A Photo-a-Day 2011

ANNOUNCING: A Photo-a-Day 2011

I have decided to give myself a challenge this year. I am going to attempt to take and post one picture every day this year. This is very exciting for me, and I hope that you will be excited too. As I was walking around today, considering this challenge, I realized there are going to be two main difficulties for me:

1. Remembering to take a picture every day. I'm sure there will be some days that I completely forget and you'll be seeing pictures of my neighborhood at 11 p.m. I promise not to cheat and use pictures from days other than the one it's supposed to be.
2. Choosing a picture, out of the hundreds that I will inevitably take on some days.

But a challenge is a challenge for a reason.

So here it is folks, Photo #1 out of 365

Find the rest of the photos here: www.keepingthewordsaway.blogspot.com

January 1, 2011. Taken in Little India. Hello monsoons.

Tourists enter here --->

Singapore is an efficient society. There is not much doubt about that, I mean, it's an international center of business, what else would you expect?

 But one area that I would never expect to find such efficiency is the area of tourism. Enter the island of Sentosa. Sentosa is off the southern coast of Singapore, connected by bridges and cable cars. It is a one-stop shop of the tourism world.

Seriously, it couldn't be more convenient.

You get to to Sentosa by car, bus, train, or cable car and once you cross over, it's a whole different Singapore. Home to nice hotels, water parks, the aquarium, Universal Studios, and Singapore's only "real" beaches. There's shopping and restaurants, and all sorts of cutesy places to go. The best part is that it's all wrapped up in a nice, neat little package.

The only other thing on the island is a neighborhood of ritzy mansions and condos. And, as fate would have it, I have a friend who is lucky enough to live there. One Saturday, some other friends and I, made the trek to Sentosa to hang out at the beach and spend time at my friend's condo. The weather was gorgeous, and I was very excited for my first trip to Sentosa.

I got there late, and found my friends sitting at a beach side restaurant. Singapore is completely surrounded by other islands, which not only offers it protection from tsunamis and tropical storms, but also means that there isn't an endless view of the ocean. Nevertheless, it was a clear day and the view was great. We started walking along the beach, winding our way between tables, lounge chairs, and children playing in the sand. It wasn't long before we saw a familiar face:

Tucker! And a whole bunch of other people we know, who work at the International Community School. Our groups converged and we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming, kayaking, and enjoying other sand-filled shenanigans.

Then we packed up and drove the winding roads over to my friend's condo. One thing that I love about the tropics are the insanely large thunderstorms (except when I'm with Caleb, who hates them). While we were sitting on this beautiful balcony, outside of this amazing condo, we got to watch a fantastic lightning storm. It was far enough away that there was no thunder and not much rain, but some awesome lightning.

All I can say is that it was really fun to just be a tourist for the day.

Highlights and Lowlights.

On Sunday, Mama Bear and Papa Bear left for a second honeymoon/vacation/celebration of their anniversary type of a trip. To Bali. I'm only a little jealous. This meant that I got to spend three days and two nights with their wonderful offspring. Even though there is still about 6 hours left before the king and queen return to the castle, I wanted to offer a summary of my experience as a single parent: The highlights and lowlights.

Highlight: Monkey teaches Mouse how to play his favorite board game.

Highlight: Monkey and Mouse play together a lot and have a lot of fun.

Lowlight: Monkey and Mouse play the same matching/memory game over and over and over and over and insist that I sit there to flip the cards over.

Highlight: My friends come over and Monkey gives them a tour of the house.

Highlight: My friends come over and Mouse has new people to play with.

Highlight: Mouse licks my finger (randomly) and says "Mmmmm yummy!"

Lowlight: Mouse wakes me up at 5 in the morning and then cries for an hour when he realizes that it's me and not his mom...



Lowlight: Mouse head butting Monkey to wake him up in the morning.

Highlight: Mouse sleeps for two hours after school and still goes to bed on time.

Highlight: What I did while Mouse sleeps for two hours: Drive home from preschool, transfer him from car seat to couch, took a power nap, transferred him to stroller, walked to grocery store, went shopping, and started walking home. Then he woke up.

Highlight: My friend Kerri Jo comes over.

Highlight: Swimming with Monkey.

Lowlight: Missing Young Life.

Highlight:  Bringing Mouse downstairs to let Monkey get to sleep and him saying "Look, it's dark! It's dark! Let's go chicken rice!". To which I say, "It's dark because it's night time and you already ate dinner." and he looks at me with this "so what?" kind of a look and says "Let's go blue car...chicken rice!"

Highlight: Going to the book fair at SAS and picking out books with Monkey.

Lowlight: Mouse saying his new favorite thing: "It's broken! Why it's broken?" and having Monkey freak out because he thinks something really is broken.

Highlight: Sleeping in til 6, and being woken up to Mouse talking to me instead of crying.


Obviously the highlights outweigh the lowlights, even so, we'll all be happy to see Mama and Papa Bear tonight!

My, how things have changed...

I am dedicating this blog post to how things have changed in high school since I was there. Which, for the record, was NOT long ago.

1. No cell phones--none of this texting friends in between classes thing
2. No laptops--we used old-fashioned pencils and papers to take notes
3. No such thing as Facebook--if we wanted to have friends over, we called them on our *ahem* landline phones, no events on Facebook
4. No online homework--once again, old-fashioned assignment notebooks and homework on paper.
5. Chalkboards--my teachers spent their lives writing on white boards and chalkboards. No powerpoints or promethean boards.

I'm no where near a generation ahead of high schoolers these days, and yet they are getting a completely different educational experience than I did.

"It gets so much better"

The other night I hung out with some of my new high school friends.

[Let me just pause here to say that I am so excited to be a part of these kids lives and it's so much fun to have high school friends!]

So, I was hanging out with these girls, you know, baking brownies and chatting about life. They are three seniors, Jerone, Renee, and Gretchen, who have been in Singapore for 10 years, 7 years, and 2 years respectively. Like the majority of the kids at SAS, they are expat kids with dads who work for oil companies and travel a lot.

As the conversation progressed, I got to hear about all of the ups and downs that high school girls experience (which aren't that different from what I went through in high school, surprise surprise). And then it dawned on me: High School sucks.

Even if you go to a ridiculously awesome school in Singapore, High School still sucks. Teenagers are mean to each other, they do and say stupid things, they place importance on things that don't really matter. I was hearing stories about the cliques at SAS and how extreme they are. I thought my high school was cliquey, but it's nothing compared to this school.

My high school had it's run of the mill issues with cliques, bad teachers, drugs and alcohol, gangs, crappy facilities, and stupid teenagers. And because of all those things I wouldn't choose to go back to that period of my life. I sort of assumed that SAS wouldn't have the same problems because they have a fairly elite teaching staff, amazingly nice facilities, and no gangs. As it turns out, this unique school has it's own set of unique issues.

I was told about the insane amount of drinking that goes on, backstabbing, and poor attitudes that overrun the place. It honestly sounded like the movie Mean Girls, a writhing cesspool of passive aggressive meanness.

These poor girls seemed so discouraged and are just biding their time until they graduate in June. Thankfully, I got to tell them that it gets better. Way better. Social order in high school is based on physical appearance, age/grade, rumors, and other stupid things like that. At some point after high school, we just realize that it isn't important anymore.

It's nice to be the one a few steps further ahead in life, and to be able to offer encouragement for the season they're in right now.

Once upon a time...

...I painted a mural.

Yep.

It all started with these animal decals that Mama Bear got to put on the playroom wall. The "playroom" is really just the landing outside my room on the second floor. 

So then I was like, man, these animals really need some scenery to go with them. I sketched a design, showed it to Mama Bear, got some paint, and went to town:

Caleb even helped!

It was because of this (to a certain extent) that I got recruited to help the Primary School Library with a similar project...

Another stamp in the passport

I can now proudly add Malaysia to the list of countries I've been to!

A few weeks ago Mama Bear, Mouse, and I went on a day trip to Johor Bahru in Malaysia. I know it sounds exotic and extravsagant to go to another country on a day trip, but seriously, Malaysia is easier to get to than my church. We live about a five minute drive to the Causeway, the bridge that connects Singapore to Malaysia. So getting there was a cinch.

It was definitely a new experience, considering that I have never passed through customs and immigration outside of an airport. We drove through this massive checkpoint, going through emmigration on the Singapore side, across a bridge, and through immigration on the Malaysia side. And once we safely made it through, we were in a whole different world.

As you know from my previous rantings and ravings about Singapore, it is a beautiful country. It's clean, safe, and fancy. Very rarely do you see litter on the ground, let alone graffiti or other typical marks of disintegration in a big city. The economy is thriving and there is a high standard of life. If there is any poverty, you certainly don't ever see it. It's comparable to having Minneapolis without North. Or Madison without East. Or Chicago without the Southside. I think you get the point.

Which makes Malaysia the equivalent to North Minneapolis, the Eastside of Madison, and the Southside of Chicago. As we drove into Johor Bahru, I turned to Amy and pointed out that we didn't just cross a border, we crossed the poverty line.

It reminded me a lot of Dakar. Garbage everywhere. Storefronts crammed together, with advertisements accosting us from all sides. Old cars. Dirt and dust. A lingering smell of gas and trash and rot.

We had a pretty great time, Mouse certainly thought it was an adventure. We did some shopping and found a fantastic bakery with the most delicious and cheap buns. Given the chance, Mouse would probably eat his way through Malaysia.

"I got my milk, I got my lollipop, let's get this show on the road!"

Our fearless driver!

"De-wi-chous!" (aka Delicious!)

We did our best to decipher the signs...