Becoming a Singaporean

How do I feel after becoming a Singapore resident? I don't belong here. I love the life, love the job, love the dance, love the shoppings and love the food, however, I don't fell bonded by this small island. I just received my five years Singapore permanent resident status, and had my finger print recorded by the immigration department this morning. When I walked out of ICA, I felt in a puzzle: who am I? Where am I belonged to? I am a resident of three countries, holding one passport with two countries’ validated visas. I have done what I have been wishing for since young – to travel freely like a bird. Now I have the wing to fly, yet I am longing to nest.

Work has been hectic since we take on a new healthcare account. Everyday I have to rush with things, from 7.30am till 8.00pm non-stop. On top of deadline driven and the demanding tasks, I also have to withstand great stress from colleagues and clients. I still like the job and the challenges it gives me everyday LOL

Busy bee

Last week I could not get out of the office before 8.30pm everyday, so praisy! Everyday, everything is work work work, even in my dream is work. I withstand a lot of stress and accuse from some bithcy girls around and piles of work day after day. Everyday is a new busy day and now I could not kick off without at least one cup of coffee.

I went to a charley (a holiday bungalow) near Changi beach with a group of people I met from the dance studio on Saturday night after my dance class. Once in a while, students from our dance studio will organize an outing so everyone can gather together and get to know each other better. That is a good thing of a small studio which people can have more opportunities to know each other, unlike the big ones such as A&J. I start to know more about the dance studios in Singapore and figure out the good and bad ones, I also search around for good places with Latin or ballroom music apart from Union Square. Regardless my level, I now know all of the Latin dances, so I may consider taking ballroom dance after my studio’s three-week break.

We went down to the beach in the dark, walked along the Kelang and played with sparkling firework on the sands. There were a few Malays around catching fish at night, quite an interesting thing to see. After that, we went back to the bungalow and randomly chatting around with people. At the same time, we were munching the Utah from the bag of a hundred - someone bought in a hundred Utah from a famous Utah store and encourage 9 of us to finish them as our energy supplement. It was an OK get-together night with people I haven’t met from our studio. I left just after mid-night, taking a cab back, while others stayed back to dance in the wee hours.

I finally tear open my purse to buy an expensive Ben & Jerry ice cream. For a mere one scoop ice cream, relatively about 3 ounce, the price tag is already five bucks. They branded the ice cream in a “premium” class with so little flavors. For the first and the last, I will not be a fool again to buy such an over priced super sweet ice cream. Actually, if I want to keep my figure, I better put my sweet teeth away as I can feel the jiggling on my waist already.

The work will never end

This weekend is not really an “end” to me. On Saturday, I had to go for a stodgy 3-three hour seminar on women cancer for our client’s knowledge gathering; Sunday was spent in the office reading product fact sheets then went for a four-hour dance training. Next week will be another hectic week with product launches, event preparation and strategy planning lining up. Like an Asian work class saying “The work will never end”.

Our Beijing colleagues came to Singapore as their company’s offsite this weekend. A number of Singapore colleagues and I hung out with them on Saturday night from having dinner in East Coast followed by drinks in Long Bar at the Raffles hotel. The Beijing office is vast with 150+ staffs and wider business scopes; they are even doing the PR side for 2008 Olympics. Most of them are youngsters and more enliven than our soundless Singapore office. I was also amused to know more about their practices in China. Prompted by this Pilipino and Latin band, we had a great time in Long Bar where everyone, including our bosses, got onto their feet and danced.

I find myself not a very talkative person, which is a big big disadvantage in PR. I am extraverted to a certain degree yet find it hard to express my true feelings. I could not pretend who I am not. If I don't like that person, I will just keep myself away and can not put on my fate mask to acquaint him/her. My eyes give me away straight away.

Work work and more work

This week has gone passed like hell! I feel like the whole week I have been pushed to rush with everything, I did not even have a break to take a toilet break: rush to work as early as 6.30am, rush to finish a monitoring report, rush to reply endless emails, rush to go home as late as 9pm (and continue to work at home), rush to have a shower, rush to brush my teeth, rush to sleep, etc. My nerve system is tended in high alert all the time; I even dreamt of work while I was sleeping. Here is Singapore, how can I complain?

I am now working as a healthcare PR - the toughest area in PR practice. If I can survive in this firm for one year, PR path should not be rough in the forth seeing future. At this stage, work like hell plus long hours and peanut pay is ineluctable.

The most frustrated part of the week is that my stupid laptop has broken down while I needed it the most to work from home. My English system has advanced cancer while my Chinese system dies completely after installing an antivirus software provided by my dad. I was in such an agitated state to call him at mid-night and had a big quarrel with him. I don't think I will talk to him again in the next few months.

Our company held a media party on Wednesday night, inviting journalists from all the Singapore publications to come for drinks, free food and chit-chat with our PR practices. Journalists are human beings; they cover and disseminate news, then will go have fun and get drunk. They are just a bit louder, can drink a bit more and will go to Zouk on a Wednesday night whereas they have to be at work by 9am the next day. There are also no lack of sleazy old dudes going around fondling girls and boosting their spectacular moments in their news life. Whoever they are, it is always interesting to meet people behind the scenes, to understand better how news is made and spinned under their pens.

On Tuesday night, I went to see this long anticipating musical performance “the Phantom of the Opera” shown in Singapore’s infamous Esplanade theatre. I bought the ticket at SGD$97, that is equivalent to RMB￥500, yet I was still sitting quite far away from the stage! Kristy has the best Opera voice I have ever heard, mellow and fascinating. I was also impressed by their skills to change from one scene to another in as short as five seconds. Dry ice was utilised a couple of times to bring out a stage “river”, which I initially thought they would use real water despite the difficulty to achieve on stage. I still give it a thumb’s up although I still

I had been learning and acting to be a kindly person in my year’s in Optus’, it was such a lovely environment that you were never afraid to show your true color. Throwing straight from such an innocent environment into Singapore, I have made several mistakes from being myself. I have seen and heard nasty stories among people, and, gradually, am learning to cover myself in protective armors.

Zouk out

Groove Amanda is the top techno twin mixers in the UK and they came to play in Zouk last night. Under their thrusting record spinning technique, you could certainly shake your ass off on the dance floor. Zouk is not a big club as comparison to MOS or St James, yet I have to admit that it plays the best techno music in town. My feet started pumping soon after I stepped into its main room, where people from all over the world were already flourishing on the floor. The GA brothers is an accomplished band that bought people into one heat wave after another.

Music with diversify lightings combined with occasional dry ice and wind blowing effect coming under your feet really made the night’s experience glorious. Although people around were still high, yet I became a bit bored after they had played several repetitive theme of songs. We eventually left at 4am, when my feet were hurting and my back was wet with spilled bear.

The rest of my weekend is spent on sleeping and recovering from the big night out. One big time for two days' of resting and nothing done~~~

Night cycling

On Friday, I sneaked out of the office before 7pm, while they were sharing the Friday evening laugh at “F-You” and “If you don't use it, you lose it” kind of X rated jokes. I am so glad that a week is over again, as I have so many problems in the week. I am going to pour all my complains, concerns and suggestions onto my boss on Monday. I have nothing to scare of, unlike most of the Singaporeans. I come here with a purpose, if I can’t see myself achieving it, I will fight for it. The worse case is I go back to Australia, which is not that bad indeed.

I had an activity scheduled for the night as well – a night cycling. I thought it would only go for a couple of hours, yet when I paid at the registration, they told me the roughly finishing time was around 6am! Tough luck, that means it is an overnight activity. To be honest, I have never stayed up overnight in my life, because no one can prevent me from falling asleep despite I had agreed on staying up.

There were about 30 of us, and most of them were NTS students. Our cycling route was started from East Coast Park, through Raffles Place, Tanjong Pagar, Vivo City then destined in Labrador Nature Reserve. That is not the end yet as we have to cycle back to East Coast Park to complete the whole circle. In Singapore, you can only do this sort of activities at night as one it is hot during the day, two there are two many traffics in the day time.

Physically, I am alright with the whole journey as roads in Singapore are quite flat, unlike last time I rode on the Canberra roads. I do not even feel ache on my legs today but just a sore bum. However, mentally I am extremely tired. I almost felt asleep on MRT on my way back home. I fell onto my bed at 7am and slept till 2pm in the afternoon. Then I scrambled out of bed and quickly dressed up to go out meeting up with a friend knew from dance before heading to the dance studio for a lesson.