Blur

I apologize for the lack of direction in this post. I am still rather confused about life so I'm sure that is reflected in my quality of writing.

The world seems to be passing me in a crazy blur as I vaguely attempt to get my bearings. I don't have what I would call culture shock, I knew I was coming to Singapore so the sight of Chinese, Malay and Tamil people swirling through futurististic and strange looking landscapes is something I was prepared for.

Upon arrival in Changi Airport I had a surprisingly smooth go of it. When I left Toronto the Korean Air people told me that I might have a hard time when I got to Singapore because I didn't have a return ticket booked even though I had my work contract and my In Principle Approval letter for the Ministry of Education. So after my 7 hour flight from Korea you can imagine I was a little freaked out that the customs people were about to boot me back onto a plane. Luckily, they didn't even talk to me, the guy looked at my passport for a second, stamped it and I was on my way.

The next hurdle was finding my bags, but they were right on the belt when I got there and I only had to wait for about 3 minutes. My Induction Mentor was there waiting for me and took me to my hotel. This was when I was first introduced to the way Singapore seems to go.

Essentially it's people milling around in confusion, waiting for things to happen. I can't really explain it, it's just this attitude of confusion. We wandered around looking for the other guy, we wandered around getting a cab, wandered around finding a car, wandered around trying to get a cellphone, wandered around to check in. It's just kind of like this aimlessness that still has an aim. It's getting really frustrating by the way.

Singapore for me is a lesson in patience. I got up in the morning and went to the first day of orientation. Jet lag hasn't been too much of a problem but my voice is still hoarse from this damn cold. Having a hoarse voice in a foreign country where people have a loose grasp on the English language by the way makes for a much more interesting and often confusing chain of communication.

This was the longest day ever. We had a full day of filling out papers and learning about the multitude of ways that our contracts are confusing. Then I thought I would be at the hotel. Nope, we had to go to the Ministry of Security or something like that to have our photos taken. Then an agent for property had some apartments he could show us other white people (everyone seems really socially divided by racial lines from the new teachers who are coming from overseas and there are four white people, one guy from Toronto, one from California and another guy from England) so we spent ages wandering around looking at apartments. I thought I'd found a really nice one with Iain, the guy from England but he ended up getting one with the other white people when I left to go home. We also went to look for a phone, but to get a contract which I want for an iPhone you need a work pass, which no one can give me a firm idea of any sort of timeline on when I get.

So then I found myself dropped off on a corner near an MRT (Mass Rapid Transit, AKA the Tube, AKA a subway) station with a map and a card in hand. This was a fun adventure on finding my hotel but not bad and I relished the chance to be on my own and going at my own much faster and organized pace from the general milling around that is done the rest of the time.

Today was more orientation, I am starting to get stressed about finding an apartment to live in and feeling detatched from home. With a 13 hour time difference and me in school and Ben working Starbucks shift work it's been two days almost since I've been able to talk to him or my Dad. I broke down and bought a peice of shit cell phone (which they call a handphone) today so that I will have a contact number so that agents and my induction mentor and people back home will be able to reach me until the magical day that I get a work pass and subsequently an iPhone.


So far my impression of this whole thing is that for all the anal document gathering there is a lack of thoughtful organization. We are expected to find out own accomodation in a crazy housing market on a tiny Island, with rather small salaries to be working with and no real notion of when we will have access to the money that has been promised us to pay for our expenses. I know that it will come through, it's just that in the meantime we have to live in a hotel which costs by the day, eat out and live out of suitcases and try to get things like phones and insurance and bank accounts all without an address while we attend full days of orientation and try to find out about when we can get in touch with our schools.

Today is just discouraging and I haven't lost sight of the good things to come in my more settled future, I have just been a cranky bitch because of exhaustion. I know that once I get in a good talk with people back home and get my head back on straight it will be much better.