I didn't want to....

...but I could not keep it in any longer.

Most everybody has already voiced their shock/horror/exhileration at the appointment of Ms Palin as vice presidential candidate, read: presidential candiate. Let me share with you why I am horrified, and actually, finally, really worried about the future of the good old US of A.

I don't agree with most everything McCain seems to have chosen to represent for the upcoming election, starting from his proposed immigration policy and ending with his sanctitiy of life/pro life views. However, I do not think McCain is completely unqualified for the job. I don't want him to get the job, but I don't equate McCain with the end of the America as we know it.

Palin as president makes me quiver. A redneck, backwoods lady with extensive PTA experience and a slight knack for abusing her power even on a small level packaged in a charming mother of four (with a fabulous hairdo?), a grandmother to be who believes it a good idea to re-institute prayer in schools, an avid abstinance teacher (see the part on being a grandmother) and a creationist. The kind of creationist nevertheless who likes to shove her views down other peoples throats.

My very personal and very subjectibve view is that she is a person who I judge to be unable due to her own tightly held world views to understand anybody else's point of view. A person who completely lacks any, call it cosmopolitan, ability to relate to the rest of the world on how they view the mess we have created. She IS America and she stands and defends the mess we have created. I think America needs now more than ever somebody who has both the experience to confront and play hardball with leaders of some countries (you know who you are) whose hardassed leader will not be impressed by her PTA credentials, extensive foreign policy experience and the ability to also employ some diplomacy when needed. No bulldog. Not even with lipstick. What we need is somebody with some experience, now that I think about it, sort of like Joe Biden, realistically probably the most qualified person to be president. Too bad that as soon as he entered the picture Obama stopped grabbing the headlines and now it's Palin, Palin, Palin. And I am doing it too.

America is already loosing ground on the rights that were won forty years ago. Do we really want to go back to the good old days of coat hangers and butcher knieves. Does it really seem like a good time and place to mix state and religion? Yikes, I am starting to think Obama HAS to win. Or else.

I'd be moving to Canada....

Lets talk about Cindy

Biggest liability? His wife

Best demonstration of his lack of judgement? His wife

Avoiding responsibility/not doing "the right thing"/family values in the gutter/bad Christian? Leaving his ex wife

Why are the demos playing fair all of a sudden? Cindy McCain has enormous potential. 

...and I am back

53/365 transport for London
Originally uploaded by Christiane B

London transport is still shit and people still call 16C weather summer but I am gorging myself on non-curry foods and cheap wine. Best of all is the feeling of fitting in completely. Nobody is looking at me, I don't have the feeling that I am representing anything other than myself. Even in Singapore I am something, either a tourist or an expat, but here I am nothing. I am just like the other free metro-grabbing, Costa-coffee chugging girls rushing around town.

In Quadruples

Death it appears does not come alone. 

A few weeks ago my grandfather passed away after a short but painful bout with cancer. Next a friend's father, then a friend and colleague of the newly acquired husband and now, probably most shocking, the sister of another friend. I feel like I am standing on the sidelines helpless as some of the people I love the most struggle to come to terms with what they know is best in some cases and what they know is not in others. Those are the moments when I wish I was not so far away.

Condo Heaven Condo Hell

Arriving at the fancy Changi airport, making my way down the fancy escalator to the fancy immigration desk where the pretty regular, non-fancy sweets await the eager visitor I did feel a strange sense of deja-vu. Fifteen years is a long time though and somehow the past few days were spent quite differently from last time. 

No moping around huge marble floor condo with giant swimming pool and maid bringing a parade of moon cakes home to make friends with the bratty daughter of her employer. Nope. It's me condo shopping (after a none-moping swim in the pool and stealing moon cakes from the lobby of our current residence) and I am about to throw all caution to the wind and sign up for a tiny place that is nothing special, does not even have the otherwise customary 50m lap pool or a gym, simply because it has the biggest roof terrace in history. Else I blow our yet to be earned income on an ugly as hell condo park that resembles a glorified Harlem block except for the price tag. Brand new it is with a view of all of Singapore from the 22nd floor and best of all, the whole thing is pretty much a water park. If you can overlook the industrial feel, you are spoilt for tropical, lounging and exercise pool choices and as the real estate lady assured me, I will be the envy of all my friends. Super. Does she know who she is talking to? Oh and the whole thing is built around the old US ambassador's mansion which is now the function room. Ha, functions?

I am sorry, this is boring and I am indecisive. Why can't I have the roof garden with the water park and then maybe a more central location close to the cute and uncharacteristically atmospheric Kampung Glam area where there are Jazz cafes and Turkish eateries in old Chinese houses with the pretty Chinese lanterns I so adore?

Expectations

With four days to go until we have to shed our dirty backpacker skins I am starting to dread having to give a thought to anything that does not involve transport, food and fun. From what I recall there are other things one does have to worry about (haircuts? paying rent?) or maybe one worries about those unnecessarily. I shall find out. 

I am having a hard time not wanting to write up to do lists that would scare the besus out of me. God knows there have been a million issues involving every public and private institution in three countries that we have been blissfully ignoring, unable to get our heart rate up enough to create the kind of care or concern that would possibly induce action. 

What does get my heart rate up however is the thought of how our lives will be once in Singapore, or really, lets be honest, what my life will look like. 

First off, fancy and I will be separated. I don't think him and I have not been sitting directly next to each other for more than maybe four hours (and that is an outlier) in the past three months. I like to think myself an independent person, but I have gotten awfully used to backing every major step (buy green or red dolphin sarong?) with a nod from him. I got used to wasting endless hours sitting by the ocean sipping mango drinks, reading the exact same books, meeting the exact same people, listening to all the same conversations, spending an identical day so that we are pretty much the same person. 

So lets presume I can manage to survive all on my own without developing phobias or anxiety attacks and manage to make my very own decisions about breakfast choices, the next big issue is, what do I do with the rest of the day? I am torn between two conflicting visions of my free-lance Singapore life. 

After spending an amazing day on the beach or on a boat, filled with nothing but happy endorphins I envisions this amazing life of mine as follows: getting up, going for a swim in our luxurious condo (haha! real estate prices are not quite there yet!), making myself that mango lassi, working at home during the noon heat, meeting some lunching lady for well, lunch, with a glass of chilled chardonnay, working a bit more, going for a swim in the afternoon and soon enough the weekend will roll around when we will go to Thailand or Indonesia or Malaysia for beach fun.  On the side I will dapple in photography, building up an impressive fashion-y portfolio that will then make the first part of the day redundant - the work bit, not the mango bit. 

On less optimistic days I wonder why on earth I thought it would be a good idea to move to a city where I know nobody except possibly the girl I was mean to when I lived there during 9th grade (and her two baby sons cause yay I love babies), in order to work at home, give up any contact with colleagues and clients except the odd instance when I will fly out to meet the team in some obscure location in the Middle East, give up any motivation to further my career via being stimulated by being around other people, only to spend weekends on a tropical island that lacks even a decent beach and boasts cocktail prices about the same level as London. 

Which one will it be?

Euphorically 'Narked"

I have finally reached the point where diving is more fun than terrifying and where I am more relaxed and enjoying the underwater waddle than in constant readiness to spring into a panic. Diving IS relaxing but all the tubes flowing around me, the swishing sound of breathing bottled air, the thought of those vital tubes disconnecting or me running out of air or being left behind or last but not least the possibility of an underwater creatures dragging me down into their dark holes has kept my heart rate up until now. 

Yesterday fancy and I completed our advanced open water dive course and in the process I got to love all the things I had anticipated with a bit of fearful dread: deep dives and night dives. Maybe nitrogen narcosis is real at 30m but in any case, I felt completely at ease maybe even a mild bit euphoric as we slowly make our way past colorful fishies gently hanging out sideways in the current and even the thought of encountering shark, in my book a dreaded event but somehow hailed by most divers as the ultimate goal of a dive, no longer freaked me out. And the evil suckers stayed away. Hallelujah. 

I felt so fabulous about the whole thing that I singed up to do it five more times over the next week. Yes, we really did abandon the whole travel thing and decided to stay our last two weeks in one single place, vacationing. The idea of making it to the Andaman side of Thailand has been abandoned due to reports of bad weather but mostly due to our unwillingness to pack and shoulder our bags again. It's pretty perfect right here.