..and we're off!

My blog absence has been mainly because quite frankly I haven't felt I have had anything really all that interesting to share and how wonderfully drama-free and quiet has my life been for the last 8 months? Also, because I often stop myself as I write as I hate the idea of being so self-indulgent that I must share with the www my daily thoughts/mis/fortunes/favorite things.

..But I'm totally over that now.

So here is my first (short) installment for Chandeliers and Onion Rings 2010 (albeit near the middle of the year but hey, I'm trying). With which I'll be updating the artwork on this page hopefully soon. While I'll be writing here, I'll try to leave the archispeak out and write over on http://kitchentablearchitectureclub.blogspot.com/ instead which both K and I will be updating. Enjoy!

__

Brunei is the kind of place you get used to. Some of us who have spent some years abroad come back and fit right back in to where we left off. Others take a little more coaxing. But whatever the case, there is a grace period during those first few weeks/months.

During this time common symptoms include constant nausea (heat/food/airconditioning related or otherwise), frustration - by far the most common symptom though in most cases causes range from family frustrations to road rage, rapid weight gain, speech inconsistencies - accents american/english/australian/bruneian/otherwise get jumbled up and shopping related withdrawl symptoms appear among others. Most people just stick through it, with a couple of friends, the tansition is made much smoother.

Which is why, as we pack our bags to set off once again, I'm sad to be bidding farewell to Brunei. Good friends have been made even better ones as we have all been adjusting to living in Brunei together.. just to do it all over again in my new city as of tomorrow. Still, we pick up and move on, and look forward to catching up again in the near future.

I have always maintained that the best thing about here has always been the great friends and family. But there are a few things I shall not miss. The symptoms as shown above come to mind (esp. the rapid weight gain!), Bruneian drivers who tailgate and don't signal, bigoted behaviour even among our well educated and young, rubbish customer service and the lack of interesting shops/museums/cafes etc. Apart from that, everything is just peachy.

So as we leave headed for the Lion City tomorrow, only to begin the settling down period again lessons learned this time round have been:

1_Ensaymadas from Bakerlyn will make you fat. Don't kid yourself.

2_Be an opportunist: Receive chances given to you and run with them.

3_There's always time for fish farm.

4_No really, put that ensaymada down.

5_Don't dive and fly. Or at least don't realise you're going to fly when you hit -15m!

6_Never take anyone/anything for granted. Never be taken for granted.

7_Sunsets sunrises clearwaters waterfalls diving swimming fishing farming friends family photos scubing kareoke-ing barbeque-ing boxing bluecheese burgers bukit shahbandar shisha border-runs deliveries crabs yoga bullfrogs blazing sun heavy rain..all make Brunei a pretty neat place to live.

Turrah Booners, til next time.
xxw

London for Londoners

I asked one of the ladies at work: Would you call yourself a Londoner?

Seems innocent enough, while we were deciding whether or not to pick up an extra tuna sandwhich for the house meeting that day. After all, she has been living here for over 12 years. Not only that, but she's had kids born here too. Oh Gosh, No. Came the reply. Funny, that. I never thought about it that way. She continued. I've been here long enough. But they're different, 'Londoners'. That's funny too.. I called them 'they'.

Its not so hard to think that in a city of 8.5 Million (in the Greater London Urban Area), where 31% of foreign born residents/users might not consider this their home. After all, you could argue that London isn't for Londoners at all really. In that it doesn't appear to lend itself wholly to its 69% of home growns. But that is a story for another day.

Back to the tuna sandwhiches. So, I found it funny that she referred to all other people around her as Londoners. Like everyone else was a Londoner and that she was the only one that wasn't..? I told her I understood, and for a moment there I too, referred to everyone around us as Londoners. I'm just as foreign as the next guy. Literally.

I got home that day thinking about the things that she had said and her reasons for why she could not think of herself as a Londoner. I decided to ask Kyle his opinion. He's been in London for just as long as I have, I suppose the only difference being in that he's part of the 69%.

Nope. No luck. He wasn't a Londoner either. Okay, Lincolnshire Boy? What? with tractors and flat caps? Hell no. Spaldinger? Spaldingite? Spaldingian? Yeah, I guess... but not really. I'd call myself British. Hm. Thanks for the concise answer, love! Mind you we had an afternoon deliberating what was 'remarkable' architecture, so a man of concise answers he is not. So I asked him a better one: out of all the places we've been, where did you find yourself the most 'at home'? And before its asked, it wasn't one of those roundabout questions that really mean 'Honey, where shall we settle down and own a farm and a goat?' I'm far too grown up for such sillyness.

So on with my quest..

But after going round in circles again I decided to answer my own question. Brunei, of course couldn't count, because of obvious reasons. Singapore, where we lived for almost a year felt very much like home. Despite our desperate lack of home cooking, our flat had a bit of old school charm to it, especially after our painting antics. Still, perhaps because most of our friends weren't Singaporean.. while we were really pretending to live the glamourous life of Singaporean expats on interns wages, fitting into the community never really registered. I guess the only place I began to feel well and truely at home in a place that wasn't home, was in Hikkadua, Sri Lanka. Sounds strange, considering how different the place is to Bandar/Brunei. The streets were crowded, I couldn't speak the language, I was working on a construction site - something I hadn't dreamt of doing in Brunei and of course the fact that we were living in a hotel. In fact, perhaps the only similarities to Brunei on the surface were the scorching heat, the good use of the English language and the lovely stretches of empty beach. On the surface, they both have huge differences. However, I guess the things that make me feel at home have little to do with surface, like how things look, smell, feel and taste. I can probably pinpoint the time when I felt most at home, because it was during the walk to work.

We pass the girl's school who are waving and hello-ing to K as I allow him to walk ahead of me just so I can see the smiles on their faces. Stop at the shop to buy cigarettes and water, greeted with the usual good morning from the shop owner in his white vest and sarong. I wipe my grubby work boots off at the door but he tells me not to worry - we'll be back with dirtier feet at lunchtime. We get a smile hello from the ladies in the tailoring shop next door as we turn into the shortcut lane next to the police station. The railway tracks are old and the sun is already beating off them while I watch my feet stepping over the sleepers. We past the small-green-bungalow and the lady of the house is (as usual) sweeping just outside her door- she flashes me a smile and a nod. A few meters down we pass Ravi's house just before the bridge. He's on his balcony and shouts good morning! to us - we'll probably see him after work anyway..

You can't get much more a feeling of being at home than that I would say. Not to say I'm going to start calling myself a SriLankan now, but it certainly felt like I was one.

aha! K says. YOU make me feel at home. He excalaims as though he'd solved the mystery of it all. That doesn't count, I say. Although the thought is rather sweet. Having said that, since he's gone home for the weekend, I've barely ventured out of my flat, let alone my street. I guess a part of being at home is also being with the people/person there to help you mind that farm and that pesky goat. xxw