Kia Abdullah's Blog: Girl, Interrupting, page 3

Me and my addict brother

It was 2.43am when my phone stirred me from an ink dark sleep. As I woke, I remember thinking: ‘Sod’s law. The one time I leave it on loud, I get a text in the middle of the night.’ I grappled for the phone and clasped it in the crease of my palm. The name […]

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The thing I miss most about London

When people ask me where I’m from, I tell them I’m from London. It’s always been London and, in some ways, it always will – but my boyfriend has started to look at me strangely when I tell strangers this. In autumn, we moved to a town called Richmond on the edge of the Yorkshire […]

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The woman I want to be is rich

Back in 2007, I worked as a sub-editor at Asian Woman, a monthly fashion and lifestyle magazine. On a particularly manic day, my editor-in-chief, Brianna Ragel, crouched conspiratorially by my desk and asked me to apply for the new deputy editor role at the magazine. Securing the role would mean leap-frogging two people senior to […]

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What I learned buying a house with a white man

I’ve always liked my surname. It’s the name of kings and presidents, scholars and academics. It is stately and distinguished. It set me apart at school as I would be called first for everything: exam results, vaccinations, presentations and, later, graduation. I appear at the top of most lists, be it a guestlist to a […]

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The lesson I learned from Dr Christine Blasey Ford

Wallflowers aren’t weak; they’re just trying to stay safe Sometimes I wonder if I’m a bad feminist. I get angry when women act like wallflowers, or claim they’re being ‘oppressed’ by the imagery in magazines, or say that taking off a hoodie in airport security is akin to subjugation by the patriarchy. You have grit, […]

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The bootstrapping myth

My Kindle clippings are a huge great mess of things: information I want to keep, scraps of prose that make me weep, and words I’ve learnt and quickly forgotten. Among my clippings is a quote I added long ago that reads: “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”You […]

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Something happened at the mall the other day

I knew I’d have to write two versions of this post: the first, a stormy tirade and the second, a more sober analysis of what happened at the mall the other day. Before I start, I should say that I have seen and experienced much aggression at the hands of men. As a teenager, I […]

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Let’s stop lying about class diversity

My most embarrassing work-related mistake happened not long after graduation. While working on a presentation with eminent epidemiologist Professor Nicholas Wald, I paused on an image of H Pylori, “a bug that lives in the stomach,” he said. I noted its arthropodal shape and sharp pincers and, thinking it was an insect, asked what size […]

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Is this thing on?

I recently read an interesting article called I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore and it resonated strongly. I’ve done the exact same thing as the author of the article: sat at my desk and stared at the blank address bar of my web browser, wanting to waste time but not […]

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Snippet

Niece: What’s a dutchie?Me: Something that must be passed on the left-hand side.Niece: Huh?Me: Something that must be passed on the left-hand side.Niece: *Comes back 5 minutes later*Niece: You’re not funny.

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