A DAY OF REST

I have to admit, not having a job does have one perk - I am not on a schedule to do anything by a certain time of day. Now, it would be nice if my body would realize that 7 p.m. is not bedtime and 3 a.m. is not time to wake up...I'm working on that. But having the freedom to do what needs to be done on my own schedule and not someone else's is something to which I am growing accustomed. 

What would really make me happy is if my husband would stop trying to find me a job when I am at a point where I like not having one. He had the classifieds open in our new local paper the second day we were here and advised that he was looking for jobs for me. As fate would have it, as I was typing the first paragraph of this entry, he popped up with, "Hey, I found a job for you!" Kismet. This job, as it turns out, would require me to be in New York City where I would blog about major league baseball games. HELLOOOO - You just moved me to Singapore......

Anyone who knows me knows that I will likely not survive if I don't have some form of employment because I do need a feeling of accomplishment and self worth. I fully believe that I will have some sort of employment in the near future, but I am doing my best to give myself a break until we have the basic necessities fulfilled - you know, like a place to live and then some furniture to fit nicely inside our new home. Once the house is filled, the refrigerator is filled, the cupboards are filled, and my husband is off flying again, I will be more open to gainful employment. In fact, I already may have an opportunity to do some freelance work. 

Yesterday we decided to try a church service downtown. The church hosts four services on Sunday, so we got to pick which to attend. Our day of rest started with a relaxing morning at 7 a.m. We took our time getting ready, and then headed into town via bus. I have to say, I quite enjoy riding the bus. The taxis are very cheap, but they are fast. Our 20-minute bus ride yesterday cost us 90 cents and gave us a slower look at a few neighborhoods along the way. The bus was quiet and clean, and did I mention that it cost 90 cents?

The Orchard Road shopping is a very popular area of town; I read about it before we moved. I think they have more high-end retailers than even Madison Avenue. There were two Armani stores, a Rolex store, Cartier, Prada, Gucci...We saw more people hanging out outside of the stores than actually in them. 

Our church service was held on the top floor of a mall because malls are all that Singapore has. I have never seen more malls in one place. Malls are like Starbucks here - they are across the street from one another. And there are Starbucks inside. The population density in Manhattan is nearly four times that of Singapore's, but it certainly seems more crowded here. There are people everywhere, but mostly in the malls. And I don't think these people know anything about personal space. Sally, you would freak out. The Singaporeans like to be the first in line at all times. An elderly woman came from behind and cut right in front of me and another person at the grocery store the other day. I thought that my position in the line was clear, but I was certainly mistaken. I just got out of the way.

This morning we awoke rather early again. I told Paul last night that we should have an easy morning, relax a little. I think we're on Fiji time, which is odd because we have never been to Fiji. We didn't even pass Fiji when we flew over. The good news is that we cleaned our entire apartment, I cooked breakfast for the two of us and cleaned up afterwards. By the time we finished, it was only 7.30. Good thing we have all day to get things done on our schedule. This afternoon, we get to visit our first potential apartments as we live our own reality TV episode of House Hunters International.