Help…

The song by the Beatles – HELP – is ringing in my head as I type this post.  Okay, I’m kinda desperate here and am sending out a SOS note in the hope that you maybe able to help shed some light and guide me.  Sounds ominous?  Haha.. NOoooo…. I’m just having a little trouble trying to make friends here in Geneva.  If you think my days are really, really fun, then I’m here to tell you that it’s quite exactly the opposite.

I wake up in the mornings wondering how to let time pass by quickly so that I don’t have to deal with staring at the 4 blank walls at the house or maneuvering the few hundred channels on Cable before finding a suitable one that I just may enjoy watching in English.  In between staring at the 4 blank walls, I sometimes pop the laundry in the machine, hop around the house or head out to town and wander the streets aimlessly.  It’s nothing as exciting as shopping along Orchard Road I assure you.  In fact, it’s just that ONE main shopping street where not much of the window displays excite me enough to make me want to go in. Dining alone is also not as exciting as in Tokyo.  Yes, living in Japan has made me comfortable with eating and even catching a movie by myself.  As sad as it sounds, I’ve become comfortable to spending time on my own.  But here in Geneva, I have no desire-what-so-ever to dine by myself for food is expensive and quality is sometimes compromised.

The last week, I spent staking out at the Apple store waiting for the iPad.  Now that that has been procured and done with, my new hangout is at the Orange Mobile store.  I’m trying very hard to get them to let me take up a SIM card subscription.  Pre-paid cards are getting tooo expensive and they just refuse to let me take up a stupid plan.  I produced a letter from the Swiss authorities stating that my Swiss card will be coming soon but they told me that I need to get my Swiss card before they would allow me to take up a subscription plan.  Arh.. I can’t deal with the inefficiencies and in-flexibilities of the system at Orange while another service provider would gladly allow me to take up their service plans.

Then I pray and hope that its about 4pm where I make myself a cuppa of Nespresso coffee and stare blankly at the 4walls or my computer screens wishing that time would pass faster so that the Man will come home from work.  Sounds pathetic?  I think so and I hate feeling like this.

I’ve tried searching online in the magnificent world of Google for expat bloggers in Geneva, Singaporeans in Geneva, cooking classes / floral arrangement classes in Geneva, etc.  But searches revealed little.  I’ve even signed up some expat sites and been sending out ‘blind friendly greeting messages’ in the hope of making some friends this way, but little replies came pass my way.  Oh, having said that I did make a new friend – S – who will be relocating to Geneva from US in July through my blog.  So we’re trying to see if we could meet up when she comes end May to hunt for apartments. 

Here’s the thing, I think I probably need a kick in the arse and perhaps some advice on how to make some friends in a foreign land.  I feel like a neewbie at this all over again.  I wanna make the most of our time here in Switzerland instead of moping around the house and wallowing in self-pity.  So if you have been in similar shoes like mine, I would be really grateful if you could shed some light here and pull me out of this ‘hole’ pronto.

I get that alot.

So, this is my final week at work and while my immediate team-members know of my departure, my other colleagues from the rest of the departments have yet to know of this.  I don’t think that I’m wildly popular, but I’ve made some friends from the other teams in my close to four-years stay in this organisation.

First response I get from these friends is – ‘Wow! You are going to be tai-tai (local term for lady of leisure).’   The statement kinda irks me cos while I secretly harbour a desire to be a tai-tai.  I know my job description for that one year will probably read – Domestic Princess or Minister of Home Affairs.  My job scope will cover a broad range of activities but mostly revolving around the household chores such as cooking, washing, ironing, grocery shopping, laundry, etc.  I will be receiving an allowance by the Man of which I must ration and decide what fashionable item I would like to acquire for that month. 

So, my response to these friends is - ‘I’m not going to be a tai-tai cos my definition of a tai-tai is I can spend as much money as I want and not worry about a thing.’  The truth for the matter is that I’m packing my bags and joining the Man to support him.  In this one year, I plan to start up a small fashion business with some friends, taking time to travel and hoping that we can add on an extra ‘headcount’ in our lives. 

In case you don’t know, I work hard for my own money and yes, the Man showers me with gifts ocassionally, but he also believes in not spoiling me.  So while I oogle at the many things I want to buy, he only choose selectively what I can be gifted with.

So, the answer is NO, I’m not going to be a ‘Tai-Tai’ when I move to Geneva with the Man.  Instead, I’m going to sit back, relax, take time to see the world and enjoy life as much as we possibly can.  Yes, I will have to cut back on some shopping but I will continue to suss out great fashion buys and make my dollar stretch for as long as it possibly can.

f00d rant

B’cos of the move, we have been pretty much stuck at home with the unpacking and tidying. Or rather, the man has assumed responsibilities and taking charge of being the gardener/ the cleaner / the packer / the electrician, etc. So, we haven’t been out much this week. I kinda miss the weekly dinners, taking time off to check out new restaurants or to revisit our favourites and blogging about food.

Of course, there’s that winter holiday in Japan to look forward too (think snow-boarding/ shopping and EATING)!

So, pardon my lack of posts on food for now. When we return from Japan, I guess that’s pretty much what I will be blogging about.

what monday blues?

Tiny Island stumbled on this site – Blunt Card – and posted it on her blog.  I subsequently clicked on the link to check it out.  I was glued to the site and chuckled quietly to myself as I went through some of the wicked phrases on the cards.  Totally hilarious!

Here are some of my favourites:

[Photo credit: Blunt Card]

So, on days when you just can’t ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, you can always secretly play these thoughts in your head.  hehe..

stoopid me

I single handedly destroyed our super shredder!   I thought that the super-duper device could shred almost anything.  Well, I now know that’s not the case.

I was trying to consolidate stuff and throw out staff from before.  Sigh, it’s only when you start packing your life in boxes till you realise how much stuff you accumulate through the years.

So, I decided to just be ‘heartless’ and throw things that I don’t need away.  I had a huge stack of old negatives so I thought the fastest way of getting rid of them is to shred them.  Well, WRONG!!  The plastic and the film were so tough to shred and it jammed up the shredder.  B tried to play technician and thought that he could fix the problem if he opened up the screws and fix what was wrong inside.  But unfortunately, we made the problem worse and the entire machine is now in the dump.

So I became the human shredder for the next 40 minutes trying to destroy all that paper that I’ve kept for the past 8 odd years.  Sigh.. painful experience.

oh the drama

It happened all so sudden!  All I wanted was for my agent to counsel my helper and hopefully her attitude will improve.  I mean this is the second helper that we’ve hired.  So, we were hoping that she would at least stay with us for the full two years.  Well, minutes after, my agent called and advised me to send my helper back because the counseling was not going to work on her especially when she insisted that we are in the wrong.  Sigh… I thought hard about what we’ve done and the treatment that we’ve given her in the one year that she has been with us.  I mean we’ve never ill-treated her, she eats the same type of food that we eat, we let her go out with us and even watch the TV when we are not around.  Sure, these are just little things but hey, I’ve heard of worse horror stories.

So, now I just gotta figure out how we are going to manage without help for the next one month.   Up next on my agenda, big move to Loft 2 and the Lunar New Year.  Guess, I just have to bite the bullet and figure out how to do this.