So here I am, newly returned from Bangkok. Wanted to start the visa application and ran into a brickwall. The online form requires me to have a US address and of course, right now, I don't have one. So with the countdown already happening and no progress made on all the different fronts - visa, housing, schooling - the adrenalin is starting to ramp up and the throat is starting to constrict a little. Better start calling on my colleagues for help - as soon as daylight hits the coast of California and folks starting logging in from their offices. In a few hours. Hopefully, I can get hold of some of my colleagues who have been through this. I need to be very focused next week. I have to be or August will come and go and my family will still be here and my new bosses may give up on me. Scary thoughts.
Internet access in Bangkok hotels are very expensive. Baht500 for a day - that's over S$20 for 24 hours when at home, I pay about $50+ a month for unlimited access and even this is already expensive by international standards. I remembered internet access in the Cape Town hotel (Commodore) was very expensive too. Except for when I have urgent work, I never want to incur such expenses. Fortunately, now I have the Blackberry so replying email was not such a problem except for reading attachments. So I postpone acting on the visa application till today and now I am stuck.
Did some shopping in Bangkok - I went back to a shop in Amarin Center that I ran into on my last trip to pick up some Guy Laroche clothes that were on sale. My existing wardrobe are getting hopelessly old and most of my clothes are frumpy. Managed to get some good deals. Another journey after class ended on Thursday to Siam Center yielded nothing. Siam Paragon is brand new and seems to be just chocked full of restaurants. It has a big new supermarket. The few shops there selling merchandise obviously do not cater to bargain hunters like moi. I am el cheapo, always looking for sales. Celia told me once she too is like that - a CIO no less. The connecting Siam Center seems to stock mostly street clothing which has no appeal to me - I will look like a hag pretending not to be a hag. And the clothes are not all that cheap when I whip out my trusted Blackberry and convert the Bahts into Sing dollars. You can get pretty good deals in Singapore too. Seems only streetside clothes that you can buy for about Baht100 are bargains but then I cannot wear those to work, or can I?
I made a small mistake in my last posting. The Malay boy actually has muscular dystrophy. I had been thinking of another Malay child - a girl called Siti - who has celebral palsy. Both of them have lovely cheerful dispositions despite their disadvantages. Suffer the children for their resilience put us whiners to shame.
House is so quiet right now. Husband is nowhere to be found, son has gone to a 3-day school camp for Primary 5 children and daughters have all gone out, one to the library to study (she says) and the other to dinner. This could be a foretaste of what an empty nest feels like...
Friday, July 28, 2006
Friday, July 21, 2006
Charity and Chores
Yesterday I went on the company's charity grocery run again. It will probably be my last since we will be leaving within the next 4 weeks. There were three of us this time so I did not have to pack or carry the groceries. My duty was the paperwork, getting the 14 recipient households to sign for the receipt of the food and informing them of next month's delivery date and times. Company is a major corporate sponsor of the Society for Physically Disabled and employees help deliver the groceries sponsored by various companies to the families that qualify. I brought Ryan once during the June school holidays and he found it very interesting. First time he had seen how small some of the HDB flats are and how some of our fellow citizens live. He has been asking to join me again but that was a one-time window of opportunity. I have not been good at carrying out my longstanding resolution to be more active in helping the less well off of our society. So easy to proscrastinate... my fear is I may never get around to it before the good lord calls me home. That would be the most tragic.
All the homes we went to had someone at home save one. When that happens, we leave the groceries with a neighbour. Not all the families are very badly off. But it can hurt to the core to see how poor some of these families are and how delibitating the diseases or injuries can be to the person and the family. Like the woman I met on one of my first runs who had multiple handicaps and could barely see and was all alone at home, moving painfully slowly to open the gate for us or the Indian man with a shriveled hand and leg who insisted on signing for the groceries. One of my favorites is this Malay boy in a wheelchair who despite his celebral palsy, has the most cheerful disposition and eagerly awaits his friends on the days of the runs. His mother is absolutely devoted to him and he told me he was going to send us a Christmas card that he was going to draw for us even though it would take him ages getting his hand to obey his brain. All because his mother said, he loves our company. Sentimental? But true.
Things are finally coming together on the relocation front. The visa application bundle is on the way via Fedex and I am tracking its journey online. I cannot recall where I asked the US legal counsel to send it to, hopefully to home address because I won't be in the office next week. We have had some communications with the housing agent in the US and we kinda know what schools to put the kids in. Schools in California are still closed so will need to wait till first week of August when the staff comes back to work.
So the training in Bangkok went well. The day ended with the lot of us packing into a boat for the obligatory dinner cruise down the Chao Phraya river. Everyone started belting out on the karaoke, joining the resident lady and male singer. I refrained till the very last few minutes - I generally don't join in such activities for fear of my better half hearing about them and giving moi a hard time about "enjoying" myself while on business trips as he is wont to do. But a bunch of ladies pulled me up from my seat for the last group song so we ended the day to the refrains from Like a Virgin. Boat made a stop at the Temple of Dawn or Wat Arun and we went ashore to admire the temple and hear the stories of all the different King Ramas and their exploits. Temple is stunning in the night lights - all golden with intricate carvings up and down its different levels.
Will be leaving for Bangkok again on Monday, this time to be trained. Ha ha. Role reversal. May also have to make a trip to Manila after that to meet my team there one last time and do mid-year PMP (or staff appraisal). I am feeling sad. They are a young and very energetic group and just so easy to work with. I also missed the first ever monthly conference call with my new work group the night I returned from Bangkok! It was late and my calendar reminder did not work. I was very tired and retired to bed early. Wonder what my new boss and CIO thought of that. Hope they did not regret hiring me.
On a different note, Peter and Kris are moving house today. We are not involved though. Shall see if Bert is up to dropping by later in the day to see how they are progressing...
All the homes we went to had someone at home save one. When that happens, we leave the groceries with a neighbour. Not all the families are very badly off. But it can hurt to the core to see how poor some of these families are and how delibitating the diseases or injuries can be to the person and the family. Like the woman I met on one of my first runs who had multiple handicaps and could barely see and was all alone at home, moving painfully slowly to open the gate for us or the Indian man with a shriveled hand and leg who insisted on signing for the groceries. One of my favorites is this Malay boy in a wheelchair who despite his celebral palsy, has the most cheerful disposition and eagerly awaits his friends on the days of the runs. His mother is absolutely devoted to him and he told me he was going to send us a Christmas card that he was going to draw for us even though it would take him ages getting his hand to obey his brain. All because his mother said, he loves our company. Sentimental? But true.
Things are finally coming together on the relocation front. The visa application bundle is on the way via Fedex and I am tracking its journey online. I cannot recall where I asked the US legal counsel to send it to, hopefully to home address because I won't be in the office next week. We have had some communications with the housing agent in the US and we kinda know what schools to put the kids in. Schools in California are still closed so will need to wait till first week of August when the staff comes back to work.
So the training in Bangkok went well. The day ended with the lot of us packing into a boat for the obligatory dinner cruise down the Chao Phraya river. Everyone started belting out on the karaoke, joining the resident lady and male singer. I refrained till the very last few minutes - I generally don't join in such activities for fear of my better half hearing about them and giving moi a hard time about "enjoying" myself while on business trips as he is wont to do. But a bunch of ladies pulled me up from my seat for the last group song so we ended the day to the refrains from Like a Virgin. Boat made a stop at the Temple of Dawn or Wat Arun and we went ashore to admire the temple and hear the stories of all the different King Ramas and their exploits. Temple is stunning in the night lights - all golden with intricate carvings up and down its different levels.
Will be leaving for Bangkok again on Monday, this time to be trained. Ha ha. Role reversal. May also have to make a trip to Manila after that to meet my team there one last time and do mid-year PMP (or staff appraisal). I am feeling sad. They are a young and very energetic group and just so easy to work with. I also missed the first ever monthly conference call with my new work group the night I returned from Bangkok! It was late and my calendar reminder did not work. I was very tired and retired to bed early. Wonder what my new boss and CIO thought of that. Hope they did not regret hiring me.
On a different note, Peter and Kris are moving house today. We are not involved though. Shall see if Bert is up to dropping by later in the day to see how they are progressing...
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Attrition and Anxiety
It is getting painfully clear that I am really in no shape to start planning for the relocation. In the office, I still have a full load of work in my current job, including trying to figure out how I am going to fill a large gap because a new contractor I hired not 2 months ago has decided to resign. He was un-nerved by the news that I was moving to the US with no certainty about who would be replacing me and where this person is going to be based. Unfortunately, because I downsized my Singapore based staff so radically recently, I have no one to take over the critical function he is performing and must now strategize what to do in the remaining weeks he has with us. Moving the work he is doing to my team in Manila is one possibility and it actually makes quite a lot of sense because the application he supports is most heavily used by the Manila staff. Sometimes, I surprise even myself. Or moving the work to one of my very reliable and resourceful contractor in Cape Town. I know she can and will do a very good job. Adding to this unwelcome pressure is the need to travel to Bangkok twice in the coming weeks, the first to conduct a session in a workshop about our fuel management solution and the second to attend a people leadership training. Urgh!
I must also start learning about the new job and I have my other half nagging me about this that and the other over the move - have you checked this, did you ask your company counsellor that, what should we bring, should we ship our furniture, have you sent in the documents for the visa...??? And I have not been getting enough sleep. All these, I firmly believe, are conspiring to make me age faster than I already am. But I seriously need to start planning. Schools in the SR area start August 28. So today, I shot off several emails to ask about school registrations to various people. Hopefully I get some responses.
The kids are coming round to the idea of moving. At dinner, they seemed to be in a good mood, actually having quite an animated conversation and laughing at each other's jokes! Instead of snarling at one another. Phenomenal. And Ryan went to bed early, instead of complaining like he usually does. Phenomenal. And Nic went quietly to her room, presumably to study, instead of hogging the computer. Phenomenal. And my blog suddenly seems to be properly aligned - the sidebar is no longer down below the main body. Also phenomenal. I think my guardian angel (if there are such for oldies) is finally smiling down on me.
So over the weekend, I was very busy with Doris' house move. Saturday, we went to pick up all the traditional things to "cleanse" the new apartment and on Monday, we put them to good use. Rough sea salt thrown over a fiery charcoal stove makes for a good fire-cracker substitute and the water used to bless the house left lots of stains on the walls because of the tea leaves. Doris was very enthusiastic in her watering ceremony and the poor contractor who came later thought his painters did a bad job and promised to rectify the "defects". Hee hee. It is getting late and I need to catch up on the sleep debt...
I must also start learning about the new job and I have my other half nagging me about this that and the other over the move - have you checked this, did you ask your company counsellor that, what should we bring, should we ship our furniture, have you sent in the documents for the visa...??? And I have not been getting enough sleep. All these, I firmly believe, are conspiring to make me age faster than I already am. But I seriously need to start planning. Schools in the SR area start August 28. So today, I shot off several emails to ask about school registrations to various people. Hopefully I get some responses.
The kids are coming round to the idea of moving. At dinner, they seemed to be in a good mood, actually having quite an animated conversation and laughing at each other's jokes! Instead of snarling at one another. Phenomenal. And Ryan went to bed early, instead of complaining like he usually does. Phenomenal. And Nic went quietly to her room, presumably to study, instead of hogging the computer. Phenomenal. And my blog suddenly seems to be properly aligned - the sidebar is no longer down below the main body. Also phenomenal. I think my guardian angel (if there are such for oldies) is finally smiling down on me.
So over the weekend, I was very busy with Doris' house move. Saturday, we went to pick up all the traditional things to "cleanse" the new apartment and on Monday, we put them to good use. Rough sea salt thrown over a fiery charcoal stove makes for a good fire-cracker substitute and the water used to bless the house left lots of stains on the walls because of the tea leaves. Doris was very enthusiastic in her watering ceremony and the poor contractor who came later thought his painters did a bad job and promised to rectify the "defects". Hee hee. It is getting late and I need to catch up on the sleep debt...
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Drive Day
Sundays are for driving Ryan around. He is a busy fella on Sundays. Morning is calligraphy at Ubi, afternoon is for golf coaching at Mundai, and evening is for swimming lessons at Hwa Chong Institution. Today daddy is still in Vietnam so mom gets to be the chauffeur. How a little man of 11 gets to have such a busy schedule on what should be a rest day is somewhat ridiculous. All manner of coaches and teachers who make money off parents' paranoia about giving the little progenies a head start in life, make full use of Sundays so busy working parents can be busier still.
Not that we wanted this for Ryan - he chose to have calligraphy and would not agree when I suggested dropping the classes. Through some quirks of nature, my son prefers the gentler things in life while my girls tend to be more boisterous (except maybe for Brynn whose passion was her school symphonic band). He enjoys calligraphy even though his Chinese grades in school are heading south year after year. Such irony. And golf is daddy's dream of having one of his own shares his passion, maybe in the hope that when he is old and retired, he will still have someone to play with. That person certainly is not going to be moi. I tried golf and just cannot seem to find anything to hold me to it. It is way too complicated and I cannot contort the different parts of the body the way Bert tells me I need to to get that correct swing. Too technical for the likes of me :-).
But swimming - ah, that's a different story. Ryan would drop swimming at the drop of a hint. We are the holdbacks because given his leanings towards relative inactivity and bookishness, the exercises will ensure his health builds up. His natural inclination is to hole up somewhere with a book that he has read for the umpteenth time and not move any muscles not needed to hold up the book and turn the pages. Fortunately, though it was tortuous at the start, Ryan seems to have taken to golf. In fact, he has a very nice swing and can use my driver which I cannot for the life of me, handle. He can drive over 100 meters now, sometimes about 130 meters.
We dropped by Peter's new house on the way back from Mundai to see how the renovations were coming along. Peter and Kris were there so we actually got to go inside and upstairs. House coming along very nicely. As usual, they have good taste so although they are not spending a huge amount of money, the house will look quite good. They extended the back garden to cover the drain - hmmm, not sure if it is common property but apparently, the neighbour had cleared with the powers to be and said it is OK to do with certain caveats about providing passage when required.
Tonight is the final in the 2006 World Cup. I am tempted to stay up but I know I probably will fail the battle with my brain and eyes. Plus tomorow is house moving for Doris. May need to keep up my energy level if I am to be of any use to her.
Got to get ready to drive to swimming class. It is still raining which is a washout for my usual jog at the Hwa Chong tracks. While Ryan swims, I get to jog 10 or 13 laps around the tracks and 5 or so laps walking forward and backward to round off the day. Hope the rain stops soon.
Not that we wanted this for Ryan - he chose to have calligraphy and would not agree when I suggested dropping the classes. Through some quirks of nature, my son prefers the gentler things in life while my girls tend to be more boisterous (except maybe for Brynn whose passion was her school symphonic band). He enjoys calligraphy even though his Chinese grades in school are heading south year after year. Such irony. And golf is daddy's dream of having one of his own shares his passion, maybe in the hope that when he is old and retired, he will still have someone to play with. That person certainly is not going to be moi. I tried golf and just cannot seem to find anything to hold me to it. It is way too complicated and I cannot contort the different parts of the body the way Bert tells me I need to to get that correct swing. Too technical for the likes of me :-).
But swimming - ah, that's a different story. Ryan would drop swimming at the drop of a hint. We are the holdbacks because given his leanings towards relative inactivity and bookishness, the exercises will ensure his health builds up. His natural inclination is to hole up somewhere with a book that he has read for the umpteenth time and not move any muscles not needed to hold up the book and turn the pages. Fortunately, though it was tortuous at the start, Ryan seems to have taken to golf. In fact, he has a very nice swing and can use my driver which I cannot for the life of me, handle. He can drive over 100 meters now, sometimes about 130 meters.
We dropped by Peter's new house on the way back from Mundai to see how the renovations were coming along. Peter and Kris were there so we actually got to go inside and upstairs. House coming along very nicely. As usual, they have good taste so although they are not spending a huge amount of money, the house will look quite good. They extended the back garden to cover the drain - hmmm, not sure if it is common property but apparently, the neighbour had cleared with the powers to be and said it is OK to do with certain caveats about providing passage when required.
Tonight is the final in the 2006 World Cup. I am tempted to stay up but I know I probably will fail the battle with my brain and eyes. Plus tomorow is house moving for Doris. May need to keep up my energy level if I am to be of any use to her.
Got to get ready to drive to swimming class. It is still raining which is a washout for my usual jog at the Hwa Chong tracks. While Ryan swims, I get to jog 10 or 13 laps around the tracks and 5 or so laps walking forward and backward to round off the day. Hope the rain stops soon.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Muses on Moves
Today is going to be real busy. Doris is moving house to Bishan on Monday and I am taking a day off to help her. But first we have a lot of things to buy and prepare so it is off to Hong Lim today to see if we can pick up the stuff she needs - clay stove, charcoal, sea salt... To cleanse the apartment and ensure domestic peace and harmony, hee hee. Doris can be quite traditional even after 16 years of living in California.
Went to see Bui yesterday to give some kids multi-vitamins for Ching's two boys. She mused that Doris, Peter's family and our family are playing musical chairs. Doris moved back to Singapore from California, Peter is moving later this month to Tai Hwan Lane, within 5 mins walking distance to us, and soon after that we move away to California... Anyone would think we are afraid to be close to our relatives but that is of course, absolutely not the case.
I have received the information pack for expat assignment to the US and gosh, there sure are a lot of forms to fill and things to start putting together. Just reading all the documents take a fair bit of time. Change is always a little unnerving and I am beginning to feel a little trepidation - what if I am making the wrong decision? what if I turn out to be a big flop at the new job? what? what? what? But I stifle my anxiety with the thought that the exposure my kids will get makes the risks worth taking and my family will all be in North America so we will be much closer to one another. And Celia's words when I last spoke to her echo through the confusion in my mind: "HK, you can do anything you set your mind to..."
Nic and Ryan are playing coy - they make like they don't really like to move but you can tell from the slight upward curl of the lips and the tinkle in the eyes that they are actually relishing the thoughts. Such are the ways of the ingenuous. Well, I better get going. Lots of things to do. More later.
Went to see Bui yesterday to give some kids multi-vitamins for Ching's two boys. She mused that Doris, Peter's family and our family are playing musical chairs. Doris moved back to Singapore from California, Peter is moving later this month to Tai Hwan Lane, within 5 mins walking distance to us, and soon after that we move away to California... Anyone would think we are afraid to be close to our relatives but that is of course, absolutely not the case.
I have received the information pack for expat assignment to the US and gosh, there sure are a lot of forms to fill and things to start putting together. Just reading all the documents take a fair bit of time. Change is always a little unnerving and I am beginning to feel a little trepidation - what if I am making the wrong decision? what if I turn out to be a big flop at the new job? what? what? what? But I stifle my anxiety with the thought that the exposure my kids will get makes the risks worth taking and my family will all be in North America so we will be much closer to one another. And Celia's words when I last spoke to her echo through the confusion in my mind: "HK, you can do anything you set your mind to..."
Nic and Ryan are playing coy - they make like they don't really like to move but you can tell from the slight upward curl of the lips and the tinkle in the eyes that they are actually relishing the thoughts. Such are the ways of the ingenuous. Well, I better get going. Lots of things to do. More later.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Day 2 and I am liking this
So here I am, sitting in Central Plaza waiting for my .NET class to start. Read my bean-bean's blog and decided I may as well add one more page while waiting. Today is the last day of class and I think I am a little more prepared intellectually for my new position in the US. Still a long way to go - need to update myself on other applications stuff but I'll get there.
The next few weeks are going to be real busy preparing the move to California. So many things to do and I have not even informed all the usual suspects - banks, schools, ... - yet. Main worry is school over there for Ryan and Nic. How am I going to select schools for them from so far away and what do I need to do? It is going to be interesting...
Well class is about to begin so I will continue this later. Makes me feel young again to attend class like this with young people, albeit a rather aloof bunch. Young Singaporeans today either have too much (sic) or too little social graces and are way too clique-ish. I hope there is a happy medium somewhere. I was probably like that once, maybe worse because of a high degree of introversion. I think my kids are better than I in this regard. I hope so.
The next few weeks are going to be real busy preparing the move to California. So many things to do and I have not even informed all the usual suspects - banks, schools, ... - yet. Main worry is school over there for Ryan and Nic. How am I going to select schools for them from so far away and what do I need to do? It is going to be interesting...
Well class is about to begin so I will continue this later. Makes me feel young again to attend class like this with young people, albeit a rather aloof bunch. Young Singaporeans today either have too much (sic) or too little social graces and are way too clique-ish. I hope there is a happy medium somewhere. I was probably like that once, maybe worse because of a high degree of introversion. I think my kids are better than I in this regard. I hope so.
Cucumber Has Joined the Crowd
So I have decided to join my brood in blogging all my innermost thoughts for the world to see. For a long time, I pondered the wisdom of doing this but having spent many days just pouring over the kind of stuff that are being shamelessly put on the world wide wonder for all and sundry to read, I think a little counter-arguments are called for.
So here is mummytey with a parent's side of the story. When you can't beat them (yes, it is very cliche), you may as well join 'em. At least I get to have my say too.
So this is my first blog... and I can just hear the groans from across the Pacific and the four corners of this house... no mummy don't...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)