The rant that cannot be

It's such a shame that this is on the world wide web otherwise, boys a dears, would I have a rant for you. But as there is the slightest chance that the parties involved could stumble along here, read what I said, complain to the school and then get me sacked I shall remain tight lipped. That makes it sound more exciting than it probably is.

I feel like I cannot give you the really funny stuff from my life here because even if it was to happen outside school, someone still might see it so if you need a good laugh you should watch this instead.



If you want another insight into my head the link came when I was cleaning the floor and remembered Fern wearing some sort of mop shoe thing in an item on 'This Morning' about new inventions. If you've seen it, you know what I mean. Anyway I thought I would look for it on You Tube. Couldn't find it but got this montage instead.

There really is nothing funnier that something that's not particularly funny but in a situation where you can't laugh. Like the time David whispered to me in church as Communion came round that the fly buzzing around the minister's head was going to land on his bit of bread. Not hilarious really, I managed to even write it without an exclamation mark. But added to a serious occassion in church and in the words of Julia Roberts in 'Pretty Woman', I nearly peed my pants!

The inside of my head

So no blog yesterday. I was sick, well I use the past tense in that I am not permanently attached to a box of tissues anymore.

Here are a collection of my thoughts tonight:

- I love ‘Ed’. It could be the best of-no-consequence TV programme ever made.
- Why was a drawing homework so hard to hand in?
- I wonder if Jennifer Hudson: The Movie will ever get made?
- I wish that dog would lose his yappy bark.
- What should I wear tomorrow?
- What is clean that I can wear tomorrow?
- I should really sweep and mop the floors.
-How did I ever get to be a teacher when I can be so rubbish at explaining things sometimes?
- That mosquito better not bite me.
- People should leave Britney Spears alone.
- How can I make that dog lose his yappy bark?
- Jammies is my favourite word in the English language.
- Ribena makes me feel better.
- How much Vitamin C is in an orange?
- How come work done in twenty minutes in school is twenty times more than work done in twenty minutes at home?
- Why would anyone chose peach curtains?
- Mini Eggs.
- 'Ed' should be released on DVD.
- Am I better at teaching or better at winging it now?
- I should go to the pool this weekend.
- I think that mosquito bit me.
- I should read more.
- The remote is all the way over there and I am all the way over here.

Turns out it’s quite a dull place, my head.

It’s all part of the process

It’s a rare day that goes past where I don’t think about this time last year and my life in America. I really miss it, like really miss it. For example this time last year I was enjoying my full can of Pepsi on my way to Michigan to see Megann. I’ll even just have a little daydream about the normal everyday things, lunch times to Subway to get a Chicken Parmesan Melt, walking around the lake, trashy American TV and the rest.

When I was in NI, I missed NC, but there were enough other things to distract me, (although it was probably a bit of a honeymoon period to be honest). If I were back in NI I’d probably still be harking on about this time last year in America (yes, yes I was in America, did I not tell you?). But that doesn’t really help right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching here, I love the students and I am grateful for the opportunity of being a new NI teacher and actually teaching. Maybe I just had it too good in America, but I truly didn’t expect to be lonely here. Singaporeans are just so used to ex-pats that I felt that when I arrived no even batted an eyelid. In fact, most people in school don’t even realise that I am new here and that I haven’t been here for X amount of years.

I re-read an email tonight that I got from someone who worked with on the Conference, it reads:

‘How fortunate the school is to get someone like you with your positive attitude and your effervescent personality. I congratulate you on the giant step of faith you are taking to go to Singapore.’

[Effervescent?! I’m thinking they didn’t mean in an Alka-Seltzer kind of way!]

But I suppose that’s the thing, it was a leap of faith to come here, and one that I felt was right for me. I just wish I wasn’t in on a Friday night feeling like some sort of hermit.

Anyhoo, in a change of tone and a realisation that lots of people have it worse than not doing stuff on a Friday night, it has been one year since my ears were pierced! I still get infections. Britney never told me that. And it has been 365 glorious music filled days since myPod came to be! I don’t want to go on about it, because you already know how much I love it, although I did drop it a clunk this week. But thankfully they are resilient little articles and it didn’t even stop playing whatever country song was on. Shut up, I was in America, or didn't you know?

That’s when good neighbours become good friends

I don’t know my neighbours here. I say one yesterday and we exchanged hellos. I didn’t want to be too friendly as I think they are the neighbours with the yappy dog and I want to shoot it, so I didn’t want to be two faced.

The neighbour I am of course talking about is Karen Next Door. The reason for the post dedicated to her is that she sent me mail. I was on the point of announcing the 2nd Write to Tina awards as I have been here just about a month and nothing, nada, zippo, zilch from anyone, anywhere. I thought your patience had run out for mail games and the like so I decided to wait and see who would take the iniative. And the iniative taker was Miss Kaztastic herself.


And what a piece of mail it was, a 4 side letter and kid sweets, my favourite! Shame half of them are gone already.

Thanks Karen!

What a mistaka to maka

I went to the gym tonight. As always I had the three important items - gym card, water and towel. I did not bring my phone or camera.

Disaster. There was a man there wearing sandals! This made me laugh no end on the treadmill, but that could have been the lack of oxygen.

It sounds like a Russian princess

Today was the second holiday for Chinese New Year. I knew 1 billion Chinese (and 5 million Scots) couldn't be wrong, New Year is worth celebrating twice.

On certain holidays they open up the President's Palace, Istana (not Anastasia's sister). It was well worth going to see. It cost S$1 (30p) for the grounds but we decided to go all out and go inside as well for the extra S$2. I'd like to say that it was because of the state rooms and the display of Presidental gifts but it was all for the air con. Definitely a price worth paying.

Today has also finalised the grading of sweating, like terrorist threat levels:

Level 1 - Sweaty Betty, a mild sweat on face

Level 2 - Sweaty Beast, much worse sweat affecting greater surface area

Level 3 - Sweat Ball, total and all out sweat. In fact solid form has ceased to exist and you are now liquid.

This was just after the trip inside to the air con, so the level was back down to 1.

Wasting a day

No one can waste away a day like me. I am the queen of dossing. Seriously, I brought home all sorts of files and books on Friday afternoon so I could do all the work I needed to do. I have done nothing, absolutely nothing. That leaves me with one day to do it in. And yet somehow I think that I will be going back to school without the half of it done.

So it was a waste of a day in terms of work, but I did talk to Graham and Abe TOM on Skype! I heart Skype. You need to get on it and talk to me! Although the mooning is not necessary.

Right, think I'll go to bed now, tomorrow is 'butt in gear day', no tomorrow has to be 'butt in gear day'.

Night night.

Didn’t we already do New Year?

Sorry for the break, twas a bit crazy towards the end of last week. I’ll tell you all about it.

Thursday
Thursday was the last day of classes before the Chinese New Year festivities on Friday. As is traditional at Chinese New Year and according to the old Chinese proverb 'get your hair cut and coloured', I got my hair cut and coloured. Ok not really, but I hadn’t got it cut since late August in Hicksville.

My appointment was for 4.00pm, right after school finished so I said goodbye to my last class and was straight out the door. Later, we were going to go down to Chinatown to see the decorations and all that but it being the slowest salon in the world, I was late. I know I am usually late, but seriously, it took four hours in the place. Seven people worked on my hair and all of them asked if I was a swimmer. I am thinking about getting cards laminated with this advice for all future hair cuts.

1. I do not swim. My hair is dry and gets into a tatty bird’s nest at the mere sight of water.
2. It is best not to deep cleanse my hair with your hands as this only makes it worse.
3. Never try to untangle my hair with a comb. A mess that big needs more than one line of attack.
4. I truly do not mind brushing through my hair to speed up the process.
5. I have grey hair. I know this, now leave it alone.

I have never had a haircut that took so long in all my life. But it seems there was a breakdown in communication when it came to the colour. I got whole head highlights rather than just the top layer. As I don’t get my hair coloured very often I am sure that’ll look great in a few months as my natural non-colour starts to shine through. Maybe I should start swimming to wash out the colour a bit. Maybe not, it'll probably turn green or something.

So because of the longest hair cut in the world, we were slightly late getting down to Chinatown, but when we did it was great! We walked round the stalls, looked at the tat made in China and went for a drink.


Red is the colour. Apparently it symbolises new life.



Mannequins are more exciting stupid looking here.

Friday
Chinese New Year Festivities Day in school culminated with the announcement of the classroom decoration awards. I couldn’t help but feel my class were at a bit of a disadvantage having me, someone who knew nothing about Chinese New Year, to lead them through.

But they did a good job, they came to class to make decorations during break, lunch and after school the last few weeks. The judge that came to see the room was the Principal but they talked to him, leading him through the room as if it was no big deal. I was a like a proud parent!


More red, lots of lanterns, pineapples and oranges, oh and a fluorescent pig.


The front view. The things around the noticeboards and whiteboard are fish which in Chinese means the same as 'surplus'. See how much I know now!

In the end though, we was robbed though as 4th form swept the board. Harsh I thought.

Saturday
Chinese New Year Eve started with a gym visit. As the old Chinese proverb goes ‘end the year as you mean to go on and go to the gym’. Later on we went down to Chinatown which was madness, absolute madness. We got drinks, dinner and watched the fireworks. They were quite good, but made even better by the ‘ooohs’, ‘aaaahs’ and ‘woooweees’ of those around us.


This was my first time to the waterfront area, it was very pretty.


Ooooh...aaaah....wowee!

Sunday
Chinese New Year is a bit of a free holiday, like Thanksgiving was. Very little is expected, Chinese people spend it visiting family and friends while us white folk have little responsibility.


This man was burning stuff right outside my bedroom. I'm not sure why, it must some sort of Chinese New Year tradition my class failed to tell me about. Maybe there's an old Chinese proverb 'burn your stuff outside Tina's bedroom to bring prosperity to your life'.

This morning a few of us went on a walk to the highest point in Singapore, which stands at a whopping 163.63m. So it’s not exactly altitude training heights, but it was hard work climbing up it, we actually turned into a sweat balls.


Finn had the easiest trip to the top, promptly falling asleep.


Everest it is not. But it is the only natural rainforest left in Singapore. According to the information guide, David Bellamy says there are more varieties of trees in one hectare here than in all of North America. Who knew? Fair enough, David Bellamy did.

There was lots of nature to be seen too. Butterflies, caterpillars, giant ants and the pièce de résistance, monkeys. I, being so at one with nature, commented ‘oh look, it’s a monkey thing’. David Attenborough, me.

So Happy Chinese New Year to you and yours. I'm off Monday and Tuesday which would be great news if I didn't have work to do. Maybe I could adopt myself into a Chinese family and go visiting instead? Nah.

I haven’t moaned about a phone in a while

So here we go. I got a Motorola RAZR as my Singapore mobile (or hand phone as they call here). My beloved Nokias were too expensive and Sony Ericsson was definitely out. Motorola had the advantage of me using one last year in America plus this one has iTunes. I have an iPod so I don’t know why that excites me so much but it does.

Tonight I thought it was time that I showed you my much talked about classroom displays. Easy enough, take the memory card out of the phone, put it in the adaptor and put it in the computer. Nooooooooo. Spend twenty minutes trying to get the back off the phone off before you can take the card out is the important first step. I even got the instructions to make sure I was doing it right. Anyway once it was off the rest of the steps were painless so...


A jaggy blue border and a yellow background complement the work on the Paris Peace Conference beautifully. To the right a mosaic of information on Egyptian farming and Chinese dynasties complete the board.

Forgive me if I talked it up too much but I hadflipping well Ancient Egyptian farming to work with. Let me see what you could do with that!

At the back I have a Bible books display which took about four hours to put together and up.


And yet I don’t think it shows it.

In other photo news:

I caught my first cockroach.


Not the best photo granted, but it’s there. There’ll be more though, I just know it.

I spend an inordinate amount of time on the 6th floor of a shopping centre waiting to pick up my wireless router.


I surely cannot be the only one who still, even in older years, is dying to spit from a balcony at great height?

Odd

I went to the gym last night for the first time at my condo. It was nice to see some familiar machines, actually the rower was exactly the same as the UUJ but some things were just odd.

1. I had the place to myself.
2. I was able to run nearly ten minutes on the treadmill off the bat, no previous training and a good four months since last I ran. Fair enough, y’all can run for longer than me, but I was a three minute runner before, remember? Must be the lake.
3. The cross trainer nearly killed me. As soon as I got on I wanted to get off. I normally love the cross trainer.
4. The stepper is a manual thing which pneumatic valves and not very comfortable to use. I predict that will be the end of that love affair too.

Most odd of all was that the predicted pain for today never appeared, and let’s not forget my classroom is on the fourth floor and there’s a lot of stairs to climb to get there. This has encouraged me enough to plan to go tomorrow. Unless of course the pain has a delayed reaction.

Would you rather...

find a mouse in your kitchen or a cockroach?

Not twenty four hours after saying the famous last words of 'I don't even think I'd know a cockroach if I saw one!' I saw one. (A quick Google Image search confirmed it.)

I tried to kill it but the scurrying little bugger got away. But I did manage to remain cool, calm and collected throughout with only the most minor of swear words.

So I think I'd have to say a cockroach. Although I reserve the right to change my mind if I find more of the crusty shelled beasts.

Kari and Phill

If I were at home I would be getting dressed for a wedding. I’m not. I’m watching 'Ellen' lying on the sofa. Oh, and I’m 7000 miles away.

Today is the first of five weddings that I’ll miss this year. I don’t think they’ll get any easier to miss, but having to start with missing with Kari’s is hard. She was one of my best friends in school and I had always imagined that I would be there on her wedding day. It wasn’t to be.

Seriously, I don’t think anyone, unless you have been away to start a new life somewhere, can fully understand how hard it is to do. Not only are you not with your friends on a daily basis, they have the audacity to carry on life with out you!! But stare decisis, I chose to come here and missing things like this is part of the deal.

Anyway Kari and Phill (not that you’ll actually read this for a couple of weeks), I hope you have a brilliant day, you enjoy it all, and you remember every detail (not least so you can fill me in on what I missed!) I can't wait to hear all about it!

The shoes

I’m not one of those crazy shoe people like Carrie Bradshaw or someone but there is something about a nice pair of shoes. The colour, the fit, the heel. Even though I'm tall I like wearing heels, and I discovered today most of my enjoyment from heels comes from the noise they make. This should not have been news to me. I remember when I was little wearing my mum’s shoes and listening to the clip clop noise they made across the tiled kitchen floor.

A couple of months ago I got one of my most favourite pairs of shoes…ever. When I was 'Office Tina' in the Department, they were my favourite thing to wear. The TOM quickly realised their new importance in my wardrobe and from then on they were ‘the shoes’.


That'll be the right shoe.

Today I was wearing the shoes. I noticed a slightly different noise coming from one. Nightmare of all nightmares the replaceable heel bit at the bottom had come to loose. No fear I thought, there’s a man that sits outside the shops by the school and reheels shoes, I’ll get him to stick it down with his super shoe glue. I carefully walked up to him and tried to explain what I needed done. It was a complete waste of breath. I would have been better He whipped off the old heel, and stuck a new one on. Then, quicker than you could say ‘Imelda Marcos’ he’d taken the other one and done the same to it. As I put my shoes back on again, there was no noise, no clip clop, nothing. My shoes were mute. He mutilated, actually mutilated my shoes. Devastated.

I walked on to the bus a quieter and little sadder person.

Top five reasons to be creative

5. You get a day off timetable, and if you're really lucky you won't teach at all.

4. You get to go home early.

3. You get a chance to do all the things you meant to do already.

2. You can go to Ikea when it's quiet.

1. You can listen to Chris Moyles live.

Go on, light your creativity spark!

Plusses and minuses

Minus - Yesterday I messed up the bus again. Seriously do I have some sort of bus transport learning difficulty?

Plus - I completed my first display board of my teaching career. I hope they all don't take six weeks to do! Although I am quite pleased with it, maybe a photo tomorrow.

Minus - I had to sit through the most uncomfortable meeting of my life today.

Plus - The bell rang and I had a reason to leave.

Plus - Tomorrow is 'Creativity Day' which means the students are in art, music, drama and dance workshops. I'm as much for creativity as the next person, but much more when it means we're off timetable and I have no classes tomorrow, then the more creative the better!

Minus - I have to tidy my room as it is in no state to have outside visitors in. That means I have to get up early, early as in 5ruddy:30. I hate mornings.

Always a plus - Bed time for Tinas.

Chez Tina

Now that my Ikea furniture arrived, I thought it was time I showed you my apartment.


This is it! It’s the ground floor apartment. My living room has a lovely view of that tree trunk. The glass is tinted, that’s why it’s black but that shouldn’t fool people in to thinking they cannot be seen when the lights are on as yesterday I had the misfortune to see what looked like a girl waxing her boyfriend's chest.

Master bedroom

Note the peach curtains. Lucky me, they are a theme throughout the apartment. You can just see the bookshelf, that’s Expedit. (I have taken to calling my Ikea things by their Ikea name. Also in shot is Ethel Blad, my duvet cover and Final, the reading light.

Master Bathroom

I believe the real estate word for it would be compact. Just out of shot is the bath and shower. I don’t use them at the minute, as the shower head doesn’t go high enough for me.

Guest bedroom

Interested parties should email me. (You may need to click the photo.)

Guest Bathroom

This is the shower I do use. Isn’t it nice to have options?

Kitchen

Again, notice the peach curtains. They’ve gone for a student hall of residence kitchen theme here. Lots of grey and ingrain dirt but really, how much time am I likely to spend in here?

Utility area

I have a little balcony area which serves as my utility room with washing machine and dryer and garbage shoot. I don’t know why that excites me so much, but it does.

Living room

The peach curtains beautifully frame the massive tree trunk. Ignore the wires going across the floor, I'm getting wireless, it just hasn’t arrived yet. You can just see Uplighter Not from Ikea. Not shown are my cushions, Fenja Rand and Grönö the table light. TV is provided was included with the apartment, cable and internet by Starhub.

Flärke the Bookshelf and Alleby the Snake

I was in serious need of surface space for books and Flärke was the cheapest Ikea make. I was in much less need for the snake. They were on offer and everyone, no seriously everyone was buying them, apart from me so I was given this as a house warming gift. I think I might use it a bit like a draught excluder only for geckos that invade the kitchen at night.

Dining Room

A green farmhouse tiled table and peach curtains have been teamed together to provide a dining and study area.

The Facilities:

Tennis courts

Swimming pool

Water feature, pond and fish

(not shown is the little gym and squash court.) I think I will be most successful at lying by the pool but the thought of possibility of actually playing tennis is always there.

This is my post box. It's empty. I think you should send me mail.

So there you go, home sweet home. I've definitely lived in worse places.

One month in

Yesterday was my one month anniversary. It really doesn’t feel like I’ve been here that long. Anyway, there was a staff barbeque organised. I don’t think it was celebrate my month, just a happy coincidence. It was great craic and a good chance to get to know some of the people I work with (although there are still a good few names I don’t have a clue about). Afterwards a few of us went to a pub for some more drinks (yes, read that sentence again, alcohol on Methodist property?!)

One of the guys there found out that a couple of us were Christians. We fielded question after question. It was a proper mature adult conversation, and the questions asked weren't in a nasty way. He just wanted explanation about why we believed in the things we did, especially when it came to sex before marriage. Although something else came up which maybe isn’t so obvious – Noah and the ark.

I know some Christians really relish the opportunity of talking about all these kinds of things, but I am not one. I feel like if I say something I believe to be true that they’ll get all pissy about something I said. The thing about last night was that was disappointing though is the way we were dominated in the conversation. It was more ‘why do you believe this?’, not us asking ‘why do you not?’ if you know what I mean.

I don’t really know why I am writing about this but it’s just something I thought about today as I dossed around. Which reminds me, my Ikea stuff arrived today so maybe photos tomorrow.

Further notes on buses

Buses in Singapore are unremarkable. Nothing ever happens, no one talks, no even makes eye contact. It’s a Singapore thing apparently not to look at people. Very often there will be people standing even when there are seats free because they face the rest of the bus (we used to call them the ‘four seats’ when I got the bus to school).

Today on the bus was entirely eventful. A fight broke out, like full on fisticuffs up and down the aisle. Women were protecting their children and men ran to break it up. In the end the bus driver had to stop the bus and separate the two men. He brought one man down to stand by him as we carried on the journey. Although it was clear it was not over. Death stares were flung up to the man at the back and shouts of ‘we’ll take this outside, I have a weapon’. He further demonstrated his aggression issues as his next move was to smash the back of his head off the pole that you’re supposed to hold onto. His day got even worse when he dropped his half kilo bag of rice spilling little grains all over the place. (It’ll maybe indicate just how tense it was on the bus that I didn’t even laugh at this.)

When I got off the bus the man ahead of me turned to me and said ‘there’s war all over the world, and two men can’t even ride a bus together’. Too true.