Why Would you Kiss Someone if you don't LOVE them??

In my Spanish class last night, we got six pictures that we had to put in order. Then we had some phrases about time and some action phrases.

The pictures were a couple's story - meeting, going for coffee, a movie, spending time on a beach, and actually the last one was the guy dying (?) in a hospital bed and the woman by his side. The last one was weird, but the rest made sense.

The phrases were - getting married, falling in love, meeting, spending the weekend together, moving in together, calling on the telephone, etc.

The times were - last month, two days ago, yesterday, last weekend, last night, etc. This, by the way, made for a VERY fast story of love, since 50% of the activities happened in the last week!

I was working with a nice 23 year old Singaporean Chinese guy. He's sort of the class clown - not ever prepared, but totally knows what he's talking about. Reminds me a bit of Chris in high school. Super nice guy. So we start putting the pictures in order, and I put the cuddling on the beach before getting married (let's be honest, who does that after you get married?). He said, "I think that they shouldn't touch like that until they're married." I said okay.

Once we started writing, I wanted to say that the woman called the guy, and he said that would never happen in Singapore. Never.

Then, we made up a first date for them where they went to a cafe and talked until dawn (las tantas). Then I wanted to write that they had their first kiss. He said, "But they haven't fallen in love yet! Why would you kiss someone if you don't love them." At this point I wondered if he was really a 23 year old boy. I said - you should check out American universities. This stuff happens all the time!!

It was the end of our working together nicely when I wanted the couple to live together before they got married. I spilled the beans and told him I lived with my husband before we got married - and it was even my mom's idea (how could your parents be okay with that!?).

I knew Singaporeans were conservative on this front, but I had no idea that it was soooo different than the States. He was totally floored by my ideas.

It's a BOY!!!

On Saturday night in Toronto and Sunday morning in Singapore, Shana pushed a huge item out of her body - she had a baby boy!!! So far I haven't seen pictures, so I can't tell you how cute he is, but she said that all of his digits are in tact and that he's beautiful - big lips and curly black hair (pretty much exactly like Daniel).

This is another one of those times where I'm dying to be closer to family and friends.

I can't believe that I'm not going to be at the bris of my best friend's baby. We have talked (not so seriously...) about having kids since we were young, and now it's happening, and I'm so far away - I can't really be a part of it. Pretty sad.

I do feel lucky that I will be able to meet him when we're in the States in a few weeks.

I have now lived in Singapore for an entire human gestational period plus one month - and now it has been proven.

WAY TO GO SHANA!!! I'm so proud of you, and I can't wait to meet your son. (And I'm pretty confident that you will not have time to read my blog anymore!!) :)

The Singapore Squatter

I have been pondering toilets a lot lately. I think that's because my stomach has been a mess, and I have been building quite an intimate relationship with them, but whatever...

So - as most people know (and I'm sure I wrote this before), many toilets here are squatters. Personally, I prefer the squatter over the toilet. I'm not a great peer when squatting over a full toilet - my quads get tired. You never have to clean the seat, and you can just relax and let it go.

The only problem I have found is that the sqatter permits/promotes a small amount of splash on the lower legs. It's sort of like when you run the faucet over the wrong side of the spoon, and it all bounces all over the place? Yes - but it's pee, and it's on your work clothes...

I asked a friend about this, and she suggested that maybe we should turn around and pee the other direction? I'll get back to this point.

Well today, while spending a few hours on the ponder pot, I pondered about putting something that would guard your legs from getting the splash, and I realized that I invented the toilet! I thought - well, if we were just a bit farther off the ground, then the splash wouldn't bother us, and maybe there could be a guard, and in my head, I literally built a toilet. (Remember when I invented the library?)

Well, getting back to the reverse direction toilet sitting...I was on the bus going home tonight (I couldn't stomach standing on the MRT), and I saw a commercial about how it's colorectal cancer awareness month. There was a commercial for free screening - all it takes is a dip! I SWEAR that on this ad there was a picture of a person sitting on the toilet BACKWARDS (from how I/we do it)!!! I just went to the website, but I can't find that picture anywhere, and now I'm wondering if people just go to the bathroom backwards (from what I know...) in Asia? in Singapore? What is going on here? This is shaking my reality!!

Non-Borscht Purple Soup

I have been loving soups lately.

Nevermind that I don't have a microwave at work, so I either stick my soup in the dishwasher after it has finished its cycle (when it's still hot), or I take it up to Christian's office and put it in his microwave on the 31st floor.

Soup is just good, and it doesn't have bad-for-you-foods in it at all.

I did a recipe search on Epicurious for the most popular vegetarian soups. I got this sweet potato curry soup. So, Matt and I went to the store last night, and we bought all of the ingredients. The sweet potatoes looked icky and small, and then I saw in the front of the store that they had TONS of Japanese sweet potatoes. They looked pretty similar to the ones I usually buy, but they were a bit darker (and purplish). I was sure that when they were peeled that they would be orange.

I made the veggie broth first. All was going well. Then I went to peel and cut the potatoes, and they were TOTALLY purple. I put them into the greenish vegetable broth, and it turned a gross shade of purply brown. The soup turned out okay (not the best thing I've made), but it's purple.

My first thought was - who eats purple soup? My second thought was - Jews and Russians! Borscht is purple, and I love borscht, but I think because my expectations were that the soup would be orange, I am a bit thrown off. Please enjoy the photo of the purple soup and the kitty in a bag.

Pictures from the Dive trip to Perhentian

This includes getting on the boat on the jetty, the place we stayed, our funny rides where we were required to wear life jackets, three pictures of pictures we took for the competition, and funny sodas. The goldfish is the winning photo. The eel is hilarious, and the one that looks like it's from a Dr. Seuss book is the bumphead parrotfish (but it's not a great picture - it's just so cool).

Perhentian Island

We just got back from a super weekend on Perhentian Island, which is an island off the north east coast of the Malaysian peninsula (west Malaysia). Here's a crappy map, but you can see how far it is!

Basically, getting there SUCKED. It took 16 hours - and we left at 9pm on Thursday, so we didn't get there until about 1pm on Friday. We had time for two dives during the day and then a night dive (my first). Saturday we squeezed in four dives and a beach party, and then today we spent basically the whole time coming back.

I will post pictures tomorrow (too tired and too late), but a few highlights...

Night dive wasn't at all as scary as I thought it would be (though I didn't let Matt let go of my hand for more than a minute). There was also a full moon, which helped.

I shat for the first time with no toilet paper (they don't use that stuff in much of Malaysia).

The BEST part was on our third dive on Saturday - we saw a school of about 15 bumphead parrot fish. They were unbelievably huge and gorgeous, and we swam with them for quite a bit. They were about 1 meter hight and 1.5 meters long. It was unbelievable to be with such a huge animal in the water.

There was a photo contest on our trip - they give us each a camera for three dives, and then we submit three photos each, and we all voted and the judges used the votes to help them decide who won. Matt and I won second prize - which was a Olympus 8500 camera with underwater settings, plus an underwater casing and a 1gb memory card. We also won one underwater photography specialty course (we will pay for the other and both do it).

We did get some great photos underwater - if we get copies of them, I will post them.

Happy to be back with the kitty (and home).

Racial Harmony?

One update from the last posting - there were two more cockroaches last night. These she found IN our apartment, and she put them on their backs and watched them struggle from a very close distance. I think she might not be that nice (at least to bugs).

So you hear all the time that Singapore is the place of racial harmony. Everyone gets along great, and race doesn't matter. You hear it so much that you might even be inclined to believe it! Schools are mostly mixed, public housing (remember like 85% of Singaporeans live in public housing) has quotas that have to be filled, so you DO see people mixing.

In my first job here there were a couple of Chinese who spoke Mandarin among themselves, and I thought they were doing it to be rude. We had a SMALL office where four people sat, and they weren't so nice to be anyways, so I chalked it up to them just being mean people. (I even asked them to please speak English when we're all in the office).

In my new job there are a few girls who only speak Mandarin among themselves. I also found this a bit rude, and I felt left out when I was around them.

Then I realized that it's what people do in Singapore - they speak Mandarin. Something like 80% of the population is Chinese, and it doesn't seem to bother them that 20% isn't. I asked my friend who grew up in Singapore what it was like, and she said when she went to top schools (English schools), everyone spoke English, but she too felt left out and couldn't understand people when she went to junior college (11th and 12th grades) and university. She's fricken Singaporean! Can you imagine growing up in a country that is YOURS and people speak a different language, and culture is really in a different language, and then they're all telling you that it's all amazing and harmonious? That would piss me off.

Today I went to buy 11 newspapers. First I asked for ten (I forgot that I wanted 11), and the guy got ten newspapers. Then I said, "actually I need eleven. Sorry." He didn't understand at all. I counted "nine...ten...eleven." Nope. I took one extra and he put it back. I finally had to stop someone to ask them how to say eleven newspapers. (They said it for me).

Yesterday I tried to buy a hot drink (air conditioning chills me to the bones) before my Spanish class. The guy there also didn't understand a word I said, and I had to ask another patron.

I'm not at all saying that everyone should speak English all around the world and that there is something wrong with them for not understanding me. Not at all. I'm saying that if THEY'RE saying that this is an English speaking country and all of the races get along perfectly...I disagree. They might get along fine, but it's a Chinese culture.

Happy Easter!