iPhone 4 And lo, the new iPhone and new iPhone OS were announced to great rejoicing and adulation (at WWDC, anyway).What I want to know, dear Mr Jobs, is whether you'll fix the keyboard dictionary to stop autocorrecting "me" to "mr", "reading" to "Reading", and "market" to "Market".Also, you know I'm a schoolgirl nerd at heart because the only bit that got me really excited about the iPhone 4 announcement was that iBooks will be available on the new OS and you only have to buy a book once to be able to read it on your iPhone and iPad, and you can sync your reading and annotation across both devices. As I've said to several friends, what would be really neat is if enough textbook and academic publishers start making their books available for the iPad, so that the iPad is all I need when I start classes in September. Hear ye, hear ye Singapore literary publisher Firstfruits publications is looking for poetry for a new collection, Storm Glass: Singapore Poets Before Their First Books.Firstfruits publications seeks submissions of poetry in English from Singapore poets who have yet to publish a full-length, single-author collection of poetry. Selected work will appear in an anthology to be published next year. All submissions must be sent before 1st September 2010.Only email submissions will be accepted. Send 6-8 poems to stormglass.antho@gmail.com, either as a single attachment (.rtf or .doc only--no .docx files, please) or, if your poems' formatting will not suffer for it, as text in the body of your email. Title your email "SUBMISSION: [Your Name Here]". Send your best, most representative work. At least half the poems submitted must be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are permitted without reservations.Questions? Check out the Facebook page for more information. And then it was June I thought I would blog on Monday after G-man and I tramped our way to the ruins of the Japanese Occupation-era Shinto shrine at MacRitchie Reservoir. But what I didn't bank on was:My lunch appointment for work ran late, so it was too late for us to start off by the time we met.It was raining, so it would be extra-(tr)icky.The path to the shrine is an unofficial one, not signposted or maintained by the National Parks Board, so it looked like it was a little more overgrown and potentially more obstructed by fallen vegetation than I would be able to help G-man move out of the way.We shall return! With more guys and on an afternoon when it isn't raining. Also, I will wear full-length pants the next time.The ruins of the Shinto shrine are something I've been meaning to see for the better part of a decade, and with London looming on the horizon (about three months to go), I thought I'd better do it soon. The other walk I've been meaning to do is the 9-kilometre Southern Ridges, which Kevin did last weekend. From one thing to another When yesterday morning began, I had three appointments taking me from lunchtime to late afternoon. By the time I headed out to the first appointment, I had squished three more things into my schedule. This was a good thing, because I got to catch up with some friends whom I was way, way overdue in seeing, and I also got to see what the aftermath of a TweetUp looks like.One of my originally scheduled appointments was a media preview of the new Tanjong Beach Club (pictured above). All I can say is: I wish I had a friend who owned a beach house like that, and could I move in for a summer (or two) to write my novel, please? Not that I have a novel in me just yet, but you know: floor-to-ceiling windows, Mid-Century Modern aesthetic, infinity pool --- I don't think creatively one could go wrong with that. In a haze of sleep I gave myself a three-day weekend, starting last Friday, and spent it trying to sleep off a cough and mild cold. I must've slept close to 18 hours each day, which caused several friends to tingle with envy today, but you know, there's something really sick in the body when you're too fatigued to even read your Twitter or Facebook feed. Something strange in the library Maybe it's because I spent the better part of yesterday working in the library, but I was suitably entertained by this video re-imagining the opening scene to Ghostbusters, wherein the Ghostbusters team pursue ghosts into the New York Public Library's main reading room. Sure, it was a stunt, but a worth one, to generate publicity for the library's fund-raising efforts (and those are some pretty harsh budget cuts it's facing).I found the video via Mashable, which also posted a clip of the opening of the original film. The most noticeable difference between the library past and present to me (aside from fashion choices) was that the library today is absolutely overrun with laptops, just like the National Library is in Singapore.Yesterday I was a little peeved at a library user hogging two power points when he wasn't even referring to any reference books. I'm starting to wonder if popular libraries are going to have to introduce more stringent laptop use policies in their reference sections, so that the people who are actually there to use the books (i.e. resources that can't be accessed off-site or via some kind of secured online network) won't find themselves crowded out of a seat (and power point) by headphone-wearing teenagers playing first-person shooter games. Vale When S. Rajaratnam passed away four years ago, it was the music that I remembered. When it was announced today that Goh Keng Swee passed away, I found out via Twitter, plus it was just a few hours after my dad had text-messaged to say that my swimming instructor from my childhood had passed away a few days ago.Of course it's Uncle Lawrence the swimming instructor whom I remember more vividly, even though I haven't seen him since the 1980s. But the memories are mixed up, somewhat. Images of the swimming pools at the former Raffles Institution at Grange Road and the former Non-Commissioned Officers' Club at Beach Road, where Uncle Lawrence alternately terrorised and cajoled a class of skinny children into learning how to swim (and occasionally tossed us off a three-storey high diving board at the latter pool), speak as much to the passing of an age as do the black and white images of Rajaratnam and Goh that fill the history books, will fill tomorrow's newspapers and occasionally pop into my mind (tepid remnants of hours of research at local archives and libraries). The voices too were from a different time: the cadences of Goh in the 1950s and 1960s describing his critics who called Jurong Industrial Estate "Goh's Folly", the smartness of Rajaratnam's sentences, and my swimming instructor's Eurasian Singlish accent, not quite the same as my parents'.There is a time passing, perceptibly.Vale, vale.Edited to add (17 May): My friend Cheng Tju has posted a cartoon from the Straits Times (4 June 1960) to remember Dr Goh. It certainly harks back to a time when the fate of Singapore was hardly a foregone conclusion. Madly in love with Prezi Serendipitous is: discovering the wonders of Prezi, via Lisa Johnson's tweet, on the very morning that I was going to start working on my slides for some talks. It took me an hour or so to get the hang of Prezi, and then all I could do was try not to let my gleeful delight with the application overwhelm the fact that, hello, I was supposed to be concentrating on my ideas and not on the slides per se.The talks I was giving were to different groups of students at Raffles Institution (or Raffles Junior College, or Raffles Institution (Junior College), depending on what nomenclature you grew up with slash prefer). To one group I threw out some thoughts on the writing of Singapore: A Biography and Singapore history in general, to another I was talking about writing and being a writer. Apropos of neither topic, one student asked if I would go back and change my decision to take a government scholarship at the age of 19 (see my essay "Once Bonded" in s/pores for more context). I told her to go reread the essay and, if need be, a recent blog entry.After the talks were over, I felt immediately like passing out. Despite my teaching experience, I always forget how tiring it is to get up there and speak to and engage with a new audience.But hey: Prezi! Now I can't wait till the next time I have an excuse to play with it. xkcd and yoghurt Apropos of today's breakfast, whereat I had yoghurt that was in no danger of having expired, but I did have to weed through the strawberries I bought last week that weren't quite so fresh anymore. Two-shower weather I kept meaning to blog this week, but whenever I tried to write something that wasn't for work, all I could think of was how hot the weather has been and how I'm taking at least two showers a day to stay sane. Even so, my bath towel and bathroom floor dry faster than I've ever remembered, and even when I was mopping last weekend, the dampness from the mop just seemed to evaporate instantly.This all sounds mundane, but the heat can really get you down. Low on energy, high on perspiration --- how is one supposed to get anything done?I am supposed to take some time in May and June to figure out what other creative things I want to work on, for myself, in the coming months. I hope the abominable heat doesn't get in the way of that. Going back to school I have hinted, both on this blog and on Twitter, that something was afoot. Not just the new book project (which is shaping up nicely, by the way), but something else. I didn't say more earlier because I have a dread fear of jinxing my chances before firm offers and plans are made --- but now they have been made, so:I am going back to school, for one year, at Goldsmiths College in London, to do a Masters in Cultural Studies. This does not have anything to do with jewellery-making, as some punny friends have jibed, but everything to do with reading Roland Barthes, Pierre Bourdieu, Stuart Hall and other sexy cultural thinkers.I will also be living and hanging out in London, obviously. Woot!Some funding has been secured, for which I am very grateful (and will say more when the paperwork is done), and hopefully I'll be able to rustle up a little more in the next few months. The exchange rate on the pound is low now, as everyone keeps reminding me, but even so, London is an expensive place to live.I got the acceptance email from Goldsmiths just this week. I got the scholarship funding letter while I was in Taiwan. Before that I was feverishly drafting essays, filling in forms, digging up old academic certificates and transcripts (my GCE 'O' and 'A' Level certificates are looking pretty weatherbeaten), and meticulously putting together application packages in time for various deadlines.What did I learn from this process?I couldn't have done it alone --- thank you, my gracious friends and associates, who offered advice, introductions and support.Writing application essays to justify my existing career as well as future plans, can feel like simultaneously having a mid-life crisis and establishing new career goals that I actually care about.I should always keep my certificates and records in one place, as my mother always said.The last time I went through this type of application process, I was 19 years old and a rather different person. (Also, I was dealing with US university application forms, which are a lot more detailed than the UK versions.) Some friends have expressed surprise that university admission and scholarship offers now come through email, one several-kilobyte missive at a time. As one friend said, "Last time, we had to wait for a bit fat package to show up in the mail."It is a somewhat different sort of anticipation and glee --- but I am still gleeful. Women in the news Interestingly, this morning the "Most Popular Stories Now" listing on the BBC News website included the following four links (in a list of 10):"The virginity industry" (focusing primarily on Arab women)"Belgian lawmakers pass burka ban""Woman wins bungalow brothel case" (a case in the UK)"Women earn role on US submarines"Arab women, Islam, dress codes, sexuality, prostitution, American women, European women, women in the military --- it strikes me that this particular algorithm-generated list is a neat synecdoche for where women "fit" in terms of news and social issues these days. I feel a little jetlagged I realise there's no time difference between Singapore and Taiwan, but I felt off-kilter when I got home last Thursday and it took several days of sleeping in and not doing anything more strenuous than going out for satay or steamboat, to restore my balance. In a lot of ways the 8-day jaunt to Taiwan was a lot more demanding than the longer Lonely Planet trips I've done to Vietnam and Korea, in no small part because:We hit the airport 7 times during that 8-day trip.We never stayed in the same hotel or minsu (homestay) twice.We spent much less time in each place than most vacationers do, so the local guides really had to squeeze in all the best sights and stops while we were there.I cut my foot so I was favouring my left leg, which wore out my right leg more quickly.None of which was Taiwan's fault, of course. It's a country with lots of warm-hearted people who were eager to show us what excited them about their respective home islands, and oh-so-forgiving of my inelegant Mandarin. I'd go back in a heartbeat. Island-hopping Visiting Penghu was a whirlwind of beaches, old temples and volcanic rock formations. There were two rocky areas I decided not to hazard, given that my foot's still recovering, but generally I'm relieved that my movements haven't been much impeded.After 25 hours here, we're about to board a plane for Jinmen. The pace of this trip is pretty crazy, worse than my Lonely Planet trips, or maybe it's because I have less direct control over my time and what I see.On the bright side (pardon the pun), in Penghu the sun finally came out for us for the first time this trip. It was a scorcher, so I spent a lot of time hiding in the shade. Our guide took us to eat lots of local specialties --- how the locals stay healthy eating such good stuff is a mystery to me. I can still taste the sweet sticky flavour of this morning's 炸棗 (deep-fried sticky dough ball with peanut). Feeling doltish So I moved with unnecessary haste coming out the front door of the minsu (homestay) where I was staying yesterday, and scraped my left little toe badly enough that it gushed blood for a good few minutes and merited two stitches to tidy it up. Fortunately, the guides who were showing us around Green Island (綠島) were just picking me up for lunch then and whipped me off to the local hospital posthaste.Because Green Island has an islander population of about 1,000, the local hospital is only about double the size of a typical Singapore HDB clinic and looks like something out of the 1970s. A young mainlander doctor and an islander nurse attended to me, and he was very apologetic when he had to put two stitches in my toe instead of one. Total cost (including a tetanus shot, antibiotics and painkillers): NT$ 360, equivalent to about S$16. My Singapore HDB doctor charges me more than that for consultation alone.So now I'm limping a wee bit and confined to wearing slippers for the rest of this trip and changing the bandage every night. No more hot springs or snorkelling for me, so it's just as well I had a taste of that before my silly fall. In the boondocks And I mean that in a good way. We spent just over 12 hours in Taipei, then hopped on a plane to southern Taiwan to spend a couple of days at Green Island (綠島). The weather is, unfortunately, a sullen grey, more suited to the moors of Yorkshire than to this lush gem of an island that's trying to promote itself as a rustic playground. One can imagine how pretty everything looks when the sun is out --- it's just too bad that seems unlikely to happen while we're here.It's just past noon and already I've taken a short hike up a local hill, rambled up another for a panoramic view of one of the world's only two seawater hot springs, and snorkelled among enough brightly coloured reef fish to make the word "rainbow" seem woefully inadequate. I wonder what the afternoon has in store. I need to do better at this Another mad rush to the airport, accompanied by that nagging feeling that I've forgotten something. It's great that Singapore Airlines has Internet check-in, but that just means I procrastinate all the more on leaving home for the airport.Blogging this from the plane. They're much less draconian about mobile phone use than they used to be. Next stop: Taipei. Blog migration completed (I think) The thing about things going slightly pear-shaped when using the Blogger FTP migration tool, is that you can't actually blog about it because your blog is in untouchable stasis once the migration tool has been activated.Fortunately there's still Twitter, whereat I noted around midnight:Blog migration interruptus: forgot that I need to get a new CNAME with my domain registrar first. This might take longer than I thought.And an update from earlier this afternoon:Struggling with a stubborn local proxy and recalcitrant Blogger FTP migration tool. This is NOT how I'd planned to spend Sunday afternoon.Right now the CNAME issue has been resolved and http://blog.toomanythoughts.org seems to be working. However, my local proxy still hates me, so I can't view my own blog unless I use a proxy server. And finally, I think the Blogger FTP migration tool failed to update all my old blog pages with redirect code, like it was supposed to, so I might have to go back and patch things up --- someday. If you see me advertising for an assistant to do some murderously repetitive HTML updates in a few weeks, you'll know why.And now we return your to your regularly scheduled blog programming. This blog has moved This blog is now located at http://blog.toomanythoughts.org/. You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds or you may click here. For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to http://blog.toomanythoughts.org/feeds/posts/default. Blog migration imminent Though hopefully one that will be invisible to you, dear readers.Blogger is discontinuing FTP support, which displeases me but since we FTP users are apparently in the stark minority of Blogger users, I guess I'm outnumbered on this one. Anyways, there's a supposedly foolproof migration tool available and I finally have a pocket of time tonight to try this out --- so here goes.If all goes well, after this post my blog will appear at http://blog.toomanythoughts.org (instead of http://www.toomanythoughts.org/blog/index.html).See you on the other side. Blog migration imminent Though hopefully one that will be invisible to you, dear readers.Blogger is discontinuing FTP support, which displeases me but since we FTP users are apparently in the stark minority of Blogger users, I guess I'm outnumbered on this one. Anyways, there's a supposedly foolproof migration tool available and I finally have a pocket of time tonight to try this out --- so here goes.If all goes well, after this post my blog will appear at http://blog.toomanythoughts.org (instead of http://www.toomanythoughts.org/blog/index.html).See you on the other side. Taiwan calling I've finally gotten confirmation of next week's press trip to Taiwan, which is not for Lonely Planet but a Singapore publication. Hey, all-expenses-paid travel --- I ain't complainin'.I'll be in:Taipei (but only in a cursory fashion, I suspect)Green Island (绿岛 or Ludao)Beitou (北投)Penghu (澎湖, another island), andJinmen (金门, or the island formerly known as Quemoy)Judging from the itinerary, the main objective of this trip seems to be overwhelm us with the delightfulness of Taiwan's hot springs (温泉) and islands. I'm particularly keen to see Jinmen, which is only 2 km off the coast of mainland China --- after seeing the DMZ in Korea last year, I find disputed border areas quite compelling, even if I'm there just as a layperson observer. Taiwan calling I've finally gotten confirmation of next week's press trip to Taiwan, which is not for Lonely Planet but a Singapore publication. Hey, all-expenses-paid travel --- I ain't complainin'.I'll be in:Taipei (but only in a cursory fashion, I suspect)Green Island (绿岛 or Ludao)Beitou (北投)Penghu (澎湖, another island), andJinmen (金门, or the island formerly known as Quemoy)Judging from the itinerary, the main objective of this trip seems to be overwhelm us with the delightfulness of Taiwan's hot springs (温泉) and islands. I'm particularly keen to see Jinmen, which is only 2 km off the coast of mainland China --- after seeing the DMZ in Korea last year, I find disputed border areas quite compelling, even if I'm there just as a layperson observer. This is a very disjointed post The blog's been silent because I started writing something a few days ago, based on something that happened on Saturday, but the vignette just won't come out right. After whacking intermittently at it for the past few nights, I'm now resigned that it might sit in my drafts folder forever.Meanwhile, my birthday came and went, I had to write furiously on the days before and after to meet certain deadlines, and how can it be April already?Actually, I feel like scratching April off because most of the month will be filled up by a work trip, followed by the usual post-trip writing frenzy. I've started to say to friends, "Yeah, let's catch up in May ..."If you really want to hear me blather on about work, then you should go read this little interview with me over at Nanzinc.Com. Thank you, Melanie! It was a nice post-birthday surprise.Someday, when I am interviewed, I will say something as intelligent as this:(There's also a transcript available at Boing Boing.) This is a very disjointed post The blog's been silent because I started writing something a few days ago, based on something that happened on Saturday, but the vignette just won't come out right. After whacking intermittently at it for the past few nights, I'm now resigned that it might sit in my drafts folder forever.Meanwhile, my birthday came and went, I had to write furiously on the days before and after to meet certain deadlines, and how can it be April already?Actually, I feel like scratching April off because most of the month will be filled up by a work trip, followed by the usual post-trip writing frenzy. I've started to say to friends, "Yeah, let's catch up in May ..."If you really want to hear me blather on about work, then you should go read this little interview with me over at Nanzinc.Com. Thank you, Melanie! It was a nice post-birthday surprise.Someday, when I am interviewed, I will say something as intelligent as this:(There's also a transcript available at Boing Boing.) A reader asks, I answer (part 2) To resume from yesterday's entry:3. Do you still dream of becoming a publisher in New York?No. It pays too little (it always did, but at this point in my professional life it's really way too little) and to have to start from scratch in that publishing world at a time when online media and other infrastructural factors are shaking up the industry, is just more risk and jumpstarting than I'm prepared to do right now. I'm happy as a writer and I'd rather channel those energies more into developing that career, then hopping over to something else (though it's a related field).4. If you could turn back time to when you were 19, what would you change?Tough question. I want to say I would tell my 19-year-old self to believe in herself more, rather than to presume there is a cut-and-dried formula for making career choices in Singapore. But I'm not sure that she had the chutzpah at that age to find ways to go on and do interesting things anyway.I suppose the overseas education was critical in influencing a large part of who I am today and that is the one decision I wouldn't change. Whether I got there by dint of a government scholarship, parental financing or some other funding source was important too, but it's hard to say definitely right now that I would go back and tell my 19-year-old self to say no to the scholarship offer.I don't think we get do-overs and I don't think we should dwell on them, either.5. What do you think of Singaporeans who leave behind friends and family for overseas studies and decide to settle there permanently?No differently than I think of people who choose to live here, be they Singaporean or not. People from many countries choose to go overseas for many different reasons; I think it's safe to say that more people today will live and die in a different place from where they were born. There's no need to pronounce judgement on that.Someone I interviewed today mentioned the importance of being comfortable in your own skin. I don't think I've ever articulated it that way myself, but that's it, really. Be comfortable in your own skin, and leave other people to be that way too, as long as they're not threatening to hurt you or anything.* * *So those are the five questions I was asked. Hm ... that didn't take as long as I thought it might. A reader asks, I answer (part 2) To resume from yesterday's entry:3. Do you still dream of becoming a publisher in New York?No. It pays too little (it always did, but at this point in my professional life it's really way too little) and to have to start from scratch in that publishing world at a time when online media and other infrastructural factors are shaking up the industry, is just more risk and jumpstarting than I'm prepared to do right now. I'm happy as a writer and I'd rather channel those energies more into developing that career, then hopping over to something else (though it's a related field).4. If you could turn back time to when you were 19, what would you change?Tough question. I want to say I would tell my 19-year-old self to believe in herself more, rather than to presume there is a cut-and-dried formula for making career choices in Singapore. But I'm not sure that she had the chutzpah at that age to find ways to go on and do interesting things anyway.I suppose the overseas education was critical in influencing a large part of who I am today and that is the one decision I wouldn't change. Whether I got there by dint of a government scholarship, parental financing or some other funding source was important too, but it's hard to say definitely right now that I would go back and tell my 19-year-old self to say no to the scholarship offer.I don't think we get do-overs and I don't think we should dwell on them, either.5. What do you think of Singaporeans who leave behind friends and family for overseas studies and decide to settle there permanently?No differently than I think of people who choose to live here, be they Singaporean or not. People from many countries choose to go overseas for many different reasons; I think it's safe to say that more people today will live and die in a different place from where they were born. There's no need to pronounce judgement on that.Someone I interviewed today mentioned the importance of being comfortable in your own skin. I don't think I've ever articulated it that way myself, but that's it, really. Be comfortable in your own skin, and leave other people to be that way too, as long as they're not threatening to hurt you or anything.* * *So those are the five questions I was asked. Hm ... that didn't take as long as I thought it might. A reader asks, I answer (part 1) Recently I got an email from a reader responding to my essay, "Once Bonded", which was published last July but apparently continues to make the online rounds. The reader posed several questions which I thought would make good fodder for blogging and offer a break from all the other pay copy jobs I'm working on, so let's have a go at them:1. Have the eight years of the scholarship bond changed your initial intensely negative perspectives and desire to leave Singapore in any way (i.e. tapered/balanced your opinions)?Let's be clear about one thing: I did the eight years, then at the end of 2005 I quit being a government civil servant and I've been a full-time professional writer since. So how and what I feel about Singapore right now is tempered by a host of experiences, not the scholarship bond period alone.Do I feel less "intensely negative" about Singapore? Absolutely. To quote what I wrote in a prior blog entry:[...] grumpy and filled with a general animus towards towards everyone and everything Singaporean, I spent most of the first six months [after my return to Singapore] frantically calculating how much I could save of each month's salary towards paying off the scholarship bond. [...]My mother always says that it wasn't till after I took a trip to the US at the end of that first six months, to see the then-boyfriend and college friends, that I settled down. [...] maybe what I needed was to see that the people I'd known and loved in college were moving on with their lives, for me to realise that I should do the same. Quit whining, accept the period of indenture, and get on with it. Besides, eight years is a bloody long time to be grumpy.As for how the subsequent eight years had an impact on my attitude to Singapore and being stuck in Singapore, let me be lazy and crib from that same blog post. In a nutshell:I made friends, settled down, got married, bought a place to live and a car, worked reasonably hard at my job, got over all the things Singapore doesn't have, appreciated anew the things it does (chief among them: being able to get good food at all hours, especially Teochew moi (porridge) with pigs' intestines and salted eggs), let my accent go and gave up on the government.I still enjoy being away from Singapore because I think it brings some much-needed perspective. Singapore is not only a tiny country, but effectively only a city --- there's nowhere else in this country to escape to, just to catch your breath or be somewhere that feels significantly different in vibe or form. I always say I would still be grumpy today if I didn't have the opportunity to get out of Singapore for a couple of months of the year.Would I migrate permanently? I don't know. I thought about it when I was married, but then you get older, and your parents get older, and Singapore is a lot more interesting of a place right now (despite its flaws) than I ever would've dreamed when I was a child. I think it would be nice to have a second home somewhere else, just to get that regular change-of-scenery (Hoi An is rapidly becoming a prime candidate, in that respect) without having to uproot or disconnect entirely from Singapore. But I don't feel any sense of ironic wistfulness when I say this is home.Still, I worry about getting too comfortable in Singapore, and forgetting that the rest of the world does not (and should not) live by the same rules, and losing that desire to always want something more, for Singapore to be more, than what it is today.2. Did government service benefit you in any way, career-wise or 'spiritually' as a human being?Career-wise, absolutely. I picked up a lot of skills from my teaching and communications work that are still relevant to my work today. Some are specific to writing --- how to communicate clearly, how to gear up publicity or make something newsworthy --- while others are just good-to-have, like public speaking or working with people you don't necessarily have much in common with. I'm still friends (and I don't just mean Facebook-friends) with a number of former colleagues, and because almost everyone eventually moves on to other jobs or life choices, there are a surprising number of ways in which we've been able to help each other, work-wise and on a personal level, even though we're not fellow civil servants anymore.Spiritually, well, I would say my personal experience in the civil service didn't exactly enrich my soul (perhaps several interactions with students and teaching colleagues notwithstanding). But no one says you have to be defined by your job and there are also plenty of civil servants having wonderful job experiences out there.I often opine that working in the government carries the same risks and perils as any other job. If for some reason you're stuck in it --- and there are plenty of people who are stuck in their private sector jobs for very practical and/or serious reasons --- then you can choose to drag your feet to work everyday or you can choose to make lemonade with them lemons. My lemonade didn't turn out too badly.* * *Okay, so there are three more questions the reader had, but I need to get some shut-eye for tonight. Come back for part 2 later this week. A reader asks, I answer (part 1) Recently I got an email from a reader responding to my essay, "Once Bonded", which was published last July but apparently continues to make the online rounds. The reader posed several questions which I thought would make good fodder for blogging and offer a break from all the other pay copy jobs I'm working on, so let's have a go at them:1. Have the eight years of the scholarship bond changed your initial intensely negative perspectives and desire to leave Singapore in any way (i.e. tapered/balanced your opinions)?Let's be clear about one thing: I did the eight years, then at the end of 2005 I quit being a government civil servant and I've been a full-time professional writer since. So how and what I feel about Singapore right now is tempered by a host of experiences, not the scholarship bond period alone.Do I feel less "intensely negative" about Singapore? Absolutely. To quote what I wrote in a prior blog entry:[...] grumpy and filled with a general animus towards towards everyone and everything Singaporean, I spent most of the first six months [after my return to Singapore] frantically calculating how much I could save of each month's salary towards paying off the scholarship bond. [...]My mother always says that it wasn't till after I took a trip to the US at the end of that first six months, to see the then-boyfriend and college friends, that I settled down. [...] maybe what I needed was to see that the people I'd known and loved in college were moving on with their lives, for me to realise that I should do the same. Quit whining, accept the period of indenture, and get on with it. Besides, eight years is a bloody long time to be grumpy.As for how the subsequent eight years had an impact on my attitude to Singapore and being stuck in Singapore, let me be lazy and crib from that same blog post. In a nutshell:I made friends, settled down, got married, bought a place to live and a car, worked reasonably hard at my job, got over all the things Singapore doesn't have, appreciated anew the things it does (chief among them: being able to get good food at all hours, especially Teochew moi (porridge) with pigs' intestines and salted eggs), let my accent go and gave up on the government.I still enjoy being away from Singapore because I think it brings some much-needed perspective. Singapore is not only a tiny country, but effectively only a city --- there's nowhere else in this country to escape to, just to catch your breath or be somewhere that feels significantly different in vibe or form. I always say I would still be grumpy today if I didn't have the opportunity to get out of Singapore for a couple of months of the year.Would I migrate permanently? I don't know. I thought about it when I was married, but then you get older, and your parents get older, and Singapore is a lot more interesting of a place right now (despite its flaws) than I ever would've dreamed when I was a child. I think it would be nice to have a second home somewhere else, just to get that regular change-of-scenery (Hoi An is rapidly becoming a prime candidate, in that respect) without having to uproot or disconnect entirely from Singapore. But I don't feel any sense of ironic wistfulness when I say this is home.Still, I worry about getting too comfortable in Singapore, and forgetting that the rest of the world does not (and should not) live by the same rules, and losing that desire to always want something more, for Singapore to be more, than what it is today.2. Did government service benefit you in any way, career-wise or 'spiritually' as a human being?Career-wise, absolutely. I picked up a lot of skills from my teaching and communications work that are still relevant to my work today. Some are specific to writing --- how to communicate clearly, how to gear up publicity or make something newsworthy --- while others are just good-to-have, like public speaking or working with people you don't necessarily have much in common with. I'm still friends (and I don't just mean Facebook-friends) with a number of former colleagues, and because almost everyone eventually moves on to other jobs or life choices, there are a surprising number of ways in which we've been able to help each other, work-wise and on a personal level, even though we're not fellow civil servants anymore.Spiritually, well, I would say my personal experience in the civil service didn't exactly enrich my soul (perhaps several interactions with students and teaching colleagues notwithstanding). But no one says you have to be defined by your job and there are also plenty of civil servants having wonderful job experiences out there.I often opine that working in the government carries the same risks and perils as any other job. If for some reason you're stuck in it --- and there are plenty of people who are stuck in their private sector jobs for very practical and/or serious reasons --- then you can choose to drag your feet to work everyday or you can choose to make lemonade with them lemons. My lemonade didn't turn out too badly.* * *Okay, so there are three more questions the reader had, but I need to get some shut-eye for tonight. Come back for part 2 later this week. Busy busy busy Might be going away for work next month.Definitely have bucketloads of work to complete before then.Should be spending more time meditating on the meaning of life and such, but in what little non-work downtime I have, I just wanna have fun.Having said all that, a reader of my work happened to email me some interesting questions today, so I might use those as a jumping-off point for writing some blog posts this coming week (time and energy permitting). Stay tuned.