Back in Singapore

Phew. It's been a while. I did my trip to Dubai and Turkey which was great. The above is a photo taken at the Basilica Cistern. Spent two whole weeks living in the pockets of my sister and her husband. We managed not to kill one another and somehow the conversation never tired. Overall a lovely trip. Also nice to come back with something of a tan.

I still have another week or so of holidays and am putting it to good use by studying for my exam which is less than two weeks away. By studying of course I mean procrastinating and by procrastinating of course I mean updating my neglected blog.

Am a little conflicted about my move back to Melbourne. Even though it's only for 6 months I just know I'll be forced to make a hard choice at the end of it. Right now, strangely, it feels that my life is here in Singapore. While the hours for my job bug me without end, I do like my workplace and the people I work with. Last night I actually concocted a wild scheme to create a position for myself which would result in far more human hours. I'm not lacking in chutzpah that's for sure. Guess I'll wait and see what happens when I get back here in January.

Have a surprising amount of people to catch up with and do last meals etc with before I leave. The next four weeks will move very quickly. Me? Well, I've just got to keep up.

Will the real Sox please stand up?

I was having dinner the other night with Miss K (yummy Peking Duck if you want to be jealous of me) when she explained that sometimes she couldn't "feel" me. We discussed this amidst grubby paws and she continued that at times when I speak it's with such an analytical voice, such a logical, detached voice (probably the one I'm using now), that it was very very difficult to engage on an emotional level with me. That other times I spoke with a degree of emotion that was touching.

The conversation got me thinking and I have to say I agree with her. I've known that I've been living with a kind of emotional disconnection for some time now. I've never known what to do about it. Probably never known how much it has affected my relationships. Not only does this kind of disconnect affect what I receive from others but also how I let those people bond to me. My relationships over the last couple of years, with the most wonderful girls, have ended a mess. I've pushed people away and honestly, I have no idea why.

So there are two me's. The me that empathises, cares and connects quickly and deeply with others. The me that gets me a girlfriend or draws friends to me. Then there's the me that is cold, hard, rational and doesn't allow emotion to influence the end outcome. Perhaps it's the former me that enters relationships and the latter me that ends them. I'm not honestly sure how one goes about "re-connecting". I don't even know if I can do it. But there are two me's. If I can then I only want one, and I know which one that is.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I feel I'm beginning something. Something emotional or spiritual. Perhaps both. Miss K has been a catalyst for this but I feel that this is the path I've been looking for over the past decade. It's rocky and blind and I have no idea where it will take me but at least a path that leads to an old goal is one worth being on. In high school, it never interested me to be successful in the sense of money or job. Whenever anyone asked me and I was feeling perfectly honest, I would tell them that I just wanted to get the most from myself on an emotional and spiritual level. After a decade of booze and parties and people and places I feel that this original goal is a worthy one. One that I've allowed myself to ignore for some time.

Genuine Transition

I feel like I've entered a period of transition. Anyone that's followed my history would be forgiven for suggesting that I'm fairly permanently in a phase of transition. I have spent much of the last decade switching countries with alarming regularity and for many people such things are often the harbingers of great change. Not so for me. Switching countries has always just been something I do. A means of staving off boredom and inertia. While I've been very very fortunate to be in a position to do such things, it's never really meant that much to me. In a spiritual sense. In the beginning that's how it started and after a few years it just became one of those things I do.

The last two weeks has brought with it no small amount of turmoil. Since failing the exam, an emotional well long neglected has made itself known. Full to overflowing it has caused me to stop and think. I made a new acquaintance recently, lets call her Miss K. She has been at the epicentre of much of this period and for that I am truly grateful. What started as a couple of months of chatting, emailing and messaging finally led to a meeting. Quite honestly, meeting her blew my mind. She's smart, successful, flawed and very beautiful. In a country like this she shines. So what do I do? Naturally I fall flat on my face, heart in an outstretched hand for her. Without going in to detail, there's no chance of her and I being anything more than friends. But meeting her? That's the real gift.

I talked to her about signposts last week. How sometimes in life we are sent messages which send us in one direction or another. Sometimes they are events or offers and sometimes they are people. This conversation came about because she asked me how I came to be in Singapore. She's a signpost. The irony of the signpost coming in the form of a woman I can't have isn't lost on me, but I digress.

Miss K is strongly religious. Not just in the attending a weekly service kind of way. She lives in a way that truly reflects some of the vast beauty available to organised religion. The beauty my cynical mind never acknowledges. She talks to God and truly considers what his/her expectations are as well as how that balances with her own desires and goals. That said, she's not a zealot. She allows for other lifestyles, other faithes and is capable of making mistakes. Through the course of our conversations she's done the one thing I prize above most others, she has inspired me.

I've spent two weeks talking with God. Perhaps talking is the wrong word. More so allowing myself to have some kind of communion with him/her. Don't get me wrong, I'm still reasonably opposed to organised religion as a concept. I respect those who are involved in it, but it's not my thing. When I was younger I took this opposition to mean that I in fact did not believe in God. I found though that that was untrue. I did believe in God. Since then I hadn't explored this any further.

Even though this hasn't yielded any answers (I don't expect such fables), it's certainly awakened a side of me that has been there, muted for some time. It's made me consider more thoroughly what I've been given, what I have and what I can give. And honestly? It's been more satisfying to reflect on these things than all the booze and mates and broads I've had in my life.

I'm someone that believes in a fairy tale. That there is that "one" out there. I've spent my entire time searching for her. For the first time since puberty I feel like that's not the most important thing. Sure it would be nice. But I feel like there's some kind of path now. I think I'm saying that I'm not interested in finding her right now. There are just more powerful things happening. More room for me to grow and achieve that person everyone else seems to see but I feel like I've never reached.

I don't know if I will feel this way forever. Maybe I'm in the grip of some madness. Either way there's a lot for me to gain while I'm here.

Internet, I like your old stuff better than your new stuff

When I was in high school I was very big into music. I couldn't play an instrument to save myself, but surely my flannel shirt, ripped jeans and Converse sneakers (perfect for sneaking obviously) gave me some kind of credibility. I remember how smug I felt when things I'd been listening to became popular with the mainstream kids on my school. After all, I'd been listening to that stuff for a number of years already. I was old skool.

Well, I'm beginning to feel that way about the Internet. My Facebook account has long since been hunted down and beaten in the street. I've flirted with the idea of starting up a Twitter or micro-blogging account. But honestly? Just because the technology is there to do something doesn't mean it's actually worth doing or in any way shape or form a good idea. We'll leave out how micro-blogging would be a mental impossibility for someone as sefishly verbose as me. So yes, I still (occasionally) blog here. I still use Yahoo Messenger - a decade of online chatting now, how bout that? Outside of blogs, the majority of sites I hit on a regular basis are all ones I've been using for years and years. I also still spend hours a day online in one capacity or another.

Despite Web 2.0 being very much the centre of user-generated content, I remain a fairly passive user of the Net. I basically never comment on blogs or forums, despite being an avid reader of both. I don't upload/make/share/revenge-post videos or photos. Outside of this blog I don't actually generate any of my own content. Which I guess ultimately puts me in some kind of middle band, those heavy Net-users that don't contribute all that much themselves. This is by no means an indictment on myself or the millions of other middle-band Net users. Judging by the sheer volume of trash being produced by heavy content-generators it may be for the better that me and my ilk are not filling the wasteland too.

So I'm one of the heavy users whose habits haven't changed. I haven't embraced the new possibilities. Some days there are things I would like to do/make/contribute but most of the time not. It's entirely possible that as someone who has spent a very heavy decade online that I'm just a wee bit jaded and uninterested in creating more rubbish or trying in some bizarre fashion to find my 5 minutes.

Saw Slumdog Millionaire on Friday. What an enchanting film! Yes, it has a predictable ending but the strength of the film is entirely in how they get to that ending, with the method of explaining the lead characters past being just the right side of clever. Gorgeous soundtrack to go with it. Yup, I enjoyed this one. Was also nice just to go see a movie again, even if it was on my 'Jack Jones'. Looking at the playlist and posters up... Danny Boyle, Bryan Singer, David Fincher and Darren Aronofsky. Hmmm... must be Oscars season again...

It would appear that soon enough I'll be starting The Great Property Hunt of 2009. Can't believe it's already been a year. Hopefully a downturn in the economy means an upgrade in living standard for me. Pretty selfish point of view when you consider that so many people will be downgrading and others losing their housing entirely (less so in Sg, but definitely in Australia and other countries).

Had to call my Mum tonight. Had a weird dream in the wee hours that she and Dad had been away and they came back but Mum was really upset with me. Perhaps a little guilt playing into it there as I hadn't called or emailed in a while. Seems that all the family is fine and noone we know directly has been affected by the bushfires. Awful stuff. Surreal to follow it on the news but then someone at my work, with little English, asked me if my family was ok when she ound out I was from Melbourne. Strange moment to get al emotional. Guess I am in the category of people that can be thankful nothing happened to anyone I know. Still feel awful about those that have been affected.

Ok enough. Other things to say but at some point you have to crawl in to bed and try to beat that high score on DS Boggle.

Smelly T-shirt

On the way back from stocking up on flu drugs today I opened my maibox to see a package waiting for me. You need to understand that the highlights of my mail-receiving experience are when POSB (technically not even my own bank!) contacts me to ask if I want to open a new high-interest savings account.

So this package was one of those cardboard style envelopes which have bubble-wrap inside them. Squishy! No return sender on the package. I opened it and realised it was a t-shirt. Wow! Some mystery person has sent me a t-shirt. How awesome! As I unwrapped it my memory started to focus in on the t-shirt. It was one of my own t-shirts!!! In addition, it smelt great. Some kind of perfume or smelliness-improver was added to the package.

As hard as I try, I have no idea who could have borrowed this. Two of the possible options are people that could have, and would have no reason not to, call me and say "Hey, I have a t-shirt of yours I want to give back". So I'm left with one guess left.

Don't know, it's all kind of out of the blue. I didn't even realise at this point that the t-shirt was missing. Worse yet that I don't know who sent it. I kind of wish I could pin it and say 'hey, that person definitely sent it'. What does it say about me?

Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first?

Am sitting here annoying my ex-girlfriend by chatting to her while I catch up on blogs and watch Chasing Amy. Amazingly, Chasing Amy still holds up over a decade later. Sure, we all know the story now, so there are no surprises. It's littered with Kevin Smith's incredibly talky dialogue (love it or hate it). However it remains a really intimate little tale about the complications of two people experiencing love. While I would hardly place Smith in the category of auteur. I will give him a round of applause for the intimacy created in this film where many of the shots are quite tight and draw the audience that bit further into the entanglement between Holden and Alyssa.

It's been a strange week. Having experienced the War on Ants and The Long Cockroach March, I've now had to contend with the guerrilla tactics of mosquitoes. Resorting to the insect equivalent of a Missile Defense Shield in the form of Liquid Electric Repeller, I had my first decent night's sleep in five days last night.

Am also having weird and vivid dreams again. There's a point at which I'll have to stop saying again and just accept that I now have weird dreams. I've witnessed murders and been tortured this week alone. One might blame this on what I've been consuming this week, but violent content really hasn't been much a part of it. Unless you count a re-telling of the 1970 Collingwood-Carlton Grand Final.

Should it be bed time now..?

Blind Spots

Last night a friend asked me what I thought her weaknesses are. I tried to be honest in regards to her relationship issues but ultimately it's a very difficult and entirely subjective thing to comment on. Interestingly it's something I've asked the last couple of girls I've dated. To find out what the chinks in the armour are that I can't see. My blind spots.

As a teenager I went through a period of many months where I basically had no friends. No one to call at night and chat with. No one to catch a movie with. No one really to even have lunch with at school. I was inconsolable during this period, as it was only days, weeks, months ago that I did have these things. To find them ripped away in what at the time seemed the most calculated cruelty and now seems just a part of being a teenager, was devastating. During the time I rebuilt myself. I never changed so that I could be a part of things again, if anything this rebirth was quite the opposite. I found a deeper way of thinking and feeling things, promised myself that no outside force would ever define me again. That I would be what I was and the parts of the world that would come to me ultimately would. It all sounds very brave, but honestly, I cried myself to sleep at such realisations, not knowing whether the world would indeed find me once more.

As much as possible after this time I came to, for better or worse, have some kind of idea of what it was to be me. All this, and after some months, the world came back to me which is why, to this day, I'm blessed with such wonderful and individually brilliant friends. The failure of relationship after relationship and the continued engaging in destructive behaviour makes one think that maybe.... just maybe there's a blind spot I'm missing.

The destructive behaviours? Well, some are well in the past, others a work in progress. What I've been reminded of so sharply recently is that none of these changes will happen because of another person. And for someone like me? Well, any changes that are wrought by another are a poorly stitched substitute for working through things and making the tough choices all by yourself. As an example, quitting smoking because your partner tells you to may be successful. Certainly it's of enormous benefit to your health. But should that person disappear or not be there for whatever reason... what are the chances you'll be back on the fags?

So what did I gain from asking people about my own blind spots? Not a blasted thing. Maybe they were unwilling to tell me. Maybe they were too close for my own good. Or maybe if the blind spots were so pronounced that they could be seen by someone else, I may have noticed them myself. Who knows? No more asking others about my blind spots. The answers may be too scary!

The best laid plans

Well, the new year was supposed to bring with it reformed behaviour and a focus on life outside of work. Somehow staying out at a drum and bass party until 5am isn't what defines 'reformed behaviour'. I almost never go to this particular club because I'm not a go-out-on-saturday-night type of guy. Besides which I'm invariably working on Sunday mornings so a club that doesn't start happening until after 1am isn't really on the cards. But I did have a good time. Every few months I just need to bust out completely, go silly and dance with that gangly, side-steppy, mime kung fu fighting thing that I do. So today has been a very slooooooooooooow day with going to the nearby hawker centre being the equivalent of an achievement.

Am looking forward to work starting back tomorrow. Am less looking forward to the slurpy cover letters I'm going to be writing and rejigging my resume that needs to happen over the next few days. Yes, I'm officially job-hunting. I don't hate my job. In fact I quite enjoy what I do. It's just the hours that are poor and I kind of figure that with my qualifications I don't need to be in that situation if I don't want to. It's a shit or get off the pot scenario. I'm really just doing this to motivate myself and am not expecting to pick up anything before mid-year but it is vital to at least have my resume out there for people to get back to me.

Tonight I leave with a joke of awesome awesomeness that was told to me last night :

A man walks into a bar. He sees some nuts in a bowl on the counter. Before he can reach for them the bartender comes over and asks for his order. He orders a pint and then reaches for a nut. Just as he's picking up the nut he hears a woman's voice say "Oh, is that a new tie? You really do look very handsome today!" Freaked out he looks around but can't see anyone around who could have said it. Confused, he wanders over to the cigarette machine and as he's pulling out a packet form the machine he hears a gruff man's voice saying "You're a right fucking twat, you know that? Go on then, get the fuck out of here you big pussy." Again, he looks around but there's no one there.

He goes back to the bar and asks the bartender "Listen, I'm hearing voices. I could have sworn I heard a woman's voice when I grabbed some nuts and some guy abusing me when I bought my cigarettes. The bartender offers an understanding smile, "Oh, I forgot to tell you, the nuts are complimentary and the cigarette machine's out of order."

Over and Done

Got the final word today that my portfolio has finally (17 days by registered post?!) arrived in London. After sitting through the exam this was the final nail, despite it having been sent well before the exam. The exam itself was tolerable. Three and a half hours went by in a jiff and I wouldn't have complained too much if there were an extra 15 minutes tacked onto that. Don't ask if I think I passed. I'll leave that mystery until the end of February when results come out.

Spent Sunday afternoon (and Monday afternoon for that matter) at Funan. Over six floors of geeky tech goodness. I walked away with the Lego Batman game which I'd been putting off until post-exam anyhow and a new portable hard-drive. Scary how last time I was seriously looking, when I bought this laptop 18 months ago, the technology was primitive by comparison. I'm someone who keeps very abreast of these things, but storage space is just in all new dizzy (and cheap) realms these days.

Received a blind date email via an acquaintance asking if I wanted to go for a beer. The common ground being that we've both lived in Shanghai. I might just let that one broil until after I'm back from Australia. Blind dates aren't really my thing but the counterbalance being that making new friends doesn't really hurt. All this as long as I can keep it straddled in the friendship zone. In Singapore I find that's often beyond my control, but I have given up on taking responsibility for other people's emotions. As long as I'm honest and say exactly how I feel or what I'm capable of then I'm really unable to do much if others descend into total fantasy land.

Am going to call SIA sometime this week and see if, in these wacky economic bust days, I can extend my stay at home for a few extra days. 10 days just isn't going to be enough. In typical Singaporean fashion I've come to this conclusion by consulting my stomach. There's actually just not enough days to eat all the things I want to eat!

When to shut up

My exam is on Wednesday morning. I know I should be studying but I just can't do it. The reality is there are a few things I can memorise but the exam is so context heavy that until I see the materials on offer I won't know what I'm dealing with and what is going to be useful. I have done some study already and will do more over the next couple of days. Right now it's stormy and I feel bloggy.

Had drinks on Friday night with a couple of colleagues. This was nice as neither of them are regular social whores (yes, I've been described this way in the past - sometimes even without the first adjective). It was very good to talk to them, but I'm sure I was a little too honest. In one case I was asked for my honest opinion and was so outraged I would have given it even if I hadn't been asked. In the other... well... maybe I was being, dare I say it, *nasty*.

The first case involved Mr Reliable. Mr Reliable is fairly new to my workplace, around 6 months, but is a top guy, immediately liked by everyone and headhunted very quickly by management. Oh yes, and he's a geek so he very quickly got my vote. He confessed to having been forwarded an email from his girlfriend that was never supposed to reach him.
Does that even happen anymore? People surely aren't so dumb!!
In it she basically said how she's not that into Mr Reliable. For very very superficial, selfish reasons. No, she did not have the decency to actually discuss these issues with Mr Reliable. Instead choosing to tell her friend. Fair play, but not when you accidentally forward it to the person you are discussing (dumbass). He asked me what I would do so naturally I told him I would take the high ground, break it off quietly and quickly (while getting in a passive aggressive dig about how I knew why she didn't really want me) and then have as little to do with her as possible. I think I used the words "fucking outrageous" a couple of times.

Then there is He-Man. I call him He-Man because he goes to the gym 6-7 times a week and is obsessed with his body (the buffness of which doesn't reflect the hours he puts in). As we talked about women in general and his total superficiality was put on brazen display I couldn't help but get angry. It eventually came to the kind of body he expects a woman to have. "I just can't respect a woman who lets herself go".



As I tacitly suggested that no woman is going to look like the above once she hits her 40's (or very few anyhow) I was rebuked because age, gravity and reality apparently have no basis in a discussion of the kind of girl you would like to date. At this point, the blatant objectification became too much and I couldn't help but ask him. "He-Man, you're never ever going to be happy with a woman? That's ok with you?" Of course he answered yes. I should at least give him credit for knowing he's a superficial Slagathor.

Oh yes, it's not like He-Man is the greatest catch in the world. He's gym-toned (I guess), loud-mouthed, money-obsessed, superficial and balding. Take a guess which country he's from.

I'm an unabashed PostSecret lover. I recently ran a short PostSecret myself with some adults. I was shocked by what came back to me. I never expected the participants who had never heard of this to come back with secrets that really encapsulate the heart of the project. I asked them if I was able to share some of the secrets so here are a couple of my favourites :

"Sometimes I talks to my toys"

"I don't like to run"

"I didn't dare to look around my bedroom before asleep everynight because scare to saw something I shouldn't saw"

"I and my colleague have smoke and dance in the toilet during work time"

"I know I'm playing with fire, at least in my job. Unfortunately my mind is not allowing me to bend before them... sorry I'm so stupid"

Thanks Frank, the world is an amazing and beautiful and heart-breaking place.

11 days to go

For the first time in eleven years I find myself in exam mode. Sure, since then I've crammed for things. Interviews, observations and the like. But this is the first actual exam. I'm quite pleased with the work I did today and feel so 2008 for deciding to record all my exam notes onto MP3 and play them on my way to and from work each day. God, I AM a nerd.

So, in the spirit of nerdiness I find myself having a Saturday evening in and online. Can't believe I took those for granted for such a long time. Weird though it may sound, I used to have a very active and encompassing digital life. This was all loooooooooong before social networking sites were trendy and years before Facebook became what it is. I have to say I kind of miss it. Perhaps it accounts for so many of my failed relationships. Let's just put it this way, my last girlfriend suggested that she felt we were closer and "saw" more of each other when we were in a long-distance Net-based relationship. What are you going to do?

Anyway... the point of all this is that I read about a new Google option which allows you to bump up or delete search results. Of course I went straight to Google and tried. Didn't work. I'm guessing you need to be signed in to make use of it. This then led to that guilty pleasure, that masturbation-level sin, the funnest of fun : googling one's self. I haven't done this in well over a year. There are now 277 results for my name. It wasn't al that long ago that results for my name were well under 50.

So who does Google tell me I am? I'm dead many times over. I'm a long sought after brother. I'm a contributor to BBC News forums. A trustee and chairperson of a cemetery. A company director. And the El Presidente of a community college gay-straight alliance. Phew... it's amazing I have any time at all!

Will be giving serious consideration over the Christmas period as to whether I will stay with my current employers, stay in Singapore or move to a different country. While all these thoughts flit about my head at the moment I dare not dwell too long as there're just too many other things to focus on. Oh well, only 11 more days...

Wagging school

S was skiving off work yesterday so he called me up and asked me to come and hang out. The last time we'd done something like this (and we used to do it *very* regularly) was when we were in our final year of high school. Oh how things have changed. But it's very nice to step back into the past. Between this and a Sonic Youth revival I'm beginning to think I should just rent out a room in 1996.

I see the girls walk by dressed in their Summer clothes...

Scary when you craft a really long post and then have to delete it all because you're in very practical danger of becoming a whiny bitch.
In short :
-thumbs up for economic ruin
- thumbs down for rich expat women who can't even be arsed looking after their own children. Oh! I forgot - that's what maids are for!
- thumbs down for study in all its forms
- thumbs up for dinners in Little India, really need to do that this week...
- thumbs up for Andrew Corrie joining Collingwood
- thumbs down for being in Singapore when you need to be back in Melbourne for people, even though you being there would do nothing whatsoever
- thumbs up for planned trips back to Melbourne
- thumbs for turning my own blog into an emo playground

Just when you think you're not 16 anymore...

This year has been a frustrating, tiring and ultimately mistake-laden one. I'm just beginning to see the end of the course I've been doing. To compare it to scratching nails down a chalkboard is to downplay the harmonies that creates. I have one more observation left, an extended assignment and an exam. I say that like it's fingers snappable and done. The truth? A bit further than that. But it does seem more foreseeable than it did even a few weeks ago. After bunkering down for the past week and a half moaning about the decisions that I myself made I feel as though I've woken up. Still moaning, but awake. It's never a good sign when even seeing hot girls in the street just doesn't make me turn my head. I aced (I think!) the observation I had today. This is a very very good thing as this course has been slowly sucking my confidence away. A now departed friend told me it would, but I figured I could handle anything that the course could throw. I'm handling. I wouldn't say well, but colleagues have told me that I'm exactly where I should be at this point in the course : fed up, disgusted, exhausted, irrational and completely de-motivated.

The more the year has progressed the more I've begun to miss writing (and blogging). Perhaps that's because I'm writing roughly 5000 words a month in addition to all the reading, a full-time workload and pretending that I still have a social life that is in any way meaningful. Destructive nights of stress relief don't count. I read a book of Raymond Carver short stories while I was away the week before last. The first recreational novel reading I've done since before the course began. Raymond Carver's a weird one for me. I adore his stuff, and being such a huge Murakami fan that makes perfect sense. But in actual fact the first time I bought a Carver book was by accident. I went to the bookshop looking for a Raymond Chandler book, and paying complete and total attention I picked up a Carver book because it had the name Raymond. As I wandered over to the book counter I realised my mistake but read the blurb anyway. The blurb became the first sentence of the first story in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and then I was walking away with a new author to mull over. Carver speaks about the way things are. Not the blood and guts. Seems more like the puss and excrement. The real stuff. It's not that it's graphic. Just that it's about people that are alone, even with all the people in the world around them. So yeah, there's some appeal to my inner self-obsessiveness there.

Her hair's still all over the floor and in my bed and underfoot. Another top to bottom clean of the apartment is due. It's hard sometimes for people to understand that a breakup can be just as hard for the breaker as it is for the broken. Maybe everyone just ends up broken after these things. Whichever way I spin it to myself the apartment needs cleaning. Wednesday. Maybe even tomorrow afternoon.

Prolific Much

Well, as I farewelled my team for season 2008, a week earlier than I'd anticipated I might add, it occurred to me that no matter how many people fawn over me and gush about what a good father I would make, the facts are that I'm probably not ready to have one. I think I enjoy a beer, the football and some scantily clad girls dancing nearby a little too much.

Everything, and I do mean everything, was removed from my coffee table and presented to me. Thanks. You can just leave that there. No, I don't want that. Don't put you finger in there!!

Sigh...

My swinging bachelor pad is soooooooooo not child proof. I almost had my keys thrown out of my apartment. Which may sound like nothing, but when you have a latch lock... which is LOCKED, it's a small problem. So I've done my thing, for which my friend's wife should thank me, because I've given her her first night child-free in over a month. A such a good person sometimes. I think people misconstrue my ability to deal with children as having the makings of a good father. The reality is that I think I make a great uncle. The uncle who downs beer at a party, throws the kid around and keeps him/her entertained while the parents get some time away from the craziness, but also the same uncle that gets to hand the little filthpot back at the end of the evening and think to myself "Geez, I'm glad that's not me!".

Do you like it here?

It was asked in all innocence. An earnest desire on the part of the speaker to see what the future of life in Singapore may hold. Truth be told, it's highly likely I asked exactly this question of others after I arrived. The answer? Well, that's a tad more complicated. As with any place there are things that irritate me here. There are things I really enjoy. I answered that I did like it here and that part of that is because I have a better quality of life than if I did the equivalent job back in Melbourne. For all the drawbacks, the benefits are able to heft their way weight around in a sumo knockout. I meet a lot of people here. I meet the SPGs who desperately want to leave Singapore even though they don't even know why. I meet the locals who are never leaving and don't see anything beyond what Mediacorp tells them. I meet the other locals who see the trees, the forest and the whole damn ecosystem but know there's nothing they can do to affect change in a country that requires any regular gathering of more than 10 people to be registered with the government. And then I meet the foreigners. Not the Bangladeshi workers filling the backs of utility vehicles on their way to and from work each long, back-breaking day. I mean the Western professionals, usually male and often white. Or the fat cats as I call them. The fat cats are an interesting lot. They dine in nice restaurants, drink in Clarke Quay or Dempsey Hill and never tire of complaining about rental prices and the effects of the American economic crisis on their precious little bubble in Singapore. The irony of their complaints about rent and cost of living is that their company usually pays their rent or at least gives them a rental allowance and that in actuality they don't struggle for anything. Oh for a life where economic crisis meant only going to Bintan or Malacca once a month instead of twice. Then there are the foreigners who don't actually earn all that much - still very high by local standards but not enough that they are partying at Emerald Hill 5 nights a week. Yes, I meet all of these people, and that probably factors into why I'm comfortable living here. It's not a matter of loving it, because I'm not sure it's possible to genuinely love a country like this (despite all the flags adorning apartments right now), but it's a country where you can be. Find your little niche, your way of doing things and the places and people you enjoy and just get on with your life.

I did something this morning I haven't done in a long long time. I checked out a host of Singaporean blogs I'd let lie dormant for a long period of time. Geez, I really don't know why I bothered. They're either middle-aged white men chasing barely legal girls around the island while laying claims to some philosophical or intellectual height (sorry, you're just pervy old men that are impressive to girls in their late teens and very early twenties) or 30-something Singaporean women discussing shopping and singleness. The latter I have less problem with as there's at least an element of interest there but the former are just so transparent that even the blind have no trouble seeing through them. So I'm sticking back with the one Sg blog I occasionally read and will try again in a few months and see if there are any new ones worth reading.

I think I should go buy a board game and have a games night. I'm totally burnt out on going out. I like Trivial Pursuit. Scrabble... depends on who I'm playing with. Not much interested in playing Scrabble with people who use a Scrabble dictionary in which words that are NOT part of the English language (or any other for that matter) are acceptable fodder. Guess Who? Too short. Twister? Feels a bit Swinger-ish to be playing that at my age. Operation? Again too short. Monopoly? Can be too involved in the sense that if people don't want to trade then you just end up with a long, boring, dead game. I've never played the Game of Life but have heard good things. Similarly Clue but I'm not sure about this one as I've heard tell of some co-workers who have Nights at their house in which they all dress up and be the characters. I still giggle about that.

My football team are an inconsistent blight on my happiness. They're on the verge of not making the finals this year so they conceded a game last Friday night before it had even begun. Our defensive arc is made up of relatively inexperienced players. They've done/do very well, but against powerhouse ega-forwards, they're going to be shown up. That's life, no problem. However it was decided that our our only remaining elder statesman defender would be "rested" for the week. Honestly, who rests their best defender for a game which has so much riding on it? It broke my heart to think that my team conceded a game before it had begun. And there's nothing they did on the field that night that could convince me otherwise.

Fitter Happier More Productive

Have pushed it to the brink of exhaustion over the past month. Sick twice, submitted two assignments and two resubmits and have worked on through the entire way. Yes, all hail me. I think I look good in martyr's clothing. It fits nicely.

Read an interesting article by Sumiko Tan in one of the Sg rags on the weekend. She wrote about how unmarried people are actually severely disadvantaged in the work place. This is an issue that never really meant much until I moved here and saw how many co-workers take time off. How many of them blame it on their children. How any slight emergency becomes a red flag for unlimited days off. How they generally get better schedules (less nights, less weekends) than unmarried types. And yet, the unmarrieds are the ones who very very rarely take time away from work for any reason. They cost the company less as the company doesn't need to provide medical insurance or flights for any dependents. The most insulting thing is the 2 days off extra a year (this is going to seem petty...) that people with children get off to attend to "family matters", which is theoretically reserved for things like parent/teacher interviews etc. Sorry, but I don't give a toss about other people's parent/teacher nights. I don't get 2 "recovery" days off per year for all the boozing and random sex that we unmarried types supposedly do and have. If the decision to over-populate or accidentally copulate is worthy of 2 extra days off a year then surely my own decision to engage in extreme hedonism is an equally valid lifestyle choice (and less damaging on the environment too!). Where are my 2 days off?

I really couldn't care less about the course I'm doing. It's bullshit hoop-jumping that has no basis in the real workplace. It's essentially 1950's style education masquerading as 21st century edu-trainment. Relevance? Zip. None. Nothing. Of course it means $1500 extra a month to me upon completion, but I really wonder whether it's worth it. If anything, and make no mistake because I love my job, it's made me that little bit more determined to leave it behind and try something else entirely. I can always come back to this later. After 8 years of doing this, I'm starting to feel the burn. More importantly, I want to challenge myself. Of course I can always be better at my current job, if I didn't think that then I wouldn't be very good at it, but I also think I have achieved a certain level of expertise where I wonder how much further I can realistically go. So once this course wraps up it will be on to the real pondering about what to do next. The biggest problem about a total career change when you have little experience outside one industry is that I want to stay in Singapore (for now anyway). Guess I'll answer these questions more thoroughly when I have more time to think about them.

What Teachers Really Mean on Report Cards :

XXXX struggles to maintain concentration in class and often engages in conversations in other languages instead.

XXXX doesn't care for this class, he has no interest in any activities we do (and I've been through the entire book trying to see what will work for him) and is generally unpleasant to be around. I'd rather he weren't in this class.

XXXX needs to listen carefully to teacher instructions and ask questions when she doesn't understand.

XXXX has no idea what's going on, and with 19 other students in the room, it's tough to make this the one on one tuition that your child so desperately needs.

XXXX gets distracted easily.

XXXX is a complete tool and would benefit from a healthy parental spanking.

XXXX always tries hard in class.

XXXX still doesn't get it, but at least he's not a complete tool.

Now

Things that are good :

- Vertigo is good
- Grant Morrison psychodelia
- Cats are very very good
- Declining a job interview because you actually like your job
- Collingwood makes me feel warm inside
- BBC Entertainment channel
- Remembering that you live in a tropical country and enjoying a beer outdoors at night
- Batman movies
- Lego games
- Looney Tunes archive
- Podcasts
- Only having to wait one more day

Things that are bad :

- Never quite being able to relax because you know study is there spinning webs in the back of your mind
- Suicides on the floor above you
- Unbelievable downpours when you really need a taxi
- Needless approval by 18 different people just to get something simple done
- Getting up in the morning
- Ants. Ants make me very spanky

Career Path

In the space of a couple of hours last night I had my thoughts on jobs and what they mean for the people who do them challenged. Perhaps it's better to say that the subject came up and I gave it minimal thought. Yeah, that seems a bit more like it.

I met a Swiss watchmaker for Bulgari. Very very cool guy, but his reaction to my reaction to his job was interesting. When I he told me, I commented "Wow, that's really cool!". He looked at me with just the slightest hint of exasperation and said "Everyone says that, I don't know why."
So what is it that makes meeting a Swiss watchmaker so damn cool? I think it's the idea of living a stereotype and also the idea that this guy can get inside the guts of something and rebuild it blindfolded. That has enormous entertainment value for me, though I'm sure he'd get sick of me getting drunk and pulling him out as a party favour.
"Hey look guys, it's a Swiss watchmaker! I'm going to smash this watch, blindfold him and watch him put it back together. The book is now open - opening bets start at $10!"... I'm really not a very good friend am I?

In case you need instructions on repairing your watch :


I also met a senior purchasing officer for Panasonic. Nerdy, petite, the whole librarian thing going for her . She revealed to me that she's also a Body Combat instructor. But wha..?! Yes, a body combat instructor. It reminded me so much of the Clark Kent change into Superman that I was distracted all night. Mild-mannered purchasing officer by day, microphone-toting, spandex-wearing combat instructor by night. I wonder if she gets her own phone booth with the gig.

In case you need to know exactly what body combat is here's a random guy in red trackies laying the moves :


So in the space of two hours I see someone living the stereotype and someone blatantly flouting the laws of accepted convention. Sigh... people are naughty for messing with my mind like this.

Oh yes, and here's a Superman changing in a phonebox. I like it when he "flies".

Misery

Some dreams are stranger than others. Last night I awoke fresh from being held captive in my landlord's apartment in a situation very reminiscent of Misery. I'm still shivering...