Word of the day: "apotheosis"
It's been an inordinately long time since I was actively blogging here; however I promised Gabriel that I would do so of late.

Basically, life has undergone some rather traumatic changes of late. At first, I was tempted to collate some of the more outré events over the last 9 months, but upon going through my offline journals, I realised with a shudder that it would transform this blog into another one of those dysfunctional adolescent rants, no matter how I embellished or attempted to inject bonhomie into their depiction - a nauseating series of cliches which, however emotionally acute to the person experiencing it, degenerate into a sickening litany of self-pity when lovingly and masochistically put to type on a blog to be read. Particularly to an audience which is no doubt jaded by repeated narratives of suicide, self-mutilation, parental/adolescent generation gaps, orgies of alcohol, eulogies over the carcasses of relationships, elegiac paragraphs of existential angst, schadenfreude sentiments at the discomfiture of one's foes, romantic expressions of unrequited love, futile teenage glances, wardrobe anomalies, bitter rending of garments at the adulterous betrayal by a significant other, et al.

So I'll keep the "Story So Far" section as short as I can.

Basically, (and without a trace of irony), at a moment when I had resigned myself that I was going to plod on with my existence in a reasonably comfortable groove, having figured out how to limp my life around a variety of mental and situational disorders, I suddenly got a job offer in Singapore. And a pretty decent job at that.

At one blow, virtually every single one of my PULGs were achieved, although pleasantly enough the underlying context for them had ceased to become an issue.

Be that as it may, I can't say I wasn't (and even now) looking forward to the fairly tumultous changes entailed in having to move *back* to Singapore after approximately 10 years away. Frankly, at that point in time, my life had descended into such a rut that if I'd gotten a job training mine-laying monkeys in eastern Uganda, my only question would have been, "Do I get to share their bananas?"

Most of my last two months were spent gleefully handing over work to colleagues at my previous employer's. I must confess at this point that one of the most difficult moments in the transition was knowing that I'd have to build up professional relationships in a totally new working environment - I'd become extremely comfortable with my old colleagues, if not exactly the job or my department's top honcho. Perhaps that in and of itself was a sign to move on though.

At this point, however, I would like to thank my immediate line managers in a public forum for giving me a good reference which probably helped clinch my current job. I doubt you'll ever read this, either of you, unless your web-surfing habits are way more diverse than I was led to believe. But thanks for putting up with my incessant habit of playing with the stuffed rabbit during any limit breach.

In any event, my department head was determined to squeeze every last drop of work from me; I had actually listed out fourteen outstanding projects and tried to get as much progress on ALL of them as was humanly possible.

Then on the final fortnight, a sudden epiphany happened.

I was just told by the HR department how much I had to pay back the Bank (because of my stupid 3 months-notice-or-3-months-salary-in-lieu clause in the contract which my fucking boss refused to waiver). And when I held the memo which said that not only was my pay for July being withheld to cover the above, I had to top it up with about $2000, it suddenly dawned on me.

I was *paying* to work my last few days in KL.

That last fortnight, I flatly refused to do any work my boss assigned me. I just made excuses and stayed away from the office. My immediate colleagues and manager were actually quite supportive of that; so supportive that I actually felt guilty and spent some effort ensuring that the projects that would most affect them were smoothly handed over whereas others that the big boss wanted would just rot fallow in my absence. (although I *was* responsible enough to hand over all my notes and research to a colleague to warehouse in case those projects were resurrected)

Also on that last week, I spent virtually every night getting pissed drunk; because all of a sudden acquaintances and fair-weather friends I hadn't known existed were popping out of the woodwork asking to go for dinner, have drinks, etc. I'm not so cynical as to say ALL of them wanted me to help look for job openings (the word had gotten out by now that I was going to work in an international investment bank) - I'm sure SOME of them were sincere at least.

One thing's for sure, duck farmers make a HELL lot of money. (Went out for drinks with couple of friends, a friend of theirs dropped by, heard i was going to singapore, immediately ordered two bottles of cognac, then got his driver (HIS ie. not his family's) to fetch us all to a karaoke lounge and he paid for another 3 bottles, AND the girls, AND the mama-san actually treated him to another bottle. And yes, the guy who treated and paid for everything was a duck farmer - owns 25 duck farms in Malaysia and a slaughter house in Singapore - and he's like 5 years older than me)

The first week in Singapore was characterised by running around like MAD looking for a place to stay. It's basically a long and frenzied tale of poring through newspaper ads (Incidentally, it seems *impossible* to find a News Straits Times for sale in Orchard Road from 7:30pm onwards - a fact that caused me no end of frustration because the person I was staying with didn't have a subscription and I tended to forget to buy it in the mornings) calling agents, coordinating times, running from weird area to weird area, tearing my hair out in frustration at so many nice places outside my budget; or nice places within my budget but located in weird locations, etc etc.

My mother came down with me to "help" - while I admit she spotted things and asked questions I wouldn't have thought of - good ones; she also spent a lot of time criticising my choices and the way I was coordinating the timetables with the agents and insisting I squeeze in as much house viewing as I could while she was in singapore - while I was harried like mad trying to flit from place to place without spending too much of my dwindling supply of Singapore dollars. In fact, at one point, I thought she had left, so I went to see a place; and while I was there she called me and said she was postpoining going back, and insisted I keep the agent and the landlord of the house I was viewing there for half an hour while she caught a cab down to see the place herself ARGH.

Anyway, here were the choices of accommodation I was faced with for a while, and the factors I considered for each place. I wonder if I made the right choice in the end.

a) one bedroom apartment directly on top of Pearl Center in Chinatown. $1000.

Pros: DAMN convenient - less than 5 minutes walk to Outram Park MRT, damn lot of food around, being on top of shopping center with easy access 7-11 and lots of sundry, fruit, tailor, handphone shops, kopi tiams - (think Lucky Plaza type with way more cheena sleaziness), and, in the words of the agent who showed me the house: "very fang pian! come downstairs can mai hao ma already!" (buy numbers - Singapore Pools stand was just opposite the lift), well maintained, very nice kitchen, reasonably cheap for CBD flat.

Cons: lots of KTV and China girls hanging around (or is that a pro? My mom didn't see it that way...), damn small apartment - living room two thirds smaller than bedroom, turf club on the fifth floor of building not particularly reassuring, furnishing not that great, tiny toilet/shower, zero facilities, the damnation of neverending phone calls and nagging from my parents about the dangers of KTV girls if I actually decided to stay there

b) Beaumont - directly opposite PUB building located next to Somerset MRT (Devonshire Road). Open concept studio apartment (essentially a giant open rectangular room with a bed at the end). $1100

Pros: Damn near Somerset MRT, apartment with facilities (pool & gym), a balcony (for smoking), open concept means space is pretty maximised, reasonably sized kitchen, okay bathroom

Cons: Washing machine is not a dryer, bed and cupboard a bit old and lousy (although the other furnishings - sofa, table are quite okay), have to walk up a hill to get back home (okay i'm lazy:), tiny TV provided, apartment a bit old, no real convenience stores or sundry places around (nearest would be Centerpoint or the BP station a block away)

c) Seng Poh Gardns - somewhere near Tiong Bahru market. Pre-war converted shophouse; single open concept studio apartment on second floor. $1200

Pros: The absolutely nicest furnishings of all the places I'd seen - cream carpet, cool looking bed, frosted glass shower with damn nice showerhead and tiles, glass kitchen top with protruding metal basin, Ikea standard cupboards, chairs, table, the only place whose landloard provided a VCD machine, near acccess to a wet market (although slightly irrelevant as i didn't intend to do cooking), near soundproof pre-war walls, pretty large space (larger than the first two), also the juxtaposition of the intensely old fashioned facade (you enter through this narrow stone stairwell that's like a damned monastery, enter a corridor - at the far end is a stone spiral staircase leading down where you can see the rear courtyards of other shoplots in the same block) and the supermodern interior really strikes a chord with me - deception resonates with me:), the HDB estates have quite a few hardware and bric-a-brac stores around for my needs.

Cons: Not near MRT - have to cut through quite a few blocks of walking, tiong bahru a bit out of the way for city access, difficult parking for visitors who drive, a bit steep for a place located somewhat out of the way with zero facilities, washing machine is not cum-dryer, only electric hot pot provided - no gas cooking.

d) Liang Seah Place - basically another reconverted conservation house (ie. old shophouse converted to bucolic apartment - expats love those). Two options at this place - one was a one-room set up essentially a double hotel room (not suite) for $1200, another one a pretty large one bedroom for $1600 - slightly out of budget. Also a split level for $2200 - way way out of budget. Pros and cons below describe the cheapest option Pros: Pretty near Bugis MRT (located opposite Parco on Beach Road side), very cute place, provides a safe(!), has a gym, large TV, willing to pay for SCV, nice view of huge old tree and playground outside window, lots of great food around downstairs, nice hotel room style furnishings, toilet with bathtub

Cons: Small, horrible veneer smell pervading place, have to walk damn far out into the corridor to the rubbish chute, no washing machine-cum-dryer in the apartment - have to walk out to a nearby one in the gym. (weird place for a washing machine i know), no gas cooking allowed in room (only electric hot pot)

e) Weird place on Race Course Road - $1100, open concept studio on top of Indian fishhead curry restaurant.

Pros: Next to Farrer Park MRT station (the new northeast line), lots of good Indian food around,(banana leaf rice and mamak stalls galore!), pretty new development, cool hydraulic car park.

Cons: Fucking neh-vana, very domi-neh-ted (just out of Little India!!!), no-neh to hide, (yes i delight in racist jokes, like all of you. Strangely enough, I don't see a dichotomy between having friends with individuals while still harbouring racist sentiments), smell of fishhead curry pervading apartment, hideously small (even smaller than (a)!!!), crappy furnishings, crappy old microwave oven, the whole apartment having a feel of a movie where the misunderstood anti-hero is fleeing the law and has to hole up in some slum apartment with a bottle of Jack Daniel's in a brown paper bag - despite being new.

f) Hollywood Gardens on Oxley Rise. Next to the old Je t'aime jewellers and Church of the Sacred Heart. Low-rise walk-in on the 7th floor. $1300

Pros: ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NONE. THE MOST HIDEOUS PLACE I SAW. let me describe my visit to this place. my mom and i got there, we were waiting for the agent. agent pulls up in a mercedes, darts out of his car, runs up stairs motioning us to follow, we follow, not knowing it's on the fucking top floor of the low rise, pass by shut and paclocked doors on the 4th, 5th and 6th floor (the padlocks were rusted through), and as we hit the apartment the agent shouts, "i'm rushing somewhere, close the door when you're done.." and then he darts back past me and my mom down the stairs, and into his mercedes, and as we his car pulls away, we enter the house and spot all the Cons below..

Cons: Far from MRT, far from bus stop (the nearest on Clemenceau Avenue isn't exactly on a lot of bus routes) rotting furniture, curtains like cobwebs, dust everywhere, walking up 7 fucking floors, zero facilities, twenty year old development, padlocked apartments all around making the place feel like The Shining, not particularly large, insane asking price, positively negative fengshui, generally freaked us out and we were out of there in 5 minutes.

g) Sofia Court - behind Peace Centre. One bedroom apartment going for $1200

Pros: The largest of the apartments I'd seen, decent furniture, very nice marble tiled bathroom, apartment with a pool, fully equipped kitchen, old but well maintained development, convenient access to Cold Storage in Peace Center, lots of cabinet space,

Cons: Damn bloody far walk down Sofia Hill, through Peace Center, cutting across Bencoolen Road to Selegie Road to take a bus down to my office, all that extra space a hindrance to maintain, generally pretty boring area to live in without anything of interest around.

h) Club Street - one bedroom conservation house apartment above a Spanish restaurant. $1450. Directly opposite China Square.

Pros: Nice parquet floor, good furnishing, large TV, toilet with bathtub, pretty comprehensive sundry mart just across the road (servicing the far more expensive Emerald Court apartment complex), washer cum dryer, surprisingly quiet behind double glazed windows, lots of yuppie eateries around, generally cool "expat" type place in heart of city area, comprehensively furnished with washer cum dryer, clothes hanging area, cupboard space, decent bed, fully equipped kitchen, nice sofas, rubbish chute in apartment, basically the most "yuppie expat" looking place in terms of location and general ambience. (the tiong bahru one being a very close second but only in terms of interior furnishing)

Cons: Top end in terms of budget, not the most convenient in terms of walking distance to MRT (nearest being Raffles Place), later was told Club street is a gay area (although that means I can pimp my ass if i need rent money), irritating hidden cost of having to pay $10 every month to service the air conditioning, no facilities, the only place that insisted on a 2 year lease, virtually no security.

There were actually a few other places I saw, but nothing particularly notable about them, other than their location (near Novena and Newton, and one in Balestier Road) The rest of the pre-work week, other than the Kafka-esque hunt for a house, was occupied by fucking bureaucratic hassles - getting my utilities account, getting a health check up (x-rays, blood test), signing the tenancy agreement, going to my new bank and being given ANOTHER huge form to fill up, photocopying CFA books (there's another Bleak House story with regards to the CFA books which I stupidly shared with a friend in Malaysia, leading to issues regarding their division once I'm working in Singapore), and right now, having to arrange for cable, handphone, fixed line, and broadband, moving the last of my stuff from KL (with much heart-rending pain, sanity prevailed and my father convinced me that I couldn't ship ALL my books down) and double ARGH finding out that i'm going to be taxed flat 15% of income for 2004 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WHAT THE FUCK) simply for being a foreign resident working in Singapore for less than 183 days in the year.

Off-tangent observation - aunties and tai tais seriously know a LOT about real estate. when i was searching the classified ads for apartmetns for rent, my mom and her friends could like identify the locations and pros and cons of virtually ANY apartment estate I named out loud.

Hm, this blog will have to continue later, as the cybercafe (which took me 2 days to locate, where the hell are they when you need one?) I am currently tapping on for my Internet fix is about to close. And my Malaysian mobile phone on roaming can't dial bloody Citysearch.

(reminder to self before weekend) Things to blog about:

-Trip with Gabriel to NUS + observations
-First week living alone again
-The joys of Ikea shopping
-The Catch-22 of needing a bank account to get a mobile phone + SCV, but not being able to open a bank account without a local contact number....
-Observations about anal security guards and mile high compliance manuals in new workplace.
-Scary evil new boss
-Making faces during conference calls
-Amusement that three of my old secondary schoolmates are actually in jail
-The not so joys of having to rebuild life from scratch with regards to personal independence
-Supper with Ivan near the Indian temple
-preparation for all night chor tai dee sessions