In my experience, in Singapore, the culture of acknowledgement of an individual's presence at a chance encounter is limited to a 5 second conversation: a smile if you really didn't want to talk to him/her, and a decent few sentences if you had something to say. Even in the most awkward of instances - if for example you felt the need to say ( Read more... )

A friend of mine in Singapore was telling me over the weekend how tired she was from having to juggle work and her baby. I was sympathising with her until she told me that had she had to deal with the cooking and cleaning as well, she would have broken down.

Wait! So you have a maid?
No! You don't say maid anymore. It's helper now. Sematics aside ( Read more... )

Parking a car in this country of old, underground parking lots can be a challenge on the best of days, even in a nice compact smart car. It really isn’t as much about the size of the lot as it is about the god-awful huge pillars that appear to have been plunked down beside each lot almost so willy-nilly that you’d imagine the near-socialist rub ( Read more... )

It has been months but time flies when you have a kid, a job (finally!) and a schedule that is beyond insane. I wake up at 5, get ready, get kid ready, pack kid into car, drive to babysitter, drop her off, drive to work, work, drive to babysitter, pick up kid, drive home, eat dinner (no time to cook so the guilt *sigh*), feed baby, play with baby, ( Read more... )

I am madly, passionately and totally in love with Pushing DaisiesRarely do you see a show that so completely warms the coldest cockles of your coronary crevices (they alliterate a lot on the show), and even more unusually does a show leave you walking on air with a grin on your face long after the Pie Maker and Chuck have pretend-held hands or ( Read more... )