The Confession: I am a student (still), (stuck) in Singapore

25 days.
Or, four weeks.

That's the amount of time it takes for the Canadian Embassy to renew my passport overseas (and surprsinngly, yes, even in Singapore, a place highly noted for it's general efficiency).

I guess there are two things to take away from this fact:

First, true as tested the Canadian Government is inefficient, anywhere and everywhere.

Second, creativity; or, how to spend time in a foreign place where you are not allowed to work (even for free), nor are allowed to leave, and have already explored its various offerings over the past four months.

--

Real time check: currently on last day of week 2. Which means about 2 weeks left. Or, 12 days.

---

They say that if you wait long enough and are patient for the good things, time will always turn something up. But feeling slightly more proactive about my life and circumstances (partly out of necessity), I have spent a large chunk of my time trying to plan out 'time', with a guiding question of "what to do, post-grad?"

In the beginning, I gave myself a year. The plan was (is) to graduate in a foreign land, get lost in other foreign lands, hopefully pick up a foreign fling and then in the fall of 2011, settle back in Canada as an eager law student. So, that gives me over a year; Or, four semesters (2 summers, one fall, one winter) to make the best of my life and chase the moments.

With this overall goal in mind, only ideas here and there have guided my steps. Like, for one, apply around and get the best job (fail). Or, for seconds, Fall in love with a man who owns a palace in some far off land and wants to spoon feed me for the rest of my life (fail). Fail. Fail. Fail.

It seems that this plan isn't panning out. (I blame the Canadian Government, always.)

Give me ten years and this one year, in retrospect, will seem like a blurr in time. A second of a twenty-four hour day (? my math might be off on this one here). But in the moment, the hand ticks slowly. Really slowly. I watch it, literally and figuratively. Mostly I watch it thinking I could be elsewhere-- like on some Indonesian beach perfecting the art of surf. Or thinking that there are so many things wrong with this place. Where is their life? (come on, no gum!? no porn!? all work. no play!)

And then I remind myself, I'm the one who is STUCK (literally), and where is MY life?

Well, in the next few days or so it is pending, I admit.
But after that, I swear I get my life back on track and stop being a waste of carbon.

In a bit over two weeks, or 15 days, I will be moving to the Philippines, temporarily. I have volunteered over my hands, my time, and my wallet for 10 weeks. I will be working as a health care volunteer serving a rural village and aiding an overworked doctor. (p.s. This anticipation definitely makes the minute hands tick slower... )

So, this is my life, as it is today.

Four months after I willingly arrived to Singapore, I am now held captive to this very city against my own wishes, dreaming of now impossibly faraway beaches.
Which leads me to conclude a third thing about the facts of this situation:

Exoticism and wanderlust can happen everywhere and anywhere-- even in a place once dreamt of.



In the end, there is one thing I am really happy to add to my confession. You can call it an appendix, if you will. Or a slight correction of details:

A few days ago, I would have had one more terrible thing to add to my list of terribles: I was then considered "unemployed". I had finished school and had moved on from being a student to 'jobless' (or actually, I hadn't "moved" on to anywhere, hence 'jobLESS').

It was a friend, actually, who made me aware of this fact. He greeted me on the very day I had finished my very last exam saying, "Congragualtions, you're officially unemployed!"

Piss off.
This is without a doubt the worst word in my life. It's like the big cuss which should never be spoken, or the the bad picture which should never be tagged.


Well, to my luck it turns out there is one other burreacracy that delays everything: University. Apparently, my official records cannot be released in time for this coming graduating term. Which means, I am officially still a "student" until the summer's end.
Most people rejoice and wait anxiously for their graduation day. Not me.
I don't want to have to figure out my life, its details, just yet.

So, I am a student (still), (stuck) in Singapore.

This is the oxymoron of my life.
That's my confession.