fennielyn

THis immediately elicited a <deleted>? (yea out loud no less). Dude, are you serious?! Or are you *only* referring to a specific set of girls that you're dying of curiosity about (even then I don't see it's any of your biz, unless you're asking coz you have a vested personal interest ?) and not other non-working girls? Let me put your mind at ease. This phenomenon? THis hand-holding <deleted> that has you all flustered? It's natural and universal, yo. Regardless of race, language, religion, nationality, gender, career choice, status, political beliefs and your skewed perception, hand-holding is NORMAL and takes place EVERYWHERE in the world. Hand-holding is a good thing. Haven't you ever liked a person SO much that you're grateful just to be able to hold her hand while walking down the street? Probably not.

In fact, what baffles me are couples who do not hold hands. IMHO there is not enough hand-holding going around. We should all start holding hands more with the people we love. And since I've no one who loves me, I'll just stick 'em in my pockets to prevent hand Envy.

The Usual Suspects - This is THE pivotal film in Kevin Spacey's career that made me a slave forever more to ALL his movies thereafter, be they sucky or brilliant. Yes he is just that awesome.

Much Ado About nothing - I've still yet to find a film in terms of sparkling wit, rollicking banter and blazing cleverness to match this. Shakespeare rules, pity I didn't hold him in such esteem during my Eng Lit days =p

Thanks for the awesome site. I just love little nuggets of info like that. You know how they say that you learn something new everyday, except for me it's closer to the tune of 347856 things a day. Yes, there are still so many things I'm in the dark about.

The reason that most schools hire white/caucasian teachers of English is because that is what the parents of the students want to see standing at the front of the classroom. For some reason, they are unable to accept that a non caucasian is more than capable of providing first class English language instruction to their little darlings.

My edit button is broken. (Stolen from an Amazing race buffoon who once complained that his ox was broken when it refused to move) You are completely right about the folks needing a Caucasian-like face to go along with that Caucasian-like voice in the English classroom before they feel that all is right with the world again and oh, hello, they're only getting what they paid for. Which of course boils down to age-old beliefs and a dash of blissful ignorance which I don't and will never fault them for coz I just don't see how they can be blamed for things they're not conscious of.

I wonder though if this situation (where white equals fantastical teaching prowess of monumental proportions) is only prevalent in countries which don't use English very much and is not widely spoken...because in all my life as a student, a teacher and human I have never seen it here or anything remotely like it. Being very result-oriented (way too much if you ask me) parents here will hire an Ah Meng the ape if it could produce all As in their kids' report book. Their modus operandi? "Do whatever it takes to wring out geniusness in their child." Tis a pity they don't realise that geniuses are born and rather difficult to make.

As far as recruitment companies go, one must recognise the fact that Singapore along with the Phillippines is considered a country that requires teachers of English as a second language, whereas Thailand is a country that requires teachers of English as a foreign language.

I hope you are able to get over the rage Fennielyn, if not you could always change boyfriends, or drink more whisky, or both!

Not being sober, contrary to the lofty notions held by most alcoholics, isn't always the best place to be. Like now. I can't quite wrap the inebriated mind around this. Are we talking about the language schools that hire English teachers in Singapore? I mean, English is taught in our schools (regualr schools that is) as a first language and every other subject, save for our second language (be it Chinese, Malay or whatever) is taught in English. How do I go about changing a non-existent boyfriend? Oh, believe me, the whiskey is never out of sight. Nor the bourbon. Which is why you have to pardon me if I sometimes come off looking like the bumbling imbecile that I am most assuredly most of the time, not.

And on a tangent here and to clarify a point, one's mother tongue is *usually* the one that is spoken by one's mother to one when one is born or in some cases during the 9-months of gestation and thereafter. So yea, my mother tongue is English. However, everything is moot coz this girl just ain't white yo.

Hungarian salami (thinly sliced), dijon mustard with cracked black pepper and lighly spread cream cheese on fresh dark rye bread. OR grilled aged gouda cheese on fresh foccacia or very grainy multi-grain bread. I love my bread, carbs be damned.

Have Grey's Anatomy Season 3 Soundtrack on loop right now, ######, next Monday is too long a wait for S4 to premiere!

dangerous delving dentists

who enjoy plundering

under ground laboratory

to concoct more

Santeria-Sublime and Better Together-Jack Johnson (simultaneously, yea I'm weird like that)

Despite the 2 hour flight (yea I know ), I still end up in tears that begin the night before I've got to leave and doesn't really stop until after the 2nd week I'm home. Right now, besides wallowing in misery, self-pity and bottles of whiskey, I'm pretty much inert. So yea, definitely it's the prospect of returning again that stops the madness from completely overwhelming me. =x

Being a chocolate freak I can never resist HD's Belgian Chocolate (although in recent years the taste seems abit diluted somewhat) and B&J's Phish Food (still incredibly rich and a tad too sweet), oh and I'm on total peanut craze right now so B&J's Chubby Hubby (so yummy, the perfect combo of reese's peanut butter cup and chocoate swirls).

As God is my witness, I am. I'm just not white, is all. Grrrl...why couldn't my mom have married that nice English bloke who was pining for her, instead of my Dad! Asian+Asian do not a white girl make. Maybe I'll just marry a farang and be done with it, ya know, so I can get a Native Speaker's Passport. Yes, I'm in that perfect state of drunkardness right now. It gives me the ability to conjure up grand and mighty schemes that I'd never think of when sober. Woe is me.

I really didn't want to go near the Filipinos thing coz I have a really dear friend who's one and she's got a uni degree but has been working in my country for the past 8 years as a maid and no, her English isn't all that but I can deal with it. A fair number of them despite being graduates and some even with honours, have resorted to working as domestic helpers in other wealthier Asian countries because there's just such a shortage of jobs back home. I don't know how high up the ladder you have to climb to be in Super Upper Class rung but I've met IT engineers, computer science majors and even architects (major props to them coz I can't draw to save my ass) whom I've sometimes strained to understand and to be understood and no, it's not a matter of accent. Hardly. In fact many of them tend to speak with an American accent, at times heavy-handed, oftentimes inconsistent and hilarious (mean I know) but that's beside the point. They're just so much more comfortable in their native tongue which is almost always Tagalog, unless they happen to meet someone from the same province, then they'll use the province's particular dialect. An aside, the regular Filipino who is educated locally pretty much speaks with an accent similar to that of the Latinos. However, their level of written and reading of English is many times better than their spoken one. I guess it's just from lack of practice and the opportunity to use it. I think I've belaboured this subject enough.

Going back to the whiskey now.

You gotta be like, fully from some country, where like, they fully speak English all the time. You know what I'm saying ? I mean, like, you fully gotta speak how they speak in the streets, and also be able to sound like some full-on smack 'n stuff who could do some business or something. You know? If you can do that, you could fully be a teacher n stuff.

What realthaideal says is like totally foreals. I'mma spread the word. No, I mean, like seriously man!! Because ya know like how the media and the TV and the radio and the movies teach us how to, like, speak? And hey I'm down with that! Coz, dude, who can deny such a totally awesome truth, yo.

Heck, chyeah.

AND if you've got a somewhat *White* look to go along with that then hurrah!, completely *white* looking, even better! I guess then, we don't need anymore evidence to reinforce the fact that this weird-ass, reverse semi-racism is rampant in the teaching (English) realm in Thailand, things ARE just the way they are and I don't see the situation taking a turn for the better anytime soon. Having said that, somehow I can't seem to work up any sort of genuine indignant outrage as I normally would under similar circumstances. It could be that I've grown up, grown older, grown tired of the constant struggle, grown resigned...or it could simply be that I've fallen irrevocably in love with my very real and very sweet Thai friends whom I know don't have a single prejudiced bone in their bodies. What they do have though are some very deeply ingrained ideas and ideals about certain things and how they *think* should be done. Even if they understand how wrong these concepts are, it's hard for them to actually FEEL the wrongness of it and believe me, I've tried to explain so many freakin' times and given so many freakin' examples. After much gnashing of teeth, I gave up. I still love them though despite the mulishness. They honestly can't help it. =( A little anecdote. For illustration purpose only. =P A few weeks ago I tried to explain to this Thai guy whom I'm rather close to how ridiculous I think it is HE thinks that he is *allowed* to have another girlfriend if he happened to fall in love or whatever, with another girl while still in a relationship but a girl, say maybe me, is completely forbidden to see 2 guys at the same time, well just make dam sure he doesn't find out coz he'll freakin' KILL the guy. His words, not mine. (And I know he would too.) Then something about Thai men being warriors blah..blah it's how they've been for hundreds of years, they will not stand to be cuckolded etc..etc..

So that's when the indignant outrage spilled over and threatened to flood my insides with pure rage. We argued back and forth and he even admitted to how UNFAIR the whole debacle is and in my fury I said then the girl should dam well have another bf too if she so fancies and he said, "Mai dai...you're a girl, people will not respect me if my girl has another guy, means you really look down me. I understand that it's not fair, that you will be mad and I don't blame you but cannot. YOU don't understand coz you from farang country." I'm like," ...the hel_l?? I'm as bloody asian as you are!" Guy getting all exasperated, " Mai chai! Your country already like farang one, cannot compare with us, so you won't understand" Uhm..kay. And that was that. It slays me still when the memory of that comes back as it does now...but there really wasn't anything I could do to make him FEEL and not just know that it's unfair and so so wrong. I learned a couple of things that day. That you could argue til you're blue in the face and you could patiently smile until your lips drop off but you can never convince a Thai who's dead set in his/her ways and ideologies of the truth in yours. I'm still trying to deal with that.

All this crap has been passed down from generation to generation and also perpetrated by the people they have the utmost respect and love for: the people running the country. How can I possibly hold this against them then? And so I don't. But God, don't even think for a moment that I'm not thoroughly pissed off, because I AM. There is a whole lot of anger and frustration in me, I just don't know WHO and WHERE to direct it at anymore which probably explains the drunken stupor I find myself in more and more each night. SO, moving along now...

I know that try as I might, it'll probably be a bloody hard, uphill task finding any sort of teaching assignment even if I were passionate about and am completely dedicated to the job AND have a truckload of experience to boot. Who gives a rat's ass that I don't speak with any discernable accent and the darn pronunciation is crisp and the only language I dream in, think and speak with is English? In fact, I'm sorely ashamed of the fact that I'm not as effectively bilingual as I should be, considering that I studied my 2nd language for ONLY a good 10 years. If I choose to be completely honest, I really shouldn't consider myself even remotely bilingual. Yea, it really is *that* bad, the 2nd language.

Perhaps I'm just not much of a linguist or perhaps it's just that my heart and my mind recognized and fell in love with what I was truly in tune with. I remember also always being singled out by my 2nd lang. teacher who took un-natural pleasure in taunting me with my lacklustre grades and interest. Maybe I found the contempt in her eyes when she looked at me a turn-off that I started hating the lang even more and in doing so become so caught up in my 1st lang. that I had no eyes or heart for anything else. Literally. Who knows.

But because I've been cursed with the ass-luck of NOT bearing even the slightest bit of Caucasian likeness, I'm forever deemed not quite worthy of teaching a language that sounds *that* much more palateable coming out from Drew Barrymore's pretty lips than say...Lucy Liu's little pout. `So yea, I'm still trying to make peace with that and come to terms with the fact that I may never be able to do what I love to do in a place that my heart wants to be because of an outdated stereotype, so bear with me here if you detect a whiff of bitterness. I'm completely counting on "And this too, shall pass". Maybe schedule a colonoscopy to take the mind off such tiresome thoughts and oh to make sure that I don't DIE from the ass-cancer. See, it's working already.

(I'll be needing that single-malt now, yo)

Oh yayness, I'm already feeling less of a freak by seeing that the general concensus here is that SG basically sucks ass. Let's not sugar-coat it shall we? It's the reason why I've been wanting to run away from this place for the past 15 years of my life. I will reiterate that there are tons of stuff I adore about this place (food and family and super fast speed internet connection that never lets me down. ) But the cons seriously outweigh all the goodies. Everyone who's said that SG is a great place to work in (short-term) but not to live in is absolutely correct. I have nothing to gain by dissing my birthplace; just telling it like it is. And uh huh, the Singlish accent is extremely annoying and what's worse than that are the fake American/British accents that many hi-so wannabes/posers are using right now. I doubt anyone will know what I mean unless you're truly local and can tell the difference between an accent that's unconciously adopted through years spent in another country and one that is hastily put-on when encountering a farang. What's the point of putting on an accent when you can't even enunciate your words right? Bah.

But yea, SG is certainly worth considering if you want to be close to Thailand and yet still make the big bucks. A gentle warning; our country is known for coming up with campaigns just to make our people a more gracious, courteous bunch. And let's not forget the endless barrage of announcements at the MRT to Please keep to your Left. Our people just lack that sort of awareness. Now isn't that rather telling?

p/s The heat and humidity is more or less comparable to that of Thailand's but with less smog, it appears to be cooler somewhat. Oh, another pertinent thought just struck me, you know the *sanuk* allure that makes us want to hang around in Thailand longer? It doesn't exist here. Enough said.

Hi,

I would agree with fletch for the most part. Singapore is indeed one of the safest (in every sense of the word, not merely physical security-wise) and most efficient city in Asia you possibly hope to work in as a foreigner who hasn't had much experience in Asia. The most important factor is that SG's native/first language is English and almost if not all the people you meet, from wait staff, to bathroom cleaners, to garbage collectors and retail staff are all rather proficient in the language, seeing how we were all made to study it the moment we were old enough to enter kindergarten.

That being said, yes it's a smooth transitition from farang land to SG and with probably nary a hitch, but be fairly warned that once you tire of the same routine nightlife of Clarke Quay, BOat Quay, MOS, St jame's, and a slew of other karaoke pubs and Irish pubs, there really is nothing much to do there. Wth, you can't even chew gum (unless it's nicorette) to release some of that tension your uppity-ass boss is causing you right now. Gosh, even after 10 years, I'm still griping about this non-issue. Okay, getting back to the point, I'm only saying, there's only so much shopping at Orchard or heartland malls, there're only so many movies you can take in each weekend, and only so many sessions of getting sloshed with the same group of pretentious posers night after night, (yes zouk, you're totally guilty too) without wanting to gnash your teeth and beat your chest in sheer frustration and a sense of hopelessness.

Being born and bred here in SG, there are so many things I love about this place, barring the high standards of living of course. For example, a pack of Marlboro's costs now $7.50usd here while in BKK, it was only $1.50usd. Let's not even talk about your cafe latte from Starbucks. Yes, everything is relative, of course your salary will possibly be 10x what you'll get in Thailand. And if your employer is willing to cover your accomodation here in SG, then I'd say go for it! Housing can cause one the most massive headache ever. I'm sure you already know by now how overpopulated our nation is and how land is so bloody scarce that everything has to go UPWARDS. It's certainly not cheap to live in Singapore as compared to BKK but if you're paid extremely well, then you shouldn't let this chance slip you by.

As many have stated, you're in your prime to start building your nest. There are many more things that I could tell you about my homeland, stuff that you could probably wiki or google yourself but I shan't ramble on anymore; something I tend to do without realising until my fingers start to cramp a little.

I for one, am thinking up means and ways to escape this stifling city. You, on the other hand, being the glorified farang (ooh, thai-speak ) or ang moh as they say here, will have no reason not to enjoy your time to the fullest here. 3 days you said you were here? Nah, that's barely enough to cover the Orchard road strip. You haven't even seen the surface, much less scratched it. Oh and Orchard Towers isn't the be all and end all of protitutes hangouts. If you're so inclined, please pm me and I'll let you in on all the sordid details. (My mom will kill me if she were to ever find out. )

God, I love bangkok......and I'm a girl! I can certainly see the allure for you guys. Sigh...it really is magical...

p/s The standard of pizza here pales in comparison to that you can get in BKK or NYC. So if you're a fan of that cheese-topped dough, you're in for a sore disappointment. Just a random factoid that's pretty important to me.