I'm here

I feel like a regular zombie but I AM HERE!!!

Shakes on a Plane

Accomplishing “sleep” in the economy section of an aircraft requires a great deal of neck-bendiness and good ole’ circus-style contortionism. Thanks be to God I have neither, or else you wouldn’t be getting this “long-awaited” (jokes, jokes) update! Anyway, who needs shut-eye when you can… ramble at length to your friends over the internet? At least SOMEONE will be getting some sleep! ;)

That aside, I’m decidedly impressed by the offerings of this airline! (And yes, I’m typing this in a Word document after having been in here for nine hours. What you’re reading is something I’ve simply copied and pasted to the internet much later.) Anyway, as I was saying - free headphones and movies, maps and 3-D diagrams of our flight progress at my fingertips, and I even have my own electrical outlet for cryin’ out loud. SPOILED!

My dad, Mark and Richie dropped me off at LAX tonight (Last night? Yesterday? This morning? I don’t even know anymore!) and pretty much left me for dead at about 10 ‘o clock. It was a strange feeling, being alone. I was all smiles at the security gate (and just to make me laugh, the guard took a look at my passport and said “Is this YOU!? What happened? Did you grow up?” to which I replied, “not yet!”) but, as the figures of my dad and brothers grew smaller and smaller, finally disappearing into the chaos of the airport, I found myself feeling slightly sick to my stomach.

I boarded the plane at 1:10 and immediately tried to wrap my head around what was happening to me. All sorts of thoughts came to mind. I’M MOVING TO ASIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! AND I’M ALL BY MYSELF AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I MAY POSSIBLY RUN OUT OF MONEY and then I calmly sat down and buckled my seatbelt.

It’s a 14ish hour flight from LA to Hong Kong, and a 3 and a half hour flight from there to Singapore. My poor little brain is so confused by it! It’s 10:25AM on my watch and outside my window is complete and utter blackness. It’s trippy.

How HUGE this world is, and yet, how small! The Pacific Ocean is so vast… I can’t believe people used to try to cross this thing with wooden ships and only moldy bread and salted meat to sustain themselves. Sick!

So what have I been doing all this time? Well, apart from developing (and then discovering, ughh) my first zit in years on my forehead, I’ve managed to get in a little bit of sleep, meet this awesome Columbian girl seated next to me, eat dinner at 3 AM for the first time ever, watch “Exit Through the Gift Shop” and then proceed to become impressed by it (except for the French narrator who rips off of other artists and neglects his family errgh), read, pray, and contemplate the blackness outside my window. This, my friends, is what I call the ACTION PACKED itinerary for the seated traveler.

At any rate, it seems that I’ve accumulated a long backlog of stories, news, and other bits of nonsense from last week to share with you and the world wide web!

But where do I start? If it were up to me I would have documented things as they happened, but alas … I spent way too much time this past week trying to avoid anything resembling productivity! (This is also where I conveniently insert my famous “I work better under pressure” line.)

I think I’ll just do a massive picture post next, and throw in some spontaneous commentary to clue you in. It can be the Katrina Tabloid.

Can you believe it? The next time I write, I’ll be in Singapore, 8,700 miles away from everything I’ve ever known. (Stop sounding so dramatic, Katrina.) Maybe what the guard said earlier is going to come true after all. More than just an exciting adventure, this will be a time for me to do just as he suggested – grow up.

And if I don’t, then … well, looking 16 has its perks… ;)

Suitcases and shopping shenanigans

And now, it's time to pack all my stuff into two suitcases, a carry-on bag and a backpack.

(I nearly said "pack my 'life' into two suitcases", but that expression just doesn't do it for me as it implies that my clothes and toiletries are my life, which they are not...MY SEWING MACHINE is and I'm not even taking it hahahahahahha)

Rough life.

Today was my "shopping" day, which was basically an exercise in very carefully (not to be confused with 'casually') spending monies on delights such as deoderants, a few cotton blouses, dress shoes fit for walking long distances, and other things too boring to mention here.

Now, you might be wondering why I am spending time and money on items here in America when I could very easily wait to go shopping in Singapore, where basic necessities are readily available, and also highly sanitized. I'll tell you why:

THINGS ARE FLIPPIN' EXPENSIVE THERE

Now, back to my shopping. I was very pleased with myself because I really invested time (after avoiding it for weeks) into planning this shopping trip--I made lists of what items to buy from what store, drew up crazy maps to determine the most efficient routes to take from place to place, and in what order, collected coupons, and decided on how much money to allot to each category of items. It was a painstaking process, but I knew that I'd streamline and shorten my shopping by doing it this way. (You know, because there's nothing impractical about spending a lot of time and effort into finding a way to, well, reduce time and effort.)

That being said, I was out for four hours. -_-

You'd think that with all my lists and planning I would have reduced my shopping time, but I completely forgot to take into account (silly me) the fact that I was shopping alone. And when Katrina is alone, time spent pursuing any sort of activity involving "choosing" automatically gets multiplied by three.

This is what happens:

"Do I love it or just like it?"

"Can I use it for different occasions?"

"Could I find this at Wal-Mart for cheaper"

"What's the unit price, anyway?"

"Does this flatter me or fatter me"

"Can I use it as a rag"

"How long have I been staring at this"

"IS THIS EVEN ON MY LIST"

Etc.

Once I finally narrow it down to two choices, I basically give up hope and tell the spectators I've attracted to set up camp because this could, I'm afraid, take a very long time.

(The good thing is, after all this trouble, I go home with something that I do not have second thoughts about! I in fact have third and fourth thoughts about it, but that is the price of indecision.)

At any rate, today's shopping trip was a success! AND I was able to stay within my budget. Granted, I did end up crossing out a good number of the items on my list after realizing "ehh I don't really need _______..."

But I mean... who really needs toothpaste anyway?

LOL

Further developments and happy discoveries

Singapore is tiny. It's about 25 miles across from end to end!



Roughly the size of New York, New York.

(This map is taken from here, which has images generated by this nifty tool)


Update:

Apart from having received my plane ticket finally, (kind of important),

I'm now in touch with the ten other international teachers joining me on this "adventure," and I am pleased to announce that they are just as confused, alarmed, and strangely excited as me when it comes to the overall "lack of information" that has marked every turn of this employment arrangement. :) I'm sure the Ministerial bureaucrats in Singapore are getting a kick out of teasing us with this very slow trickle of information ... kind of like Chinese water torture. I'm trying not to be too hard on them though. I mean, what else can one expect from a culture that prohibits the begetting of pleasure and fun (let alone doubling it) through the chewing of certain sticky treats? It would make perfect sense to assume that the next best thing is to inflict pain and suffering on foreign employees... and, oh, on their fellow citizens. (Might as well!)

The other teachers starting work with me on the 29th are mostly from Canada and the UK. There is one other American, who I believe is from Oregon. How fun! I have to make sure I talk about In-N-Out Burger and Hollywood a whole bunch.

All in all, I'm feeling much more at ease now that I have my travel and [temporary] lodging arrangements settled. Thanks be to God! (For about one month I was biting my nails worried sick thinking my trip would not go through - I even applied to other teaching jobs as a back up). Yes - I'm still in the dark when it comes to what this upcoming position actually entails - cue nervous laughter - but then again so is everyone else in my group, and that is comforting.

Checklist

Plane ticket: Check

My departure date is August 25.

The trip is two weeks away and I'm ...calm. Odd.