Staircases

Did I ever mention that I love crumbling, spiral staircases? These, found on Arab Street in Singapore, look more like they belong in Prague or Istanbul.

Don't you wish you were sitting on the colorful steps, up against a rail, maybe painting a mural or closing your eyes as the sun heats the steps, your clothes, your skin? On these steps, it is always summer. And I am always sweating. I can't wait to return.

Water is the blood in our veins

Water, my homeland

The heart of darkness

Who knew trees conquered water as well as land?

I live love laugh breathe the beach

A lone Singaporean fisherman

Man is small indeed next to the the ocean

There is nothing softer and weaker than water, And yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things. For this reason there is no substitute for it.
-Lao-Tzu

Video Experimentation

This is from a couple of months ago when we as a family experienced the real Asia. Meaning we got to watch mostly naked guys pour gasoline down their throats and dance around like drunken, hot, idiots.

This is not really that interesting. But it does show me getting mad at Anna. And making weird faces.

The Big move to....where?

I realized I haven't written lately about anything actually going on in my life. There were many reasons for this. Mainly, I was going through a hard time emotionally. If anyone else has at some point in their life spent a good deal of time on a job hunt, they understand what I'm talking about. I never knew it would be so hard. And I'm not talking about actually finding a job. I'm talking about figuring out what job you want and where to go to find it. The how is important, we all know this. But I've found it a little easier to answer than the other two.

A couple of days ago I found out that I am going to have to leave the country. One, because I'm only on a tourist's visa, and two, because that tourist's visa is preventing me from getting any valuable work here in Singapore. I never thought the technical side of moving to a country where one is not a citizen would be so difficult to figure out. A word to the wise for anyone who is thinking of moving to a foreign country for work--get the job secured before you move there. Believe me, this is important!

The conclusion of this whole Singapore job experience has been coming on for about a month. I begin to feel I'm not supposed to be here. That its not good for me to be here. That I need to leave. I had pretty much given up my job hunt. I made one last half-hearted attempt at my search when I applied for an internship which I actually really did want (once I found out what I would be doing). The sorry end came when I was informed I couldn't get the internship because I was a foreigner, and they didn't want to fill a spot that a Singaporean could rightly take. I wasn't angry. It actually made sense. But I knew it was over.

So now here I am, ready to leave and yet reluctant to go. The biggest question on my mind is where? And how? With my resources at an all time low, I am very limited in my options. That still hasn't made it any easier for me to decide. How do you chose something when your prevented from seeing the ending?

I know to a certain extent what I want. I would love to work as a writer or an editor or even in public relations for a publishing, media, or creative company. And I would love suggestions from anyone who knows about a publishing company or knows someone who works for/in a profession similar to the above description.

Any advice is good advice, especially coming from all my smart family and friends! So please, bring it on, anything! Please...

Real Life SUCKS

Oh how I wish I could go back to school. I would have prolonged the experience, I would have double majored in economics and comparative literature. I could have been one of those people who switches majors like they were bath towels. Really though I did not know how good I had it. Yes, school is stressful. Duh! But life, I mean real life is ten times worse. Real life equals responsibility, it entails actually making meaningful decisions that will effect EVERYTHING.

This week I finally got the call I have been waiting for.

"Can you come into the office? We'd really like to hire you."
"Sure. Anytime works for me" I say calmly, like it happens to me everyday.

Yada. Yada. Yada. I jump up and down and thrust my arms in the air and say "yes" because why not? I just got a job as a writer at a publishing company, I will soon actually have money coming in instead of all out, and there is nobody home to tell me I'm weird (again). Why not..??
It sounds great right? Your thinking good, she finally did it. Yeah. That's what I thought too. Until the next day.

The next day...
I get up (6:15 am), and leave for the MRT by 7:15. I get there at 7:30 and ride it until 8:15. Then I begin walking, thinking I can find the bus stop on my own. I give up and hire a taxi. Then I sit there for 50 minutes in traffic trying to get about 7 blocks. 9 am I am at work (it starts then) and the editor tells me she wants to see more of what I can do.
"We have a piece we want you to finish by today" she tells me. "Its a four page cover spread." Great I think.
9:30-1:30 I write a very boring article covering a conference in which 10 people spoke (I covered each speech) on various business related topics to international financial planners and CEO's.
1:30-2:30 lunch finally. I didn't eat breakfast (I assumed I was just coming in to meet the boss, etc not actually start the job and WRITING and WORKING).
2:30-3- I meet with the boss, in which he outlines what I would do (write almost every single piece requested by our clients, attend occasional events to report on them, and liaison with the other employees like the graphic artists and my editor on pagination, etc). How much I would get paid (2000 a month. That is in Singapore Dollars, making it even worse) and the technical (the company provides emergency medical in the amount of 300 a year, hours are 9-6 with occasional days of working late and on weekends with no overtime).
3-6 I research for another article my editor is working on and write up interview questions for her to ask them
8 pm I finally get home, after two hours of buses, trains, and walking.

I guess it doesn't sound that bad. I mean, I know I'm a complainer. I've known this about myself for a long time. But seriously! 2000 a month (that is 1200 dollars) plus basically no benefits. And I would be gone from 7:30 in the morning until 8 at night and sometimes later! With 3 hours of travel time! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Problem #1: Too much work with not enough compensation. Do I look like someone who agrees with slave labour?
Problem #2: The commute. Do I really want to spend 3 hours on public transportation 5 days a week?
Problem #3: I would be the sole hired writer for the company. Which means I am going to be writing so much my brain is liable to shatter with all the words coming out in such a constant flow.
Problem #4: Do you know anyone who actually WANTS to be a business/financial writer? No? Well there is a good reason for that.

All in all, I am very disappointed with everything at the moment. I finally get offered a job and it turns out to be nothing like I expected it to be. I turn it down, I am back to where I started. If I accept it, I know I'll be unhappy.Neither are good, but then, that is how a lot of real life decisions are. You end up picking the one you can tolerate.

The Island of Pulau Ubin

On Saturday, my family and the Matheson's traveled to the small island Pulau Ubin off the eastern coast of Singapore. Translated, Pulau Ubin means "granite stone" in Malay. Apparently, in the 60's the island was inhabited by thousands who worked in the many granite quarries on the island. Visiting it now, you wouldn't be able to believe that many people lived there. The island is largely abandoned and very rural, with only a hundred or so living there now. From what I saw, the villagers are mainly farmers and fisherman, living in grass huts and wooden jetties. The island is filled with natural wildlife, including native animals, plants, and crops. Everywhere I looked a saw green. Banana trees line the bike paths, and coconuts palms were splayed along the road as numerous as concrete in the city. This small, untouched part of the world must have been how the big island of Singapore looked before urban development.

We, like most tourists, visited the island for its natural beauty and outdoor thrills. After descending off of our small 'bumboat', we rented bikes and explored the mangrove forests, the sandy beaches, and the ocean boardwalks. The coral reef was sadly hidden from our view because of the high tide. But we did see the famed 'kampongs', a name for Singapore's once popular small village that now only exists on Pulau Ubin. What's remarkable is the villagers, who live just a couple miles off the coast of one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world, rely on local wells for water and diesel generators for limited electricity. From what I saw, the wells are quite old, but plentiful. I saw at least three while there.

We rode our bikes from the eastern side of the island, where we saw the Chek Jawa wetlands, to the west, where we passed an abandoned resort with crowding vegetation overtaking its concrete floor and walls. We saw small farms filled with sweet jasmine, curry and ginger, coriander and tee leaf. There were durian and mangosteen trees, with shelled rambutans and jackfruit everywhere, left behind, no doubt, by the hidden monkeys in the trees and the wild pigs in the forest. And everywhere there is life; in the rubber plantations and the coconut farms, and in the rivers, the forests, and the surrounding ocean. It is a beautiful place, and it was a beautiful day spent with family and friends, enjoying each other's company and marveling on the great beauty that is Mother Nature.

Night Safari

Our friends from Japan the Mattheson's came to visit us here in Singapore so we had A LOT of fun last night going to the zoo's night safari. The first entertainment of the night was this fire show which pretty much consisted of mostly naked men chugging kerosene and blowing it out to produce a lot of fire. It was actually a really entertaining show because the performers were getting really into it and they were laughing and spitting kerosene on each other and taking off audience members shirts (yeah....) and blowing mini wooden spears at various sensitive body parts. After that we went on the actual night safari where we saw all kinds of really cool animals in the dark like tigers, lions, rhinos, bearded pigs, golden jackals, hyenas, etc. There were actually too many animals to remember. What I liked though was it had a lot of species native to the Indo-Asian region that you wouldn't see in an typical American zoo. Like the Malayan Tapir which I had never seen before (below). Or the babirusa, which is a very strange looking pig. Anna and I decided to go off from the main group and take a walking tour. The craziest things we saw were bats that kept flying over our heads and flying squirrels, which believe me, are a lot faster than normal ones. And yes, I am a little afraid of bats.
At the end of the tour, they showed us this grassland with all these deer. Anyway, the green vegetation was completely wiped out. The point of this dead pasture/field area was to demonstrate how most of the rainforests will look if we continue to ruin the environment. Now I am a conservationist, at least I try to be, but this lady was crazy. She kept repeating "reduce, reuse, recycle" over and over again and her voice got very shrilly when she was talking about the dead earth. She was assuming of course the earth was already DEAD and that we the safari people were the ones who KILLED that specific patch of rainforest. It was really quite depressing...kind of ruined the magic of the whole journey. But I guess it did make me feel guilty, which is good???
So if you ever want to see a simulation of an Asian Riverine Forest or Burmese Hillside, this is the place to go. As long as you can stand the sad ending.

My foray into the rain

Seeing as I don't have much of a social life (outside of the family) here in Singapore, I've found that I get really happy about small things. Like when my dad brought us donuts from Malaysia last night. Or when Anna and I pretended to be gymnasts/yoga enthusiasts.
Two nights ago it started raining. For Singapore, that is pretty normal. At some point during almost every day here it will rain for a couple of hours. And its not light rain either...it usually gets really dark and windy, with thunder and lightening going on in the not so comfortable distance. But that night there wasn't either, and it was raining so hard that when I went outside it almost hurt. I had just finished a 800 page book that I had spent the last 2 days almost reading straight and was feeling the extra energy from laying around. So I ran outside without shoes in the dark and walked, ran, hopped, and splashed my way through it all. It was actually a really strange experience to be clothed, in crazy wet weather, with the streets completely deserted. I loved it. It was one of the rare moments in modern life where you can actually focus enough on a single thing to really experience it fully. No distractions. I felt connected to both the moment and the earth, which I know sounds a little crazy. By the end of it all, I felt the happiest I've felt in awhile and was very close to forgoing my obsession with civilization in general and moving to some forsaken wood or abandoned tundra. Then I remembered Into the Wild, and my lack of survival know-how and decided if I wanted to live I had better stay in civilization for now.
But the dream is still there.