Back by Popular Demand: DAD!

If I had known Melanie was going to ask me to do this, I would’ve paid more attention.

It has been ten months since we were last here. Last time NWA only charged 60,000 miles each. What a bargain. This time it cost twice as many miles for one ticket (“rule-buster” option) and a ridiculous amount of $ for the second. (>2000). I think we’re competing with all those flying over for the Olympics. There were about 5 families on our Detroit to Tokyo plane coming over to see family members compete.
Sue made the mistake of ordering vegetarian. Very little was edible.
In the days before computerized seating they used to make an announcement on the speaker system asking for “passenger smith who ordered the .____meal to please identify himself”. I think it was comedian Don Rickels or David Steinberg who used to spoof: “Will the Jew who ordered the kosher meal please stand up”.

Sitting in the last few rows of the 747 (ancient, without indivdual TV screens) allows us to take advantage of the plane’s narrowing and to not have strangers on any side. Unsociable we are. (Seating pattern is 3-4-3, but in the back it’s 2-4-2). Plus, I have extra foot space AND an extra foot of space on the side of my window seat to leave my trashed NYT, NewYorker, BusWeek and WSJ articles. I’m slowly catching up. Not really. Flight attendant was one of the best ever. Always smiling and offering stuff—like extra wrapped cookies from other’s trays. When she saw me reading a dental journal she said it looked familiar—her husband’s a dentist in Colorado.

Two hour layover in Tokyo. Olympics on all the TV’s. Boarded A330 aircraft for Singapore. Much more modern—but I didn’t watch any of the movies.. 2-4-2 pattern throughout. We always try to get one of the “two’s”. Though it almost 1 a.m local time, Melanie’s smiling face greeted us through the glass partition of the luggage claim. Our eyes watered. Mostly Sue’s.
Matt was also up! Both will only get a few hours sleep before work/school.

I still need 2 bags (Sue’s down to one). I had so much room in bag #2 that I shlepped my fins. And extra bridge (card game) reading. I’ve been playing lots of duplicate with friend Clarke C.

Great night of sleep, then walked the somewhat familiar East Coast Park waterfront. Cheap tasty hawker food. Taxied to Mel’s school. Very impressive. Souvenier hat—I’ll wear it @ Michigania next year. Ask me…

We walked and snacked. In a restaurant/food court setting we watched Table tennis match—Singapore ladies team made the finals. It was like watching the Tigers or Lions at the Lodge back home. Lots of cheering and hometown crowd spirit.

Met Matt for drink and view from 70th floor of Swisotel. Impressive. Yummy Laksa for dinner and trek to claim some Levain cookies (it’s another long story).

Today we leave for Bali. Will be staying in 3 different locations. Mel has never been there. Matt has spent mucho time in Indonesia. I’m looking forward to relaxing, reading, snorkeling, etc.

Next time Mel, give me more warning.
Life is goo .

Overmedicated

So...I finally went to the doctor. I felt like five days of crazy amounts of mucus warranted this visit.

Basically my symptoms were of a cold (the flu part is gone, I think).

When I went to leave, they gave me the following medications:
antibiotic (for sinus infection, which I believe I have) - I took this one
some medication for fever and head ache - I denied this one
some medication for decongestant - I denied this one (we have at home)
cough syrup - I took it just in case I can't sleep at night
some steroid for my lungs - I took it because I have a hard time fighting chest infections
ventalin in pill form (which isn't as extreme) - I took it - why not try this one?

That's SIX medications. Whoa.

Business Foundations

This week I have been in business foundations classes - which is essentially math, accounting and finance camp. We have three classes during the days, and then we do work in the afternoons evenings. The only catch is that I have been so sick since Sunday (much worse starting on Monday), and I haven't gotten enough out of the classes, and I have been absolutely no help in the group work! I have only contributed germs, snot and some deep coughing.

Three observations from my first three days at INSEAD:

1) The profs are so great. They explain things well (even if our Finnish, Israeli and Russian (particularly the Russian!) profs have crazy strong accents!). They use real life examples/ newspaper articles, and they make it digestible.

2) There are really people from all over - and it is so neat. We all have name tags with our names and nationalities, and when I look around the room, I see: Brazilian, Spanish, Mexican, Japanese, French, SO MANY COUNTRIES! It's amazing that we get this many perspectives in our everyday classes! Which brings my next point...

3) Group work is essential. For the times that I have been able to join my group, I have seen that we are each able to add content at certain points, and I think that most of us would be stuck without the others. I was sort of dreading all of the group work of school, but I have a really different perspective on it now. Not only will it teach me to work in a group, blah, blah, blah, but it will also help us solve the problems!

Blog Transition

I wanted to post a warning to my readers (about 20-30 of you daily) - I think that my blog may change focus from the Singapore ex-pat experience to the business school experience. I do apologize if this doesn't interest you.

I had my first orientation tonight - for the business foundations program. People were great, dinner was sub-par, and in general, I'm excited for it all to get started.

At my dinner table were people from: Belgium, Japan, Brazil, America, UK, Canada, Korea and me. That's just cool.

Gold Class

Friday night - in honor of the Sabbath Queen - Matt and I used our gift certificates (that Nicole and Paul got us) to go see Batman in Gold Class.

Just like everything in Singapore - you can even choose to see a movie in a higher class. Its like a first class movie ticket. You get huge seats, they recline, you get a blanket, which is super important here because it's FREEZING in the movies! You get service to your seat, and there is a lot of food. The truth is that it's a bit of a rip off, since we got a small pizza for $17, but it's all for the experience.

We did enjoy it though! You can put out the foot rest, curl up in your seat, and enjoy - or at least watch the movie. I don't think Batman is a movie you enjoy watching, right? It was good, though, and so long. Here is some random person's picture of Gold Class that I stole off the internet.

In other news, our cable provider has been advertising that they have six channels dedicated to the olympics, and I couldn't imagine that it would be that good, but it is!! Right now I can watch tennis, basketball, beach volleyball, hockey, archery or swimming! Pretty amazing.

Last Day of Work

So...again in Singapore I had my last day of work. This followed my last day of Spanish class.

I am actually sad to leave my job. I really enjoy the people I work with (which according to NPR is 90% of someone's happiness at a job), and I really enjoyed what I have been doing. The admin part I could give in a second, but I really enjoyed business development. Though it is the job that I have been least emotionally involved in, I think I have been happier at this job than any other. Pretty weird, but that leads to me being sad to leave!

Wednesday night I also had my last day of Spanish class. I have absolutely loved my Spanish class. So fun to learn - only for me - once a week. The profesora and the other students were outstanding, and I'm going to miss it! The good news is that since I enjoyed that a lot, I think I will really enjoy learning all day everyday.

The Black Manta

This past weekend (ending about 45 minutes ago), Matt and I went on the Black Manta. It is a live aboard boat that has about 26 divers and around 8 staff. We set out from a yacht club in Singapore, and we sailed through the night towards Tioman. We got in four dives on Saturday, two today, and then we made it back to Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal around 8:45 or so.

Details...
We went through immigration on a boat (they didn't actually check our faces with our passports...the boat just collected them, looked through them, and that was it).

The boat was sooooo relaxing and luxurious. The dive deck has tons of space, so you're not all crowded around, there's a big area with four big tables plus a buffet table, and that's shaded. There's a room with a flat screen tv and a million and one dvds. There's a sun deck on the top of the boat that even has shade, and lounge chairs. Most people stayed in private rooms with bathrooms. We stayed in the budget accommodations, which was a room with a few bunk beds - you don't spend too much time in the rooms.

The first day's dives were good, but we didn't see anything spectacular other than a sleeping scorpion fish - maybe you can spot it in the photo?

Saturday night Matt got food poisoning. He was the only one on the boat, so it was either a little piece of something icky or just something that his body rejected. He says he nearly died and could barely move, but he didn't wake me up, so I cannot be a witness. :( He sat out the Sunday dives.

Luckily...he didn't miss anything. The Sunday dives had visibility of between three and five meters. For the first dive, we got dropped off by a dinghy, and we all went under, and somehow everyone in our group stayed together - except for our dive master. We looked around for him, but we couldn't find him, so I decided to go up, but I didn't have a "sausage" - the thing you blow up to show that there are divers below, and then the boat guys know to come pick you up. Anyways, I went up, and I didn't see him, and the current was SUPER strong on the surface, so I tried to go back down to get the rest of the group, but I couldn't find them, so I stayed on the surface and screamed for Gary, and finally the boat guy came to get me, and then the other four popped up, and then so did Gary (our DM). We all went down together and basically swam up each other's asses the rest of the day.

There is also a picture here of the biggest eel we have ever seen. It was HUGE! Check out under the yellow coral. (The eel that has his head sticking out isn't the same one)

I wanted to try a live-aboard so that I could see if we could do a longer one in the Similan Islands or in the Great Barrier Reef...and I did feel pretty sea sick most of today. I took so many pills...I'm not sure if I can do it, but I will definitely do a two day trip with them again. It was outstanding service, great people, EXCELLENT food, and the diving would have been good if the vis was better - and that wasn't their fault!

Click here to see all of our pictures.