Hello folks! I am a horrible blogger. If all you knew about me was my blog, you would think I’d been sleeping since mid-November. However, I did not go into hibernation, I promise! I’ve actually been doing quite a lot of things and just being selfish (or generous, depending on your viewpoint) and not taking the time to write it all down. In order to break my bad habit, today I’m just gonna write a short blog about what happened…well…today! Which is how this whole thing is actually supposed to work, I think. Then look out for catch-up blogs in the next week or so with a few fun holiday pictures and Engrish: Volume II.
Today was a super tiring day. I’m very tired and should probably be sleeping instead of blogging. I had a meeting this morning with a Professor Low Ee-ling, who works at the National Institute of Education, which is the main teacher training institute in Singapore. And by “main”, I mean “only”. In other words, every public school teacher in Singapore goes through NIE. Besides teacher training, they also do some education research. It took me about 1.5 hours to get there and I was actually a bit late to my meeting, how embarrassing. I’m still really bad at estimating how long it will take me to get places using public transportation here. I keep getting lost/delayed when I don’t expect to. I guess I should just expect to and leave earlier…
Anyway, I was given Prof Low’s name by a teacher I had at OU, and I’m so glad because she was really helpful. I’m applying for a few research assistant positions there for the next year or so, so I was asking her some questions about that in particular, but also about herself and education in general. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my next step since my current job is up at the end of March—trying to decide if/when/where I should do grad school, and in what. Or do I want to get a public sector job before I go back to school to see how I like it? If I do, what kind could I get? Publishing? Human relations of public relations? What about a teaching gig? Then do I need some sort of certification first? Etc etc. Talking to her was helpful because I was able to add another story and point of view to my list of things to think about.
After our meeting, I agreed to be a guinea pig for one of Prof Low’s doctoral students who is studying General American English. (Funny story—a month or so ago when she mentioned this to me, she also said “And maybe you could ask some of your American friends in Singapore if they would want to participate too.” Then I realized that I didn’t have any American friends in Singapore! I have met a pair of American friends since then, however—more on that later.) Anyway, the doctoral student ended up being from Yunnan, where I studied when I was in China! Our schools were right across the street from each other. Pretty cool! I did his study, and then he showed me where I needed to go to hand in my applications, but they were out to lunch, so we went to lunch and spoke in that funny half-Chinese half-English way that people end up speaking when they both speak each others’ languages. (Although his English is fantastic, whereas my Chinese is barely so-so at this point.)
Then I turned in my forms and went to work. I tried the subway instead of the bus this time, but it still took me just as long. Spending so much time in transit is really draining, especially when you’re in your especially nice clothes because you had a meeting that morning. So that was my day.
In other recent news, Dan has been having stomach aches for about a month and finally went to the hospital and found out he had worms or parasites of something. Ugh. He’s feeling a lot better now. The good part was he got to miss a bunch of Army because he had medical leave. The bad part is that now he’s behind but will probably still have to finish the course. Oh well. Please pray for him to feel better/catch up/get a good posting or result after this training session.
Also, I started learning how to play guitar this weekend! My fingertips really hurt. A lot. But it’s fun! And at least Dan has a guitar with nylon strings so they don’t hurt as much. I know like 2 songs, and I can occasionally play them without messing up. But usually not. Oh well :p Slowly but surely.
AND, my friend count is improving!!! I think I have friends in the double digits now! They’re not all one-on-one friends, but they’re all at least I-can-hang-out-with-them-even-if-Dan’s-not-there friends, which is good enough for me! Three new friends were introduced to me by my friend Jocelyn, who was originally Dan’s friend (and still is of course) but I’ve been stealing her to be my friend. One of them is on the Singapore national synchronized swimming team! So cool.
Another friend is my office mate Adeline, although she just moved to the US. But we became pretty good friends in the last couple of months.
The last two are my new American friends. It’s a very small world—my good friend from high school, Justin Quam, has a cousin who just moved out here a couple of months ago with her husband. Weird and awesome, right? So I met up with her for the first time about a month ago, and she’s really nice and interesting and likes politics and church and farmer’s markets and cooking and having the correct glassware for the correct beverages, among other things. So we had lots to talk about. Then the week before Christmas I went over to her house to bake Christmas cookies and met her husband, who is also cool. (Not unexpected.) So, thanks for the email introduction, JQ!
Well, this blog is already so long that I doubt many people have gotten this far. If you have, here are a few pictures as a reward:
This is a seafood rice burger from Mos Burger, which is a Japanese fast food chain. This is inresponse to Mrs. Anderson asking me about some weird food that Singaporean McDonald's currently has. Unfortunately, that dish, Shaka Shaka Chicken, has been discontinued, but never fear because I can look no further than Mos Burger for all my Asian-y fast food needs.
However, sometimes I have non-Asian food needs, and then I often as not have to make it myself. This is black bean slasa that I made for the end-of-semester party for the class I was auditing. Yes, it tasted as good as it looks. Better actually. I'm getting hungry now...
Unfortunately, you have to pay premium prices for non-Asian foods. This is the bag or tortilla chips that I bought for S$6, and this is how full it was when I bought it. That's like 30 cents per chip! :)
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