Searching for Utopia

It was one sunny afternoon. Zsolt, Adam and I were sitting at the playground on our condo. Along came the neighbor boy, Dylan. He was about five.

Dylan : (pointing at Adam) Did you get the baby from doctor?
Me : Yes, we bought him from the doctor. Why, do you have a baby brother?
Dylan : (nodded)
Me : Did your parents get him from the doctor too?
Dylan : No, we found him in the elevator.
Me :

I was actually reading a miraculous survival story that Zsolt sent me, when I stumbled upon this picture of F1 mogul Flavio Briatore and his wife.

Oh, the wisdom of love and the inner beauty!

I must admit I’ve been living under a rock since Adam was born. I haven’t read the news. I don’t even watch TV, save for Playhouse Disney and Nickelodeon. But I realized how much outdated I’ve been when Zsolt heard about Miley Cyrus’ latest single before I did.

However, my fingers are itching to hit the keyboard after reading about the debate over burkas in France.

Surely you’ve heard that one too. It’s been all over the news.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, “The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience.”

He did have a point in his first sentence. Burka is NOT a sign of religion. Women in certain countries wear them because of cultural reason — rather than religion. I came from the largest Muslim-majority nation in the world — and I am Muslim myself. I don’t wear burka, and won’t advice anyone to wear it. Religious reasons aside, it’s impractical.

Most Muslim women don’t wear burkas. In fact, when Muslim women go on pilgrimage to Mecca, they must uncover their faces.

Now, when President Sarkozy said that burka is a sign of subservience, he must have meant in Afghanistan where it’s obligatory under Taliban.

Let’s mull it over. Is it fair to judge after one country? Taliban don’t even rule anymore!

Nowadays many women in the whole world wear burkas voluntarily — for their own reasons.

If Sarkozy thinks Taliban oppressed women by forcing them to wear burkas, isn’t punishing them for wearing burkas is also an oppression?

I think France have been inconsistent. Remember in 2004 when they banned Islamic headscarf from public schools, because they’re signs of religion? Now they want to fine women in burkas because it’s not religious sign.

It just doesn’t make sense. They seem to targeting Islamic symbols — religional and cultural. Either that, or they simply have nothing better to do.

My point is, if it’s not a crime for women to be paraded around naked in public for men’s amusement, why would they be fined if they chose to cover themselves? We’re supposed to be free to choose what to wear — or not to wear (Well, I’m very much against public nudity, but I guess I’m alone in this).

Which one is more of a sign of subservience to you?

How’s life? Me, I had been busy with unpacking, getting settled, decorating and cleaning our new home.

Busy, busy, busy! By now you must think that’s all I always say.

Anyway, I mean it this time. Sure, the agent said he’d leave the place in tip top condition, but apparently we have different meaning about the words.

After moving in, we had to wage war against roaches and lizards and mosquitos, filling gaps and grouts, got rid of the grease from the kitchen, doing this and that. All that done, the place has finally felt like a real home.

We’re still having a few lizards, but we were content — until we realized we’ve still got a battle going on, this time against litter bug(s).

You see, we have two balconies. At first I thought we could use them to sun laundry. On my first attempt, I put out Adam’s mattress.

A few hours later, I found a cigarette butt on it, and what a surprise — it’s burned a hole!

Since then I’ve been counting our new “inventory” everyday on the balconies. To my surprise, the cigarette butt-flicking littering douchebags don’t just flick cigarette butts, but also dirty tissues, tooth picks, facial cottons, and baby snack.

When we first moved in, our landlord had actually told us that he had reported this to management office, so we thought the case was solved. He even proposed to install sun roof, but they refused it.

I’ve brought the matter back to them — TWICE. They said they’ve sent notice, but it seems like the douchebags are not deterred.

I’ve been playing sleuth myself all this while. I think the rubbish came from the same people, since they’re always the same thing:

- At least there is only one smoker (clue: all cigarettes are Marlboro).
- A woman also does her part (clue: facial cotton), and she has a baby — unless the baby did it herself, which I doubt.

Any idea what to do, besides installing CCTV?

We’ll talk to management office again in the weekend. I’ll update with the result.

Meanwhile, if you’re so free, you can try to spot the difference between the two litterbugs above. There are six, by the way.

It’s not so clear, since it was difficult to take closer picture with my height, but the signboard reads “NO TORTOISE ARE ALLOWED IN THE POND.”

What do you make of it? Racism against tortoise?

So you’ve given notice to your landlord that you wish to terminate the tenancy. What’s next?

Having been through this myself last week, I can tell that there’s no such thing as hassle free moving.

However, moving is a part of living in Singapore. Unless we buy our own house, we’re bound to do it — a lot!

Here are some tips to ease the pain:

1. Engage a property agent to help you house hunting.
It’s almost impossible to rent a place without an agent. Even if you didn’t use agent, the landlord will. And you’ll have to pay to that agent if you talked to him directly, which means s/he’ll get commissions both from you and the landlord. The fee isn’t cheap either. You’ll pay half-month of the rental amount for each year lease. That means:
- half month if you rent the place for a year
- a month if you rent the place for two years, like us
- etc

2. View as many places as you like, but act quick when you see the one you like.
Some places may attract many suitors, so you wouldn’t want to lose your dream house to somebody else. Make sure you’ll sign Letter of Intent, in which you’d have to pay security deposit to the landlord. You’ll pay a-month of the rental amount for each year lease.

3. Read carefully before signing Tenancy Agreement.
Ask your agent to make some amendments if necessary. If it goes well, proceed with paying the stamp duty. For us the last time it costed $220. Your agent should know what to do.

4. Check the house thoroughly during the handover.
If you found some defects, ask the landlord to get them fixed.

5. Engage a mover after knowing when to move in exactly.
What I did was to look up as many movers as possible online, then asking quotations for my items. Usually they give it for free. In the end I chose UTS. They charged us $110 for 20 boxes and a fridge, and they didn’t even ask for additional cost when we added two chairs on top of that. Best still, they’re willing to pay our security deposits to the condos’ management offices — altogether they cost $1500. Totally recommended!

6. Talk to management offices in your old and new places — if you live in condo.
Each condominium has its own regulations about moving in and out. You should make sure you won’t break any of them. In our old place, we had to pay $1000 deposit for moving out. This money is to ensure that we won’t break any property during the process. In our current place we had to pay $500 as deposit for moving in. It’s safer to pay with check instead of cash, of course. If you don’t have check, you could buy Cashier’s Order at any bank for a low price. Another way, is to ask your mover to pay –since they’d be the one who’d move things. Not all movers are willing to pay though. Some didn’t even know about this security deposit.

7. Last but not least, change your address to everyone.
Transfer your utilities and services in the new place. The good news, in Singapore you can do all of them online. Just login to the provider’s website and you’ll see.
If you’re Employment Pass holder, you can change your address here.
TV licence, however, is not transferrable. You’d need to terminate your existing licence, then apply for a new one here.

Well, this is not really baby food. It’s actually a Hungarian recipe I learned from my mother-in-law, but Adam happened to love it.

Considering that it’s mild, nutritious and easy to make, why not?

As always, I’ll just omit all measurements. You could simply tailor it to suit your own taste.

Ingredients:
Butter
All purpose flour
Caraway seeds
Ground pepper
Hungarian ground paprika
Chicken broth (the original recipe is using water)
Eggs, slightly beaten
Salt

Heat butter, add all ingredients except broth. Stir fry until the flour turns golden.

Add broth, bring to a boil, then simmer.

Stir in the eggs, cook over low heat for about 3 minutes.

Remove the caraway seeds, and ready to serve.

We moved into our new flat last week. Been busy with unpacking, furniture shopping, and most of all — playing whack-a-pest.

I mean it. Yesterday alone I slayed FIVE cockroaches and drowned ONE lizard in one day. Zsolt scored ONE cockroach. Yay, me!

How come? Everyone knows Singapore is one of the world’s cleanest city, and being clean is never associated with cockroach.

On the contrary, I’ve seen more cockroaches in Singapore than in my 26 years span of life before. OK, maybe it’s not even close to 1000 times, like what happened in Jurong East.

These cockroaches are simply invincible.

My traps were always useless. Apparently they have higher agility than my ranger in Neverwinter Nights. They can respawn pretty quick too. You killed one, and tomorrow you’ll face three.

In our previous flat, I always found over 30 dead roaches around the bin chute after each pesticides spraying — that would be about once a week.

Now, we have this smoking like twice a week — and so far it doesn’t help. I never found any corpse around the bin chute, but I keep finding live roaches inside the house every now and then.

What’s a girl to do? Whack them, I know, but then what? If I closed all doors and windows during the smoking, the cockroaches inside the flat would be safe — then they’ll respawn in no time.

If I opened all doors and windows, the cockroaches from outside would fly inside in a bid to avoid the smoke — then they’ll respawn in no time.

I’ve used traps, spray, magic chalk, pandan — I even prayed to God to take them away. They still keep reappearing.

Any idea?

When I had just arrived in Singapore, one of the first things I noticed was that people always drank from bottled water. I was surprised.

Then I asked the cleaning lady at the hotel where I was staying whether it’s safe to drink tap water. She said yes, but when I went to drink from the tap, she quickly asked me not to; saying that I could get as many bottled water as I wanted from the hotel.

I just thought, what’s the point of having clean water then?

Not only Singaporeans, my fellow countrymen are apparently the same. They prefer bottled to tap water, citing that they’re not used to drinking directly from the tap. Others said that they couldn’t trust the cleanness of the water pipes, so they chose to drink bottled water.

I’m no tree hugger or flower sniffer. I hardly thought about recycling things, but I think it’s just a waste to drink bottled water.

I mean, have you ever heard anyone who got sick after drinking tap water here? I’m sure the government wouldn’t stay silent if that ever happened.

How could we criticize plastic bags so much — remember Bring Your Own Bag Campaign — while throwing plastic bottles so freely?

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Adam is not a fussy eater. I guess it’s pretty obvious from his chubbiness — just look at those thighs!

However, there have been times when he refuses to eat anything but certain food. This is one of those food.

Ingredients:
Grated apple
Mashed banana
Cooked minced chicken
Ground cinnamon

* Mix all ingredients together. Bake uncovered for 20-30 minutes.

Adam caught cold. He barely slept last night — waking up every hour and crying because of stuffy nose.

He calmed down everytime I carried him, but then cried again whenever I put him down on the bed.

It started at 2 AM up to the time he woke up at 6. Poor baby.

I know I’m not alone in this. Influenza is such a common disease, it will disappear before I know — I hope, at least. But I couldn’t help feeling sad to see him sick.

Adam hardly gets sick. He’s a bubbly baby who giggles all day, even while sleeping. He’s friendly even with strangers — hmm, I should teach him to stop talking to strangers .

His worst sickness so far was when he caught flu after getting flu vaccine. It lasted for around two weeks. But the thing is, I was armed with medications then. This time I was caught off guard. I didn’t even have any nasal drops ready.

I know I should’ve, but the drops expire only in one month after first usage. A few days ago I discarded my last stock, and hadn’t gotten it replaced. Bad mistake.

It’s fascinating to be a mother, but it’s also hard work. I guess most mothers would have to deal with their children’s sickness at times — my mom being one. I can’t recall how many times I had fallen sick in my childhood, but I’m sure she was there for me everytime. I bet it wasn’t easy.

Some mothers go to work, either out of needs or interest. She didn’t.

She was there for me 24/7. She nursed me when I was sick. I’m sure there were no nasal drops at that time. But she stayed awake with me everytime I couldn’t sleep — or when I had to do homeworks. She sang to me, read me stories. She cooked and cleaned for me. She taught me how to read — it wasn’t my teacher who made me read. She taught me two languages, and she never even graduated from high school. And after all that, she let me go when the time came.

My mom was a full-time homemaker, and I’m grateful that she was. I’m lacking in many things, but I hope I could be as selfless to Adam as she’s been to me.

A lot of things can affect babies’ sleeping, stuffy nose, jet lag, excitement, hunger, anger, etc. And when they don’t sleep, their mommies won’t sleep too.

The difference is when the babies can sleep afterwards, their mommies should stay awake to clean up the mess.

I had never said thanks to my mom for raising me. I should.

It’s a bit too early, but have a happy Mother’s Day, Mom!*

Mother’s Day is celebrated on December 22 in Indonesia

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Syndacast. All opinions are 100% mine.

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What did you do last weekend?

We went downtown to catch Hi-5 in action. It was a fun twenty-minute performance — more for me rather than Adam though.

Most of the time the music confused him since he couldn’t really tell where it came from. He ended up watching small tv showing toys advertisements — poor baby!

The gang did well. They sang and dance throughout the show, and they were friendly too — unlike some certain boybands I used to go crazy about, back in my heyday :p

It seems like not even financial crisis can hinder artists’ creativity. This masterpiece created by Obilia is a perfect example.

Now, don’t ask me who they are. I swear I had never heard the name before now, but haven’t they done a great job?

The picture above is their depiction of Singapore in 2050, as designed by WOHA. Click on it, and it will give more than a glimpse of Singapore’s future. In fact, it provides quite detailed pictures. I had a lot of fun playing with it.

The one below is supposed to be East Coast Park. In its present state, I’d say the place is a bit boring — it definitely needs the makeover.

This is not sponsored post, and I’m not working for any of them — but I hope this masterplan will come true. I’d love Singapore to look more sci-fi.

Maybe then the city would be the new Dubai — minus the debt crisis, of course.

But before that, let’s take another look at the first picture above. Did you notice the two towers there?

Guess where they got the inspiration from!

Me likes.