Seen but not heard

Fantastic article in The Age today about migrant workers in Dubai. For the record... it's absolutely no different here in Singapore. It's just that nobody wants to talk about human rights abuse.

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

Cheesecake afterglow

I've mentioned before that I've been told and learnt that Singapore is a small place. Sometimes you get reminded of this. Today an ex-student of mine from Melbourne ran into me randomly in Plaza Sing. He had told me he was coming to live here and we'd been in touch a couple of months ago, however with the deletion of my Facebook account he would have had no way to contact me. So it's incredibly fortunate that he bumped into me and we were able to exchange contact details. Anyhow, the migration from Melbourne to Singapore continues. That's three friends from Melbourne who have moved here in the eighteen months since I arrived. After years of never having any home people when I've been doing the ex-pat thing, I must confess that this is a very refreshing change.

Did some exam preparation today which went swimmingly. My boss was very impressed considering how little work I have done towards it so far. That is, until he asked me to write out some phonemic script and it became obvious that I was very, very illiterate in this area. I don't know whether to be chuffed or annoyed at myself regarding the shock and disappointment in his eyes when he realised this. Admittedly he said he didn't learn it backwards until this stage in the course when he was undertaking it. But I guess he just assumed I knew it. I guess it speaks well of how management regard me that this would come as a shock to them, however it does underline my own feeling that I pull the wool over everyone's eyes and that I've now been partially exposed for the fraud I am hehe. My boss didn't really care but he *very* strongly advised me to get on the horse and make it happen. Sigh... like there's not enough.

Had a lovely night of many entrees and drinks with S and A at Chjimes tonight. I almost never go there, but we were around. We actually went to (hide your disdain please!!!) Harry's and had "crazy hour" drinks and satays, nachos, caesar salad and hot wings. i never claimed it was healthy but I can divulge that it was delicious. This was followed up with Chocolate Volcano and Cheesecake at Bobby's next door. As a non-dessert kind of guy I can tell you that these were special. Right down to me commandeering the last bite for myself (a rare moment of selfishness, but if you'd tasted this cheesecake you would understand).

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.

Back to my little corner of the Interweb

I did a wonderful thing the other day. After a month of deliberation, I finally deleted my Facebook account. Gone from my bookmarks. No more hotlink icon. No more checking it 5 times a day. Yes, I was one of them. A CrackBook addict. So in a fit of "why/how do all these people track me down", I've finally taken the step and killed it. I'll miss all those lonely nights that CrackBook kept me warm and safe. The way it allowed me to look up ex-girlfriends just to see if they had an account. All those "great" videos I got sent, though 99 Words for Boobs will always have a special place in my heart. And even, even the random people that you knew 10 years ago who are suddenly tracking you down. It's this last group that make CrackBook so addictive and also so repellent. Ultimately, I guess I do feel a bit sorry for the FluffPet I'm leaving to die an InterWeb death.

So I'm back here more permanently. Watch this space.

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!".

Invasion

Two weirds things infringing on my sense of privacy in the last two days.

1) My girlfriend's sister's boyfriend's mother lives in my apartment building. Still with me? Weird weird coincidence. I only met him for the first time last Saturday and then saw him coming out of my lift. We said hi, but I think we were both a tad unsure whether we were actually seeing reality or not.

This bugs me largely because I like to believe I live in a bubble removed from everything I know in the outside world. Not connected to girlfriends, co-workers, friends, families or any other associated things. So I know it's ridiculous, but having a 6-degrees style someone I "know" living in my building freaks me out a little bit. I enjoy the anonymous stranger routine. Someone did say shortly after I arrived in Singapore that it is a very very small place and they're right.

2) My neighbour, who is also my landlord, called and said she wanted to take a serviceman into my apartment to check the airconditioner. This is a perfectly reasonable request (which I granted) but got off the phone feeling all insecure and funny inside because she was going into my apartment when I wasn't there. Admittedly there's nothing to hide in there, though I may have done something about some of the beer cans. The rest was actually very clean, right down to only having one dirty plate and one knife in the sink waiting to be washed. I'm pretty sure that's some kind of record for a bachelor. Guess I'm just the type who doesn't like to have my things rifled through. It's one of the reasons I don't have housemates.

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