Trash in Singapore

When we met with the landlords I asked what I thought was a totally normal question.  “What day is trash day?”  They looked at me a little weird and replied, “Everyday.”  My response?  “What?  You mean they pick up trash every single day?  What a waste of resources (time, money, gas, manpower)!!” 

Of course I have no say in the matter, so I dutifully put my kitchen trash out in the green bin provided and delivered it to the street to be emptied.  They took it.  Blah, blah, blah. After a few days I noticed that we were getting flies in our trash can.  Didn’t take long to realize that there were stinky diapers sitting in there.  Ugh.   I guess they’ll dump them tomorrow.  Nope.  Still there. Now we have three, four, five days of diapers in there.  What am I doing wrong? This morning I happened to see the trash truck come through and watched.

Turns out they open the lid, take out the sack and put it in the garbage truck.  They don’t lift and dump the cans at all.  No wonder the stinky diaper pile was growing each day.  I immediately undertook the unpleasant task of retrieving a weeks worth of dirty, stinky diapers that had festered in the heat for nearly a week in the can in the hot sun.

Tomorrow is the big day.  They are bagged and ready.  Trash can on the road.  Please, please, please take those stinky diapers away from my front yard Mr. Garbage Man.  I chalk this up to just one more bump on the learning curve of life in Singapore.  I thought I was doing a good thing by taking the stinky diapers outside and tossing each one into the trash each time I changed Jacob.  Lesson learned.  Bag it with the rest of the trash or it’s gonna stick around a long, long time.

 

Side Note – Recycling is only once a week.  After eight days they haven’t taken my recycling either and I haven’t caught the truck to know yet.  I bagged all my recycling and will leave it out all week to figure that one out too.

 

Other random things? 

**The streets got swept twice last week. That’s what you have to do when there is no change in season.  There is no autumn so leaves fall down all year round and they have to be cleaned up somehow.

**My mailman rides a moped and a helmet to deliver the mail.  Does that make you laugh as much as it does me?

Wish List

We’re into our new house in Singapore.  We were told to plan on a much smaller and more compact living space.  We were told dressers wouldn’t fit but that each room would have a wardrobe.  We planned accordingly. I sold stuff and left lots of things home.  Even downgraded our crib and changing table to be smaller and lighter (downgraded size only not quality, actually it all matches now and we love it – thanks Lucinda!).

Our townhome in Virginia was about 2100 sq ft.  This place is 3300 sq ft.  And we have lots of “stuff” with no where to put it.  TVs are on the ground.  The kids books are piled on the floor.  The laptop is always on the kitchen table messing up eating time because I’m always in the middle of a project with papers strewn about (okay, that part is exactly the same as Virgina).  We have no desk for the kids to color on so they color on the floors since they are all hardwood or marble.

Each day Brian goes off to work and I stay home to organize the house.  It’s getting really hard to organize the place with no where to put stuff.  I’m definitely in that stage of unpacking where you’ve done the absolute necessary for survival stuff and now you wonder what to do with all the rest of it.

Saturday we found ourselves at Ikea making a wish list of furniture pieces we would like to make our space both more useable and attractive.  The big kids got to stay and play in the Ikea kid play place while we shopped with an overly energetic Jacob.  We settled on a couple pieces we liked well enough to keep long term. I’m so grateful we have the same basic taste in furniture.  We never disagree on style, just sometimes on functionality.

Tuesday morning I check my email and the Woodlands yahoo group came to the rescue.  Someone is selling almost exactly what we wanted in a dark wood stain instead of black.  Right now Brian is making four trips to pick up the four pieces of furniture.  (Darn mini-van.  I NEED my truck back.) 

Original price tag of all new items we picked about $1,000 (that’s why it’s called a wish list). 

Actual price paid for used furniture in pristine condition - $300

Score one for the Zufelts!!

The Nag

Have you read any of those funny auto corrections that cell phones do with your text messages?  Sometimes they are really hilarious.  This one is not.  When I sign my name on an email or text with someone I know, I typically put just “Ang” instead of Angie because it’s shorter.  It gets auto corrected to “Nag.”

 

Love,

Nag

Our New Helpful Friends

Meet one of our new roommates. This guy is small. The one I almost stepped on this afternoon was tiny. The one I startled the other night on the ceiling was huge and ran really, really fast. Then he jumped from the ceiling to the round banister in the middle of the stairs, landed perfectly, ran around to the bottom and stuck there for at least half an hour or longer until I went back upstairs to bed.

Bike building

I think if you have to work for what you get you appreciate it more. To that end I taught my two year old how to assemble his own bike today. Just kidding. He sure had fun helping though. This kid is incredibly interested in doing and touching everything.

Upgrade Your Education

Frankly, I thought Fairfax County was offering a pretty good education.  I was totally satisfied with what I saw and thought our teachers both years and the office staff and principle were fantastic.

 

Then I went to Singapore American School.  Something about it just screams upgrade.  The quantity of laminated stuff on the walls, each teacher has an assistant full time,  nice tidy campus, zillions of extra offerings (of course at a cost, but they do offer swim, yoga, karate, science masters, soccer, dance, etc.), student trips to Cambodia or China to experience the culture.  I walked over to pick up Ben on his first day as a walker and went with the teacher to pick the kids up at the science lab.  It was amazing to see all the tanks and plants and models and things in the room and a dedicated science teacher to go with it.  Even the elementary school has a swimming pool and it is part of the curriculum.  Because they have so many specials with teachers, the regular classroom teacher has more room to manage and concentrate on the kids in their class.  With the help of the teacher’s assistant they not only do individual reading rooms like in American classrooms, but spelling test are made for small groups too at individual levels.

I can’t put my finger on the real, big difference, but that tuition definitely does make a difference.  I’ll be happy back in Fairfax but we’re going to enjoy SAS for now.

 

 

[SgFreecycle] Digest Number 2894

I’ve been a member of Freecycle for many, many years.  It’s a group that tries to keep things out of landfills by giving away things they aren’t using anymore for free to other Freecyclers.  It’s been great so I joined here in Singapore.  I almost always get a laugh reading the postings here.  I obviously speak a different language that these people, even if it is still English.  What do you think?  Should I reply to this guy and hand over all my diaries with my deepest innermost secrets to a total stranger?

 

10.

diary

Posted by:

Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:17 pm (PDT)

Hi am interested in your diaries... the one slightly smaller than A4. Actually if you don't mind can I see them to see what type of format they are?

Please call me at ********. I will definitely take one off your hands.