I guess I'll have to learn to love shrimp now


A few months ago, I wrote this post, not knowing where I’d be next year. Well I still don’t know which bed I’ll be sleeping in, but I do know the country. After a year of trying to be in Southeast Asia, I just about gave up hope and graduated about a month and a half ago without any prospect of a job or relocation. However, an unforeseen job opportunity arose a few weeks ago and, in possibly the most rash decision of my life, I decided to take it. So here I am, preparing to move to Singapore tomorrow and start work next week. I wobble between extreme excitement and nervousness every ten minutes.

I have a lot of goals for myself for the coming months, one of which is to write. To write on this blog, to write creatively, to write privately and to write to friends and family. I’m hoping to visit all these coffee shops, sit down with kopi and write everything I’m seeing and learning.

Singapore has been a country I’ve visited countless times but never lived in. It has been one of my deepest regrets, having gone almost every summer growing up but too young and naïve to care. I always complained about leaving my dad for too long, about the heat, about the lack of spaghetti and burgers, about Singlish. I’m so happy to have a second chance, to see the same country through different eyes -- older and hopefully slightly wiser eyes.

While I am not a fan of Ted Hughes (because of his moral choices not his writing), I can’t help but love his encouragement to his son, “As Buddha says: live like a mighty river. And as the old Greeks said: live as though all your ancestors were living again through you.”


Illustration by my sister, Lauren Monaco.

1 comment:

In Green Pastures said...

Beautifully written! What an adventure you have ahead of you! Enjoy the kopi and kaya toast!