I left Singapore’s Changi Airport this morning after 32.5 hours of travel. Half an hour later, I arrived at the hotel where I’ll be staying for a couple days and took a shower in the pool locker room because my room wasn’t ready. My primary objective for the afternoon was to stay outside as much as possible in order to keep myself awake and to let natural melatonin do its thing.
Immediately upon leaving the airport, I realized a year away means a lot in terms of memory. For example, I’d forgotten that they drive on the left side of the road here, a legacy of British colonialism. I forgot that no one knows how to walk in a straight line, that people actually wait for the crosswalk light to change before crossing the street, and that escalators are for standing (strictly on the left, of course). Additionally, I forgot that you tap your subway card on the way in and on the way out to calculate the fare and I forgot the subway map altogether.
So many people smoke cigarettes, which I’d also forgotten, and it’s gross. And yet, I knew exactly where to find the closest money changer and where to get a new SIM card. I remembered the location of certain stores in a mall I used to frequent and was able to recognize new ones.
It’s weird that I was gone for a year . . . and it’s weird that I was gone for only a year.
I felt somewhat similarly in Rochester this summer. There were certain things about driving around town that I’d just forgotten. I’d forgotten how certain neighborhoods blend into each other and the names of different streets that I used to know. It’s unsettling that after spending so much of my life in that one place, a lot of it was gone, replaced by new pertinent information like all the local and express stops on the 4, 5, 6 trains in New York.
I expect that it’s going to be the same in Singapore for a little while. There’s definitely some adjusting to do, but it feels good to back.
Lots of travel updates lately, so here’s a quick life update:
I recently signed for a job in New York at a Jewish private school just outside the city and I have a flight home. Mitch and I don’t yet have a place to live, but that’ll happen all in good time. Moving to New York City is now a real thing!
I’m feeling a lot better about the move now that work is settled. It’s a middle school social studies job, which will be new for me, but I’m pretty confident in my pedagogy and I’m excited about the school. I wouldn’t have taken the job if I didn’t think it was a good fit but too many factors aligned for it to be anything else. As it happens, I attended a Jewish school for kindergarten through grade eight, overlapped with my new head of department when I was an undergrad in the program in which she was a grad student, went to my new principal’s alma mater for grad school, and – here’s the part that sealed the deal – grew up in the town where my new head of school’s relatives live and was a member of the middle school youth group that his sister and brother ran when they were in college.
That last part, friends, is called playing Jewish Geography. Fun game. I’ve made lots of acquaintances and even friends that way, which probably makes us a rather insular group. I’d argue, though, that it’s fair to say that about every minority ethnic group. 🙂
I’ve written before about my excitement to be with Mitch again and that’s still true. If not for him, there’s no reason to leave Singapore.
And that’s what is making this so hard.
I went out for coffee with my friend Jamie this afternoon and we started talking about all the things we need to do before I leave in (gulp) just over two months. Two months and three days. Time flies. As Jamie and I chatted and planned where in the world we could meet up in the coming years (compatible teacher schedules help!) I decided that I’m ready to go, but I’m not ready to leave.
I felt such a cold sense of finality when I clicked “confirm” on my flight payment tonight. The hard part is that I feel that I have unfinished business here. I have such wonderful friends who I love and who, in some ways, I’m still getting to know. I’m not done with that.
There are students to teach, inquiry questions to address, and curricula to plan. They can get along without me just fine, but I don’t know how I’ll do without them – both the students and the teachers!
There are neighborhoods of Singapore I haven’t seen, cafes and restaurants I haven’t tried, parks I haven’t explored, and hawker food I haven’t tasted. There are amazing countries to visit that I’m closer to now than I’ll likely ever be again.
Ever is a long time.
Even after a year, plus six trips to Singapore before I moved, I feel like I’ve just arrived. I’m still learning and I’m still excited. I was so ready to leave Malaysia by the time that finally happened and I could not feel more differently now.
I also feel like I have a home here but homes are portable. Home has come to mean people, not places. I already have a lot of people in New York City and I am looking forward to being much more present in their lives. So, I’m ready to go.
Leaving? Not so much.
As Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack Dawson said in one of my favorite scenes in Titanic, “To making it count.”
I have 63 more days here. And I intend to make them all count.
It is a truth nearly universally acknowledged that alcohol can bring both joy and pleasure to meals, festivities, and socializing. (Coffee can, too, as does excellent food and good company, but none are the focus of this post.)
Malaysia is a Muslim country and devout Muslims avoid alcohol. As a result, we really didn’t know whether we would have access to decent beer, wine, or liquor while living here. As a coworker and friend at my school in Rochester put it, “All other things aside, what are you going to drink?” Mitch is a craft beer snob, an attitude I have definitely acquired under his influence. Unfortunately, we seem to be in the very tiny minority here, perhaps comprised entirely of the two of us. My expat coworkers are American, Canadian, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Australian so there is clearly a drinking culture present. We’ve already been out for drinks, in fact, which meant drinking Tiger out of tiny glasses full of ice so we wouldn’t actually need to taste the Tiger. Like all mediocre beer, it was better that way.
The upside of having expat coworkers with expat customs means that “Where the heck do you find good alcohol here?” is a perfectly reasonable question, just as it would be back home. I was surprised (that’s been a theme lately) to find out that Tesco (basically the British version of Wal-Mart) is the best place in town to purchase anything that can be purchased in terms of libations. I’ve heard rumors of duty free prices somewhere, but no one’s been able to find that outside the airport.
We finished orientation a little early today so Mitch and I decided to take a cab to the Tesco Extra (think Wal-Mart Supercenter) a couple miles away to check it out for ourselves. We were rather pleased with our findings.
Alice White is one of my favorite Australian wines. The store had The Stump Jump, too!
As soon as I saw this, I knew it was all going to be okay. This is not to say that I need todrink; I grew up in a household with wine and learned to appreciate alcohol for what it is – an excellent complement to food. However, creature comforts do matter when one is thousands of miles from home. Creature comforts don’t necessarily come cheap, though. Alice White at this store in Seremban, as you can see, is 49.99RM. That comes out to about $15. The same bottle of wine would cost around $7 back home. Ouch.
Harder stuff
The liquor selection was decent. Not bad, not good, but decent. They had something of just about everything one would need to stock a respectable bar. The shelves on the left had a respectable whiskey selection, too. Mitch is also a whiskey snob, a sentiment he shares with my dad, and he classified the whiskey selection as the best of all the liquor, but nothing impressive. Whiskey aside, they had Jose and Beefeater and we’ve seen Bombay Sapphire elsewhere (in little bottles with big price tags) so I’m satisfied with that. Again, prices were at least twice what we’d pay at home.
Finally, there was the beer. This is the most disappointing of all. We drank mostly beer at home and now we need to adjust to drinking less beer because it’s expensive and not nearly as good. Paying high restaurant prices for average beer is not a habit I feel like starting.
There were a couple gems like Leffe Brun and Hoegaarden, both of which I’d happily drink at home, but Tiger and Carlsberg seem to get the most attention around here.
Notice the “Tidak Halal” signs on the shelves – “Not Halal.” (That’s like putting a “Not Kosher” sign on shrimp or bacon. Anyone who cares already knows.)
Regardless of the alcohol situation, the real reason I’m here is to teach. We visited the school yesterday and there is a lot of construction left to be done. When it is finished, hopefully sooner rather than later as we have students starting on September 17, it will be beautiful.
The front entrance to school
Someone go to Roc or Old Toad and have a good, strong stout for me, please!
Photos, travels, musings, and ideas on education by someone trying to make the world a better and more peaceful place
By Rebecca Michelle 