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Jet-lagged in Seattle (and sleepless too)

The question I'm asking myself is "which inanities of my work life do I leave in?". The second question I'm asking is "if I'm writing about asking myself a question, should I leave the question mark, close the quote and leave a full-stop (or 'period' in American English if you prefer)?". It looks a little odd, doesn't it?

Well, work seems to be all about reports. Which report to use for what purpose and for whom. It's really quite ridiculous. Just yesterday I was given a schedule of what reports are required on a weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. This covers the official, 'global' set, but that doesn't include the additional, oh, 5, that my boss wants. Ugh.

A couple of weekends ago I started looking at flats. I saw 7 in total, and actually, those were the only 7 I saw before I signed a contract. When I started out, I was still very nervous about the situation at work, and thought to myself that if it was really as bad as I'd thought, maybe getting a rental place for 2 years (the standard in Sing) wasn't a good idea. Then I rationalized it and thought, well, the only alternative would be to stay at the serviced apartment, which was going to be double the monthly rent I was looking at. I also thought that if I committed to a place, then I'd be putting a stake in the ground and that I'd HAVE to make things work. We'll see if this turns out to be stupid or not.

Anyway, my first choice was a fantastic place: a quiet 2 bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor of a low-rise building. Modern with a common swimming pool and grassy area, simply decorated but elegant and looking out onto trees with not another building in sight. My second choice was also a good option: a 10 minute walk to the beach; modern, shared pool; 3 (!!) bedrooms, all very new appliances (widescreen, surround, fancy looking airconditioners); brand new construction.

The offer for my first choice fell through unfortunately (after a bit of going back and forth), so I'm now, I believe, the proud tenant of a place that I don't believe has enough built-in storage space. Yes, one of the things I didn't check out properly when I was looking at the place - hey! I was overwhelmed by the comfy looking sofa, wide-screen and fancy LCD panel on the A/C! I say "I believe" I'm the tenant, since the agent had to meet me at Changi airport as I was leaving for the US so that I could resign the contract because of some minor additions to the contract: something about not allowing illegals to stay. Whatever.

So why did I rush through it and only see 7 places, considering that the last 2 times I went apartment hunting I saw 30 places each time? Well, my time at the serviced apartment is rapidly coming to an end, and there's no way I'm going to pay to stay there ($5000+ Sing a month!) and now I'm in Seattle for training and then in Italy for Roger and Vero's wedding... and by the time I get back to Sing, I'll only have 5 days (all during the week) to move out of the serviced apt.

So, last Thursday, after a hectic morning of back to back conference calls, last minute flight changes, picking up plane tickets, picking up Jessica's bike to bring to Seattle, rental contract resigning and slow airport security checks, I left for Seattle via LA.

Here's a definition for Seattle that I found on dictionary.com (I didn't expect to find a city there, so I thought I'd try):
"A city of west-central Washington bounded by Puget Sound and Lake Washington. First settled in the 1850s, it prospered after the coming of the railroad in 1884 and became a boom town during the Alaskan gold rush of 1897. It is now an important commercial, transportation, and industrial hub and a major port of entry. Population: 516,259."

You know when you have to fill-in the immigration forms they give you on the plane? I had no idea which state Seattle was in - had to ask some Brittish guy, who it turns out was an engineer who spent the last 3 months driling holes in the engines of container ships while cruising from LA, all the way over to Hong Kong then Singapore. The jobs people have eh? He was behind me on the plane and he snored like a bastard. Singapore Airlines business class is pretty good - seats that go pretty much flat... Way better than TWA business class (the only other I've flown) - how could you compare the two, really, eh? I was a bit disappointed by the lamb biryani though.

Seattle seems like a nice place - clean air, green, on the water... Jessica's house is great. The bedrooms are downstairs, upstairs the living/dining room and kitchen, and then they have a roof deck, with no other houses looking down or over it. From the living room they have an east-looking view of the water. Fantastically huge windows give an almost panoramic view of Lake Washington and this morning, sunlight beamed through the trees to chase away the unexpectedly chilly air. They have 2 grassy yards too, one was FILLED with crab apples that had fallen from the tree over-hanging one of the sets of stairs leading to yard from the upper floors. We had lunch with 2 of Jessica and Willem's friends - what's-her-name had just finished training for a sprint triathalon she's doing tomorrow; what's-his-name is part of a 5 member, 360 km fund-raising bikeride team, of which Jessica and Willem are a part. The immediate vicinity around our lunch table were 100 or so other triathletes, lunching with numbers proudly scrawled in thick black marker on shoulders. In my mind, Seattle is known for:
1) Microsoft
2) being the home of Starbucks (I saw the original Starbucks)
3) being the home of my ex-girlfriend Susie who I proposed to, who happens to work at Microsoft and if I'm really unlucky will wind up as a client, and who I haven't decided yet if I'll call or not (but I can make the excuse that I don't have her number)
4) Seattle grunge
5) being full of granola eaters

Item 4 was clearly demonstrated today.

In between sleepless nights worrying about work (which is stupid, close to being futile and unhealthy, I know) I've been thinking about starting 2 other blogs. One would be for my godson (I had to lookup whether or not 'godson' was one word or two... who knew?) and/or future children: a place to write Chau wisdom and all the things I think a young human might like to know about being an older human. The other would be random prose that I think about writing when I'm sleepless. Maybe it'll be a place for showcasing artistic projects like a painting I've been thinking about painting for about 16 years, or a picture of my bean stew from Mahahual that I've been meaning to recreate. Maybe I won't get around to it. Ha, but I bet it would be a laugh eh?

... and into the frying pan!

What a first week.

I've had a nightmare trying to understand the client business and all the millions of acronyms they use. I even started creating a dictionary in Excel!

It turns out that people in the office hate my boss and the client doesn't like him either, which isn't good. Oddly enough, I get along with him fine - but then, there aren't too many people that I don't get along with. So anyway, because of him, 3 people are leaving the office at the end of the month, which is really going to stir things up, and others are looking around. On top of all that, I'm going to Seattle in the last week of this month. I think that when I get back there won't be anyone here! (You may be asking why I didn't have any idea of any of this before I signed... Well, I interviewed with other people, and I didn't do it in Singapore! There's something to be learned here...)

Well, given all of that, I'm thinking that it might be best to stay in the serviced apartment until things calm down. Signing a lease seems a little premature. I mean, I'm going to stick it out, but if business turns upside down because of the departures, then I'm kinda out of a job!

It's also been a week of meeting after meeting, conference calls at 830am and 10pm - and most of it sounds something like this:

"We've got to get the SOWs going for all the BGs in subs, headed up by RHQs where appropriate. Everything's gotta go by the SLAs as determined by GRMG, and take note that metrics set by ROMI may need to be entered into CSTAR. Check for docs on MYKE or MYC."

"MQPs may be generated from either a BG (STB, MED, HED, IW, or MBS) campaign or for example a BDM/TDM campaign, such as OSYCI, APIO."

I could go on, but you get the gist.

But, I have to say that I'm enjoying it! Call me a masochist, or just plain stupid - whatever!

Singapore!

So indeed, Singapore has become my new home (unofficially, as far as the authorities are concerned... ssshh!).

I arrived today, after a cancelled flight last night due to a typhoon that caused hundreds of flights to be diverted, delayed or canceled. I was at the airport at 10:30am for my 1:30pm flight, and waited until 7pm, which is when they announced the flight was cancelled. After nearly missing my flight this morning, I've now settled into my large, one-bedroom serviced apartment (for which the company is paying for the next month) and I'm rewarding myself with duty-free scotch!

I hopped into a cab at Changi International Airport and was nearly overcome by the driver's stinky feet - nice as he was, he really shouldn't take his shoes off to drive people around. The apartment is on the 22nd floor and has a large living room with dining area, a decent sized kitchen and a bedroom with ensuite. I reckon it's about 800 sqft. I'm facing south-east, with a view of trees, the sea and my office building!

I popped over to the office (the building's right next door, but it's at least 500m away) to sign a few things and to pick up my SIM card, which the company is paying for too. Hooray!

I was here about 2 years ago and liked it a lot, and I've got to say that I'm very ready to call this home for at least a few years. The food is great, it's close to great dive spots, close to [my other] home and, let's face it, the girls are pretty!

Alisha get's here next Friday. By coincidence (or divine providence), she's taken a job here after having just graduated from business school. We know each other from Beijing, where we'd met when I was helping her then-roommate move. When she answered the door, I was smitten. Just like that, I knew that I was going to try the hardest I'd ever tried to charm a woman. After about a month of intense, laser-guided wooing, she finally agreed to see-/go-out with-/become involved with- me. What on earth do you call it these days? I'm out of touch. Anyway, after 9 short months, we split up in light of her impending departure for b.school, though we stayed in touch and are still good friends. I'm looking forward to catching up and having a food buddy. You can always count on her for going somewhere for good food!

Well, it's now officially the start of my first weekend here so it's time to go and see what's about. Life is an adventure!