About Me — Houda Boulahbel
Science geek. Creativity advocate. Curious about the world.
I often got in trouble when I was a little girl for wandering off and disappearing for hours. My mother was convinced that I was easily distracted and unable to focus on the simple act of walking home from school.
In fact, I was obsessed with one thing: the horizon! I really wanted to see what was beyond that line at the end of my world, so I would keep walking towards it. The more I walked, the further the line became, the more determined I was to reach it…
That pursuit led me from my native Algiers to England where I learned to communicate and think in a language completely different from my own.
It then led me to Scotland where I worked in cancer research, spending almost a decade trying to understand problems in molecular biology, and looking for connections that had not been noticed before.
I loved Scotland so much, I almost settled there but I was still young and curious and I wondered: what if I wiped the slate clean? Would I still be interested in the same things? What else can I discover about myself?
Those questions led me to Denmark, where I moved into an all-white flat, cut my long curly hair into a sleek bob and embraced the Danish way of life with open arms.
In Denmark I learned, again, to appreciate and enjoy the simple things in life, and to make the time to just be, and to be well. It was a far cry from my workaholic days in a research lab. I also became fascinated with the innovative and entrepreneurial culture in Denmark, and started to contemplate the idea of setting up my own business.
It was also in Denmark that I started to write. Writing to me is an act of exploration. I write about subjects that I am curious about, that I want to formulate a view point on. And just like my other pursuits in life, there is always more to be discovered.
Fast forward ten years, I am now a happy wife and busy mum with a budding consultancy in London. I hung up my lab coats for good and re-trained as a healthcare communications consultant. It has been a journey of exploration, of ups and downs and many sideway twists. Somehow, it still feels like the beginning and that little girl inside of me still wonders what else lies beyond the horizon.
