From Uganda to Ireland in 3 degrees of memory November 7, 2009

Hello there!  I am writing to you from my slightly warmer apartment.  There isn’t any water condensing on the outside of my bedroom window, so I hope my neighbor’s wall is doing okay.

I must confess that I am becoming more of a facebook stalker and Google Reader fanatic than I ever was before.  Actually, I didn’t have a Google Reader account set up before I came to Singapore.  When the vast majority of my friends and my entire family are living in areas at least 13 hours behind my current location, the easiest way for me to stay somewhat informed of the happenings in their lives is often via facebook.

#1.

I am facebook friends with a lot of people from my high school, many of whom I haven’t spoken to since we graduated 12 years ago.  (I’ll spare you a non-profound commentary on the difference between “facebook friends” and “real friends”.)  One of these facebook friends has over 1,300 other friends on facebook.  He was an awesome guy in high school, and he appears to be pretty awesome nowadays.  He was the star and captain of our high school football team, one of the people with an obvious claim to coolness in a student body full of nerds.  (If you don’t believe me about the nerd bit, please read this or this. I really did LOVE that school.)

Anyway, my friend has a blog that I occasionally read.  I read a few recent entries today.  In one of them, he talked about a girl from Uganda whom he had met via friend who had worked in Rwanda.  Fine, right?  But he provided his readers with links to the Wikipedia pages on Uganda and Rwanda in his text. (Like I did right there, see?)

Dear reader, if you would like me to provide more in-text links, please let me know.

(Okay, that sentence took a lot of work.  Did you notice I provided a link for the comma, too?  Nothing but the best in pursuit of a not-very-funny joke!)

Um, anyway.  My friend’s blog is much more entertaining than mine.  He’s much more entertaining than me.  His first and last names were pretty typically American.  Let’s say his name is Joe Smith.  One of the many cool things about Joe was his extremely Italian middle name (on the order of “Giacomo”; I had to check to make sure “Giacomo” isn’t the Italian equivalent of “Joseph,” because I am an idiot.  Duh, Giuseppe!).  It was like an injection of spice into a relatively bland chicken rice dish.  Joe Giacomo Smith.  (His real name is much cooler than that.)

His middle name is the connection to this next memorable individual.

#2.

I spent one of the summers during grad school, round 1, in a smallish town in southwestern Virginia.  It wasn’t like “The Dukes of Hazard” or anything, with lots of good old boys and mullets, but it’s not the place one would expect to run into a dude who, for me, was an archetypal New Yorker.  During a slow day at work, I got to spend some time with Salvatore Giacomo (this name is incomplete and partly falsified, to protect the innocent).  Some of my grad school friends and I had a “group journal” in which we would e-mail the group the zany comings and goings of being a student.  I shared my encounter with Salvatore in one of these e-mails:

so, i got to spend 2 hours talking to a really neat guy on monday.  (the visit should have taken about 15 minutes, but the guy was a talker.)  his name was [salvatore giacomo] and he’s from brooklyn.  he told me a bunch of stories which all involved him beating someone up (corrupt police men, criminals, a priest, etc.) and (without exception) the person he beat up was irish.  he’d introduce a story with something like, “yeah, there were these irish cops one time…” and i’d be able to guess where it was going.  “you beat them up, right?”  “yeah.  i beat them up, then let them recover, then beat them up some more.”  the guy was a character, but he was really cool.  i apologized on behalf of my people (he told me i was good).  he thanked the irish people for potatoes.

(You will notice, dear reader, that I eschewed capitalization at that time in my life.  I would not let grammatical rules constrain me!  Actually, I don’t know if capitalization falls under “grammar” or not.  I obviously did not get into my nerd high school on my verbal skills.)

This exercise in race relations forms the basis of the connection that gets us to Ireland. (Ha ha ha, with that link! Gosh, this is awful…)

#3.

It is Ash Wednesday, 2005, and I have just arrived in Ireland.  It is my first time abroad. I went to Ireland with one of my best friends from grad school, round 1.  I’m not sure how we wound up being friends, let alone such good friends, but he was brilliant, handsome, and exceedingly nice, so I was definitely happy it happened.  Ireland was a much cooler destination than the other places we’d visited (Baltimore and Valhalla, NY).

Ash Wednesday 2005 was also memorable because it was the day my grandfather had a series of strokes.  He wound up passing away while I was in Ireland.  I bought him a cumbersome, decidedly un-awesome rosary while I was there.  I did a reading at his funeral Mass a few days after returning to the States; I cried the whole way through.

Anyway, that first day, my friend and I explored Dublin in an extremely sleep-deprived state.  The first picture I took was of a double-decker bus sporting a prominent advertisement for the Sponge Bob movie:

Didn't believe me? Here it is!

We were walking down the street and I took the first of many pictures of buildings-that-are-older-than-anything-in-the-States!!!!!!! when a random, kind-appearing man stopped us.

RANDOM MAN: Are you American?
FLANEUR VRIC: Yes.
RANDOM MAN: Take a picture of me!
FLANEUR VRIC: Um, okay?

God, I want to go back to Ireland.  He really was a kind-appearing man.

See? Fortunately, contrary to this image, he was not a blurry man.

Chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool November 6, 2009

It’s a Friday night here in Singapore.  Ever so lamely, I have spent the evening chillin’ out, both literally and figuratively, in my awesome HDB flat.  I was contemplating going to bed to read the awesome book I’m working on (I think some of you will be disappointed that it’s not The Brothers Karamazov) when someone knocks loudly on the door.  Um, okay.

It was one of my immediate neighbors, whom I’ve never met.  In fact, I hadn’t ever seen him until a couple days ago, when he took the elevator and I took the stairs, but we arrived at our respective apartments at the exact same time.  (Okay, that was an unnecessary detail.)  He said that my air conditioner was causing water to leak into his apartment and he wanted the number of my landlord.  I immediately developed some moderate anxiety as: a) I hate causing other people trouble, in general; b) I don’t actually know if I have access to my landlord’s number; and, c) I haven’t had the apartment’s air conditioners serviced yet (they’re supposed to be serviced every 3 months, and I’m about 10 days overdue.  I was fully intending on doing it soon, but thought maybe my negligence was about to get me in big trouble).

My neighbor was really nice, but seemed to expect that I didn’t believe him.  He said the wall was leaking water into his apartment and he insisted that I follow him to see for myself.  He said that a rug had been hung on his side of the wall between our apartments until a couple days ago, but the wall was leaking water.  There was dirt on the wall, but there was clearly condensation on his side of the wall.

At some point, my old school physics (I think it’s physics) began to kick in, as well as some basic logic.  The AC in my bedroom is on the opposite wall, so it couldn’t be leaking into his apartment.  Plus, my side of the wall was bone dry.  I tried to explain that the discrepancy in temperature between his room (with no AC) and my room (with the AC on full blast) was causing water vapor in the air to condense onto the cool surface of the thin wall.  I said, “You know how water condenses on the outside of a cup if you pour a cool liquid into it?”  He said, “Yes, but where is the water coming from?”

So, that wasn’t quite effective.

I immediately offered to turn the AC down (duh–it’s the least I can do).  We then had an awkward exchange…

NEIGHBOR: You don’t have to be embarrassed!
FLANEURVRIC: No, really, sir.  I will just turn the air conditioner down some.
NEIGHBOR: This is not your problem.  I am so embarrassed!
FLANEURVRIC: I am wearing a sweatshirt.  I don’t need it to be this cold.  I am going to turn down the air conditioner.
NEIGHBOR: I will call a contractor to find a solution.  This is my problem.
FLANEURVRIC: I hope that isn’t necessary.  Really, I will keep my apartment warmer.
NEIGHBOR: Singapore is very hot.  The weather here is bad.  It is not like your country.
FLANEURVRIC: Yes.  I don’t need to keep it this cool though.  I’m sorry.
NEIGHBOR: I really am so embarrassed!  Do not adjust your air conditioner!
FLANEURVRIC: I am going to adjust my air conditioner.
NEIGHBOR: Don’t adjust it!
FLANEURVRIC: I am going to, I promise.
NEIGHBOR: NO!  I’m sorry!
FLANEURVRIC: I’m sorry!  I’m going to adjust the air conditioner.

(Etc.)

So that was some fun neighborly diplomacy.  I (obviously) didn’t realize this was going on, but I am going to schedule an appointment with the air conditioner service folks.  And it might be good to have access to the landlord’s number…

How to salvage a crappy day November 5, 2009

Man, dear reader, did today suck.  I had a conversation with the big boss that ended with me on the verge of tears.  I can’t really explain why.  He didn’t say anything critical or mean, or anything like that, really.  I’m just frustrated with the months I’ve wasted, with feeling lost and directionless.  Before I left home for this year abroad, I tried to prepare myself for the possibility that things wouldn’t go smoothly, even that the year might be “a waste,” whatever that means.  Still, every bit of the disappointment I feel in myself and this situation pains me.  A lot.  I can’t explain it.  I feel ineffective and helpless.  I would say that I’m not cut out for this, but I can’t even get a clear answer as to what my bosses think “this” is.  I actually don’t even know who the boss at one of my jobs is.  It doesn’t help that the general morale at work is, to paraphrase The Temptations, so low you can’t get under it.

Enough whining.  Sorry about that.

In an ongoing effort to convince myself that there is more to life than work, I found the perfect antidote to today’s crappiness: I JUST BOUGHT TICKETS TO VISIT VIETNAM LATER THIS MONTH! The Friday after the American Thanksgiving is a holiday here, so we get a 3-day weekend.  I am going to visit Ho Chi Minh City with my friends Esmerelda and O.O.K.  (An unrelated, yet necessary, aside: Are there tutorials on how to come up with good aliases for a blog?  If so, could someone tell me how to sign up?  Thanks.)  I cannot tell you how excited I am about this!

These are some of the things I can see and do (N.B.: I have tried, ever so subtly*, to link these pictures to yesterday’s post):

Notre Dame Cathedral

*Subtle, huh?

Wikipedia says this is a picture of the Building of the People's Committee, with a statue of Ho Chi Minh.

And, perhaps most awesomely, I will be able to have pho!

And with this, dear reader, I retire the rainbow-drawing bit.  For now…

Rainbows EVERYWHERE! November 4, 2009

I hope Purple Lightning doesn’t feel that I’m encroaching upon her territory with this post.  After all, Nanny has sought her drawings of rainbows since 1984 or so.  It takes a particular talent to render a resplendent, yet realistic rainbow with crayons or markers; Purple Lightning was lucky to come by this talent naturally.  Rainbows fell under her domain, while I am known within the family for anointing myself “The Best Kid” (without any objective evidence to support the claim).  I also came up with a pathetic ditty to accompany pronouncing myself “TBK.”

Don’t be too jealous.

I woke up exhausted, again.  I wasn’t excited about having a full day of work ahead of me.  I decided to take the MRT to work, which made me feel lazy.  As I was emerging from the MRT station, I saw this:

You totally can't tell from this crappy cell phone picture, but there is a rainbow there!

I can barely make out a rainbow in this picture, but it’s really, really hard to see and I know where to look.  Whenever I see a rainbow, I think of two things:

• This bit from the Bible: “God added: ‘This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come, of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you.  I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will recall the covenant I have made between me and you and all living beings, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings.  As the bow appears in the clouds, I will see it and recall the everlasting covenant I have established between God and all living beings–all moral creatures that are on earth.’  God told Noah: ‘This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all mortal creatures that are on earth.’” (Gen. 9:12-17; sorry, I don’t know the right way to cite Bible verses)
• Leprechauns

Anyway, keeping the former association in mind, seeing a rainbow inevitably lifts my spirits.  While seeing one was great, I began to wonder if seeing more would be even better.  Fortunately for today’s blog post, I was able to download an awesome, MS Paint-esque program for my Mac.

First, here is an artistic (though not nearly as artistic as anything Purple Lightning could pull off) enhancement of today’s rainbow:

See it?! I thought so!

You know where I could use a good ol’ rainbow?

WORK!

It sure makes the 7-11 model look more appealing!

"Would you like a rainbow with your cigarettes?" "Why, yes, yes I would!"

The MRT ride to or from work would be so much more refreshing!

No reason to feel lazy! There may be a leprechaun on this train!

All of Singapore could get in on the action…

All of a sudden, the Merlion doesn't seem QUITE so weird.

No need to feel sorry! There's a rainbow in the house!

Yes, I am apparently giddy again.  Yay, rainbows!

A Cowardly Lion November 3, 2009

(Alternative title for today’s post: “A Portrait of the Artist as a Not-So-Young Neurotic”)

Man, reader, I am so clever!  See, I’m a Leo, and I just finished reading Gregory Maguire’s A Lion Among Men, which is a continuation of his Wicked stories and revolves around the Cowardly Lion. You know, this guy:

I don't actually bear much of a resemblance to this dude, as I am not wearing a red bow and my hair isn't nearly that curly.

In case you were interested, the same Google Images search that yielded the above image also yielded this gem:

I'm so sorry I didn't get this post up before Halloween! If I had, you could have purchased your own Cowardly Lion wig for the purr-fect costume!

(I came up with the “purr-fect” bit myself! Man, this is a particularly clever post!) (And by “clever”, I mean stupid.)

I’ve had several anxiety-provoking moments during the past 24 hours.  None of them is probably worth sharing, but that hasn’t stopped me before.  Here they are, in no particular (i.e. chronological) order…

#1: On my way home after work, almost there.  I’m carrying a couple bags of groceries and rocking out to some awesome tunes (probably something from “Glee”) in my Shuffle.  I begin to take off my backpack to get my apartment key when I see a rapid movement out of the corner of my eye.  My eyes dart right just in time to see a very small lizard (2 inches long?) jump off the wall.  It wasn’t like he pulled his own Flaneur Vric acrobatics and tripped and fell.  He jumped out from the wall, at least a foot.  I immediately began to fear he would run into my apartment, but, after a quick look around, I figure he’s escaped down a pipe.  Little did I know…

#2: Today at work, a happy superior (whom I like a lot) approaches me while I am guiltily checking some website I probably shouldn’t be checking at work (can’t remember if it was facebook or Google Reader).  (This is one of the drawbacks–that I am all too aware of–of having a computer and desk oriented so it faces away from incoming traffic.  Whatever.)  The superior asks me if I am able to do a certain kind of report (that I have no idea how to do, but that probably isn’t too hard).  I respond, “I don’t know,” without any confidence.  He says, “But you have your license, right?”  Respond in the affirmative.  He says, “Then you can do the report!”  He says this like it is a good thing, but I am pretty sure it’s not, that trying to write one of these reports–no matter how easy it’s supposed to be–will become something else for me to obsess over (I don’t know why, but I find myself freaking out about the smallest things).  Begin to fear that I am soon going to be eligible for the more difficult type of report (that people at work complain about having to do).  Remind myself of the philosophy espoused in this Shel Silverstein poem; realize that, if I try my best but happen to write a really awful report (which I would never do intentionally, I promise), they might not ask me to write any more.  Remember that Shel Silverstein really is the bomb.

#3: Sitting on the couch last night, with the TV on, probably in the process of trying to piece together a crappy blog post.  See something skitter under the door, stopping tentatively.  Realize it is a small lizard trying to breech the apparently meaningless borders of my “space.”  Tell the lizard–seriously–”Don’t come in here!” and it runs back outside.

#4: Spend several hours trying to psych myself up to deal with a case at work, something I’ve done thousands of times back home without a thought.  I have apparently convinced myself that I am incompetent to do what I have trained to do because things are so different here in Singapore, when things are pretty much the same.  Get a lot of bemused moral support from The Panda Bear.  Eventually, I feel ready enough to dive in.  I do my job, slowly, yet–and this is very important–competently.

#5: About to get to bed (I have resolved to try to get more than 4 hours of sleep a night this week–brilliant, I know), when I see the same stupid little lizard stick its head under my front door, again.  Respond with, “Get out of here!” Decide enough is enough, unlock the door and open it to see if the lizard has fled.  IT IS CHILLIN’ WITH ITS STICKY FEET TO THE DOOR, where it stays, mocking me, as I swing the door back and forth in an attempt to encourage it to, you know, leave.  I guess the lizard ran away when I closed the door again, but I stood there, opening and closing the door several more times to ensure he/she/it was gone.

#6: Sitting in my office at the end of the day, unabashedly checking facebook because it is after 5:30 p.m., waiting for The Panda Bear so we can walk out together.  Decide to change into my “walking shoes” (i.e. flip-flops) in the privacy of my own corner (seriously, y’all, there is a mass exodus at work between 5:30 and 5:31).  Hear a big boss (not the big boss, but another department head) talking to me.  Immediately feel intimidated as this dude intimidates me (partly because he talks quietly enough that I can never hear all of what he says and partly because he seems so nice).  Have brief, slightly awkward conversation and wind up waving to him with a $20 shoe that is falling apart on my hand.  Thank God that I am so awesomely awkward.

——————————–

So, it wasn’t a super awesome day.  But, really, I think I might have to order one of those wigs for myself…or for you.

Guess who’s coming to dinner November 2, 2009

No one!

This, dear reader, is my stove:

I think I'm pretty committed to the no-cooking plan, don't you?

I feel pretty bad that I haven’t invited anyone over to my pad.  I mean, it’s kind of the bomb, with its cast of lizards and roaches.  After my first, cockroach-heavy night in my place, I effectively decided that I would minimize my time in the kitchen.   I decided not to buy a pot and I began to fear the cupboard under the stove (there might be bugs hiding in there!).  Since I can’t stuff plastic bags in the spot I traditionally favor (i.e. the cupboards under the stove or sink), I started piling them on the stove, which I had no intention of using.  I also use the stove to hold partially used cans of bug-killing spray.  My kitchen should be featured in Better Homes and Gardens!

So, now I have a mountain of plastic bags on my stove, which I can’t use anyway, since I don’t have a pot or a pan.  As I don’t have an oven or a microwave, I can’t cook food.

I am reconsidering the ban on pots, though.  I really miss pasta.

Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river November 1, 2009

Another food post!  Boy, am I lucky!  This evening, I got to hang out with another friend from work.  Her family, going back a couple generations at least, has lived in an area known as Serangoon Gardens.  The area was originally built by British forces stationed in Singapore; as such, it has a lot of houses–yes, houses, not apartment buildings!–in a neighborhood that is sort of cut off from the surrounding city.  It was the closest thing I’ve seen to suburbs in Singapore, which kind of made me homesick.  Add in the fact that she lives with her parents, which made me more homesick.  Then, when I tried to call my own parents tonight, Skype–for the first time–was acting up.  So, yeah.  Hi, Mom and Dad!

My friend, her parents, and I went for a steamboat, which is apparently a style of dish known throughout the region (not by me!). I am tempted to say we went “steamboating,” but I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t work as a verb (I wouldn’t say, for example, that I went “hamburgering” or “cerealing”). The whole night, I had “Proud Mary” stuck in my head (the CCR version, not the Ike and Tina Turner version, if you must know).

In case you do not want to click on the “steamboat” link above, here is the gist of what Wikipedia says about it:

Steamboats refer to a variety of dishes eaten throughout East Asia, where ingredients are cooked in a simmering pot of broth at the table, usually communally, similar to a fondue. The name ‘Steamboat’ is almost exclusively used in Malaysia and Singapore. In other countries, ‘Hot Pot’ is the most common generic English-language term for this type of dish.

Typical steamboat ingredients include thinly sliced meat, leafy vegetables, mushrooms, tofu, noodles or seafood. The cooked food is either eaten with a dipping sauce, or sometimes as a soup. In many areas, steamboats are often eaten in the winter.

We went to a place near their home and it was an experience, believe you me.  I only took a few pictures–I didn’t want to go into a long, weird explanation about why I was taking so many pictures without people in them (“Well, see, I have a blog.  It is not very good, but my parents read it, so it’s cool…”).

When you order the steamboat, you let the server know how many people will be sharing it (in our case, four).  They bring out a burner that doesn’t need a plug!  (It’s magic!) Just kidding.  It kind of reminded me of the smores-making kit a favorite coffee shop would provide in college.  Anyway, so they bring out this burner and a plate full of raw seafood (prawns, squid, scallops, abalone, and some other stuff), vegetables, and some noodles (rice noodles, I think).  (Also, I had to look up how to spell “abalone,” and I just learned it refers to “large edible sea snails.”  Why did I think it was a kind of tuna (apparently, that’s “albacore”)!?!!  Oh, yeah, because I’m an idiot.)

The burner comes with a pot full of a delicious broth in which the raw fixings are cooked:

Getting started (fixings on the left, burner with pot on the right).

A better view of the fixings: See the prawns in the upper left of the plate? Immediately to the prawns' right are the squid bits.

In the interest of preserving any internet credibility I may have, which I admit is very low given–among other things–the awesome aliases I have come up with (e.g. Esmerelda, Blanket), I will disclose that I ate neither the prawns nor the squid (it had a bunch of little tentacles, reader!  I couldn’t do it…but that left more for the folks who like to eat squid, so it all worked out in the end).

Here, my friend's mom dishes some of the fixings into the broth.

I would like my own mom to note that I ate vegetables for the second day in a row!

Delicious!

Yes, I am sure I don't want any prawns. Thanks!

I realize that I am completely spoiled, in that the shrimp I eat back home has often been de-legged, deveined, beheaded, etc.  I found it disturbing to see the prawns with their heads AND THEIR EYES.

You can see its eyes, dear reader! Sorry, but this freaked me out.

I had a really great weekend overall, between dinner at Walkie Talkie’s place and hanging with another friend tonight.  Hopefully the goodness will continue through the work week…

The end of the month, the end of two streaks October 31, 2009

First of all, Happy Halloween to you and yours.  I hope your day is full of more treats than tricks.  Unless you are a magician and your livelihood depends on tricks (yes, I can think of another profession that depends on tricks, but I don’t want this blog to get too debaucherous).

This is one of my favorite pictures ever. Happy Halloween!

Anyway, with the end of the month came the end of two streaks.  In other words, I did two things today that I hadn’t done since arriving in Singapore.  My friend Walkie Talkie invited Esmerelda, The Panda Bear, and myself to her place for dinner.  (Walkie Talkie, welcome to the crappy world of Flaneur Vric’s Blog!)  This, dear imaginary reader, was my first home-cooked meal since arriving in Singapore 111 days ago.

It was delicious.

We had salad and pasta with broccoli:

Yum, to the max.

Those of you inclined to notice such things (hi, Mom!) will see that there is very little broccoli in my pasta.  You have no way of knowing, but the salad also contained peppers and tomatoes, none of which made it onto my plate.  Word.  Still, I would like those of you inclined to worry about such things (hi again, Mom!) to know that I did eat some vegetables tonight.

Desert was a pumpkin pie.  It didn’t turn out exactly as planned, in that the crust shrank while the filling expanded, and it had to be cooked for at least an hour more than the recipe suggested, but it was delicious.

Pumpkin pie: Not exactly like Mom used to make.

This was actually my first slice of pumpkin pie ever–no joke!

Woo hoo! It's Halloween and we're having pumpkin pie!

The food, and the company, were wonderful.  Walkie Talkie is awesome, in spite of having a considerably less-than-awesome blog alias (I will spare you the alternatives we generated).

The time-since-I’ve-had-a-home-cooked-meal streak coming to an end was definitely a good thing.  Unfortunately, I wish the other streak had continued.  Walkie Talkie’s place had a small set of stairs (3 steps, to be exact) separating the living room from the dining area.  On my way to the kitchen to help check on the pie, I happened to slip while climbing the stairs.

Yes, I have now fallen down the stairs in Singapore.  More specifically, I have fallen down 3 stairs in Singapore.  111 days without falling down the stairs, and here we go.  (You have probably forgotten, but I actually fell down the stairs with a heavy piece of luggage the morning I left for Singapore.) Now, I’m back to 0 days without falling down the stairs. Also, if memory serves, I have never fallen down such a small flight of stairs (does 3 steps even qualify as a “flight”?). Lest you feel too tempted to make fun of me, please note that I managed to sustain large bruises above my kneecap and on my thigh from this fall.

Who knows what November will bring?

Bam Wham Pow Wow! Are you ready to be bowled over? October 30, 2009

This post’s title is the tag line for Unleashed!, a dance recital tonight that a friend was performing in.  I met this friend on my never-ending carousel of shadowing at work.  The dance recital was put on by the “Ministry of Dance” at her church.  She had also invited one of the two dudes at work whom I don’t particularly like (my dislike for him is legitimate, dear reader!  I met him (and the dancing friend) early on in my shadowing tour.  Within several minutes of knowing him, he told me, “Don’t worry–people are already making fun of you behind your back.”  Now, I have no idea of his intent in making this disclosure, but it hurt my feelings, to say the least.  At that time, I was seriously doubting whether folks here would like me, so his pronouncement seemed very severe.  I think my face clearly showed that I was aghast at what he’d just said; he clumsily tried to salvage the situation with: “I mean, we weren’t making fun of you.  We were making fun of Americans.“  Um, that didn’t make me feel any better.  The other dude I don’t like was the friend he made fun of me with).

Wow, that was a great aside!  Fortunately, the mean dude didn’t come.

The recital had featured seven dances, all of which were supposed to inspire us spiritually, though it was hard to see how some of the dances were remotely tied to Christianity.  (One of the dances featured six Asian ladies wearing sequined jumpsuits and Afro wigs dancing to “Hair”.)  My friend’s group danced first.  Here are some pics:

Yes, reader, these pictures were taken without the flash. I knew not to use the flash even before the ominous announcer told us flash photography was "strictly not allowed"! I actually think the pictures turned out pretty cool. Also, I am friends with one of these people (though I honestly can't tell which one she is in this picture).

No, I still can't tell which one she is...

This is the picture that will result if you photograph a bunch of people walking quickly in a circle in relatively dark lighting without a flash.

So, there you have it.  I was lucky enough to see my friend’s performance without having to dodge the mean dude from work!  This is a good sign for the weekend, as far as I’m concerned…

Another fun sign at work! October 29, 2009

We had a delightful lunch at work today in honor of some departing colleagues.  After the lunch was over, a few of us got a behind-the-scenes tour, during which I got to see the kind of depressing break room (it has 3-4 chairs, two facing a row of lockers and 1-2 facing the wall; there is no TV, which apparently isn’t a big deal here).

This sign was posted above the sink:

Guess what! I like this sign.

I am completely in favor of practicing good hygiene, I promise.  I think the pictures used here are really great.  I don’t know how an extremely large detective examining a small house is related to hygiene.  You can accuse me of lacking the imagination or vision to grasp this imagery, but I’ve already told you how literal I am.  I actually don’t know if the detective is supposed to be a really large man examining an average-sized house, or a normal-sized man examining a dollhouse.  Neither makes sense to me.  Is he supposed to be “big brother” keeping an eye to ensure that all employees practice good hand hygiene?  Is he trying to solve the mystery of who spit in the water cooler?  Was there some hygiene-related crime that he is trying to solve?

I might propose to the sign-posting folks at work that they consider posting a sign (or two) to explain the use of this picture.  (I’m kidding, really, but there are signs for everything at work.)

Now, let’s move on to the no-spitting picture:

Let me just say that I admire whomever was inspired enough to create a no-spitting figure.

I thought it was kind of funny at first.  I mean, I realized that the random, extremely long, whiskers coming out of the head + the water droplets were supposed to symbolize spitting.  The imagery reminded me of something, though, and I finally figured out what…

Kevin, the bird from "Up" (Kevin is on the left here).

See Kevin’s head feathers?  See the resemblance to no-spitting dude’s spit?

As an aside, “Up” is an excellent movie.