Friday, June 22, 2007

Wherever you go there's always someone Jewish...

Thanks to our crappy Jewish educations, we all know the song. The truth is, though there may be Jews everywhere, they might be difficult to access. I found that there was a Chinese guard between myself and the Jewish community of Singapore.

I'll start with the beginning of my day, because it's funny. I woke up ten minutes after Matt (about 6:15), because he had accidentally pushed snooze and not turned the alarm off. Usually I would just turn the alarm off and go back to sleep, but this was extraordinary, because I woke up to Warren G - in SINGAPORE! If you know what I know, you don't want to step to this. It's the G-Funk era funked up with a gangsta twist...When I was in high school for some weird reason, I memorized the words to that song (with heavy influence from my friend, Chris), so when I heard it, I was excited and it got my brain moving, so I couldn't go back to sleep.

I had a doctors appointment this morning. Apparently you can buy your medications at the office - forget the whole pharmacy thing. It was a totally fine experience, and I particularly enjoyed being weighed and only weighing 62. It's a lot less than 140.

I checked out the American Club this morning. It was a beautiful building filled with Americans, American opportunities, American food and air conditioning. It's only seventy million dollars to join plus thirty thousand per month. Okay, it's not that much, but it's probably not where we're going to spend our money. I did, however, join the American Women's Association of Singapore and I hope to meet nice people through that.

It was only about 92 degrees and sunny, so I thought it was a good idea to take a walk to the end of Orchard Road (the shopping area). I nearly passed out and died, but before I did that, and about a half hour or more after I started walking, I found some sort of Jewish community building. There was a guard outside, so I spoke to him and asked if there was someone I could talk to about the Jewish community of Singapore. He said come back for Shabbat on Friday night at 9:30 or Saturday morning at 9. I was standing in the hot sun (with my sumbrella of course, but still!), and I told him nicely that I had just moved here, and I wouldn't be able to come this week for services, but I would really love to talk to someone about the Jewish community here and what opportunities there are. He said "why don't you come back another time." "What day is good," I ask. "Any day is good," says he. "Well if any day is good, then how are Fridays?" I ask. "Fridays are fine." "Well, it's Friday right now - can I please meet with someone?" "They're very busy in there. Please come back on Sunday." "What would be a good time on Sunday?" I ask. "You can come for services at 7:30 am." "I'm not going to come back here on Sunday morning at 7:30. Can I PLEASE speak to someone inside?!" At this point I had sweat running down my body, I felt like I was going to pass out, I also was on the edge of tears. PLEASE JUST LET ME TALK TO SOMEONE JEWISH!!!! He kept saying no, and I said that I want to get on their mailing lists and learn about the community, and I need to talk to someone inside TODAY. He took my ID, called up, and then I went up and met with the Rabbi's wife. I literally have NO idea why it took so much effort to get in there, but once I did it was really nice. She was very nice and told me that there are community meals on Shabbat, there are schools for kids, and it seems to be a nice community. Hopefully we will be able to make it there for services one week, and maybe we'll even meet some people.

In my quest to try new foods here I finally tried prawns and noodles - which seems to be a favorite here and a logical next step after talking to a chabad rabbi's wife. It was really gross. I didn't even eat half of it. That's a first for me. Yuck.

Still no dengue, and I applied for my first job.

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