A beautiful moment at EcosySTEM Asia Summit for Leaders in STEM — “When were you proudest of yourself? Why?” This was a question I answered during a paired introduction activity at the workshop on “Power of Storytelling” conducted by Chuen Chuen Yeo 杨荃荃. I shared with my team the struggles I endured during my PhD, changing the trajectory, and still submitting on…

A poem —

My winning speech at the 2021 NTU 3MT Final — When you drink a glass of water at home, do you think about what could be inside the water? Luckily for most of us, we do not have to worry that much. We can even drink water from the tap because it has been treated properly. However, in many regions…

Reflections on researching as an undergraduate — 1. Tell me a bit about yourself. I am Malsha Samarasiri, a first-year PhD student in the School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore with a focus on food processing research. I graduated from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka with a first-class honours degree in 2018…

Poetry prompt: weird cravings — Mala xiang guo, Masala chai, Nasi lemak, Matcha, And many more… Strange food names, Totally unknown to me, Before I set foot in this strange land. But now they make a regular appearance, In the “cravings” section of my brain. Along with kottu roti, watalappam, and vadei… This dish- I…

Fun Poetry Prompt: something with the initials HR — A lub dub, lub dub, Strong and weak, racing and slow, Signal of a life. Thanks to Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) for the fun prompt. You can read her poem here. Huevos Rancheros Fun Poetry Prompt: something with the initials HRmedium.com It got me thinking. What do the initials HR mean to me? Human Resources? Hrithik Roshan? Heart Rate? I…

The good, the bad, and lessons learnt — I used to be a Facebook-a-holic. I had tried being sober once in a while. However, about a week into the so-called “Facebook Detox”, I would get the heebie-jeebies: What were my friends up to? What’s the news trending right now? How were my posts doing? About two months ago…

A poem about waiting —

Cooking a hard-boiled egg doesn’t have to be hard. If you told me that two years ago, I would have laughed at you. It was an adventure for me back then; either the egg would disintegrate into wispy trails in water or I wouldn’t be able to get the shell off properly. “How can you think of cooking if you can’t do this simple task correctly?”, I often berated myself. However, I wanted to master this task. I found a video that helped me. Here are some little tips to make it easier.