Love, Hate, Name Something You Ate IX by jima

• One thing I love about living in Singapore is...
  …the rain. Hot summer days growing up in Wisconsin, I loved racing out in the huge afternoon thunderstorms, splashing through puddles and getting soaked to the skin, becoming one with the rain. In Singapore, I've experienced that same "drenching rain/warm day/nothing better to do but play in it" joy, and I love getting to be a kid again.
  
  
• One thing I hate about living in Singapore is...
  …the rain. Workday mornings when it's pouring down rain, the last thing any commuter wants is to splash through puddles and get soaked to the skin. That short walk to the building and that brief wait at the bus stop become all hassle and no fun.
  
  
• A new thing I ate recently is...
  …Deepali's palak paneer. This was not actually something new; Deepali is soooo good to me. Paneer is delicious soft Indian cheese, and palak is mostly pureed spinach, hence its incredible color. I asked Venitha what else is in palak besides spinach (she did just watch Deepali make it), and she said onions, tomatoes, chilies, and foot powder.
• Something I recently bought is...
  …a series of Mandarin classes! After talking about this for 11 months, we are finally doing it. Our first lesson concentrated on the different tones and vowel sounds. As expected, we both benefited from having heard so much Mandarin this last year, but who knew that all my college German would finally pay off? I'd thought the endless hours I spent making monkey faces in the mirror as I attempted to pronounce umlauts were wasted, but these same sounds, and plenty of others that are even harder, exist in Mandarin.
  
  
• Singlish o' the day:
  He/she. As Mandarin pronouns apparently don't distinguish gender, conversations with co-workers can lead to entertaining confusion. I've incorrectly assumed more than one co-worker to be homosexual after repeated references to a special someone as he, and I have frightening flashes of my boss in drag every time someone inadvertently(?) refers to him as she.

jima