Ick. Back on line again, from home. After several failed attempts to get an XP boot disk locally (I didn't want to have to wait for one through the mail), and a failed attempt to load FreeBSD instead, I ended up going with the most hateful option. I bought XP again. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go take a shower.

Rrrrr. I have my new hard disk installed on my laptop, but have run into the wall trying to reinstall Windows XP. I have a product key for it, but not the original installation disks, and any other installation disks will not work because you can't reuse license keys that way. My options are: 1. Buy it all over again, for US$200. 2. Get a pirated version. 3. Bid Microsoft adieu and go install Linux.

I know everyone thinks Microsoft is scrupulous and honest and non-manipulative, but I'm starting to wonder.

Weekly geeking. The choice of text editor is a crucial decision for computer programmers. Fierce loyalties develop, much in the same way chefs will swear by a set of knives, or pit crew bosses a particular brand of motor oil.

Just yesterday my boss strongly suggested that I switch to Emacs, so that we could exchange tips, use particular modes, etc. I told him, flat out, "No".

This is not stubbornness, or Ludditism. I know Emacs very well, and swore by it for many years -- I used to even joke that it was my religion. But lately I've had to wander back into the Unix environment a bit, and have been messing around with Emacs sparingly, and -- the honeymoon is over. I find it awkward and stupid now. A big clumsy overachiever who doesn't play nice with the other kids.

I still use it when I'm in Unix and need some power feature, like macros. But (and I never thought I'd ever say this), I've found that I prefer vi. It's a moronic editor on many levels, but it's lightweight and reliable, and doesn't leave me frustrated nearly as often.

In Windows I'll be sticking with TextPad. This is as fine a piece of software as I've ever used, and I recommend it highly.

Bother, bother, bother. The hard disk on our home computer has been screeching at us of late, and is about to take a dirt nap. I am endeavoring to swap it out and save all the info off of it, but it may be a day or two before we're back to being able to post regular blogs. Is our apartment building built on top of an ancient Asian burial ground or something?

Flying things. While at Singapore's superb Jurong Bird Park yesterday, we were buzzed by many fascinating birds in their aviaries, but the coolest thing that buzzed us was not even a bird. We were just walking down a path when a flying lizard skimmed just over our heads, alighting on a thin tree just in front of us. How cool is that? He wasn't part of any exhibit; in fact, it was probably a stupid place for him to be hanging out. We got a good look at him on the tree; about six inches long, brown with a blue-green head, and had a neck wattle that he could thrust out.

Also while in the bird park, we had a good sighting of a new bird species that we can actually count because he wasn't part of any exhibit. In the surrounding trees we spotted a Goldenback woodpecker. We aren't sure if it was the Common or Greater variety, though.

There were several new outstanding exhibits at the park, including the waterfall aviary (a meshed-in enclosure as big as a small stadium) and the Windows on Paradise, where we watched the male birds of paradise put on wild displays for the females. Like the zoo, the encounters are in-your-face, without a safety screen. Nice to be in a country where civil litigation isn't running the show...

Sorry for the lack of blogs on my part. I've been worn out after work every day this week, and just haven't felt up to blogging. And it seems the longer I go without blogging the less inclined I am to blog (kinda like exercising).
Nothing much to report this week. We met Angie, a fellow Singaporean blogger last night, as she was gracious enough to invite us out. Thanks again Angie, it was a pleasure to meet you.
School is going well, but I've decided not to renew my contract for next year. As such, my employment pass will be expiring shortly after the 7th of June. I'm thinking of starting my own business, as there appears to be no agency here that specializes in working with infants with special needs (and I'm sure there is a need), but I'm not sure I want to deal with all the logistics that go with owning and operating your own business. We'll see what happens.
I'm probably going to come back to the States in July, as I really can't bear waiting until December ( I need a burrito! and I'm out of all of my Aveda products and can't get them here). Mark will not be accompanying me, unfortunately. If I'm invited (hint, hint Kristina, Michael, and Alison) I'm thinking of stopping in LA on my way to ATL for a few days, and spending a few days in Portland, OR. on the way home. Any interest in coming to Atlanta, Karen? If not with some cajoling I might be willing to go to NYC. It'd be wonderful if I could see all of my favorite women in one trip!
Congratulation to my father for surviving another tax season and ridding himself of an annoying co-worker. Good for you Dad!

Interesting. A grocery store that was sealed off in 1952 is being auctioned. Be sure to check out the pictures. I bet the Twinkies are still edible. Or, at least as edible as when they started.

Gee, it's nice to be out of Georgia.

Mixed bag.

We (my cow orker and I) were supposed to have heard back already about the contract that would've had me going down to Tasmania for a month. The delay is having us think that it might not happen. We had a strong proposal, so I haven't lost hope.

We have AC again ("aircon" is the term that just rolls off people's tongues here). It is blessed relief.

Take a gander at my favorite movies as well as my least favorite.

SARS notes: Been seeing fewer masks this week, but have noticed many people kick doors open rather than touch the handle.

At the hawker center near my work they have "Sheep Scourge Soup". It's listed next to the "Sheep Tongue Soup", and was accompanited by a very unappetizing picture of a bowl of grayish looking broth with some sort of organ floating in it. How easy it would be for them to film Fear Factor here.

I had no idea that Isaac Asimov died of AIDS.

Currently reading The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, which, had I known it was published in 1956, I probably wouldn't have bought. But it's fantastic and I'm glad I did. Someone should really make a movie of it.

Singapore medicine. I have a lesion on my ankle that's been there for many years. Today I got it checked out, at Singapore's National Skin Center. Even without all the right paperwork, I was in and out in about forty-five minutes. That included an examination and a tissue sample taken after a numbing shot (which actually hurt like heck). Health care is cheap here, too, it seems, from the stories I've heard, although mine wasn't all THAT cheap -- S$210, or about $120 U.S. That's still probably a lot cheaper than it would have cost me back in the States. The big bummer will be missing soccer for a couple of weeks while the stitch heals.

A great game today. Played my best game of soccer in ten years. Even scored a goal -- against our own team. That was the only slip-up, and it wasn't really my fault (ball bouncing on near goal line, one of our guys tried to clear it right through me) . Very fun, beating a team that's better than you.

We went to the Night Safari again last night. The otters were the most amusing; about thirty of them were all screeching at each other, and us, at the same time. The malay tigers were pretty cool, too; they used to be native here, so they're perfectly adapted to the forest here. Last year when we visited the bat cage, one of the humongous flying foxes let us walk right up to him while he was eating, but this time they stayed on the roof (although we got buzzed a couple of times).

We took pictures, but the only good one was this shot out over the big lake in the center of Singapore.

When the apartment's running down, you make the best of what's still around. The AC which I thought was fixed has quit on us again. My faith in the repair people in this town has gone from slim to nonexistent. Remember, we are already dealing with a washer/dryer that has already had FIVE visits from a repairman and now works worse than when we started. And I forgot to mention, the other day, just after we commiserating each other over how our apartment is falling apart, the faucet in the sink just fell off while we were cooking, spraying water everywhere.

We may just have to figure out how the British colonialists did it, back in the day, without air conditioning. Maybe I'll start drinking more Singapore slings.

Hooray! AC and light bulb are fixed. I had the guys who were fixing the AC take a look at removing the light bulb. The guy just got on a ladder, and wiggle-wiggle-wiggle-pop! and the bulb was out. No twisting involved.

Further exciting bulletins as events warrant!

Languages. What I've been working on this week is the ability for the software we're creating to be used by people who speak different languages. It's really interesting. I've developed a French interface, based on the piddly bits I remember from high school, and a little help from an on-line translator.

Two of the languages we were hoping to support, Hindi and Thai, are just not expressable by the underlying software (Java, or more specifically, Swing) because they are so strange in written form. They're promising to support them someday, but as for now, we're just stuck. My officemate, who's Indian, says that nobody uses Swing in India because of this.

Hindi is an interesting written language!

All the "letters" hang off of an imaginary line.

Consonants have vowels automatically associated with them (but which can get overridden by vowels).

No spaces between words (until recently, I think).

They have their own symbols for numbers (until recently, again; they've started to use Arabic numbers).

The order of consonants and vowels may not necessarily correspond to the phonetic order!

Although it goes left to right, sometimes symbols are stacked vertically.

There are some symbols (called conjuncts) that stand for collections of other consonants.

No wonder it's not supported in Swing. Are we just lucky that English is so much easier to render? There are apparently some theories that state we've been able to advance faster due to the fact that our language is boiled down to a small number of easily represented symbols. Imagine trying to print Hindi on an eighteenth century printing press.

I do think Hindi is more aesthetically pleasing than English, though, but not as much as Arabic or Hieratic (as we once saw in the British Museum). I've been thinking of taking a caligraphy course; around here, it would probably have to be Chinese though. My Japanese lessons are on hold until they find some more people who are willing to attend.

Blast from the past. I've just downloaded an Apple ][ emulator just so I could play Aztec, a game I played in high school back in -- 1983? Wow, twenty years ago, and it's amazing how much of the game I remember. This is so cool. There's emulators out there for everything; chances are, if you name the game, I can tell you what you need to download to play it on your computer, for nearly any old computer or home video game system or arcade game maker. If you love games and don't already have Mame on your computer, you are seriously missing out. (I also highly recommend this accessory to go with; I have one, but unfortunately, it was too bulky to bring with.)

The light bulb. Okay, at my Dad's request, here's two shots of the light bulb in the kitchen that has us stumped. The base of the bulb is inset about four to six inches into the ceiling, making it very difficult to get at. I've tried twisting the bulb part a little bit, which was a bad idea, as it now is ready to break off. I need something like a plumber's wrench with six-inch tips to grab the base around the bulb.

(I know there are bigger problems in the world, but bear with me, everyone... Brainstorming on engineering problems is very much a family thing; a big part of growing up, which I'm very grateful for! Non-family input is still definitely welcome.)

Yum! Just back from the greatest Thai food on the planet. Made a point of remembering the name this time: Diandin Leluk, in the Golden Mile complex. Every time we eat there, we leave wondering why we ever eat anywhere else, ever. Tonight we had the Thai beef salad (in a sweet, very spicy sauce) and the spiced chicken wrapped in Pandan (sp?) leaves. Everything's so good we've started getting extra take away food every time we eat there (this time, we absconded with green curry chicken soup and pat thai) for our next day's meal. We have yet to have anything even mediocre, even going in with high expectations each time. It's still an experience going there, too, for the ambience; it's in a shopping center that's a like a little bit of Thailand transplanted into Singapore. A little bit seedy. There are beer girls walking around, hawking Tiger and Singha beers, but they are usually women in their forties wearing short dresses designed for teenagers. And tonight we went shopping in the Thai grocery store, and came away with all sorts of wonderful sauces and prawn crackers and such.

I miss the days of central air conditioning!!! We have two wall air-con units in our apartment, one of which is currently not working, the other which drips water constantly, but irregularly (all night long). We live in the tropics and air conditioning is not a luxury, it's a must. We've been miserable for the last few days. The repair guys here now, but as with all repairs we've experienced so far in Singapore, this will seemingly not be a quick fix. Sigh. We also have a light out in the kitchen that we've been unable to replace. We're too stupid to figure out how to get the old lightbulb out (in our defense it's broken and in a concave hole thingy so difficult to get to). Our apartment is falling to shit all around us. And it's too small. I'm ready to move.
Other than that, things are going well. I have three new students in my class now (up to 8 total), two of which don't speak English, but so far so good. The SARS paranoia (or is it just caution) has invaded the school. Each morning we have to meet the kids in the auditorium after they go through a line up with nurses checking them to make sure none of them are sick. The process takes forever so I've had to so up an hour early at work (with all the other teachers) every day this week which truly bites. So far I've been able to explain this process to the kids in a way that makes sense to them. I don't want to scare them, and we've been told by the administration that it's not our place to talk to the kids about SARS. Fair enough, but I wonder how they perceive all this mania.

Pop ups. I've been getting a rash of popups that look like this that neither Ad-Aware nor Pop-up Stopper seem to do anything about. Seen these? Any clue on how to prevent them?

Tomb raiding. Today I was browsing around a Malaysian newspaper, based in Borneo. It seems that tomb raiding is still common there, for two reasons, according to one government official. See if you can guess what they are. (Hint: they have nothing to do with Lara Croft.) Give up? Read on. There's something funny about primitive thinking being expressed over a modern medium. That's the internet in a nutshell, though, innit?

Easter. At our hotel in Bali, they had a little Easter display set up for the Western tourists (Easter for Westerners?). They had a little pen with white rabbits and yellow and pink baby chicks (the pink ones having been dyed that way). What struck me was what they had by the front entrance -- a nativity scene. Makes me wonder how often we try to do things here for "when in Rome" reasons, only to be given away by some tiny detail we fail to understand.

Anyway, Happy Easter!

Back from Bali. It seemed like a teaser Bali experience at best; we could easily do a month there.

For our second of only two complete days there, we decided we were too sunburned to go surfing. So, we opted to hire a car and driver to just take us around to where we wanted to go. While we were waiting for the driver to arrive, Marjorie went back to our hotel room to get something and found that our suitcase that we had just piled a bunch of things on suddenly had nothing on it, as if someone had been going through it, and the patio door was left open. We're guessing the culprit bolted out when he heard Marjorie coming in. Anyway, after some harsh words with the hotel staff (we suspect an inside job), we moved on, as nothing seemed to be missing...

We had our driver take us to Ubud, where we visited the Monkey Temple and Forest, then had lunch. Afterwards Marjorie went off shopping while I went to explore the rice paddies. On the drive out we encountered this procession of people on the way to one of the many temples in the area.

We finished the day at Ulu Watu, which was fab.

Several new birds were spotted, but only one positively identified: the white-headed munia.

Buying knickknacks in the airport while waiting to leave yesterday, Marjorie and I both were intended victims of rip-off shenanigans by store clerks, in separate instances. If Bali doesn't want tourists to leave their island with bad tastes in their mouth, they really need to crack down on this.

I forgot to mention the other day: on the way over, from the plane, we saw a volcano somewhere on the north coast of Java that was actively spewing smoke. Way cool.

And I was going to say that besides having to sign a health declaration, we weren't tested for SARS coming back into Singapore. But, maybe we were.

Cheers from the Southern hemisphere. We arrived in Bali yesterday and went out to see traditional dancing last night. We had a fantastic day today; took a water sports tour out Nusa Lembongan, and snorkeled, sea-kayaked (even in the nearby reef break!), swam, rode a banana boat, hopped in a glass-bottom boat... Lots of fun and sun. We took the fast catamaran out, and I guess due to the sagging tourist industry out here, had the boat to ourselves, with our own three-person crew. (Some people who missed the boat in the morning joined us for the trip back, though.) Tomorrow we're thinking of trying some surfing in the morning, then going to see Ulu Watu, a temple on a cliff.

Since we'll be south of the equator tomorrow, I was going to do a test to see if toilets really do flush clockwise on one side of the equator and counter on the other (the official word on why they do that is that they don't). Unfortunately, the water in our toilet here just kind of goes down. I'll file a breathless report from Bali because I know you are all curious.

Today's SARS looniness:

Hong Kong is taking the temperature of all departing visitors.

Amazingly, scientists have already sequenced the genome. This should hopefully lead to a SARS test, very soon, which will help to quarantine people before they start coughing on everyone. Go, Western medicine!

And in a gross overreaction, our apartment complex has closed our swimming pool, conference room, and weight room until further notice.

You know what's really insidious about this SARS thing? The symptoms play on your imagination. Let me explain.

One of the main symptoms is a dry cough.

Think, dry cough. Drrryyyyy cooouuughhhh.

If you're not already coughing, you're probably at least feeling a tickle in the back of your throat. With just a soupçon of mental effort, it's not hard to imagine shortness of breath, neck pain, or a fever...

Last minute scare. It turns out that as of this week, Indonesia wants a visa. Even our travel agent didn't know. They issue it at the airport, but I don't know WHAT would've happened if we had shown up without the required passport photos. I thought we were going to have to scramble out this evening to take some sweaty photos taken, but we managed to scrape some up. It's still going to cost us an extra US$100, which is a stinker. Good plan, Indonesia, for reviving your lagging tourist industry.

Pouty. Boo hoo, no Borneo. We decided that there's too much there to see in four days. Even just the Malaysian part of Borneo is bigger than all of the other part of Malaysia that we're attached to. And the Mulu cave area that I wanted to see is a long haul from the city where you can initially fly into. So we're having to "settle" for Bali. This will be Marjorie's first time south of the equator. Yes, we'll be careful. We're not the kind to hang out in the heavily touristed areas anyway.

I've been playing around with The Gimp (the open source answer to Photoshop), which is why the blog title is now three-dimensional. Exciting, yes? I saved it in a graphics format (PNG) that's not compatible with all browsers, yet, so let me know if the title doesn't appear for you. I think you must agree that the fancy title gives this blog a level of class that it richly fails to deserve.

Legitimate. Right, it's official now, I'm an expat. I (finally) got my work permit today, good until April 2005. I feel like I just received a diploma, graduating into another level of traveler. Official expatdom, apparently getting a job and an apartment here weren't enough to do the trick.
Mark's pouty. We're going to Bali, not to Borneo. Life clearly sucks when these are your choices. We went to a party recently at a house and experienced house (or at least space) envy after living in our tiny one bedroom apartment, but over dinner we realized somewhere we made a choice, a house or Bali, right now we choose Bali.

Malaysia is our target destination next week for Marjorie's spring break. We were thinking of going back to Tioman, but figured, we can always go there on a weekend; why not do something a little further away while we have the time? So now we're thinking Borneo. It looks, just, incredible. If for some reason it doesn't happen, I'm going to be awfully pouty.

For convoluted reasons my employment pass here is delayed, and officially I'm working for a Hong Kong company. Marjorie's pass is going to come through now, so I'm signing on as a dependent.

Filling out the form to become a dependent, I notice it has the following options:

Wife
Child

Which am I, again?

Marjorie doesn't have SARS. I thought I'd make that point first -- before mentioning that she has a slight fever. SARS starts with a high fever and several other symptoms she doesn't have. She went to the doctor today, who prescribed some antibiotics; in fact, to take off work in this town, you pretty much have to have a doctor's note. What stinks is that I can't buy a thermometer for her anywhere, because spooked Singaporeans have bought up the whole stock. I've been seeing more and more people wearing surgical face masks, which are pretty much useless, except for keeping you from spreading it if you already have it.

So I'm trying to decide whether there's anything to this SARS thing to be afraid of, or is it just hype? I think the answer is, it's something to watch out for. It probably wouldn't kill us if we caught it, but it does have a mortality rate much higher than your typical influenza. SARS doesn't have as high a mortality rate as the West Nile virus we had back in Atlanta; it just spreads a lot faster. It's far more dangerous to the young and old, but it has killed some people who were in their prime. So we're being careful. I thought they had it under control, but some new cases sprung up today, both here and in Hong Kong.

There's an text message making the rounds on people's cell phones:

Nobody cares if I live or die, but everyone cares if I cough.

Took a quick jaunt up the road to the MacRitchie Reservoir for some nature spotting today. It's a fine, fine place to visit, with nicely groomed walking trails, a boardwalk around the water, and some nature trails. There were few birds to be seen, but the calls were could occasionally hear were not the usualy calls we hear around our section of town. As we walked along we came across a pack of twenty or so long-tailed macaques! They were all a little too tame; only just a little bit leery of us. There was one large male, obviously the alpha, who wasn't frightened at all, even when a jogger went by. Several of the babies weren't too afraid either.

We had to curtail our visit due to an encroaching thunderstorm, but on our way back to the bus stop we investigated a loud bird call coming from a high tree. We were disappointed to see what looked like a pair of your average mynahs, but a closer look revealed they had more striking features. Turns out they were hill mynahs, which are a relatively rare sight in Singapore.

We took the long way back on the bus, and ended up passing this humongous Buddhist complex, which we're definitely going to have to check out later on...

Wacky! The Singapore government has extended all primary school closings until the 16th due to SARS. My school however is undecided about whether we will be closed the whole time or not. I was told to tell all my families that we will be closed on Monday and they can check the website after 2pm Monday for information regarding the rest of the week. We (teachers) have also been told not to be too attached to our spring break (which was supposed to be the 14-18) and the end of the year date (presently June 7). Of course teachers had to go in everyday last week and have to report on Monday as well, so if spring break is cancelled we will get no break at all. This sucks.

Here's a series of images just for you Mom. I know you're surrounded by a lot of depressing stuff right now. Hopefully this/these will add a smile to eveyone's day.
love
birth
bear
what?
dance

Geeky stuff. The New York Times has this article about the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, which I was involved with for several years. The article does a pretty good job of capturing the spirit and intensity of the event. The combined brain power in that one room is staggering; I don't know why more companies don't recruit there. I was on teams competing in the finals, twice (finishing 16th and 5th overall -- "toot! toot!" goes my own horn), and the whole experience has to count as my fondest memory -- the time of my life. If you've ever been a part of a team that was focused and driven with all of their being towards achieving some goal, you know what I'm talking about. You just feel more alive. And I learned sooooo much; almost as much as I did in all my other college classwork put together.

We worked hard, similar to the teams mentioned in the article, drilling for six or seven hours every Saturday, with additional meetings during the week. But it never seemed like work. We did some crazy things in the practice drills. The practice room was made to be intentionally noisy, and bright lights were shone in our teams faces occasionally (like a roving cameraman), because that's what happens in the international competitions. We would occasionally foul up the judging, again, because that's what happens in the international competitions, and we wanted the team members to be prepared for it, and deal with it, and move on. To increase our rigor, we would sometimes have a practice where we were only given an editor, and no compiler, and we had to submit programs without ever compiling them. That was tough. We knew our strengths and weaknesses; teams would get to the point where they could look at a set of contest problems and immediately tell who was going to solve what.

The contest is limited to college students only. Plus, because of the ACM's stupid eligibility requirements, once you've competed nationally twice, you can't compete anymore. So it had to all come to an end. I would love to find something where I could experience that level of intensity again some day.

Old jokes. I'm on an email general discussion list with a guy who works for a university translating Latin texts. He just posted these jokes, which were written down in A.D. 400 (though they might be older than that). And I thought my grandfather told some old jokes!

A student who wanted to teach his ass not to chew on things stopped giving him food. When the ass died from hunger, he said: "What a disaster! Just when I had taught him not to chew, he goes and dies on me."

A friend asked a student who was travelling overseas: "Could you please buy me two slaves, each fifteen years old." He replied: " If I can't find what you want, I'll buy you one who is thirty."

A couple of good-for-nothing students were complaining to one another that their fathers were still alive. One said: "How about we each kill our father?" "No way," said the other. "That would make us parricides. But if you like, I'll kill yours and you can kill mine."

A fellow ran into a student and said to him: "The slave you sold me has died." "By the gods," he replied, " he never did anything like that when he was with me."

A student was on a voyage and a storm sprung up. When his servants started wailing, he said: "Don't wail. I've left you all your liberty in my will."

A student invited to a meal didn't eat. When one of the guests asked him why he wasn't eating, he replied: "In case I appear to have come for the food."

A student writing to his father from Athens, thoroughly proud of what he had learnt, added: "I hope I will find you charged in a capital case, so I can show you my skill as a lawyer."

Hmm. Even though I love Mutts, I have to say that Mark's new icon annoys me. It doesn't match the rest of the blog asthetics. Does it bother anyone else?

Sudden acute respiratory silliness. Marjorie reports seeing people on the MRT (subway) with surgical masks. I haven't noticed any yet, but my head is usually in a book.

The guy who scooped my ice cream today, though, was wearing one. They also had a sign up, talking about the anti-bacterial cleansing agent they're using in defense of SARS. Which would be really helpful if SARS was a bacteria.

We could still visit Thailand now if we wanted, like we did a few weeks back, but because we're from Singapore, we'd have to wear a mask the entire time. Imagine the tan lines.

My soccer coach sent out an email, saying that anyone who shows symptoms at this Sunday's game will be sent home. He is also temporarily suspending the communal jug of Tang we use for hydration.

Hong Kong just sent out text messages to six million cell phone users, trying to quash a rumor that they've been declared an "infected" city.

Crazy times...

It bothered me that the little counter I had over to the left only counted civilian casualties, as if they were the only ones that counted. So now I've changed it to a link to a page with a more complete assessment. While we're on the subject, you can read some accounts from the front line, if you have a strong stomach...

On a lighter note, as for my new icon, thanks go to the amazing Patrick McDonnell and his comic strip Mutts.

Good day for nature sightings: I saw a little green and black tree snake climbing up a fence on my way back to school from lunch today. Leaving work I saw a Kingfisher, I've never seen one so far away from the water before. I also saw the back of an unidentified olive bird and heard the calls of several new (sounding) unidentified birds. I'm definately taking the S.E. Asia bird book to work with me tomorrow, since the kids aren't in (due to SARS) I may take a long lunch break to stroll around the campus looking for critters.

Great quote I just read from late physicist Richard Feynman:

Einstein was a giant.

His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground.

Those of us who are not so tall have to choose!

We watched part of the infamous Michael Jackson documentary tonight, which was finally on TV here. Yes, he's messed up in some ways. But I came away thinking what a nice guy he is, in general, and what a jerk the interviewer was. The way he tried to twist everything the wrong way was really offputting. I don't believe the accusations against MJ at all, and I'm not even a fan.

Found this postcard, which I had to buy because it's exactly the view I see when I walk out of my (work) building. Most afternoons, I can be found sitting along these walkways, having an ice cream. To the left, just off the picture, is a giant video screen that plays the same commercials in a loop, repeating every two minutes or so, for months on end. I have them all memorized.

Wacky. More wacky fruit spotted downstairs: Custard apples, pomelos, and Thai fragrant seed (which the internet seems to never have heard of).

Wacky person spotted downstairs: a karaoke busker.

More SARS wackiness: Considered going to see Moby tomorrow, but turns out he cancelled due to SARS. We apparently caught the Stones just in time; they cancelled the rest of their shows out here. Today I was handed a flyer for an "Aroma Bio-technology air management product" that has a picture of two little kids playing, and says: "What chance do they have if airborne bacteria hit them?" Vultures.

Watched a bit of the local news tonight, for the latest SARS update; I think they're getting on top of it, despite a third death. And we're posting nurses at the airport. They have a little news ticker at the bottom of the screen -- I had to laugh at the blurb that popped up: "Car broken into at Sim Lim Square; laptop, palm pilot stolen". These are apparently the top two stories in town tonight.

Tonight we watched a very silly, but very funny VCD we bought in Thailand: Ali G Indahouse. A spoof of, I don't know, the British white hip-hop scene? Fear of a Black Hat meets Meet John Doe meets Spice World.

Paranoia about SARS seems to be running rampant here. We went out tonight for dinner, and the cabbie who took us home told us that he wasn't getting any fares tonight, because people were staying indoors because of SARS. I thought, nah, it's just an off night. But apparently it's true. I really don't see SARS as much different from the West Nile virus that hit Georgia, Florida, and other parts of the US while we were there.

Liberty Market is closing. That's rather sad for us. This is the one grocery store here that has aisles large enough to fit people and carts through, and it's the place we count on to find otherwise rare items such as fruit roll-ups, Mrs. T's perogies, and shake 'n bake chicken seasoning. Not that we NEED these items, but it's nice to have them once in a while. It's funny what you miss from home. Lately I've had a tremendous craving for Cheerios, which I couldn't find anywhere until today (at Liberty). Lots of things are available if you search around for them, but it's very rare that I can find all the items I want in one store. Usually shopping consists of hitting several different stores in a week for all the different products we crave.
Here are a few other things that are different here than at home:
1. We have to turn on our water heater when we want hot water.We don't have a big tank that's left on all day, just a small tank that's only turned on when necessary. This isn't too much of an inconvenience, but it has led to a couple of cold showers when I forgot to turn it on. Luckily a cold shower is almost bearable in Singapore.
2. We have two air conditioning units in the house, one in the bedroom and one in the living room. They're wall units, which is kind of similar to window units in that you only turn them on when you're home, and when you need them. Central air conditioning is not typically done here aside from businesses.
3. The oven and stove and all the sockets have switches to turn them on when needed. Otherwise you leave them off.
Electricity is definitely treated as a more valuable resource here. These little differences probably save a lot of electricity per day. I'm not sure why they haven't been implemented in the States yet.
4. Eggs aren't refrigerated in the supermarkets here. I guess they don't need to be, but it still seems kind of gross to me.

I'm sure there are hundreds of these little differences, I just can't think of any others at the moment.

Kind of interesting. Some of the flyers that are being dropped onto Iraq.

Back from the Stones. Quite a show. We were a little too far away from the stage to get totally into it, but no complaints; they played a long and energetic show. At one point I tried to imagine they were some new band I was hearing for the first time; it was totally impossible! I mean, there's Keith! And Mick! And they're playing "Let It Bleed"!

Keith poked fun at Singapore at one point by bringing an ashtray up to the mike to put his cigarette ashes in, making a comment about having to keep things clean.

We got most of the big hits: Brown Sugar, Street Fighting Man, Honky Tonk Woman, Tumbling Dice, Sympathy For The Devil, Gimme Shelter, It's Only Rock and Roll, Satisfaction... Some new stuff, some unfamiliar stuff. Angie was a nice surprise. Jumping Jack Flash was the encore.

Crazy news rolling in, just as we're ready to head off to the Stones concert... Apparently Marjorie's school will be closed until April 6th because of this tropical disease SARS. She's on the phone trying to frantically call all her students' parents about it. There was a big school concert that all the students were supposed to be involved in tomorrow too. No reported cases, just a precautionary measure. I told you this country doesn't mess around.

Some of the weird fruits you'll find downstairs at my favorite fruit store, the Sun Moon:

Buddha Fingers. Really strange looking. I was going to try this but it turns out they're all rind and no fruit, and so are only used for cooking and display.
Jambu. Like mini pears. Haven't tried yet.
Dragon Fruit. Very strange. Tried this in Vietnam and it tasted like kiwi fruit. Tried it back in Singapore and it didn't taste like anything at all.
Mangosteens. Haven't tried these yet.
Breadfruit. These don't look edible to me for some reason.
Jackfruit. Same with these.

They don't sell durians, unsurprisingly. These are the infamous delicacy that are widely banned from trains and hotels because they stink so bad. They have them in open air markets, and you immediately know it when you walk by a place that's selling them. (Marjorie and I have been known to accuse each other of smelling like durian.) I've tasted it before, back in Atlanta; an accurate description I heard was that they taste like orange custard soaking in toilet water.

740 people are now quarantined in their houses here in town due to exposure to SARS. The government here doesn't mess around. Let's hope nobody has to be put down.

Awe. I think it's something everybody needs at least a little of in their life. I never realized that until Marjorie pointed it out to me. She gets it, mainly, from being at the ocean, I think. I guess my main source is reading science or science fiction books.

Now that things have settled into a bit of a routine here, I've been needing it more lately. And with a twenty minute train ride both too and from work each day, I have the opportunity to indulge these days. I just finished a good nonfiction book called A Shortcut Through Time: The Path To A Quantum Computer, which is about the quest to build an entirely new kind of computer based on strange, utterly non-intuitive behavior of subatomic particles. The idea was proposed by late physicist Richard Feynman, but the field really caught fire after this unlikely looking character proved it would actually be feasible for solving real world problems. If they ever manage to build one -- and it's an extremely difficult endeavor -- it will be capable of some really incredible things.

Science fiction I like is harder to come by. Look in the science fiction section of your bookstore, and you'll find that about seventy-five percent could be classified as "fantasy", (e.g. Lord of the Rings knock-offs), which no longer interests me. Another twenty percent is Star Trek knock-offs, which tend to be light on science (e.g. the ubiquitous and unexplained "force shields" and "tractor beams") and heavy on the morality lessons. My brother once said, the only way Star Trek could be worse would be if it were sung, and (with apologies to my father-in-law!) I agree...

It's only in the remaining five percent that I find anything I like. In good science fiction, humanity itself is the protagonist, and like a good literary character, should learn and grow and change. Science and/or technology is just the catalyst. A good example is found in the book I just finished, Steven Baxter's Manifold: Time. It has the broadest scope of any science fiction story I'd ever read, and does an admirable job holding it all together (though it does seem to strain at the seams occasionally).

Right now I'm in the middle of Greg Bear's Eon, one of the few other "hard" sci-fi books I've found in the local bookstore, but it just hasn't engaged me.

Tomorrow night we see the Rolling Stones, but we're both surprisingly unenthused. I hope we'll be happily surprised. Keith Richards still has the occasional power to awe me.

Sure, it looks bad, but I twisted it during warmup and then proceded to play most of the game, so it can't be that bad (we lost, btw). It wasn't until I took off my cleat (er, boot) that it ballooned up. My wrists are what I'm worried about; I've fallen on them countless times skateboarding, skimboarding, and snowboarding...

Mark's ankle looks like a golf ball. Every Sunday afternoon he returns home with new injuries after playing football (soccer). He loves the game, but I'm beginning to wonder if he's going to be able to put his shoes on by himself in a few years.

Grocery store finds. We've recently bought "Pooh Biscuits" and "Collon Biscuits". They're both pretty good, actually.

Read it and weep. Seriously, this makes me cry.
They won't be the only ones getting a knock on the door.

A little reminder over to the left there of the damage we are causing. These are just civilian casualties on their side; it doesn't include deaths to our boys (or theirs). Also, this doesn't count damage we're doing to the priceless historical treasures that Iraq is replete with.

In my last job I worked on military contracts that found me working with US Air Force planners all over the world. One project I worked on involved tracking high-level objectives (like, "win the war") all the way down to individual targets, like bridges or airstrips, so that one could look up why were bombing a particular place. I'm not such a peacenik that I'm ashamed of working on that; it was important, necessary work, that is the logical conclusion of the supposition that we need to have national defense. However, I did not appreciate at all noticing one day that we had high level objectives that were focused on painting rosy scenarios for the press and the people back home. I witnessed it first hand. Our appointed protectors feel that we "can't handle the truth!" about what they are doing.

There's an interesting scene in Graham Greene's The Quiet American where a reporter, after many minutes of wrangling, manages to pin a general into reluctantly giving out an estimate of the enemy losses, in the early days of French/American occupation of Vietnam. Nowadays, the generals just hide behind a veil of self-righteous indignation when asked. Actually, they do more than hide and evade; they attack the reporter who asked, in hopes of discouraging future inquiries. It's funny -- if they're so intent on minimizing civilian losses then you think they wouldn't object to some sort of metric to tell how well they're doing. There's only one reason why they don't answer, regardless of what they say: it makes them look bad.

By the way, our military IS truly intent on minimizing civilian losses, despite what it may seem like I'm implying here. I witnessed that firsthand too. They are probably more intent on it than any other military in history. What I'm objecting to is their refusal to report on it.

Chickening out. We had an invite to go to the American Club last night. In a reverse of our traditional roles, Marjorie was all for it, but I vetoed the idea on cautionary grounds; the war had just started, and the American Club has been talked about as an obvious target here in town. Have the terrorists already won?

Hooray. The War to Encourage Terrorism has begun. Keep your head down everyone.

So where have we been the last few months? Singapore. Hanoi. Hong Kong. New York. Atlanta.

So where have they found this new killer virus, SARS? Singapore. Hanoi. Hong Kong. New York. Atlanta.

Are we "Typhoid Mark" and "Typhoid Marjorie"?

I was sent to the Principal's office today: Turns out my tattoo is a school no-no. She hadn't noticed it until today; she was relatively cool about it, but school policy says I have to keep it covered. So, now I have to wear pants everyday, which really sucks because I have some cute skirts and dresses that I only wear to work. Sigh.
Water cooler talk at work sucked today too as the conversation turned to the inevitable war and, as the only American, I was left in the awkward position of trying to defend my countrymen (i.e., we don't all want this war, don't support it, etc.) while agreeing that our president seems to be determined to be a bully without the world's consent.

On the eve of one war, some very gripping reading from the front lines of another. These are emails that Rachel Corrie, the American who was crushed by a bulldozer on the Gaza Strip, sent home. It's only one data point in a vast and complicated situation, but it's definitely worth a read...

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day: I saw a little girl in one of the kindergarten classes wearing a green little shamrock, and it still didn't occur to me that it was St. Patrick's Day. That's either how much of a non-event it is here, or how overwhelmed I am with other stuff at school. Either way, I'm sorry I missed an occasion to drink green beer with friends.

Interesting factoid: Apparently Brunei Ringets are interchangeable with Singapore Dollars. I received a $10 Brunei Ringet as change recently and didn't even notice it because it looked like one of the special edition Singapore dollars. When I found it I started to get miffed thinking someone had passed me a bill of less value, but turns out it's usable/interchangeable here. I'm not sure how that works with the federal banks of both nations, but it's obviously not a problem.

Today was fun. We set out, far too late, for Pulau Ubin, a little island wedged in the canal between Singapore and Malaysia, which is set aside as a recreation area. You get there via a ferry from Changi Village, but some apparent misremembering of the guidebook I checked beforehand led us down near the baggage area of the airport, where we were greeted by concertina wire and signs showing guards shooting trespassers. We tried to get on a bus out, but the bus only took us in, and a policeman came on board and interrogated us, and finally kicked us off. We found a bus back to Changi Village, and were ready to just hang it up and head home. We ended up spending a half hour watching the flock of long-tailed parakeets up in the trees. The ferry, we finally found, was just nearby, so we hopped on (only S$2) and made it out to Ubin. Rented a couple of bikes, and rode around basically looking at birds. There were lots that you don't see in the city; we're getting geeky enough on the whole birding thing that we could just listen for their calls, and immediately tell whether it was a bird we were familiar with. I saw a crimson sunbird, I'm pretty sure; a brahminy kite; and several other small sunbirds that we never could identify. There were some amazing loud, crazy, beautiful calls we heard at one point but never got a visual.

Back in Changi Village we had some questionable seafood; what I'm eating is the "prawns with oats", which prompted the question, "Do I eat this, or, did I eat this?"

A few photos from our trip to Ko Samui:

Customs at the Ko Samui airport.

Another scene from the Ko Samui airport.

The giant buddha.

A temple.

The airport bar on the way out.

View from the plane on the way out.

Globalization: I've got three more students now. One's moved here from Japan, she speaks Spanish, Japanese, and English (Mom's Mexican, Dad's Japanese). She's five years old and knows where/what the equator is too. The second one's from the States, by way of Jakarta. He's a smart kid, but has a hard time with games.....had a thirty minute crying fit today because he was losing at Candy Land...still, he knows a lot about animals, and he's moved more in his five years than many people move in their entire lives. The third student is also from the States, by way of Russia. Both his parents speak Russian at home, but he speaks English too.
I love the diversity of my students. I'm going to learn so much from them! And they're such bright kids...I'm really not used to "typical" kids. I'm a special ed. teacher by training. These "normal" kids seem totally brilliant to me.
Speaking of kids....Happy Birthday Katie!!!! A few days late, but it's not my fault, Blogger wouldn't let me sign in yesterday. Katie is my niece. She turned 1 on the 12th. It breaks my heart that I won't make it to her first birthday party. Hopefully I'll be able to see her at some point this year. At least she's got squeaky shoes to remind her and her mother of me!! (squeaky shoes are all the rage in S'pore for the 1-2yr old set, they squeak with every step, and I sent a pair to Katie).
Overall, things are going pretty well for us now. I'm happier now that I'm employed.

Interesting cultural tidbit. In Japanese, adding "yo" to the end of the sentence means "I assure you" -- it adds emphasis to the sentence. Just like in Detroit!

I've been running the SETI@home screensaver on my computers for years. This is the distributed program that borrows your spare computer cycles to look for signals of extraterrestrial life. You see, they have a lot more data, collected from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, than they have computers to analyze it all. So volunteers like myself run this screensaver program which does all the number crunching on my computers when I'm not using them.

Now, they're going to point the Arecibo telescope back at some of the most promising signals (none are very likely to be ones my computers discovered, but you never know), to see if there's anything there. Exciting stuff. I think the chances are slim of any kind of discovery, especially at this early stage, but what an extraordinary thing it would be if it happened. In the words of Frank Black,

Give me one little blip
And I'll totally flip
Say it's nothing but sky
And I will be one lonely guy

My friends are back from their yearly snowboard trip, which I missed this year for the first time in six years. In previous years we hit

1998: Summit county, Colorado (Copper Mountain, Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge...)

1999: Jackson Hole, Wyoming (side trip to Yellowstone)

2000: Summit county again, plus Vale

2001: Whistler/Blackcomb, by way of Vancouver (where I broke a bone in my hand on the second day)

2002: Lake Tahoe (a complete circuit)
A friend and I would try to outdo each other every year. This year he did a faceplant from twelve feet up on some blue ice and ended up splitting open his lip and bleeding from both nostrils. That would've been hard to outdo.

It was so much fun. I was on a beach in Thailand, and I still have regrets.

I'm still alive. Sorry for the lack of updates on my part. I've been rather busy with work/school. I told myself last time I quit teaching that I would never teach again, and I've been remembering why.....Teaching is exhausting. There's so much to plan for, so many details...you're never done. But, so far, this experience has been more rewarding than either of the two years I taught before. Probably in large part because I'm not teaching "special ed", but
"regular" kindergarten. Actually, so far, my students are great, relatively easy going and very bright. I've only got two right now, but five more are scheduled to come in this month and we expect to grow to at least 15-20 before the end of the school year.
The school is great too. It's so diverse. I've only taught in predominantly black inner city schools before, so this is a real switch. I love the make-up of the school. There are student's from all over the world attending there. I keep thinking what an extraordinary experience it is for these students to have such a diverse group of classmates and friends. They really are very privileged in the best sense. And the teaching staff is diverse as well, several are from Australia, and several are from Singapore, but there are only two people on the kindergarten staff from North America (me and a Canadian). The differences in cultures are fascinating. I'm going to learn so much from my students and the other staff members.
And now for something completely different......Thailand was great. We saw a puffer fish when we were snorkeling which was very exciting for me. The trip was very relaxing at a time when I was very stressed out. It was also nice to spend some quality time with Mark. We're both so busy with our respective jobs these days that it was really good to spend some time together away from home/work. Ko Samui was shockingly built up though. This shouldn't have surprised me, because there are direct flights there from Singapore and if there are direct flights then you should expect a highly developed tourist infrastructure. But they had Starbucks and Pizza Hut. And as much as I like Starbucks here in S'pore, I don't want to see it on vacation in supposedly pristine beach towns. Still, Ko Samui was very nice, and very easy which was what we wanted.
I have a week off in April for Spring Break. Hopefully we'll be able to go somewhere a little more off the beaten path then. Maybe the Maldives or Perhentian Islands

Back from Thailand. Not sure why we came back, but we're back.

Not a bad way to spend a weekend. The snorkel/kayak trip was fantastic, though the water was a little cloudy due to an algae bloom or something. Saw giant clams, crabs, sea cucumbers, parrotfish, and a puffer fish. We also spotted some birds that looked like snowy egrets, except that they were black; Marjorie didn't appreciate my suggestion that we call them "negrets". That night we had an amazing dinner at Samui Seafood; I had the hot and spicy white snapper, which was outstanding, and Marjorie had the sweet and sour red snapper, which was jaw-dropping.

The hotel for our package deal was fabulous (except for dozen or so mosquitos in our room when we first arrived -- and this is a malaria and dengue fever zone). We had Thai massages side-by-side out by the pool this morning, which was vera vera nice. It was pretty much the masseuses' whole body (hands, feet, elbows, knees) versus ours, and we never stood a chance.

Much relaxed, we went out for some last minute shopping. While we were loading up on DVDs of questionable origin, a drama was playing itself out across the street; a motorcycle-slash-street vendor cooking station caught fire. We could see flames licking at the gas tank and the cooker's propane tank, so we high-tailed it out of there. Luckily they were able to extinguish it without much fanfare.

Favorite restaurant name spotted on Ko Samui: Cow Pat Poo.

Greetings from Thailand! We've been on Ko Samui island for a day now. Today we snorkeled a bit, then rented a motorbike and did a trip around the whole island, which took most of the day. Stopped at waterfalls, scenic views, temples, and a giant Buddha -- in fact, we stopped right where these folk did. Tomorrow we take a boat out to the national marine park where The Beach was filmed, for snorkeling and sea kayaking (Mike, you'd be proud, I boycotted the elephant safari part of the package).

News McNuggets.

I'm in better shape than I've been in ten years or so.

I wrote my first check yesterday, and deposited my first one today. They do it all weird here. You have to draw slashes up in the corner for some reason, and some other strange rules.

I've gotten used to spelling my last name with a "zed" instead of a "zee".

I visited the American Club for the first time last night (Marjorie's second visit). They have guys with machine guns out front. I don't think I want to hang out there too much.

The first business trip for me is shaping up to be Tasmania. We saw a documentary on it the other day, and it looks really awesome.

Saw "Catch Me If You Can" the other day. Good mindless entertainment. It's Spielberg, so I guess that was to be expected.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Not much new, other than Marjorie starting her new job (which seems to be going pretty good, but I'll let her tell you). Oh, and I picked up our tickets for Ko Samui today. Woop!

I've noticed one very backward thing about this country. It seems the civil servants, especially at the post office, are enthusiastic and committed at their jobs, often bending over backwards to serve you. You have to look to the private sector to encounter laziness and bad attitudes, for the most part. There are of course exceptions, but it seems to be a general rule. This is in direct contrast to America -- I'm reminded of the Simpsons quote, where Patty and Selma describe their job at the Department of Motor Vehicles: (Patty) "Some days, we don't let the line move AT ALL." (Selma) "Yeah, we call those WEEKdays!"

Another interesting cultural tidbit: when a Chinese person is, say, pouring your tea, the way to thank them is to tap the table lightly with your middle finger. The story about how this tradition got started is that the Chinese emperor went undercover for something, and his henchmen couldn't kowtow to him without blowing his cover, so they started doing that.

Another tidbit: the Chinese alphabet symbol for America is the combination of the symbols for "beautiful" and "country". That's what they tell me, anyway; it could be saying "infidel pigs" for all I know. Many Chinese were apparently told as children that there was gold just lying around everywhere you look in the US, hence "beautiful country".

Japanese lessons are going slow but steady. I'm taking the class with my cow orker, and we've been going out after class for "Japanese practice" at a small out-of-the-way Japanese-style bar where he knows the Japanese bartender, who gives us tips. The fact that she makes the best martinis in town is a nice bonus.

Required reading from the New York Times. (Registration is required, unfortunately, but the NYT is worth registering for. It's free.)

At long last I too have a contract now to look over and sign. Our uncertain situation is gradually getting resolved, thankfully. I have been very, very busy at work; we have to scrape together a demo in a very short period of time; I'm polishing up my tap shoes for certain parts of it.

Mr. Rogers is dead. Some of my earliest memories were of watching his show. While it wasn't my absolute favorite as a kid, as I grew older I grew to realize what a class act this man was. It's a sad, sad day in the neighborhood.

CLASS LIST: I got a list of the little ones starting my class on Monday. One's just moved from Norway, the other moved here from Korea. I hope they both speak English! Only two to start with, but others will be arriving the following week: 3 from Japan, and 1 from the U.S. Two of the Japanese students do not speak English. I don't speak any Japanese. Should be interesting.
BTW, those of you interested in coming to visit us in Singapore now have another year to do so. I've signed a contract to stay and teach until July, 2004.

I'm so overwhelmed right now. I was expecting to have a couple of weeks to volunteer in this school and get to know the layout and the staff at a leisurely pace before getting work as a relief (substitute) teacher. Instead, I've got a crazy/mad week spent trying to get ready for a full-time class with kids who may or may not speak English and will be expecting me to teach them, full-time, on Monday!!! Isch.
I'm not complaining (or at least I'm trying not to). I'm very glad to have work. But the next few days/weeks are going to be draining.
On the plus side, the other teachers at the school seem sympathetic, and the principal is very nice. I really believe I'll enjoy this teaching experience much more then the other two years. And Mark and I are going to Thailand (Koh Samui) in a few weeks, so I'll get a nice little mini-vacation after my first week on the job!

GET A LIFE! Yesterday I was excited because, after a month or so of no social activities, Mark and I are starting to be asked to drinks and game nights by acquaintances. Also, I'd started volunteering at a school, so I was getting some minor career satisfaction. This morning, I was thinking "good for us, we finally got a life"....Well now it seems, I may have also found a job. The school I mentioned in an earlier blog is planning on opening another Kindergarten 2 class on Monday. So on Monday (this Monday, really that soon!) I may be going into work for my first paid day. I just need to get the work permit papers processed and I'm on my way.
Ironically, I also got a call from another school today that I'd e-mailed my resume too. They wanted to schedule an interview with me. I guess when you're hot, you're hot.

I've added a list of birds we've spotted, down at the bottom of the left (red) column. Over there, to your left. Down a bit. You've got it. The mudskippers were the highlight of the day; they're frequently the stars of nature videos we see. It's cool to see things that you knew existed, but you always thought existed somewhere else. Like last year when we went to Tioman Island and saw flying fish, monitor lizards, and giant clams.

Fun and Sun. We went to Kusu and St. John's Islands today. We saw Mudskippers (evolution in progress), giant spiders, Magpie Robins, Kingfishers, Brahminy Kites, Sandpipers, some very tiny white-bellied birds that we were unable to identify, as well as the usual suspects: mynahs, crows, Black-naped Orioles, and some Ospreys. We did some swimming too and were hoping to spot some sea-creatures while snorkeling, but the visibility was crappy.
Overall a pretty fun day.

Very fun. Last night we hooked up with friends of our friend Dean who live in town. Ended up at a karaoke bar -- the "Woody Green"? -- where our group were the only "ang mo", but these people were regulars there. The rule was, when the wrong lyrics appeared on the monitor for the song you're singing (which was often), you had to sing them. We did room-clearing versions of "You're So Vain", "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", and "Oh, Darling". A very fun bunch of folks. Dean, Rob says to tell you that you're a "pooftah".

Marjorie got us tickets to see the Rolling Stones here in March. Woop!

I figured out today that my phone number here is "93-SEXILY".

Baby Gecko In Da House! Apparently they can make they 17 floor climb. This guy's quick too. I spotted him/her on the floor and it promptly ran under a cd case, but when I lifted the case the little fellow was nowhere to be found. Oh well. Hopefully he'll eat all the little black bugs I've seen flying in the house lately...I think these came in due to our orange plant. The orange plant is gone, yet they remain, but hopefully not for long now that Lizard is on the job.

Not much to report today. Marjorie went off to a movie tonight, giving me a chance for some quality time with my guitar. We've resolved to run off to a beach somewhere, Real Soon Now, as exploring's what we really came here for. Just finding the right time to go is the issue, with my work.

Hopeful: I woke up this morning with no real job prospects, but, lucky me, I got a call around 10am asking if I could come in for an interview. Yea! I'm not going to jinx it by talking about specifics, but the interview went well. Money was discussed, which is a very good sign. And it was more money then I expected, which is GREAT!!!! So wish me luck. I'll let you know more as soon as I know.

Yuck. I've gone off before about the ridiculously-named Speak Good English movement here. Recently I've decided that what they really need is a Stop Picking Your Nose In Public movement. Seriously, it's disgusting. I spot people on the buses and trains all the time, in practically up to their wrist, without an iota of self conciousness. Their ears too. It's obviously just a different set of standards for acceptable societal behavior, but -- eesh.

Konichiwa! With only a few hours advance notice, I found myself sitting in a three hour Japanese class tonight. It was the very first class, and it's "total immersion" -- meaning, not a word of English was spoken by the sensei (teacher). To overuse a metaphor, I was drinking from the firehose... The coworker I'm taking it with and I are both of the opinion that a little English up front might be helpful, but then again, my French teacher in high school did the same thing, and I still remember a lot of the language.

A rainy Sunday. Soccer later will be soggy at best.

The worldwide war protests yesterday had a decidedly different flavor over here. Word was spread via cell phone SMS messaging, but only five or six people showed up to protest at the US embassy. They were "discouraged" from doing so, as they didn't have a permit. In fact, they were taken down to the station for questioning as to the source of the cell phone messages, but not charged (yet). Read all about it.

Wonder how they would have reacted to a US citizen with a placard? The words "next plane out" come to mind.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!
Song of the Open Road By Walt Whitman

"Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself. will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?"

This poem was the only part of our wedding vow that we contributed. We found out months later that this poem was also used in the vows in the movie "Love Story", I swear we didn't know beforehand. This poem is so beautiful and personal to me. It really seems to embody the spirit our relationship.
This Valentine's day will hopefully be as romantic and tailor-made as possible.I got the only gift I really wanted...time. Mark's taking the day off to spend with me. Already on the agenda: Pancakes with blueberry citrus sauce for breakfast at home (in our new Valentine's day presents, Mark got a robe too). A free day to do whatever..... Then dinner at the Singapore Zoo complete with a "love tram" through the zoo. Perfect.

Taken for a ride. Trying to go out to dinner last night, we told the cab driver to take us to Robertson Quay. "Robinson...?" It was like he never heard of it. And this is not that obscure of a place. We should have jumped out right then. But he acts like he knows where he's going so we don't press it. After ten minutes or so, though, even I know enough of the layout here to see that he's not going the right way at all. I ask if he really knows where it is, and he pulls up and says, "Yes yes, here we are, Robinson Drive." Nowhere near. He offered to try again, but we figure our chances are better with some other cab driver who might have a clue. We gruffly pay him off; he may have been conning us, but he did at least give me back more change than he should've.

It takes us at least a half an hour to hail another cab, during which time I realize that my cell phone has gone missing. It apparently fell out in the first cab. Yay. A report has been filed, but I don't hold out a lot of hope.

Anyway, at least I have today off to spend with my sweetness.

Ever feel like you have a theme song for a particular experience? This Soul Coughing song seems to rattle around my head a lot in Singapore:

White Girl,
Market at Van Ness,
Heels to drag,
Discombobulated.
Air all soft around,
Hear the man singing,
Inclines and wires,
Telegraph Avenue.
Look away and she's eastbound, out of sight.
Dropped here,
By the hand of the Astronaut,
Builder of the pyramids,
The man from outer space.
Innocent farmgirl,
Raised by the aliens,
Out in Northridge,
Out in the larger world.
Look away and she's eastbound, out of sight.
WHITE GIRL! WHITE GIRL! WHITE GIRL! WHITE GIRL, WHITE GIRL, WHITE GIRL.

Trust me to open my mouth... Okay kids, I need to apologize for the previous blog, nobody's trying to "prohibit a flag" what's really happening is the State legislature in Virginia are considering passing a bill proposing to DISPLAY (note, not prohibit) the South Vietnamese flag at "official" events where other countries flags are flown. This IS pissing off the Vietnamese government, and maybe rightfully so, but it's not the issue I was upset about.
This is the kind of thing that happens when you don't research your sources and you blog when you've had beer. Oh well.

Very cool new bird spotted on the TV attennae of the low-rise building across from us -- the blue-tailed bee eater. From his high perch he (she?) was making short swooping runs down, presumably to catch bees and wasps, just like they describe here. Later he or she returned with two friends. They're still doing their bombing runs as I type this.

Staring at a neighboring building through binoculars for long periods of time is probably a good way to get in a lot of trouble.

Now this is disturbing: According to today's Straits Times (the English newspaper in S'pore) "Vietnam angered by flag ban in Virginia"...apparently Virginia has passed a bill prohibiting the flying of the Vietnamese flag during public ceremonies....WHAT?!!!!! Is this not the United States where freedom of speech and expression are guaranteed rights? If this law is really in effect it really shouldn't be. I believe it would be rather unconstitutional. These kinds of policies really piss off our friends abroad, and I fear most Americans, including myself are probably totally ignorant of their goings on.
On a positive note, there was a pro-American peace rally in South Korea yesterday. My parents told me the only news they saw in the States from Korea was of the anti-American nature (and they watch a lot of news). So far, all I've seen reported in the Straights time are pro-American stories such as the latter. The truth probably lies somewhere between.

Valentine's Day approaches, and it has a decidedly different flavor this year. Not just because we're abroad, or married. We also share a bank account. In previous years, even if I didn't pick Just The Right Gift, at least I could fall back on saying I care by spending a lot of money. Now, I'm just spending her money, and she's spending mine, so no substituting "pricy" for "thoughtful" like a big dumb male.

Of course, Marjorie's already bought herself a nice robe, which she says can be my Valentine's gift to her, but I'm not THAT stupid.

I have the day off, so hopefully we can get away somewhere nice; maybe Pulau Ubin.

Football match #2, today, and all the jogging paid off. I'm still not a great player but I'm improving and having more fun. The second half was played in pretty much a torrential downpour, the kind where the ball just decides to stop at random points when it hits a puddle. I "took one for the team", diving for a clearing header where I ended up lying in a mudpuddle. Almost made up for the stupid accidental handball in the first half -- I got the only yellow card of the day. It's a stupid instinct, but hard to overcome when you haven't been playing, to stick your hand out when the ball is going by you. Luckily, not in the penalty area.

Afterwards, Holland Village for dinner. We found the place there that rents DVDs; there are only one or two in town (everyone just buys them, it seems). Turns out this place has a branch right near our house.

The job hunt has begun in earnest for me now, and it appears that my prospects are good. Singapore, like seemingly everywhere else in the world, needs teachers. The only real dilemma is should I look for a full-time position? I'd like to be able to go with Mark on possible business trips (there is already talk of Hong Kong, Japan, and Tasmania), and truthfully, I really wasn't happy teaching the two years I did it. But, a large part of me wants a full time position, it's just got to be the right one. Luckily, Singapore does appear to have a few early intervention programs so maybe I'd be able to continue to work where my heart is....with the babes and toddlers.

I've upped my productivity. Up yours! There've been less postings lately because I've set up a separate login on my computer dedicated entirely to Work. Less distractions, like links to the blog, mean higher productivity and greater job satisfaction. I've been producing mountains of code lately. I highly recommend this approach. Working with an internet connection at the ready is like when you used to try to do homework sitting by the window where you could look out into the street and see kids playing.