Last Sunday was a day of revelation. I discovered that segue is pronounced seg-way, not seeg as I'd thought. I also found out that because of the vertical way that time zones are delineated, certain places in Russia - despite having vastly different cultures and climates - have the same time as Singapore. Hong Kong has the same time as Singapore, and yet the experience of someone there and someone here, especially at this moment in history with the riots happening, is so dissimilar. It boggles the mind.
So far, I've largely enjoyed work. Sometimes I sit at the desk and think 'I have nothing to do, I'm so bored', but other times I'm reading articles about Mexican culture, or observing an artefact being taken out of a display case for conservation work (and the tricky maneuvering needed to make sure it doesn't touch the adjacent artefact on loan from Queen Elizabeth) or drafting a tour script which involves thinking carefully about what narrative I hope someone will take away from my tour of a gallery, which is something I'm particularly concerned about since the gallery I'm in charge of covers a period right smack in the middle of Singapore's colonial history.
I'm trying to settle into a rhythm of waking up, doing a bit of exercise, going to work. So far it has been working - sort of. I tend to get to work 5 minutes later than I want to, but since nothing is pressing at the moment and I'm still getting used to the whole work routine, I'm giving myself a little grace on that one. Oddly waking up five minutes earlier doesn't make me get to work on time, so I think it's just urgency after I get back from the run and getting over the disinclination to put on clean work clothes onto a still quite warm body.
Strangely enough one of my favourite times of the day is the morning commute to work. I pop in some head phones and tune into a podcast - most usually one from On Being, the Bible Project, or (most recently) emergence magazine. I've listened to interviews on subjects including silence, prayer, killer whales, gangs, the anthropocene, and the theology of work. Sometimes I listen to podcasts on the way home but other times I feel rather brain dead and instead put on some Dusty Springfield or one of the Sidchoir term playlists for some good old sacred music. (Ne irascaris makes my soul soar, while Hymn to St Cecilia puts a spring into my step!)
I made a chocolate and beetroot cake last night, and improvised with the icing by putting in some silken tofu - let's see how that goes when Jacob comes over to make our monthly newsletter. The newsletter was inspired partly by the prayer letter-emails I'd receive from friends who had graduated or friends who had gone on years abroad, and partly by the chatty newsletters I subscribe to from Hannah Brencher and Wild We Roam. I want it to be a document of our time here together both for our friends but also for us, to see how God is faithful even when we might not see it.
So in other words, despite my trepidation, things are well.
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