Wednesday night we attended the Wednesday Night Drinking Club, which is often touted on the Expat Singapore message forums. Over expensive beers at Liberte in Chijmes, we chatted with people from Germany, Netherlands, Indonesia, and the UK, and also an American, Ken, who was in town interviewing at Singapore's world-famous Zoo and Night Safari. He invited us out for a free night at the Night Safari, so that's what we did last night. They must really want him to work there, because we were given the VIP treatment; we were escorted to the front of every line, on one of their busiest nights of the year. Ken's a great guy, and we got lots of behind-the-scenes insights on the workings of zoos. I hope he decides to come work here.

Every zoo visit is a unique experience; you never know which animals will be active, or what they'll be doing. This time we had great views of the tarsiers, tapirs, and flying foxes.

Chiromancy. Up early today to go get our fingerprints done, or redone in Marjorie's case. We now have some on the official FBI card -- which we printed out ourselves, so who knows if that will be accepted -- and some on official Singapore forms. For our Singaporean we-haven't-been-arrested-here form, they had a cool digital scanner that read our fingerprints electronically. This part they happily do for free, no doubt so they can have our fingerprints on record.

Brian McBride will now be playing for Fulham, so I'll get to watch him on the telly occasionally. The English Premier League is starting to dip into the American well, not just for the talent, I'm sure, but for the potential market of new fans. Hey, it works. Go Fulham!

Chinatown, where I work, is all festive in anticipation of the year of the Monkey. I must've seen a dozen people today carrying pussy willows, which are a favorite to decorate with. We're going to get some of them, and an orange plant, like last year. Red lanterns and cards everywhere.

Settle a bet for us. How would you interpret the expression "Discretion is the better part of valor?"
a) Caution is the better part of valor.
b) Being discreet (i.e. not bragging) is the better part of valor.
One of us grew up misinterpreting that phrase. I won't say who's who.

We're living a control freak's nightmare! There are sooo many things we need to rely on other people to help us with in order to complete the last steps towards migration, and unfortunately, I don't have much faith in the people who are helping us. As Mark described, the doctor's office we visited yesterday needed a lesson in discretion, and seemed more than a bit unprofessional. It went beyond making us carry our pee in front of everyone, but I'll spare you the details.
Also, the fingerprints we need to send to the FBI are harder to obtain in the correct rolled-format then I'd hoped, but hopefully we'll resolve that tomorrow when I go back for a second attempt (Mark's first). I'm so stressed about these damned fingerprints! I know from past teaching experience (I was required to get a clearance from every teaching job I've had) that the FBI often rejects prints if they are unreadable (like the smudgy prints I was given yesterday), and it's going to take so much effort to get the prints taken here, get the cashiers checks in US dollars, and finally mail the prints to the States, that honestly if they're rejected I'll probably cry. We've purchased the stamp pad so that if it doesn't work out at the police station we can attempt to produce our own prints, but based on a first attempt, I can tell you, this is generally something better left to professionals.
Luckily getting our "no criminal record" clearance from Singapore is no problem.

Turn your head and cough, lah. Today we went together to a medical clinic to get our official health exam for Australia. Eye exam, blood test, chest x-ray, the works -- even, no lie, checking our arms for heroin-use track marks. I had to wonder about the place. The first check they performed was a urine test -- Marjorie got a cup, and I got a little litmus-test swizzle stick. And we were told that the restroom was down the hall, past all the other offices on the fifteenth floor of this office building. So we went, and went, and carried our prizes back past the accountant's office and whatever else. The receptionist just needed a visual confirmation on my pee-stick, so I held it out for her over the reception desk, and she said okay, you can throw it out over there, in the tiny step-to-open trash can in the waiting room, right next to another waiting patient.

The rest of the exam went okay, I guess, except for the doctor having to play stabby-stab-stab with my arm trying to hit the vein. She asked if I exercised a lot, because my blood pressure and pulse were low, so I guess that's good. They do need to get confirmation as to the state of my kidney stones, though, so I need to go try to take of that tomorrow. Nothing about this process ever seems to get taken care of on the first pass.