations person at a local supplements wholesaler. But I never use this identity when I meet people–my job is just not as exciting for me to use an identifier.

I co-run a monthly comedy show–PowerPoint Karaoke.

I alone-run a monthly book club–Read Aloud SG Book Club.

I almost forgot to mention that I sometimes teach tarot.

I had major surgeries in 2021 to remove a tumour in my jaw. I now have braces which I might be able to remove in a year’s time.

Who am I?

As you can see, I don’t exactly have a coherent identity. I have too many things I like to do.

All of them are me. But each one of them alone is not the whole me.

I sometimes wonder if I’m being deceptive about my identity. But I can honestly say I am not so that’s not true.

I wasn’t so sure what I wanted to say with the post but I want to say “Hi” to anyone who drops by. I hope to write more here but it wouldn’t be coming from the point of YQtravelling who travels to different countries.

Maybe YQtravelling means “moving”–which at this point I’m not but I hope to get back to it.

Update: August 2022
Seems like the government has updated Open Booking of Flats and more units are available each month.

Hi, I’m YQ from YQtravelling.

I’m a new citizen in Singapore.

I’m single and 35 years old. This means I can get a subsidized flat from HDB–Housing Development Board.

I tried my luck during a round of Open Booking of Flats in September 2021 and successfully got a queue number.

Read on to find out how I did it and if I accepted the flat.

What is Open Booking of Flats?

Open Booking of Flats is one of the ways you can get a flat directly from HDB.

Open Booking of Flats is the leftover flats from Build-to-Order (BTO) and Sale of Balance of Flats.

OBF opens two times a year–March and September. I managed to catch the one in September 2021.

Before you even start your process

Before the Open Booking of Flat, you want to get your HDB Loan Eligibility (HLE) Letter If you’re planning to get a loan from HDB.

I was very lucky that my HLE letter was approved the weekend before the Open Booking of Flat exercise.

Do note there’s a difference between a HLE letter for a new flat and for a resale.

I had initially applied for a resale (which caused a bit of a problem during the selection of flat at HDB).

Once or before you have your letter (which you will need if you do have the queue number to head down), find out which flats are leftover for this round of OBF.

I’m unfortunately in the C-word era so many flats developments are stalled and the ones available for OBF for singles haven’t been finished yet.

The leftover flats have lower floors and a very tight ethnic quota. So the houses that I can buy are not very ideal.

But I did manage to look around and found one in Yishun that I would consider.

The worst part was that even the earliest I could get my keys was late 2022. (And that’s being optimistic.)

But the flats are definitely very cheap. The one I looked at was only about $110,000–but prices can change depending on the location.

I was already camping at the website at 11.50pm. I think many people had the same idea since the computer hung for many minutes.

When midnight came, I tried logging in my desktop and it didn’t move. I hopped on to my phone but it was very difficult to navigate. So I went back to my computer and by that time, it was 12.06am when I logged in.

I did finally get a queue number and I heaved a sigh of relief.

It was 00195 and the queue was for the next day at 3.45pm.

Before going to HDB to pick your flat

You will need to track which flats are sold out before heading over.

Have a list of which flat units you are ok with so you can actually pick when you’re there.

I knew that I was only considering Yishun Glen (and I didn’t want it that much neither.)

Documents to prepare

Here are the items they require:

• Identity card(s) of all person(s) listed in your application (bring a copy too)
• Income documents for latest 3 or 6 months (depending on your nature of employment) — bring 12 months of payslip and CPF contributions
• Option Fee (payable by NETS)

It’s C-vid season now so don’t bring too many people to HDB with you.

Wait for your queue number and put your option feed down for the flat.

My final decision

At first I planned to put $500 option fee down to “book” a unit while I hunted for resale flats.

Then the HDB lady said that should I decide to pull out, I won’t be able to buy a new house for a whole year.

So I decided not to take the flat this time.

I still have a choice of Sale of Balance of Flats in November, and also looking for a resale unit.

Wish me luck on my house hunting!

A reporter from local broadsheet Straits Times found me through my most popular post and wanted to ask for my comments on the new service. Thankfully, I caught his e-mail in time as my e-mail notification pinged while I was staring at my phone.

I prepared for the interview by reading on the background of the new service. I even jotted down “juicy” quotes that would make me look slightly unhinged but endearingly colorful to the audience.

The reporter called and we had a 12-minute chat during which I sounded bipolar. I was totally against the service at one point, talking passionately about its cons but at another point, I discovered its merits. I couldn’t make up my mind.

Still, the reporter summed it up in two sentences and made me look like a very practical traveller (which I am).

I did request that he use “travel blogger” as my job title as “marketing exec” seems like a totally irrelevant commenter on this subject. He obliged. Thank you, good sir.

The report came out on Page A2 on Straits Times and also on My Paper. I can now officially say that I was on the news as a travel blogger. 

You can read the full report and my not-juicy quotes on My Paper “New JB-Woodlands train service from July 1”.