thoughts

There have been several moments since arriving when I'm simply happy to be experiencing the moment I'm in, a feeling I had lost for a while. Watching Ethan and Laney and Leigh ride up a dizzyingly-long escalator from the depths of the subway while somehow being ringed with artistic rainbows across the bucky-balled interior roof. Laughing incredulously about the atomic-level spiciness of a curry dish. Thinking about our new neighborhood--Ang Mo Kio--and the markets, the library, the parks, the shopping. Waiting for school to start and to meet my students and colleagues.

We will live in an apartment tower for the first time, a tower with a poetic name: Grandeur 8. Apartment 1302. It's almost new and has remote-control air conditioners in each room. It also has a bomb shelter, de rigueur for all Sing apartments. I told the kids that's where they'll be if they don't do what we tell them to. They didn't think it was very funny. Leigh said that's where I'll sleep when we have an argument. I didn't think that was very funny.

My eyes have been snapping open at 3 a.m., no matter how tired I feel. I lay awake for about an hour, waiting for my body to relax again and return to sleep. There's an adrenaline that mixes with jet lag. I can't wait to wake up again to learn more, but I'm sooooo tired.

The equatorial heat which I had feared is bearable, just. It's like living in Atlanta in the summer--you have to know how to manage it. Mornings and evenings are fine. Being outdoors in the mid afternoon is madness. 

Singaporeans follow rules like no other group of people I've ever seen before. My critical-thinking American psyche is at odds with this. I watch crowds stand patiently for the walk sign beside an intersection with no traffic, and I think, "This is crazy." I see a sign that says "no eating or drinking," and nobody--I mean nobody--is eating or drinking. There is an acceptance of authority that I am waiting to understand, that maybe I will gain insight into over time. It's comforting to know I won't be pickpocketed anywhere.

We're staying off Orchard Road for now. Orchard Road is the Rodeo Drive of SE Asia. The shops--Rolex, Tod's, Versace, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and all the rest--are definitely way out of my league, but it's great for people watching. Fantastic people watching. World class. The beauty of most folks on Orchard Road is staggering. It's a fashion show.

Then there's the real Singapore, the Chinese and Indian and Malay Singapore that sells you a plastic cup of ice cream with a biscuit in it for 50 cents. It makes you a Halal breakfast with curry and black coffee and wishes you a good day. It speaks to you in English and Mandarin all mixed up while somehow making basic sense. It has subway stops called Khatib, Yo Chi Kun, and Admiralty.