Photo: With my companion for more than 18 years, who was with me throughout my young adult life, from age 22 to 40.

A self-described late bloomer, I write about psychology, education, women empowerment, and the experiences in between that shape how we grow — drawing on years of teaching, research, and practice in higher education and adult learning. Over the years, friends have sometimes asked me to write about particular experiences or topics because they thought what I had learnt might help them or someone else. Some of those pieces began that way.

I started blogging in 2000 as a teenager, and paused when life became full — looking after family, caring for my senior dog who lived to 18 years and 3 months, undergraduate studies in Psychology and English Studies at NUS and postgraduate studies in Educational Assessment at NTU-NIE, building a career, long commutes, marrying my neighbour, buying and renovating a home, and eventually starting my own business, Iron Flora, a women empowerment platform centred on awareness, composure, confidence, and practical self-protection.

Writing is food for my soul. This site brings together new reflections and earlier pieces as part of a longer arc.

Alongside my academic and professional work, I have spent many years training in full-contact martial arts — Japanese Ju-Jitsu, Kyokushin Karate, and Judo — and later trained as a Yin Yoga instructor. These experiences have shaped how I think about discipline, learning, confidence, and balance, and are among the many threads that eventually came together in Iron Flora.

Maybe I'll read my articles again when I'm 50 in 2036 and smile. Haha. Just like I do now, at 40, when I read the Blogger.com posts I wrote as a teenager.

I hope you enjoy reading these articles as much as I enjoy writing them — and if something I share helps someone along the way, even better.