A Day in the Life

In this post I will attempt to cover the time period from mid-June until now, about a month. CAUTION: Slightly boring material ahead. Unless you are a) a member of my family, b) really bored, or c) looking for recommendations of good books to read, this post might not be for you. You have been warned. :)

This is my bedroom, where I spend a lot of time. This picture is taken from the bed. That wooden thing on the left side is my wardrobe. Most people here have wardrobes as opposed to built-in closets.

Another picture from the bed vantage point. The room that I am staying in actually belongs sistgs to Dan's oldest sister, Xiaozhen, and all of the things on this bookshelf are hers.

Here is a general outline of my day:

1. Wake up between 10 and 12, depending on whether or not I have a phone call scheduled for the morning. (Sometimes I actually wake up after 12, depending on how late I went to bed the night before; it’s easy to sleep until 1 if you didn’t go to be until 3:30.)

2. Eat lunch between noon and 1:30. The maid’s name is Merry, and she’s very sweet. She’s from Indonesia. Recently I’ve started watching her cook lunch so that I can hopefully feed myself once I move out. She usually makes some simple yet awesome-tasting noodle dish for lunch. They do amazing things with noodles here…

3. Read the newspaper. This is something I never used to do, but it’s always lying around downstairs and I usually eat lunch alone, so I start it during lunch and end up reading the whole thing. It’s addictive. Sometimes they use really funny phrases, and although I can’t think of any right now, I’m thinking of starting to save clippings of the really good ones.

4. Use the internet. This includes writing and answering emails, keeping my Facebook account up to date, reading the news and watching YouTube videos. Recently I’ve been watching clips of The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, as well as all the promo stuff about Glee. (Alas, Hulu doesn’t work here. Stupid copyright rules.) Also, clips from Dancing with the Stars (mostly the Apolo Anton Ohno and Shawn Johnson ones) and So You Think You Can Dance.

5. Go running between 6 and 7. To be truthful, I only actually do this 2-4 days a week. I usually do 2 miles. I only go when it’s cloudy or slightly rainy, and only when the sun is setting, otherwise it’s just toooo hot and humid.

6. Eat dinner between 7:00 and 9:00. Sometimes other people eat with me, sometimes they don’t. Mr. Ling is travelling about 50% of the time, and Mrs. Ling often gets home late from work. If Mr. Ling is home, we have a big dinner. If he’s not, it’s usually your basic rice, stir-fried veggie, and meat dish, sometimes with tofu or omelette. It’s always delicious and nutricious, though, and we always have fresh fruit for dessert, which is AWESOME! Since I’ve been here I’ve eaten apples, oranges, bananas, pineapple, cherries, black grapes, plums, jackfruit, cantaloupe, guava, 3 types of durian, watermelon, 2 types of lychee, 2 types of longan, rambutan, mango, 2 types of papaya, and mangosteen.

7. Read. (Sometimes I read in the afternoon and use the internet at night instead of the way I have it listed here. I like to mix it up.) I read A LOT. Since I have been here I have read:

RECOMMENDED:
Books 3-5 of the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. (Early 1800s + dragons. Sweet.)
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. (Pop sociology.)
Peony by Pearl S. Buck. (Jewish community in late 1800s China.)
Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley. (About a tobacco smokesman. They made it into a movie recently…)
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. (Race relations in British India.)
The Geographer’s Library by Jon Fasman. (Theme: Alchemy. Two storylines, covering 1000 years. Phew.)
A Mathematician’s Apology by G. H Hardy. (Famous mathematician describing what he thinks “math” is.)
After theWreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away by Joyce Carol Oates. (Disturbed teenager story, interesting writing style.)
Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder by Herschel Walker. (Self-explanatory.)
The Craft of Research by Wayne C. Booth et al. (Great if you do research!)

NOT REALLY RECOMMENDED, BUT NOT AWFUL.

Cut by Cathy Glass. (Foster mother recalls a particular case.)

Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce. (Fantasy—girl law enforcement officer.)

How to Be Good by Nick Hornby. (Modern Indie.)

Confessions of an Air Hostess by Marisa Mackle. (Chick lit.)

Edenville Owls by Robert B. Parker. (JY Fiction set in the 1950s.)

The Scientific Attitude by Frederick Grinnell. (A comprehensive description of modern-day science.)

There ARE other variations to fill in the “use internet” and “read” sections—for instance, I bought a sketchbook and some pastels and have been doing some sketching. I also bought blowpens, because they’re awesome and cheap. :)

Sometimes I go somewhere, for instance, the local mall, and get some food there or see a movie. (I saw “I Love You, Man” on my own. I thought it was hilarious.) Or I go down to school (National University of Singapore) to have a meeting or work out some details of my permit application.

Picture right outside of my building, Arts and Social Sciences 5.

This is just around the corner from my building. The building that you can see is ASS 7. Aren't those trees beautiful? They make me think of "The Lion King". At least I know I'll be working in a nice environment!

I went to Borders once, but I was really pissed off that you weren’t allowed to bring unpaid merchandise into the café. Why should I even bother going to Borders if I can’t read books in the café and then not buy them? That’s the best part!

I have also been meeting some friends. The first friend I met is Pearline, who is a former employee of my grandmother’s boss’s good friend. (This was the Friend Blind Date that I mentioned at the end of my last post.) She is from Malaysia but has been here in Singapore for over 6 years. We went to the National Museum, which was really cool. They had this automatic machine where you press the different numbers on the floor depending on where you are and it tells you about stuff. Then we went to dinner and then had drinks (Singapore Slings! Which were really good). Altogether we hung out pretty much all day, and we got along really well. Yes! Friend score: 1. I haven’t seen her since then because she is really busy with work right now, but I’m planning on getting together with her again sometime soon. Interesting fact: She is also the second of four girls.

The other friend is Sabrina, who is my mentor’s former colleague’s daughter. We met up and had lunch last week at a local mall and chit-chatted about life and stuff. She’s planning to go to graduate school in Australia in January, but at least we can be friends until then. Friend score: 2. Interesting fact: If she ends up living in Singapore, she says she will never have kids because she doesn’t want to put them through the horror of the Singapore school system.

I’ve also got three other potential friend leads, but they haven’t really been confirmed yet. I’ll keep you updated.

Tune in to my next post for: More photos of actual things happening! Including Dan’s new army haircut, army uniform, and army physique, as well as couple of birthday parties. And potentially a photo protrait series, depnding on whether or not I actually remember to take the pictures!