Nib

My name is Rafi. I use a pen name because the internet is wide and my flat is narrow, and I prefer a little distance between the two. I live on Jalan Rajah, in Whampoa, in an HDB flat where the table sits by the window and the fan has three speeds but I only trust the first. I am not a brand, not an agency, not a coach, not a freelancer collecting clients. I am a person who writes short notes about ordinary mornings and ordinary walks and, once, an evening near Chin Swee that I still cannot finish in my head.

I work a day job that has nothing to do with this site. That separation matters to me. These pages are where I put what the job does not use — observation, patience, the smell of the river park after rain, the way a kopitiam uncle boils water twice, the click of the corridor gate when someone comes home late. If you are looking for hire-me language, rates, portfolios, or a method for becoming a better person in twelve steps, you will not find them here. I would rather disappoint that expectation cleanly than blur the boundary.

I grew up moving between neighbourhoods and settled in Whampoa because it felt like a place where days could be small without being insignificant. Balestier is a bus ride away when I want five-foot-way shade. Kallang is downstream in every sense. I walk the park connector when my sentences tangle. I buy vegetables at a market whose stairs are never quite dry. I write at the kitchen table after ten, fan on one, window open a hand's width. That is the whole machinery, which is to say there is no machinery — only habit.

Scribe Nest is the name I gave this table. The domain ends in .pro, which is mildly funny given how unprofessional my approach is: no newsletter funnel, no comments section, no tip jar, no cross-posting strategy. I built the site in August 2026 because I wanted a quiet shelf for paragraphs that deserved to stand alone. The layout is intentionally narrow. The photos are warm on purpose. The accent colour is ultramarine because it reminds me of a cheap pen that still writes true when you press harder.

How to read this nest: start on the perch if you want the room layout, or dive into the almanac if you prefer notes sorted by how they were made — one sitting, left to rest, rewritten twice. The root URL holds a heavier memory from 12 November 2025. It is not labelled as special anywhere; it simply lives where it lives. Everything else is gentler on purpose.

I read mail at odd hours. If you write, expect a slow reply and an honest one. If I got a fact wrong — a bus number, a street detail, anything — tell me. I will correct the page and thank you without performing humility. Corrections are part of personal writing when the city keeps moving beneath your sentences.

Disclaimer

This is a personal blog. Everything here reflects my own experiences, opinions, memories and impressions. These notes are personal reflections, not professional, medical, legal, financial or news-reporting advice. Where a note touches a serious event nearby, I only describe what I heard or saw from my end of the street — never as reporting. If I have got something wrong, please tell me and I will fix it.