OK, so we know that Singapore is not America. There are advantages to this; believe me, I can see them. On the other hand, yesterday’s Straits Times newspaper featured a half-page article, the upshot of which is that if a Singaporean uses an English name it’s a sign of insecurity – a symptom of post-colonial […]
NIE, Singapore’s National Institute of Education, will host the Youth Olympic Games arts and cultural events in the evenings during the games. So for the two weeks of the Games proper, plus a week on either end – in fact, the whole of August – NIE will be non-functional. But that doesn’t mean its employees […]
This August, the world’s first-ever Youth Olympic Games (YOG) will be held in Singapore. Moreover, they will be held at the university campus where I live and work. First, inquiring minds want to know, what do they mean by Youth Olympics? When regular Olympic women gymnasts are routinely 14 years old, will Singapore be hosting […]
I haven’t had dental insurance until recently, so I had to pay out of pocket to get my teeth cleaned. I made an appointment with the local dentist (a very small office in the shopping center adjacent to the train station), and two days later got my teeth checked and cleaned with an ultrasound machine. […]
Since it’s of interest to anyone watching the U.S. healthcare death struggle, I thought I’d tell you a few prices. We have health insurance through the university, where my spouse is a professor. He upgraded coverage for our family of three, to the maximum best-possible coverage, and for this we pay $700 (Singapore currency) a […]
Dear Gentle Readers, Just for fun I googled “sex blog Singapore,” since so many of my blog hits are from people who did just that. And my blog turns up as the tenth search result – just popular enough to get onto the first page of search results, although just barely. And despite the fact […]
I have occasionally bemoaned the fact that I am the housekeeper in a large apartment that has both white tile floors and geckos. Geckos are harmless, slightly squishy little reptiles that lay their eggs in unobtrusive corners and eat insects in the house. (Hooray! Despite our best efforts and the weekly thermal fogging, there are […]
Top-down management is a double-edged sword. First, the good side: In Singapore education, the highest power is the Ministry of Education. It determines the curriculum for all schools, grades and levels, trains teachers and administrators, provides budgets and money and administers the exams that determine how well kids are doing and how well individual schools […]
We went home to the U.S. for the holidays, and now we’re back in Singapore. As I read about sub-zero temperatures and storms closing the roads in California I try to be less annoyed by the daily sweatiness here. It’s actually the nicest time of year in Singapore, with light breezes and frequent rain; sort […]
The Xmas decor is up, and the main shopping districts are having their annual contest to see which one wins the prize. We live nowhere near Orchard Road or the Esplanade, where the main shopping action is, but our local mall has expanded and become one of the biggest in Singapore, and is amazingly full […]