no. 7 - one

While reading Neil Gaiman's introduction on the writing of stories I realised it has been exactly one year since I first bailed on practice in the CBD and went in-house in Tai Seng. Well not exactly one, its one and one day as at the time of this post.

In the past one year, where my work has intercepted with my lifestyle, I have

- acquired 3 pairs of jeans, which I've proudly displayed in a collage above (I could never fathom wearing jeans in Singapore prior to me working in an office where jeans are almost the official attire)

- celebrated going home at sunset

- reveled from not having to agonize and cause myself great distress over submission/ case arguments

- grieved the loss of submissions drafting at the same time

- lost a freedom and gained another

- gained a greater appreciation for Mr Teh Tarik and accessibility to a range of coffee shops/ cafes I could make a run to

- learnt to enjoy working out alone without paying a S$200 monthly subscription for fixed classes and a trainer to scream at me

- picked up yoga again

- finally picked up the phone and introduced myself as Valerie from the right company

- continued to miss my friends/ team at CBD dearly - I still regularly make my way to CBD/ Everton for the lunch in the interests of my sanity

I took a picture of this sunset on my first day at Tai Seng and sent it to Mark. I then took a 1.5 hour bus journey home - what happens when home is on the other side of the island.

among other things, i've also learnt to appreciate the industrial life/ buzz of tai seng. Warehouses outnumber corporate offices & zichar stores and local coffee shops outnumber cafes and salad/ mixed bowl shops by a thousand fold (at minimum).

and of course, the proximity to Yoga Inc's Guillemard studio where I've very happily rediscovered the joys of yoga that I used to enjoy when I practiced at Verita/ Space & Light at Tanglin- when the studio closed in 2013, so did my yoga practice.

For the unacquainted, I am terribly terribly stiff, inflexible and with a very bad posture - I hunch like no tomorrow, a habit i picked up during puberty.

While my deficiencies remain mostly unresolved and I probably proudly hold the title as tightest-hamstrings-ever yogi, I've re-experienced the joys of alignment and moving about even on days when I just want to slide into my chair with bucket full of coffee and dark chocolate brownies.

Topping the list for greatest find in Tai Seng though, is the "money back guarantee" peanut and coconut mix pancake (my colleagues inform me that its known otherwise as min jiang kueh) from the coffee shop at the corner of Pereira Road. I have declared it my favourite pancake shop since and I cannot leave or walk past the coffee shop without having 1 or 2 packed away for later consumption.

The pancake is of the perfect thickness, crisp on the outside with a slightly chew on the inside. The aunty is also very lovely and has also mastered the perfect combination of coconut and peanut filling. There's really very little to be said against this pancake save that it is a very bad food to be addicted to.

A day late to celebrate my one year anniversary in this hood, I for the first time sat at the coffee shop and had a freshly made "money back guarantee" peanut and coconut mix pancake with a serving of teh-o kosong in a glass cup that looked dubiously washed, while my bag of groceries from the NTUC across sat awkwardly at an angle on the clean side of the bird-pooped stained chair beside me.

It was rather glorious, especially when armed with my newly acquired Neil Gaiman text "Fragile Things" - this is probably one of the best takeaways I've had from dating Mark - the introduction to Neil Gaiman, whose writing I'm as intrigued by as I am to Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (spoiler, its a great white preserved in formaldehyde that I have remained obsessed with since my JC years).

in the course of packing my stuff this year, I pulled out these 2 prep sketches that I had done as part of my 3 hour AEP concept sketch examination in Secondary school - looking at them, i guess it makes sense that I greatly enjoy some of Gaiman's rather strange stories. I believe the first sketch was on the theme of institutions and the second on laundering. Also currently questioning why my mother didn't think it appropriate to sit me down and speak with me on my sketches to ascertain that all was right inside my head .

It's strange isn't it? For you never know what the future holds.

I would have never imagined knowing the roads of macpherson/ tai seng as intimately as I do now or that my job would take me out of the CBD, into an area, both work and physically, that would be rather unfamiliar to me.

I realise in the course of work that of everything, people are most fearful of the unknown and change. The latter in particular, appears to be particularly terrifying and I perceive, the cause of many strange decisions made.

In the next year, i hope to will myself to perceive and walk with the same mentality of openness that I have striven to maintain/ approach matters with.

& with that, here's to Tai Seng, the opening of a coffee roasters cafe here (finally) and surviving the first examination I've taken since 2013 (which I'm due to sit for on 31 Aug) - of course while being entirely fueled by my favourite kind of motivation - plenty of great tasting caffeine.