About

Me:

Hello, I’m Michelle. I was born in 1980, and currently work as a lawyer in Singapore. I could launch into a lengthy manifesto of self, but what I wrote for that Facebook meme would probably give you a fairly decent (albeit randomized) idea of whether I’m the sort of person whose blog you want to be reading or not!

This blog:

The first incarnation of this blog was started in November 2000 and called “ineffable”, partly after a Sonic Youth song and partly because I was being lame and precious. It captured the life I led as a law student in London, was run with Blogger and got linked to by Dooce before she got famous.

When I finished university and moved back to Singapore I lost access to free university web space, and used this as an opportunity to transition the site to Movable Type and change its name to something that didn’t make me want to bitchslap myself. “syntaxfree” is from the same Sonic Youth song. I like the continuity, and feel it still appropriately conveys this blog’s freeform shambles. It’s now run with WordPress and hosted by my generous friend Karen.

Despite my total willingness to sell out, emblazon every page with garish ads and quit my job to become a professional blogger, I haven’t yet figured out a way to monetize the terrible puns, puerile humour, shit-my-husband-says conversation fragments, tryhard cultural references and amateurish photographs that are this blog’s specialty. So for now, I’m proud to say that my integrity remains intact. (Call me!)