Home For CAP

I was making a list of things to do over the summer in Singapore, and was struck by the contrast between my life here and my life in London.

I’m wondering how much my change of surroundings will be reflected in what I write here. Certainly, the people and places mentioned will change – readers who aren’t familiar with Singapore or South-East Asia will probably come across a couple of strange words every now and then if I happen to lapse into Singaporean patois. But just let me know if you ever want something explained/translated, and I’ll gladly oblige. (God only knows how bewildered I’d be in the UK if I didn’t frequently ask for translations from Newcastlian/Irish/Scottish…).

For now, the main thing I actually meant to write for today was that I’ll be away for the next week helping to run a creative writing camp for 110 students, and probably won’t be able to get online. Or get a moment’s rest. Or any food that satisfies minimum hygiene and nutrition requirements.

I am looking forward to it, though – involvement in the Creative Arts Programme is one of those things that’s been a major part of my life here but not in the UK, and this’ll be my sixth year (it would have been seven, but I missed last year’s) of acute fatigue, malnutrition coupled with a desire for bulimia every time I do actually eat anything, dealing with sometimes annoying, other times endearing adolescents who often unfortunately remain socially dysfunctional despite mostly being in the top five percent or so of the IQ bell curve, and incredible satisfaction at the end of it all, nonetheless.

Sonic Nursing

My sister deals with personnel in the Ministry of Health, and part of her job includes promoting the nursing profession – overseeing scholarship schemes, running advertising campaigns, stuff like that.

Today she had a sudden flash of inspiration, while we were listening to the Kings’ Singers do Wind Beneath My Wings (it wasn’t great, but their rendition of Live And Let Die was very much worse) – perhaps the nursing profession could do with a theme song!

I made several suggestions.

  • Bad Medicine
  • Sexual Healing
  • Knocking On Heaven’s Door
  • Breathe Again
  • Died In Your Arms Tonight

I don’t know why she wasn’t more receptive.

In Bygone Days

Addendum to previous post:
I’d also be listening to Solid Steel and the Breezeblock on Monday night radio, and then John Peel from Tuesday to Thursday.

Living in London has spoiled me rotten. I remember days when the Internet was the only way I could ever hear any music that wasn’t in the top 40. Perfect 10, the Singapore radio station which played the most current music, was ruled by Michael Learns To Rock and Timmy Thomas (pop quiz for non-SE Asian readers: ever heard of either of them? No? I have a feeling they only ever became famous in South East Asia, which is unsurprising because they were monumentally crap).

[Michael Learns To Rock is, frighteningly, still extremely popular. If you’ve got a fast Internet connection or are a complete moron, go download something by them. I recommend Paint My Love or The Actor for maximum flaccidity but any song will do, really, since they all sound the same.]

The first Pavement songs I ever heard were very poorly recorded wavs I found in a newsgroup. Each one took an eternity to download over a 14.4K modem and sounded, well, even more staticky and noisy than Slanted And Enchanted already was.

My first experience of Loveless was 30-second song clips over streamed RealAudio which stopped and rebuffered every 20 seconds, back when one of RealAudio’s favourite boasts was that it could deliver FM-quality sound over a 28.8K connection. The cost of a CD was a big dip in available pocket money, so I’d agonize for ages over anything I bought. I must have listened to those bloody (no pun or subtle-indie-reference-for-those-who-know intended) crackling, breaking song clips at least 20 times per song before I finally ventured to a local CD shop, where of course I was told they didn’t stock it and had never heard of it.

I suppose waking up at 7 am to listen to radio shows over the Internet isn’t that much of a stretch from those days as it feels.

Wishful Wishlist

Music thingies I’d really want to be doing if I were spending the summer in the UK, and am masochistically listing:

To top it all off, Philip Glass is doing three different concerts for the Singapore Arts Festival. But! Given that I’ve cleverly devoted that entire week to being a responsible adult presence (stop laughing) at a student camp for creative writing, and I don’t think it would be particularly in keeping with that to creep off to watch the concerts, I guess I won’t be going to those either.

Oh the aaaarghness of it all…

Home For Summer

I’m home.

I may be watery-eyed, stuffy-nosed, and shaking my sweaty fist at the sweltering heavens above for giving this country of mine such a blasted climate, but I’m home.

Home is partly the same (brother still spends all his free time playing Civ II and composing chess problems, sister is still a workaholic) and partly not (brother’s quit teaching and become a cryptographer, mother’s taken up line-dancing and father’s new hobby is charging wild-eyed around the house brandishing a fly-swatter in search of a swarm of marauding and, he claims, hostile, ants that have overrun us. I should say that no one else has seen that many ants, let alone lost a limb to them, but that’s my father for you.)

I went to a shopping mall in my neighbourhood and a new women’s fashion store’s opened there. It’s called Wanko. I kid you not. I’m tempted to buy something from there just so I can bring the bag back to London and carry strangely and provocatively shaped things around in it.

Heading Home, From Home

I fly home to Singapore today. There’s so much I want to write here but there are errands to run, bags to pack, the usual last-minute rush. I’ll try to scribble in the plane, in between my usual long-haul flight staples of Super Mario World, the damn Sega tennis I’ve never managed to win a single game in but persist pig-headedly in, in-flight movies, and frivolous girlie mag.

I can’t wait to be home, but I miss London already.

I didn’t win the moot

I didn’t win the moot finals, but I’ve never cared less about losing something in my life.

I’d spent the entire night (well, the entire night after watching King Lear at the Globe) trying to convince rebellious hordes of personal junk into neat compartmentalized existence (apologies to corridor-mates whose sleep might have been interrupted by country n’ western, gospel and opera renditions of The Star Spangled Banner, which was one of the ways I was trying to make myself less miserable, in between swigs of Jack Daniels), and the standoff didn’t end till noon the next day, where I had to switch my attentions from packing to writing my submissions for the moot, which was in seven hours (in terms of preparing for a moot, this is a ludicrously short amount of time).

So I didn’t win, but the girl who did win obviously put a great deal more effort into it than I did, so hey, congratulations, Dee. Now I might have to take part in the damn competition again next year just to beat you.

Meanwhile, today has been spent smiling sweetly at Budgens, Cullens and Boots employees in order to persuade them to give me boxes (of the cardboard, not bruising, variety), booking debating tournament rooms with Mark and the very conscientious but rather bizarre room-bookings lady, who felt the need to tell us that her skirt was riding up and how embarassed she was, and battling dust demons in the loft.

I’m tired. And dusty.

Introducing Mark

Apologies to Mark aka Debating Underling aka My Bitch for causing his public humiliation in a computer room, where reading this site caused him to behave in a decidedly strange manner, eventually involving a loud snort.

A big thank you to him as well for being generally lovely and taking a bit of stress off me this week by agreeing to tackle the dastardly forces of Union bureaucracy to book rooms for a debating tournament we have to organize next academic year.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject: everyone say Hi, Mark. People who know me in real life, or perhaps people who’ve been reading this blog for a while, will know I dabble a bit in university debating, and write about it in here on occasion; when I do, a name that’s cropped up reasonably often has been Nick: debating partner, co-manager of the UCL Debating Society’s involvement in intervarsity debating, and great friend and wonderful company through it all.

Nick has, unfortunately, graduated and got himself a swanky job, but in his place enters Mark, who is Intervarsity Convenor and will definitely not be my underling, whatever I may say flippantly from time to time. (He might still be my bitch, though. We’ll see.)

So that’s a name that might appear here a little bit more in future. When you read “Mark is an utter twat” or “Mark is such an angel”, I’ll probably be referring to him, so now you know.

Live And Learn

Note to self: When very stressed at night grappling with the uncertainties of criminal law and the need to pack up room junk by Thursday morning or face the wrath of housekeeper nun, do not search for answers in vodka jelly.