B&E?
Ok... it's Monday morning, **yawn**, 7:52. Waiting for work to start at the school and figured I should tell anyone who cares to read this about my "Saturday night experience". I ended up going out to a little pub called Bojangles which is about a 15-20 minute walk from our apartment. I had started to chat online with one of the local guys who participates in one of the Mac User Groups here (affectionately known as MUGS). He's and Irish guy who came over to Singapore on a 4 month contract to do software consulting type stuff, and ended up never leaving. He's been here over 4 years so far. So we had a couple pints of Kilkenny (YUM!) at S$9.90 a pop (ouch), but he bought (score!), so now I owe him a couple (it's all good, more Kilkenny to come). At any rate, that was a really good time.
But the real story comes after I left the pub (around midnight) and walked back to the apartment (got there around 12:20). The entrances to all of the apartment buildings have 24 hour security and security guards, but as it happened, the big huge metal gates on our apartment had been locked for the evening. No big deal, I can see the security guard. He's less than a stone's throw away (maybe 18-20 feet?) sitting in his little security booth. He's asleep, but that's not a big deal either, I'll just yell at him, wake him up, and get myself inside.
Wow... This guy sleeps like a rock. Forget that, this guy was in a COMA! I called him, "Hey!", he just kept sleeping, so I called louder, finally I started yelling at this guy to wake up. Buddy might as well have been dead. "WAKE UP!". "EXCUSE ME!". No love.
So I look around a bit scoping my options. I didn't want to keep yelling because there were some apartment windows open above where the guard hut was, and I didn't want someone to call the cops on me, that would _not_ be good.
At long last, I walked up and down the hill in front of our apartment a couple times, jumped up onto a small ledge on the concrete wall, swung myself over the bars, and jumped into the bushes while clinging onto a palm tree on the other side. Guard still in a coma.
By now I was tired, a little bit in disbelief, so I simply walked right by the "security" hut, and upstairs to bed. Fewf.
The adventures weren't quite over though. Carly was in bed, but had left me a note to clean up the dead gecko that somehow got crushed in the kitchen door... poor little guy. We're down to one pet gecko under the fridge now. I think the one that got killed was the living room gecko.
Never a dull moment.
My Classroom
Here is my classroom when I walked in to start organizing on the first day
Welcome to JK6!
Unfortunately we have to tear this down at the end of the year for cleaning and then rebuild again next August! I hope you enjoyed the tour.
Cool Stuff
So far it seems that there are going to be no end of things to do around here. Carly and I recently picked up some Cirque du Soleil tickets for September, and also some tickets for a large concert thing-o this Sunday called WOMAD (http://www.womadsingapore.com). My impression is that it's quite an ecclectic mix of African-European music, and everyone seems to say that it's an amazing show.
Today we signed ourselves up for a little retreat that the school has every year. This year we're going to some tropical island in Malaysia called Sibu. Apparently it's only three hours or so from here and it sounds like it should be lots of fun.
I heard back from one of the companies I want to work for today (actually, the company that I _really_ want to work for) to schedule a second interview. I've been pretty persistent with them in trying to keep the hiring process moving, so I am hoping that this interview is a good one, and not a "for crying out loud, please stop emailing us and go get a job somewhere else" one. Hope and wait.
That's all for now!
Oh! A picture of us, too!
We figure since (if you know us) you haven't seen us in a while, so here are a couple quick photos of us that we took while we were on a little dinner cruise around the Singapore harbour on Saturday night.
Swan:
Ugly Duckling:
PS: If you can read this, please send Cheerios, they're $10bux a (small) box!
Apartment Pics!
Well, we promised to get some pictures up of our place here, so at long last we've finally managed to get the place cleaned and organized enough that we weren't afraid to take some pictures... So here goes:
Pool
Master Bathroom
Master Bedroom
Office
Kitchen
Living Room
Living Room (again)
Dining Room
So um, hopefully that will satisfy the picture cravings of everyone for now. We'll hopefully be able to find some monkeys in the nature park soon, and maybe take some pictures of them.
First Week of School
Who ever thought we'd be going to bed by 9pm?
Well, I'm motivated to get this posting over with so I can go sit on the couch to relax for 20 min. before going unconscious. Being a list person, this posting was a "goal" for today. So here we go.
The first week of classes has been a busy one. The junior kindergarten students arrived on a staggered entry which meant I had a small group of new students each day this week. I was surprised how small they really were! I even got compared to a skyscraper today when I was out on the recess play ground. My students sure have kept me busy. I have 5 Americans, 2 Canadians, 2 Swiss, 2 British, 1 Irish, 1 Korean, 1 Taiwanese, 1 New Zealander, 1 French, and 1 Filipino.
During the last couple of weeks, Singapore's Chinese residents have been celebrating the festival of the hungry ghosts. This celebration occurs during the 7th month of the lunar new year. It originated from the idea that during this time the gates of hell were opened to free the hungry ghosts who then sought out food on earth. All along the streets and in the sky is evidence of the Chinese residents of Singapore who burn fake money, paper, and food offerings (eg: oranges) for their deceased relatives. They also burn a lot of incense, which they place into the ground outside of their houses and stores.
Turn Signals – Optional
Time for another post. This is my first posting without Carly kicking around, so hopefully I don't say anything too sarcastic. It's Sunday afternoon here now, Carly is at school working on getting her classroom setup as tomorrow the mayhem starts. I'm here at home working on some code as a sub-contractor of a sub-contractor for IBM, which is still kinda cool.
A note about cars in Singapore. Turn signals seem entirely optional. If that weren't enough, it would also appear that driving in a single lane is also purely optional. Actually, in all honesty, I think it is almost becoming more of a shock to me when I see a car staying in their own lane, because most people seem to just use two. Also, there _may_ be an unwritten law that states that any driver of a motor vehicle who can successfully run down a pedestrian shall receive a significant discount on their auto insurance. We find that we often have to dive out of the way of a car, even when just crossing a driveway on the sidewalk.
It would also seem that we have a pet gecko. We're convinced that he lives under our fridge. O well - better than if he lived in our laundry basket which seems to be a problem that one of the other teachers has run into.
Well, I guess that's enough information for now. I am going to try to post little tidbits here a little more often, and I'm sure Carly will as well. I know we keep saying it, but HONEST, we will have some pictures of our place up here soon. I promise.
Boxes boxes everywhere!
Today was our second day in our new apartment. After a good scrubbing yesterday we finally started to open all our suitcases and boxes. We had many visitors on our first day including ikea, starhub (cable and internet), and carrefour (groceries etc.). We are pleased to gloat that once down the elevator (next to our door) we are a mere 22 steps from the pool in our complex 
Things at CIS (Canadian International School) are _slowly_ coming along. New teachers were in orientation from Tuesday to Friday last week, ending with a Friday evening social. For the social event we enjoyed a bus tour of the city given by the secondary school principal which ended at Singapore's Esplanade (down by the bay where the watermelons grow) for a two hour open bar (Tiger beer) and satay. We then cruised around the bay and up the river in a "bum boat". This will be the last week of preparation before the students come. Classrooms are chaotic as the teachers start from scratch - configuring the raw classroom items and ordering their own classroom/student supplies.
We have been sampling all varieties of food from Indian (we visited Little India) and Vietnamese to Thai and Chinese. There are many Hawker stalls to experiment at, however, we are craving our vegetables! Soon we will be experts with Singapore's transit system, which, by the way, knocks the socks off of any transit system that Canada has to offer. Don't forget to put your arm out (palm facing down) if you want the bus to stop for you while you are at the bus stop!