Happy Birthday, Boon. Happy Marriage, Christian. Happy Hangover, Mel and Matt

We have had a really relaxing weekend. I went to shul on Friday night and met a wonderful woman who is from Singapore - third generation Singaporean, originally from Iraq. I have mentioned that I haven't found that community so welcoming, but this woman was so amazingly nice. That was good news.

Saturday we had someone clean our air cons (that's what they call a/c here), and we found out that we have a gas leak in one which has led to our living room and dining room air cons not working since we moved in here. It's not "light on fire" gas, so we're okay. He's going to come back in three weeks to fix it.

We also had someone come and replace our toilet pump. Unfortunately then the toilet started leaking, so he had to come back, but it's all good now, and now we can actually go to the bathroom in our bathroom in the bedroom. We haven't used it in about two months. We're so lazy that it doesn't bother us.

We also went grocery shopping, which is crucial.

Then, we met Matt's friend from grad school, Courtney, out for a drink. She was AWESOME. She's working for Catholic Relief Services in Aceh, and she was just a super woman, and I REALLY enjoyed talking to her (and just connecting with SOMEONE!). We were then going for dinner for Matt's friend, Boon Yian's 30th birthday. Turns out that we are American, so since they called it for 7:00, we showed up at 7:15. No one else showed up until after 8. So we drank. And then people got there, but no one was eating, so someone ordered finger food, so we didn't end up eating dinner, but we kept drinking. Boon's friends were excellent - particularly one guy who pays Asians to write op-eds that he sends to newspapers around the world. He had lots of opinions (which are sometimes hard to find out here), and he was super. Matt went with Christian for his bachelor party, and they went to some club with Thai women all over the place. Sounds really high class, I know - but Matt said it was. Whatever.

He left me to get drunk with Courtney (the friend from SAIS) and Boon's friends. Luckily we WERE drunk, because there was an air guitar contest there, and that wouldn't have been funny sober. It was hilarious, though. One person was dressed like Van Halen. He played the "guitar" with his teeth, behind his neck, and he was great. The winner actually won a guitar. A real one. Overall, it was a fun night...

Until I left my phone in the cab, and I didn't realize it, so Matt worried that something happened to me and came running home. I had to pay the driver $30 to bring the phone back. Matt was a disaster last night. I got to stay up to listen to Michigan pull it off against N'western - thank god.

We learned a valuable lesson - we are not 22. We have been HURTING all day. Really bad. Still feel sick, and it's 9:30 pm. There's just no excuse.

This is the most undeep blog posting yet. I hope you all still respect me (and Matt).

Escalator Completed Before Finishing Date

In Michigan, when they're fixing the road, there's sometimes a sign that says, "Work to be completed by..." The work is NEVER completed by that date. Never.

In our MRT station, one of the escalators was out of business. It had a sign up that it would be completed by 28th of September. It wasn't. It was completed WAY before then! Like two weeks before that date!!!

It's unclear if this means that:
-in Singapore they're simply more realistic
-in Singapore they're simply WAY MORE productive and efficient
-in Singapore they put a date far off so that they APPEAR way more productive and efficient when they finish "early"...

I guess we'll never know.

Singapore Theatre and JBJ

Last night two volunteers from my work invited me to see a play with them. We saw The Campaign to Confer the Public Service Star on JBJ. It was hilarious. I had no idea that there was space for this type of discussion in Singapore, so it was also pretty enlightening to me.

Essentially, JBJ is a super controversial guy. The way I heard it - he's the only person who has been willing to stand up to Lee Kwan Yew and tell him he's corrupt and talk about nepotism, etc. He was the head of the opposition party in Singapore, and apparently even if people agree with him, they don't vote for him. He's just a lone dude.

This play was basically making fun of Singapore politics and culture. They talked about how difficult it is to get things done with crazy bureaucracy and about how people don't like to talk about controversial things. One of the ladies I was with said that people will go to these plays, and they'll laugh, but then they won't talk about it. They said that there are spaces to complain and make fun of Singapore, but they're not common. It was really funny.

The best part was that this morning I was meeting with the president of our organization, and her phone rang and talked to someone for a couple of minutes. At the end, she said, "Okay, JBJ, thanks for calling. I'll talk to you soon." I asked her whom she was talking to, and then I told her I saw a play about him just last night!

Chag Sameach.
Happy moon(cake) festival.

God on the MRT

This woman was trying to hand people pieces of paper that talked about Jesus and god (God?). The guy next to me ignored her. I said, "no thank you." The guy standing next to her said, "I don't think you're allowed to be handing out things on the train." Someone else standing near her said, "I don't want you to get in trouble, so I will not take it. It is illegal to hand people things on the train."

Singaporeans love rules.

Three More Interesting Things about YK

1) It was the first time I heard a rabbi talk about when the Torah was canonized.
2) The cantor started off yizkor by playing guitar and singing a song from Wicked.
3) There was no PAINFUL part at the end where you have to stand for an hour.

Before you get the wrong idea, I will tell you that I liked all of these things.

1) The Rabbi did a study session on Yom Kippur afternoon, and it was looking at a piece of Torah that we read that afternoon (which, btw, is something different than all congregations I have been a part of reads). I really enjoyed the session and the way he conducted it. One of the points that he brought up was that one of the sentences we were studying - in Leviticus 19 - has a very similar sentence in Deuteronomy, but it's sort of the expanded version. Then a discussion went about which might have been written first. I have to say that I DO NOT believe that God told the Torah to Moshe at Sinai. I do not believe that Moshe wrote it all down and it has been passed down in that form for thousands of years. However, nearly EVERYONE I have learned with HAS believed that (or at least they act like they do), and it was a bit shocking for me to hear the discussion around when the Torah was canonized - led by a rabbi!

The good news is that I enjoyed this session, and I think I respect this rabbi more than so many others, because the conversation seemed so much more real and honest (and for so many other reasons too - he's really great). Maybe I should go study with some progressive people.

2) At the beginning of Yizkor (where you remember the dead), the cantor started singing the song, "For Good." I heard myself singing the words, but I could not place it. Was it a cheezy song from camp in the early 90s? Was it Dar Williams or some other folky person that I learned about after college? I really couldn't place it. I asked Shoshana, who was sitting next to me, and she didn't know, but she also recognized it. Matt didn't know. I finally thought - maybe this is from a musical? Finally it hit me that it was from Wicked. It was really beautiful, and really enjoyable. It was also pretty hilarious that I had the book, Wicked, with me at services...

3) I hate fasting. Being hungry is seriously one of my least favorite things in life. I know most people don't like it, but I have fasting-anxiety. I really hate it a lot. I think that a major part of my hatred actually has to do with the fact that growing up, we had to stand for an hour at the end of Neila (the ending service of YK) each year. The ark is open, so you really can't sit down (or you feel super guilty). My back would hurt, my knees would shake, and I was really hungry. With this service, we did stand at the end, but it was for about 15 minutes, and it wasn't painful at all. Is it really necessary to stand for the entire amidah and the repetition AND the sh'mas AND havdalah? No. I like it better the way we did it in Singapore (Reform). Are we becoming Reform Jews? Probably not - but we (MATT TOO!!) just really like Rabbi Thal and this great community.

In addition, Rabbi Thal's sermon totally related to something I'm going through at work, and it really spoke to me. I appreciated that. It took a conversation I keep having with Matt one step further.

In other news, we went out with a bunch of great Jews after break fast. We were with a couple from Australia who are living on an island in Indonesia, Lombok, near Bali, a girl from DC who is doing some relief work in Aceh, Indonesia, a girl who went to grad school with Matt and lived on his hall in DC who is living in Cambodia, and about three people young Jews living in Singapore. Great people.

Cheshbon Nefesh

Matt and I went to Kol Nidre with the Reform Movement here. It was one of my only meaningful Kol Nidres. I *really* enjoy Rabbi Thal. He does a few things that really make his services stand out. One thing is that he talks about real issues in his sermon - it's not about supporting Israel or being a strong Jewish community. It's about paying attention to the life that's around us, or paying attention to our inner selves. (Matt also likes that he tells good jokes - he had a really good one tonight which I'll share below). He also shares a poem or a little ditty before the kaddish. During RH it was about how a woman wishes that the older generation was still around and how she didn't appreciate them enough while they were there. Tonight it was essentially The Giving Tree, and how there's always something to take/learn from someone else.

On the way home, Matt and I were doing a bit of Cheshbon Nefesh - talking about who we are, what we've done over the past year, and some general good thinking. We started with last year at this time when we were in Michigan saying good-bye to his Zaydie. We essentially moved through the year, remembering trips and visits with people. We couldn't believe that we returned from South Africa, went to Michigan for Matt's cousin's wedding, went back to NYC for three days, then went back to Michigan for Thanksgiving and then back to NYC. Also, we were remembering going to Israel, Florida and Georgia three weekends in a row, I think. How did we do all of that?

We were talking about how our life is supposed to be so much more exciting now, since we're living in ASIA, and that's exotic and all that, but really life just feels normal. When we do get off of this island, it does feel new and exotic, but traveling on the weekends is exhausting with our long hours. Hmmm. Not sure what to make of that, but I do know that we're going to Cambodia and Thailand in the next couple of months, and possibly Malaysia for a weekend her or there.

The funny story that Rabbi Thal told - in old-time Europe, when men went out with hats, one man lost his hat. He felt frustrated that he lost it, and he wasn't prepared to buy a new one. He decided to go to synagogue on Saturday morning and leave a bit early after stopping in the coat room and taking a hat. The rabbi spoke about the ten commandments for the sermon, and the man ultimately decided against his plan. He spoke to the rabbi afterwards and told him the whole story of what he was going to do. The rabbi asked, "so, what did I say that convinced you not to steal someone's hat?" The guy said, "while you were going through the commandments, there was one dealing with adultery, which reminded me about where I left my hat."

One more thing that the rabbi said that I really liked. He said that Yom Kippur is really Yom HaKippurim in Hebrew. K'Purim means "like Purim." Purim is another Jewish holiday where you dress up and feast. How is Yom Kippur like Purim? Masks. On Purim we put on a mask and pretend to be someone else and on YK we take it off and show our honest selves to ourself and god (maybe). I liked that a lot.

G'mar Tov - and we should all be written in the Good Book (if it exists) and have a meaningful Yom Kippur - or at least a day of reflection.

Holland India London Denmark England Burma Rwanda America Netherlands Denmark Thailand

Okay, they probably wouldn't include Rwanda.

When I used to spell my name I would say "Birnholtz, B as in 'boy' i - r - n - h - o - l - t - z as in 'zebra.'"

Now, I say "Hildebrandt, H - i - l - d as in 'dog' - e - b as in 'boy' - r - a - n - d as in 'dog' - t as in 'tom.'"

In Singapore, they jump right in with the countries. They don't even say "Tan, that's T as in Thailand, A as in America, N as in Netherlands." They say my name is Cheryl Thailand America Netherlands.

I take a lot of messages at work, and it's pretty confusing when I think people's last names are always countries.

I was so productive after work that I suffered an hour and twenty minute commute, went to the dr office (it was just as pleasant as the last time), swam 24 laps, made veggie lasagna and ate it.