Here are some of the thoughts going through my mind as I think about Singapore

+ Close to home – frequent trips home. Especially advantageous for kuttyma – she is bonding wonderfully with family something which would have been difficult if we stayed in Houston

+ The city in itself is green, clean and beautifully maintained (A visitor to Singapore pointed this out to me. Sometimes I oversee the obvious and hate myself for it) . It is a great city and above all it is super-safe. Crime rates are very low given the population density (again when you or someone close to you is not targeted it fades into the background till someone shoves it at your face and reminds you of the forgotten fact)

+ Tamil is a national language. My Tamil is really not great by any means but I want kuttyma to be able to read, converse and write in Tamil. Learning it in school as a second language is much easier than private lessons or so I feel.

+ Public Transport – love the way the city is connected

On the flip side

– The education/enrichment culture scares me. 75% of people in Singapore believe – preschoolers (kids aged 4 and above) need to be in enrichment classes. I do not wish to be a statistic and I know I can do what I want when it comes to kuttyma’s education but peer pressure and the rat race will eventually take over.

– Allergies. I fall sick so often. There is something in the air that makes me sick and I am still figuring out what it is. The PSI numbers released by the National Environmental Agency and my allergies are related and knowing what I know, there is no way I can get away from it unless the air cleans itself or my body fights the allergens.

– Housing cost – one of the reasons Singapore is not home yet is because we live in a partly-furnished rental unit and have a 2 year contract. It just does not feel like it is mine. The kind of houses I like do not fit in our budget.

– Public Transport – takes up a lot of my time. I make sure I carry a book and read at bus stops, train stations, buses and trains but I still feel like I am wasting time struck in buses and trains. The time I spend on grocery runs and errands seem to take forever when it should not. I have never felt so when I commuted 30+ minutes in Houston.

– Work-life balance – I read an article titled “5 things every Singaporean should do before he is 35” and point 5 on it was – have a second job/income generator. It had me thinking. What is Singapore doing differently? I have no answers to the genric question. But looking at our lives, I feel that we spend too much time commuting to and fro work, heading to stores, walking up and down malls in search of groceries and catching up with work over the weekend than actually unwind. I still think we are doing something wrong. 1 year in and I have no answers. This baffles me.

– The unwanted: I am suddenly aware of people staring at me, catcalls, snide comments etc. I thought I left those days behind in India. I never felt it in all the years in Houston. Now it is back. And worst part is I will have to teach kuttyma how to deal with all this crap. I am just not ready for it folks.

I enter our second year with a positive frame of mind and with hopes things will fall into place. Here is to our second year in Singapore!