Still alive
Wow, it's been a while! I've been sick, had a huge deadline, and got slightly better. No, this isn't an exact repeat of the last update... although it somewhat feels like it.
My sickness this time was just a common cold/flu thing, caused from lack of food. Eating enough food here is a serious concern. I've taken to going to Subway or Burger King almost every day, just to make sure I have at least one normal meal. When I spent last Tuesday in bed, I even switched to coke rather than diet coke, just to increase my calory intake. Yeah, I know that fast food and soda being the "healthy alternatives" says really sad things about my ability to forage in this country.
On the plus side, I'm almost finished the big project. After that, I'll only work 5 days a week. That should give me more energy to explore the island (including the more Western-oriented food stores, Western hangout areas, etc).
Apparently one of my grandmothers checks the Singapore weather every day. That's nice, but completely unnecessary -- every day is the same. It's 29 plus or minus 2 degrees. There's an 80% chance of the day being entirely sunny. If it rains, there's a 50% chance of it being a downpour that lasts for about an hour. 25% chance of only a mild shower, and 25% chance of it being a downpour that lasts for 2-3 hours. Any downpour is accompanied by thunderstorms.
Perfect example of how unnecessary the weather prediction is: the evening news doesn't even bother to report it. In Canada, every newscast contains a weather report. I wish there was some variation in weather to report, though. :(
Actually, wait; there is one extra point. When it really downpours here, I can't see the buildings on the other side of the lake outside my apartment. Even the trees about 10 meters away from my window are noticeably obscured. It's like having a thick fog, but I'm pretty sure it's just from the descending water rather than floating water.
Other "news"... to celebrate the almost-finished project, I bought some Toblerone chocolate. Normally I'm too cheap to buy blatant chocolate like that, but it was on sale, and I wanted to celebrate. So I splurged S$7.
That's not so much "news" as just an illustration of my life here -- nothing's been happening. I'm not complaining, by the way. I want my daily life to be boring; it's my research that should be interesting. I'd talk about that, but I'm not certain how much interest there is in hearing about it... and in any case, I should probably wait until the reviews are done.
I had a few other random observations to make, but I can't remember them now. Oh well; when this project is finished in a few days, I should be posting more often.
Only 47 days until I return to Vancouver! And before everybody tells me what I should see in Japan on the way, let me remind you that my connecting flight is 2 hours and 20 minutes after I arrive in Narita. So unless you want to tell me about a particularly interesting shop in the International departure lounge at Narita (any maid cafes there? 'cause that would be awesome!), don't bother. :)
I'm somewhat regretting this choice -- two of my closest friends are in Japan right now, and it'd be neat to visit them. But I'm not going to cancel my air tickets... and besides, I miss my mountains and cat.