Welcome!
This is the personal website of Jun-E Tan.
I'm an independent researcher who has many interests on the side. This is where I document my explorations both professional and incidental. More about me here.
The website is perpetually in the making, so do check back for updates.
Latest blog posts
MCO 3.0, and other things in life
May is my birthday month, and thanks to my intensive blogging stint during the first MCO, I've been able to look back to this time a year ago, to see what I was up to. In May 2020 we were more than 50 days into movement control, slowly opening up into a... Read more
Straw Man
Earlier this week, we were at the neighbourhood Vietnamese restaurant having pho for lunch. The waiter served us our drinks, accompanied with two biodegradable straws in paper packaging. For a few moments I stared at my straw and the glass of water. The... Read more
MCO 2.0 - Garden Talk
Friday. I've been going around my garden stalking the wildlife and taking videos. So far I've captured two different types of spiders (both equally majestic in their minute stature), an aggressive bright green praying mantis that charged at the camera,... Read more
MCO 2.0 - The Life of Ali
Sunday. Maybe writing once a week is not a bad idea. I'm glad to report that this week has gone well, some small anxieties notwithstanding. I talked to my friend S yesterday and through the conversation realised that I may have become too attached to my... Read more
MCO 2.0 - Life rhythms and soil systems
Sunday. Dropping the day counting thing because I can't be bothered. MCO throughout Malaysia has been extended to February 4th, but our daily cases have gotten up to more than 4,000 and I don't think we'll be going anywhere anytime soon. Last year we were... Read more
MCO 2.0 Days 4, 5 and 6 - A breakthrough
Saturday. I've been guerrilla writing. I pretend not to be writing, walking up and down the house "chilling", and when I least expect it I sit down and hammer out two paragraphs. It's a battle of wits between myself and myself. Sometimes I win,... Read more
MCO 2.0 Day 2 - Day:1, Me:0
Thursday. Today is one of those days that you end it feeling, ok, day. You won this time but tomorrow I'll get you back. I've been suffering from some sort of writing block in my work, which is not a good affliction in the best of times but worse when... Read more
MCO 2.0 Day 1 - Here we go again
2021 is wasting no time and getting down to business immediately. Second week of the new year and we've been handed another MCO (Movement Control Order - strict lockdown), as we hit a record daily cases of 3,300+. Malaysia declared a state of emergency,... Read more
Death by thousand pin pricks
It's been two days after the US Elections. Votes are still being counted. This morning in the hospital I saw the news blurb go, and I translate from Malay, "Biden is confident to win, Trump has already declared victory". The surreality of the... Read more
Hello Lockdown My Old Friend
Day Three of Lockdown, Version 2. KL is now a red zone and a conditional movement control order (CMCO) has been issued. Over the last two weeks the situation had worsened rapidly and we went up to more than five hundred new cases per day, from a... Read more