CONGRATS BEN!

Congrats to BEN- the best little brother in the world- on his graduation from Boston College tomorrow!!! 

We soooo wish we could be there and cannot wait to celebrate with you in Singapore in just a few weeks!

Clambake 2010 in Singapore? 

Ode to the best kitchen toy ever...

I love Pineapples. Love them. They win the award for best fruit in my book. But much to my chagrin I think pineapples are a huge pain in the ass to cut up. I hate when you get the prickly bits left on the outside, I hate when you get a bite of the hard core. Icky. And this yuckyness really cuts down on my motivation to eat the wonder fruit. While in the U.S. I would have marched in to the nearest Whole Foods and purchased an overpriced cup of perfectly pre-cut chunks of Dole goodness- I cannot bring myself to eat fresh cut fruit from the fruit market here due to questionable hygiene standards and the apparent lack of running water- the two are likely related.

So imagine my delight to have had the foresight to acquire the worlds best kitchen gadget before we left for exile island, which has solved all of these pesky problems! I had a thought that perpetual summer in S.W. Asia would lead to perpetual reasonably priced pineapple- and on this point I was thankfully correct. It may in fact be the only useful thing I bought in anticipation of our sojourn to the orient- (the boxes and boxes of kraft macaroni and cheese and tubs of peanut butter have proved to be dramatically less valuable given their wide spread availability in Singapore- opps). And now, I am so in love with my pineapple toy that I just had to share it with everyone. It goes a little something like this:

Step one- cut top and bottom off of pineapple. 

Then the slicer gets pressed into the pineapple. 

A few twists later- you get the PERFECT pineapple rings! 

If anyone is tempted to own this little piece of heaven, they can be found at Williams-Sonoma. http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/pineapple-easy-slicer/?pkey=x|4|1||4|pineapple||0&cm_src=SCH

And in a related idea..... if any family member out there happens to read this and notes that Williams-Sonoma is not a retail outlet available here in the Sing... I may have my eyes on the following useful kitchen item... and also may have a birthday coming up =) 

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/tortilla-press/?pkey=x|4|1||4|tortilla||0&cm_src=SCH

The Great Dragon/Pacifier Celebration?

We happen to live right next door to one of the oldest Chinese temples in the city. It is lovely, quiet, serene and the smell of fresh incense wafting from its compound on my morning commute to the subway station is very appreciated.

However my views of this temple have changed due to some rather perturbing events I witnessed today.

On my walk home from the MRT station after a very gratifiying travel-book binge at the local bookstore, I heard drumming and general rowdiness coming from the temple. Great- I think to myself- would be great to see something unique and cultural on an otherwise slothful and indulgent Saturday.

In the distance I spotted this dragon puppet thingie. Cool right? Dragon dancing sounds nice. Then I took note of the uniforms the celebrants were wearing...

OK, florescent orange and yellow is a bold choice- but fine, who am I to judge. But then I noticed the more interesting aspect of their attire....

Proudly sponsored by Huap Lian Transportation Pte. Ltd. For this tid bit, I have no explanation. But don't worry- it gets even stranger.

This looks innocuous enough. Costumed woman dancing. Man clad in yellow viscously snapping a bull whip in her general direction.....

On closer inspection......

Look closely... what is strange about this dancer....

Thats right, in addition to what can only be described as incredibly bizarre and potentially drug influenced dancing, all of the female dancers had pacifiers in their mouths...

After some intense googling in hopes of enlightenment about this celebration, I have no explanation for this  dragon/pacifier celebration. 

Possibly the Best Idea Ever

A thought I have often had myself although I didnt have the bravado or white paint to make it a reality.
Thank goodness someone did =)

In the News....

Like most things in Singapore- the newspapers can be unintentionally hilarious, confusing and plain odd. Here is today's selection of very strange things:

1) What's wrong with a candlelight vigil or moment of silence?

If you cannot read the text: the relevant portion says:

Some 3,000 people, including Buddhist monks, watched as students mimed raping, bludgeoning, strangling and eviscerating bound victims to remember those who died.

Now I support remembering and learning from tragic historical events- but I am not sure this is the way I would have suggested....

2) Thailand anyone?

 

Yea- come visit Thailand. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain the violent protests in the streets. Cheap shopping, good food and free flying bullets!

Maybe they should think about waiting to push Thai tourism until say, the foriegn embassies re-open.

This advert is even more entertaining if you take in to account that there were atleast six different articles preceeding this add detailing how bad and scary things are in Bangkok. Good luck guys, better luck next time.

3) Things not to do in China include:

Noted. 

This makes me think, in light of recent scandles in the media, Tiger Woods et. al., what must they think of the US?  

4) Headline What?

A swear they speak English here. Although I have no idea what this means.

Dear Burrito Blogger

Dear Burrito Blogger,

I don't pick my nose- you're gross. And despite the fact that I like burritos, your blog name is lame.

Looking forward to seeing you and your lovely wife in Asia next year. Give my best to dog Fluetie.

Best,

Erin

Curtiss v. Curtiss

It hasn't been terrible to work with Dave as opposing counsel on a deal so far and we just assumed that is fairly obvious given the circumstances, that we are in fact married. Apparently not to all parties:

Email received today at work (after 2+ months working on this deal):

Dear Erin,

Just curious.....

Is David Curtiss on the X deal related to you?

Best,

X

How many unrelated Curtiss (with TWO S's) lawyers do they think there are in Singapore?

And yes, this does explain why we stay in the same hotel room and share meals (read: roomservice breakfast) on business trips for this deal. If we were otherwise related wouldn't it be creepy if we were sharing hotel rooms? And wouldn't it be one helluva coincidence that two American's working on a deal just happened to have the same sort of unusually spelled last name?

But if you want awkward- think about having to ask a Partner whether or not you care share a room with your own husband on a trip? It was super fun. =)

English to English Translations

When people are extolling the many virtues of this fine island nation, you often hear the following phrase:
"…and EVERYONE speaks English."

This is true- everyone speaks English. On one very small piece of land you have millions of native English speakers- for example you may have Brits speaking English, Aussies speaking English, Kiwis speaking English, Indians speaking English, Singaporeans speaking Singlish, Americans speaking English and lots of other people who are in fact quite fluent, speaking English. What this results in is the biggest mish-mash, hodgepodge, garbage heap of the language that you will ever encounter in one place.

Now I admittedly work in a Non-US firm, so some language fails are to be expected. In my first few weeks here I often walked around having zero idea what people were telling me. Its often simple things that are easy to translate after some thought. However at least once a day someone says something that completely boggles the mind. And this is Singlish and "can lah" aside- these are people attempting to speak what they consider to be perfectly normal English! As an example, people routinely use the word "fortnight," which if you are interested, means 2-weeks, but never in my life have I heard someone use it in common communication.

Here are some of the most common encountered queen's english fails around my office:

I was getting beasted = I was getting killed at work

How'd you find it? = What did you think/Did you like it?

Get on with someone = get along with someone

I was absolutely pissed = I was drunk

That’s ace/brill - That's good/brilliant

Bugger it/Bugger job = screwed it up

"Look here darling, I have been doing this longer than you have been having hot meals" = ?

Hash key = pound sign

Pitch = field.

Now obviously some of these are more normal than others, but the never ceasing flow of foreign English words in my life is tiresome. In my attempt to translate the English of my co-workers, I have found the following website to be rather entertaining and occasionally useful in translating the vernacular around these parts: http://www.effingpot.com/slang.shtml

The problem I face now is not that I have gotten an ear for it and understand people, it's that their bloody mangled English has made its way in to my vocabulary. I have found myself saying something I swore I never would "keen." I am in fact not keen to incorporate this offensive word in to my world. I also have developed a penchant for using the words: query, queue, rubbish, bloody… the list goes on. "Query" as it turns out is word to be used in diverse manners as a noun and a verb. I have today had a query, and have also queried something. Even the manner in which I say things has subtly changed, I insert "rathers" and "quite" in places they wouldn’t have appeared before. While I have always admired the Brits for their cute little accents and thought it did sort of make them sound more erudite- I have come to accept that they have to utilize their adorable accent to distract from the fact that the words that are coming out of their mouths often don't make bloody good sense. Now there is an argument that it is in fact the rest of the world that is not speaking proper English, since the English as it turns our did in fact develop the language on their island nation long before the existence of the USA. As a response to this- I shall direct all Brits to acquire themselves a history book and quickly sort out what took place in 1774. That's right, we kicked your asses, or arses if you prefer. And I believe that one of the rights that came along with independence, democracy for all and the subsequent development of a massive catchment of English speakers on one continent is the right to be the authoritative source on what does and does not constitute good English. Also, but for us, you Brits would all be speaking German. You're welcome.

Thinking about good spoken English brings me to my next point- which is spelling, and how the Brits don't know how to do it properly. I recently had the pleasure of revising a 300 page document to make sure that the spelling was done according to British conventions. Harbor became harbour, color became colour; judgement became judgment (Ok- that one sort of makes sense), traveler became traveller- and I became enraged that there are so many damn ways to spell the same word. Sometimes it makes sense- I fully support getting rid of unnecessary 'e' in places where it doesn't belong. This probably came from the French, who love letters that don't contribute anything to the word- and since no one likes the French- au revior to the frog-influenced 'e' in many words. I also can respect that in fact it does probably make sense to put the date before the month when spelling out a date- but I do so begrudingly because it looks funny. But double 'l'? What good does that do you? None I argue. Neither does the constant use of 'uo' when just plain 'o' would be fine.

While I have focused my ire on the Brits thus far- let it be said that the residents of their former colonies also contribute to the bastardization of my mother tounge. The contortion of queens english into bizzare New Zealand English and worse, Indian English I can only assume is some sort of revenge for years of colonial rule. I can understand and appreciate this idea- down with imperialism. However, since the Americans, also former colonists, managed to take the language and improve it- I find it generally inexcusable that our fellow former colonies did not do likewise.

Things Not Often Seen in Rural Malaysia...

I originally set up these posts for David to do, since he gets jealous that I do most of the posting of cool vacation photos, but since its been weeks since we ventured to Borneo (and I have a painfully boring call on at work) I thought it was time to post some amusing pictures:

This is quite often found in South East Asia. This is admittedly a pretty spectacularly large Rooster- but roaming poultry, even in close proximity to dining establishments, is not in the least bit unusual.

What is less expected is the following picture.

See if you can identify the oddity:

Check out a close up of the picture:

That's right- there is a picture of Hillary hanging at a open air "cafe" in the middle of absolute NO WHERE on the island of Borneo.

On our bus trip to the Monkey spotting river cruise- we took a much needed pit stop at a "restaurant" on the side of the road some hours from Kota Kinabalu. On account of the massive amount of cookies and chips that had been purchased at the hotel gift shop and subsequently consumed en route- we passed on food, but were left with some spare time to relax in the "cafe" while our trusty guide took their first of many "breaks" on this 1/2 day tour. The sights included the giant and frightening rooster above, some mangy cats, Japanese tourists taking pictures of said mangy cats, a barely tolerable restroom, food of questionable hygiene standards and the above picture of our Secretary of State. We assume that the gentleman next to her is a dignitary from Malaysia, maybe even from Sabah state, but our knowledge of Malaysian political officials is limited- so it could well be the cousin of the proprietor or the proprietor himself. While there are many explanations as to why this picture is hanging here- it is certainly entertaining. I am sure Hill would be happy to know she is worthy of wall art pretty much anywhere.

On Marriage, Communication and Things Unsaid

Much to our disappointment, we are not exactly swimming in seas of friends here. The people we have met are awesome- and we have the memories of our friends in the US to keep us warm- but our busy work schedules haven't been terribly conducive to meeting friendly people here. This has resulted in lots of Dave & Erin time. Lots. And by lots I mean, most every day he is the only person I talk to that isn't giving me work to do. Sometimes I call my Mom in Colorado to spice things up.

I like to think that all of this together time is good for our new marriage. In the almost total absence of other people to talk to it fosters an environment to work on our communication skills, which I hear is a good thing.  It will come as no surprise to those reading this that I like to talk. So talk we do. We break it up with time reading our Kindle, but usually that leads to more talking. While I was beginning to wonder if at any moment we might run out of things to talk about, what I have recently realized is that the real fear I should have is things that have gone unsaid over the past years.....

For example, after receiving a very aggressive eye brow threading a few weeks ago, I was intently pondering what was left of my eyebrows in the mirror. Being a light haired individual with next to no eyebrows, the reasons to give my eyebrows an intense investigation have been few and far between in my life. However after I paid good money for my brows to be violently ripped from my face by a very small and menacing Asian woman- I thought I should get up and personal with them to check for permanent damage. As I was reviewing the state of this important facial feature- I realized that my brows are two very different shapes! Despite their presence on my face for 26 years and my use of various methods of shaping over the years- this realization came as quite a shock. Who knew? Well, as it turns out- my husband- and never bothered to bring it up.

I found this to be stunning. I am not one to keep things like this to myself. In fact, I have no doubt that if David's eyebrows were different shapes, I would have told him this many years ago.  I frequently tell him such kind and caring things as "hey, you have a zit", "you need a haircut because you are growing a mullet," "you missed a spot shaving this morning" or many other thoughtful and productive comments on his appearance. Who else is going to let him know that he should be using that ear hair trimmer we bought? I firmly believe that one of the benefits of marriage is having someone to tell you when in fact your hair does look bad or no, you shouldn't wear that outfit. I like to think that my gentle grooming suggestions are simply manifestations of my love for my husband and my concern for his lovely appearance. The fact that he is not reciprocating these loving suggestions is extremely distressing. Some might claim that his demurral in highlighting my physical flaws is caused by fear of demands for eye-brow regenerative therapies, but now I am left to wonder- what else is he not telling me?

Fortunately, since we still have empty dance-cards so-to-speak, we will have many more joyful hours spent at home, on planes, in trains, at lunch, at the pool and everywhere else to talk amongst ourselves and I feel confident that in the next two years (or less?) of exile from our friends and family, we will find a way to discuss many important topics, including whether or not my eyebrows are straight and how he feels about my ever-changing hair color. He is excited, I can tell.