When I talk in a meeting or order a meal at a restaurant in Singapore, I feel like a girl from the deep south who just moved to a California school. There’s no doubt our accent is at times broad, harsh and unrefined, but it’s also relaxed and friendly (my own associations, I’m sure). I’ve found that Singapore houses a lot of accents. Aside from several prominent Asian accents, you’re more likely to hear a British accent than an American, and an American more than Australian.

One of the curious things I’ve noticed is that if I order a “Coke” in a restaurant, I’m rarely understood. I think it’s because the Australian “o” sound is quite rounded, and the mouth changes the shape of the sound as it progresses, almost like a truncated “oa” sound. Here, everyone corrects me with an abrupt “oh” sound. If I was to try to estimate the sound, it would be “kok”. Regardless, I’ve now taken to pointing to each menu item as I order it, and when I think it’s going to take some time, I say “soft drink” as well.

It will be nice to not feel like the southern belle in a room of Russian dictators.

I always enjoy going for a stroll, be it in Wollongong, Sydney or somewhere else in Australia and seeing people out on the sides of the street having a long brunch, looking at the sky. Before all this travel, Nico and I had taken to walking down to the harbour to sit by the beach and eat hamburgers (true Australian kiosk style hamburgers). There’s something infinitely relaxing about the ocean and being somewhere that’s purely about leisure, but that seems to be missing here. Even Sentosa Island has a atmosphere of manic tourism. The ocean is littered with large, rust-coloured ships which seem entirely too close for comfort. Even when you’re looking for the infinite horizon, you can always see industry, production and work.

One of the things I will do when I get home is go grab some lunch and sit somewhere where everyone else is sitting, also eating their lunch, content to be outside and not doing anything else.

I miss my piano. Well, it’s not exclusively *my* piano that I miss, but I do miss playing. I realise that the time I spend playing each day is a great stress reliever for me. Just a few minutes at the keyboard forces me to forget any issues going on and focus on the notes, rhythm and dynamics. It’s both physical and intellectual, meaning it consumes most of my body leaving little room for anything else (though at times I can sustain a conversation while playing the piano, that’s more of a muscle memory thing). In really stressful or anxious times music is a great emotional shortcut, able to invoke a more relaxed feeling very quickly.

If I had the room (and could be confident I could continue to find the room), I would happily plonk down the cash to buy an acoustic grand piano to replace my Roland RG-3, but that seems to financially conflict with my desire to live in a city.

I’m rather excited to be going home, so I thought I’d document one thing that I miss about home each day, and today is “Tea”.

I don’t drink coffee of any description, and I find the whole wankery around coffee of late quite dull1. However, I do love my tea. Everything from Bushell’s Australian Breakfast (my favourite standard black) to T2 and herbals. Just not anything that tastes flowery, or worse, has flowers still in it.

I have quite the collection of teas at my apartment, and some fairly glorious mugs that hold half a litre. Perfect for winter when you want to fill your belly with that lovely scruffy warmth.

While I’ve been abroad I’ve been struggling with Yellow Label and some of the dinkiest teacups you’ve ever seen, and for that, I’m looking forward to getting home.

1. Larry David gets it right here.

Good

• A quiet day in the office. Heads down, bums up.
• Train trips went quickly. Return trip was aided by an episode of Mad Men and an American Theatre Wing podcast.
• Helped out a young guy who left his phone on the train when he got off a few stops before me.
• Coming home to find Nico has washed and ironed my work shirts from the last two days.

Bad

• Finding my kitchen smelling like effluence instead of affluence. Attributed to a VERY stinky bin and piles of dishes to be washed.
• My new bed time of 9:30 not allowing for the work I had to do. Note the time of this post.
• My neighbour harassing me again over minor issues (apparently I’m to be blamed for placing my rubbish in the wrong bin – clearly I rarely take my rubbish out at all).

I spent the weekend preparing the house for what I knew would be less time at home to do chores. I even washed the exterior windows and cleaned the window frames and walls outside. What I didn’t expect was how much time this job was going to eat up. Being out of the house for 14 hours of the day is exhausting, not to mention my 5:30 wake up each day. Other than that, I love the job so far and the people are great. I just hope I find a way to restore the work:home balance somewhat. At the moment, it’s 90%:5%, and it’s a struggle.