I am not dead.

I have been promising my mother for over a month now that I would write a new blog entry -- she tells me that nobody is going to read this thing anymore because it's been so long since I wrote. I think she's probably right, but I decided -- damn the torpedoes -- I will write a blog entry instead of homework, and so here we go.

It's Friday night here in Singapore, and I went to a restaurant called Bar Bar Blacksheep for dinner, where I devoured what must be one of the tastiest burgers in the world. It's in this part of Singapore called Holland Village which is largely populated by ex-patriots, so it's unsurprising that here is where the Burger would be found. It wasn't technically a restaurant, actually, it was more like a Hawker Center for white folk, which is kind of a conundrum in and of itself, but it worked somehow. And nestled between the beer bar and the Indian food -- lo, the Burger. True to Singaporean fashion, you don't get much choice where the Burger is involved, nor do they care to tell you anything about it before they serve it to you except that it is beef and you may have cheese on it. Actually, they didn't say you could have cheese on it, I just told them to put cheese on it, after asking with big puppy dog eyes whether or not it was possible. So they put this monster down in front of me and I quickly realize that they've put not only cheese and mayonnaise on the burger, but also caramelized onions. I'm not a big fan of onions on the whole, but I figured: what the hell. Try something new. So I took a big ol' bite, and -- holy crap -- there are onions ALL UP in this burger. Cooked right into the patty itself. And I have to tell y'all -- it was delicious. So, thank you, Singapore. Your onion-mayonnaise-cheesy-burger of goodness is one for the books.

In other news, I've been working on a full-length play about grave-robbing in London in 1826, and a feature length movie about space pirates and an intergalactic civil war -- so, needless to say, that's why I've been too busy to blog of late. I also got incredibly sick a few weeks ago, after I spent my Asian Halloween drinking and dancing in the rain on Arab Street, which I hesitate to say I regret doing, despite the subsequent week of plague. There's something magical about getting drunk and dancing in the street in your bare feet while locals pound trashcans and drums on the curb, cheering you on. Might be worth the fever. But I'm not really in a hurry for a repeat performance, so don't worry.

Richard Wesley, the head of the Tisch Dramatic Writing Department, was here visiting last weekend -- we of the writing department convened at a restaurant here in S'pore that specializes in Peranakan food. I ate a dish called ayam buah keluak, which involves the poisonous nut from a tree in Indonesia, the fruit of which is called a "football fruit". The nut is poisonous until detoxified in very specific ways, and at least one of them involves burying it in ash for like two weeks or something. Complicated stuff. So they cook it and take it out of the shell, mash it down into a paste, and then stuff it back into the shell, and later on you come along with your little nut-spoon and scoop it out and eat it. I can compare it to the mole sauce of Mexican cuisine, except...it is very, very weird. But I ate it and did not die, so I'll take it. I've resolved never to eat blowfish unless I'm in Japan.

Look, a picture!


We're writers, look at us...eat...

I've also been working on a script with my new friend Lizz, called King Con, which she will set about filming in the months to come -- it's about anime and cosplay, and so you can all imagine how tickled I am.

Look, another picture!


There's me and Lizz at the Halloween party -- before the drunk, and the dancing, and the rain. She went as Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, and that's my drunken, artistic attempt at drawing Starbuck's tattoo on her arm with eyeliner. Trust me, it looked better before the rain.

At any rate, now you can all see that I am not dead. And that I have not forgotten you. And that I am busy, but I'm still managing to have fun as the occasion arises.

Tune in next time, sports fans, when SEAN makes her debut in Singapore, and on the rampant adventures of the Intrepid Non-traveler. Right here, at indostine.blogspot.com.

Cheers!

My plant is still alive, which is more than can be said for certain sections of my brain.

More to come.

Just wanna send a quick shout-out to Mama Ellis -- it's her birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Have a glass of wine and relax on this, your ::garblegarble::th birthday!

Love you. :)

Just a quick update for all you worriers out there (hello, Parents!), as news of the gigantic earthquake yesterday in Indonesia siphoned at last to the States, I have been getting a buttload of emails from y'all wondering if I'm okay.

Never you fear -- I slept straight through it, and didn't feel a tremor.

That being said, please keep the Indonesians in your prayers in the coming weeks, because the 'quake and subsequent tsunami has been totally devastating to Sumatra.

pauer.

For those more curious about the previously mentioned pau, here you go:


The Malaysian pau comes in varying shapes and sizes, though this is the traditional look of this little treat. Sometimes they're little and sometimes they're big.

While she was here, Jenny embarked on a mission to try new things, and so upon seeing this delight served at breakfast one day, she picked it up. Perhaps unwisely, she cut into it with a fork and forth from said pau oozed an...ooze. Not particularly appetizing in color or consistency. Courageously, Jenny ate it anyway. And discovered that it was delicious!

Now we know you're supposed to just shove it all in your mouth at once and do your best, though some of them (specifically the ones at the 7-11) are freaking gigantic, and even Andre the Giant would have problems fitting a whole one into his maw.

They are traditionally filled with either pork or sweetened red bean curd (the bean came to be Jenny's favorite), and can taste more like a dessert than part of a meal, but that's not uncommon in Malaysian food, I'm coming to find. They like sweet and spicy and not a whole lot in between.

Anyway, that's the pau. And this concludes our lesson on Malaysian cuisine. :)

a happy journey starts like that.

My mother tells me I don't talk enough here about the minutiae of Singapore life.

That's because, by and large, it's all minutiae. But I will endeavor now to give you more observations from the 'Stine station, and we'll see where we end up.

Let me see.

My walk to school is only about 12 minutes long, when you incorporate the bus. The bus here in Singapore costs anywhere from 70 cents to 80 cents, Sing, and the buses are pretty high-class. That's because the MRT system, awesome though it is, doesn't really cover as much ground as one might like. It isn't like the NYC subway system, using which you can basically get to anywhere in the city. The Singapore MRT will take you certain places, but a 15 minute walk from the MRT stop to your destination is not uncommon (vis a vis: school, for me). So we take the bus.

The bus maps make no sense, and the schedules are entirely arbitrary. You just kind of go sit there, and pray. The buses are by numbers, but I can't see that there's much correlation. By my apartment stops the 132, 32, 45, 145, 33...and who knows what else. I take the 132 one stop to school, and then march my fine ass up a steep hill. So don't worry, I still get the workout in after I pay my 70 cents. There are TVs on all the buses, and they play alternately Japanese cartoons or Singaporean soap opera. I can't tell you yet which I prefer.

People in Singapore have perfected the art of the mosey. I've already said that walking behind a group of locals is like trudging through sand; nobody has anywhere to be. It hasn't gotten any better. Though today I got stuck behind a white couple (obviously tourists) and felt much like I did trying to get from the NWR at 34th to Penn Station, trapped behind people in Hawaiin shirts with big cameras. These people weren't looking up at the buildings though, they were just zigging when they should've zagged, and blond.

There is a lemming mentality in Singapore the likes of which I have never encountered before. There are literally diagrams on the subway floors to show you how to let people get OFF the train first, and there are countless signs and videos that say things like: Don't play, play -- let me come out first! Be courteous, and allow me to alight instead of trampling me!

I'm serious. Photographic evidence.


I swear, I did not photoshop that picture.

I dunno who that guy is, but he's in all the videos too, doing awful rap songs about "a happy journey starts like that" and whatnot. If I could find the video for y'all, I would.

...Hm.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why youtube exists. You can see the most preposterous public transit rap video of all time, and revel in it.

Can you imagine if they showed things like this on the NYC subway? People would like...purposefully piss on subway cars in full view of the public just to let everyone know that they COULD. In Singapore, people barely notice. And this kind of cheesy tripe is everywhere. On the buses, the windows of stores, there are flags and shit. But it's just their way. Nobody in America would buy into that kind of propaganda, but it totally works here.

I mean, they still try to run you over when you're getting off the MRT, but otherwise it works.

In other news, I'm kind of a baby and do my grocery shopping at the extremely Western supermarket by school. Well I did today. I'm going to try doing some rice and beans and that kind of stuff because it's easy and doesn't involve an oven (one of which I do not have). The food at school is pretty wretched, and I've been surviving on omelet sandwiches and things like that, because I don't really have the time/energy for full-on cooking. And there is no pizza place.

God, I miss pizza.

Of the food chains available here in Singapore, we have McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, and...Long John Silver's -- which I haven't seen in the States for like a decade, but is apparently thriving in Asia. Who knew. None of these places hold much interest for me (except for the occasional Bic Mac craving -- BMF, I know you're with me here), and you'd be surprised how absolutely impossible it is to just find a SANDWICH of some kind. Here be the land of no hoagies, subs, or gyros. Fried chicken and french fries, though, is universal.

Alcohol is an atrocity and so expensive it makes me want to quit drinking. Almost.

There are 7-11s on every corner and of course Mr. Bean, which I haven't said much about but I've linked to the website, and that really should be enough. It needs be noted that when Jenny was here she discovered the power of the Pau, which is a dumpling-kind of food that they serve EVERYWHERE to one degree or another, even in 7-11, and if nothing else that I say is true, know this: there is pauer in the Pau.

That being said, I think that's about as much minutiae as I can manage on this day, after writing a one-act, a screenplay and a 10-page scene in the style of Sophocles. I'll take more careful notes in the days approaching.

Over and out, blogger.

all aboard.

And the weeks roll by.

I finished my one-act play today for Playwriting -- well, I suppose I should say, I wrote the first draft of a one-act play that I will likely be rewriting for the rest of my life.

Bill has said -- and even he admits that it could just be heresay -- that Tennessee Williams, on his deathbed, was still trying to rewrite Glass Menagerie. So I guess that says a thing or two about the lifestyle that I have chosen. Well, and the degree of what remains of my sanity.

At any rate, Charlie and the Express Train have left the station.

Now I'm left with a screenplay that I hate, a presentation on Aristophanes, and a 10-page scene in the style of Sophocles, Aeschylus or Euripides, and a butt-ton of reading due throughout the week. It might seem like I have a head-start, given that it's Friday, but all these things are relative in Graduate School, I assure you. No matter where in the world you might be.

In other news: Happy Birthday, Dad! My father is Fifty...::garblegarble::...today! Everyone take a moment and wish him the best. I'm sure he's got one or two last good games of golf left in him. ;)

I'm sorry that I have very little to report, but I'm really not kidding when I say that I've been so busy lately that I've barely had time to sleep. I do crunches when I can't think anymore, because they hurt. I do yoga to make myself sweat because they say that's good for you. And I eat yogurt because it's fast. If these things sound terrible, I promise they're not. AND I've lost a jean size!

For those of you in Philly, my screenwriting teacher has a play going up at People's Light in Malvern, October 14-17. If you're interested in going to see it, let me know, and I'll find out what the times are. I know my parents are going, and y'all know how they love company.

Anyway, back to the grind. Time to make a man's life miserable.

See? Grad school ain't that bad.