Singapore Life

So it's already the end of June! What is going on?! So I am currently looking for a teaching job - and back to the lady of leisure lifestyle. Met a girl (ironically went to Drexel), Sabryna, and she too is not working and we have been ladies of leisure together. It has been interesting, and I think now I am finally coming to terms with my days and enjoying them! Although it sounds easier and more enticing than it is. I live on a small island so it's been a challange. I hope to start working in August - and two girlfriends Kelly and Kate from college, are coming to visit for 9 days end of July into August. We have big plans and it's the highlight of my summer - cannot wait girls! More to come from that trip for sure.

Hope you are all enjoying your summers

Langkawi is an amazing island at the northern most tip of Malaysia, and known for its beautiful white beaches and crystal waters. It is actually made up of 99 islands, some of which are hardly inhabitable islands, but none the less still islands!

Trav and I took a quick 3 day weekend trip up north to Langkawi and literally vegged out at our little resort! It is only a 1 1/2 hour flight so we couldn't pass up the opportunity - and lots of our friends over here raved about the beautiful white sanded beaches and quaint beach town.

We stayed at a small little rustic resort mid-way down the coast called "Sunset Beach Resort", in a portioned off bungalow hut. The beach was a few hundred feet away, accessorized with rattan lounging furniture and palm trees as our bit of shade. We spent most of the time lounging, reading, eating in the sun. Next door was a great little restaurant to hobble over to and get a bite to each , taking a break from the sunshine.

Needless to say, cheap great Malaysian food , beer and wine being even cheaper- all done beachside, made for a great weekend getaway that was much needed to celebrate, and get Trav away after many long days and hard efforts at work.

It will definatley be a return trip for us at somepoint - but there are so many amazing beaches and places to see over here in Asia, we must continue on.....Where next you mioght ask? Not sure.....in the pipeline are Krabi/KohLanta Thailand, South Korea and India for end of summer and fall.

I simply cannot belive we are already halfway into the month of March!! Time here just flies by, and I believe it is because everyday here is the same - same temperature, same sunrise/sunset time, same season, same same same!

However, things in our personal/work lives here in Singapore are changing this spring....

Trav is about to start a "asia tour" with work, where he will be traveling to all their asia warehouse/company locations for the next 4 weeks! A non-stop tour means he will also be changing/traveling over weekends, so I may not literally see him until mid April! "What will she do!?" you must be thinking.....No worries I have a jam packed March and April ahead!

My life of leisure has become less leisurly and more structured. I have a part time job at a furniture store in a Mall called Park Mall that houses only furniture and interior design companies. We sell wood vaneer lamps and teak furniture made in Bankok Thailand. The little store is called Orchid Hom. A co-worker and friend Caitlin and I worked on putting up a revised website: check it out! http://www.orchidhome.com.sg
For now it is a great part time job - I am meeting lots of interesting people and learning alot about the interior design business as well as just asian retail in general! I work about 5 days during the week there with 2 other (ironicially) american girls.

But that is not all.....So my weekends are not spent poolside and exploring like they used to be either! (man I should have thought twice about losing my life of liesure!) I started taking TESOL classes at a school here in Singapore. TESOL stands for Teaching English to Students of Other Languages. This class is going to give me a certification where I can teach at language schools or tutor with.

So far I am loving it- except for the fact that it is 6 hours in a classroom, and on Sat and Sun! YIKES......We are learning how to "teach" - learning methodology techniques, recaps on speaking, listening, writing, reading, lesson planning, and a quick brush up on grammar. One interesting thing I learned last Sunday at class, was how I was so lost on how to explain exactly why we use simple present, present continuous, etc. - and answer the why why why logics of the english language - NOT SO EASY! My teacher explained because english was my native tongue, a lot of my learning was just intuitive, and from listening to people as we grew up. (Kind of like you learn your first words off of picking up a common phrase your parents/family used!) SO this is a challange, in that I need to go back down to a structural level of english and understand how I am going to explain it - not just say "yes that is correct-just because." Any way I will be reading grammar books in my free time, practicing pronunciations and vowel sounds as well. At the end of the 5 week course I will have 10 hours of practicum, where I will be teaching 5 hours of language lesson in 2 different schools. The program director hopes that his practicum will lead to a job, and if not his company will help me through the networking of finding a school to work with. In all it should give me a good insight into teaching, and it is a certification that I can bring with me wherever I end up after our time here!

So work, class, and business travel it is for Trav and I this spring. Hopefully the start of summer months will bring TRAVEL! YAY!

Hope Spring brings you all something other than blizzards and torrential rain storms -both east and west coasters!

So I cannot believe it is already the first week into February! I feel like I just returned to Sing! It was nice to arrive back to beautiful weather! In fact as I figured I would I struggled badly with the 13 hour time difference jet lag, so I spent my first few days poolside - being that is all I could physically bring myself to do!

The first weekend back, it was Travis' birthday on that Saturday, so I planned us a little getaway to Bintan Island, Indonesia. Bintan and Batam Island are off the southern coast of Indonesia. It is a 40 minute ferry ride from Singapore - I guess it's a weekend getaway comparable to NYC and The Hamptons.

We stayed our first night in a bungalow resort which would have been fabulous minus the other guests. Let's just say the resort forgot to inform us we would be the only other guests there that were NOT a part of the university reunion group that were staying there! Music and partying until 5 am - and people a thin bamboo wall does not muffle a bit of that kind of noise! Needless to say we were "those" people who complained first thing the next morning and got changed up to the sister resort up the road where our new hut was much much better!!! Who would have thought?!! Getting older much?

All in all it was a great birthday trip - we got massages and ate great indonesian food and got some relaxing in!

Put up some pictures from the weekend as well as some Singapore pics with Chinese New Year decorations and events starting! The true Chinese Lunar New Year starts next week so will post more on that event- pretty cool to see! Happy Lunar New Year or as they say "Gong Xi Fa Chi" !

Sibling Shot

Us Tartaglio kids were lucky enough to spend 6 days together in St. Thomas at Matt's new home - it was an amazing time!

We got to tour the island- the true side of the island which was a great experience. We saw what Matt's work life is like at Coral World - and we were even lucky enough to do some of the activities they have! We swam with the sea lions, sea turtles and did snuba diving.

To top off the trip Matt had a friend of his who has a boat, charter us all on a day trip to the British Virgin Islands (BVI's). We went to Taboo, Sydney, and Norman Island. Was a boat trip we will always remember - too much fun maybe?? ahahh never!

Enjoy the photos! ( in my gallery on the side of this page --->

So most of you I got to see over my Trip home to Mom's in Malvern, for the Holidays! I had a jam packed Christmas break full of visiting, lunches, dinners, and of course......more traveling!

I arrived home the 2nd week of December to some very brisk weather! Of course I just missed the fluke warm/mild days, and made it in time for the chill to come in. Mom picked me up from the airport and we headed home just in time for me to visit a bit with the fam, before passing out! My first week I was literally worthless, and was on all kinds of weird hours, so sleep was all I could do to catch up.

My favorit beginnig memory was heading up to NYC with my friend Jen to go see our friends Jenny and Steve. Being silly us, we did not check the weather for the "crippling" snow storm that was to arrive the next day. Needless to say we were stranded in NYC (thanks JO and Steve for hosting us in your little humble abode!!) . The snow was AMAZING!!!!!!

Before I knew it is was Christmas shopping and preparations for our annual Xmas Eve Party with family. I loved being home!

Some may have heard, but there was a last minute change to my final return back to Singapore. So less than 48 hours before my flight (and let me mention I was checked in ) Trav said he had a last minute business trip home to the states the week after New Years. He suggested maybe I stay, with no charge to change the flight I concurred. So instead of staying put however, still with my travel urges, I tagged along with Dan and Paul to visit Matt is St. Thomas! ROUGH - I know!

We had a blast in St. Thomas - and let me just tell you Matt is living quite the Islander's life down there! His place has an amazing view and he has a great group of friends down there! We got to do the coral world events: swimming with the sea lions, snuba diving, and swimming with the turtles. We also had a friend of Matt's, Austin, take us on a boat trip to the British Virgin Islands- went to 3 different BVI's and had a trip of a lifetime. Hey the boys even let me take over 200 pictures, them included, so you know it had to be good!

So all in all I had quite an amazing Holiday season. I finally got to catch up with Trav in Boston and we traveled down to visit with friends in Connecticut, before we headed back to Sing!

Hope you all had an amazing Holiday Season and Happy 2010!! Hope to have some visitors in the New Year - Start that saving........

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So the month of November has seemed to just slip by! I am not sure if it is because I am anxious for my trip home for the holidays or if it is lack of season change that I am used to? Even as it slipped by, November has been an eventful month.

We moved and got settled which was the biggest thing. Now that we are officially unpacked and have our own stuff, we have started in on our new routine, which should last us on through. Well atleast for now, because I have still not found a job but have made that my full time job. I was set up with a career coach who has been helping me fix up my resume (which they refer to over here as a CV), and she has also been giving me tips and working with me on strengthening the cultural differences I may experience in the search as well as interviews. It has been an interesting experience that I am glad I am able to have! So now I have made networking and job searching a full time job, wherever I go!

A few weekends back, Trav and I were invited to see the National Rugby tournament at the Singapore Cricket Club. It was a tented event with teams from all over Asia, Australia, and NZ. The Cricket Club team is one Trav has been playing with, and hopes to join in full time - as his love for Rugby has continued so over here. It also helps that his friend Mark plays (and was the one to originally get him into it) and is still here in Singapore.

Lastly this month, we missed all our family and friends for the Thanksgiving Holiday! They do not celebrate over here, although a few restaurants had special menus. We spent Thurs night relaxing and made plans to cook on Sunday night with a few friends. And Yes, they did have butterball turkey's and all the fixins! I even made a pecan pie. Of course we don't have an oven in our apt. so we went to Mark's place and cooked it all there.

Friday night however we had the St. Andrew's Feast aka Scottish Ball at the Shangri-La hotel. It was an amazing black tie dinner and night of scottish jig dancing. Of course Trav didn't have a tuxedo, and it would have been a nightmare to find a tux for a 6'5 man over here in asia, so we did what most do over here because its cheap and easy - had one made. He now officially has a custom made tuxedo. I went gown shopping which unfortunately was torture (and we all know how much I love to shop). But I finally found something at a department store called Tangs which is like a Lord and Taylor. All in all it was a great night except for the fact that we had NO idea how to dance the traditional dances. And to top it off , people went around with dance cards to pull partners for random dances. Trav was picked several times and he did great! Of course anytime we got up there they showed us what to do and it ended up being a blast. We met so many great people as well, and of course I networked networked networked!!

So this will be the last blog until the new year because I will be home for the holidays! I look forward to seeing who I can and a visit to the cold will be nice! I hope!? We'll see! Trav will be staying in Singapore, and he is heading off the the Olympics in Vancouver with his family in February so that will be his next trip home. Happy Holidays to all - and be in touch next year!!

So we have officially settled down into our new place! It's a great apartment in an area known as Robertson Quay ( quay is pronounced 'key'). There are 3 Quay neighborhoods, and all are along the river and contain lots of restuarants and bars - very happening- which I love!

We moved in on Sunday and Monday came all of our shipped goods from the US! It was a total of 14 boxes and furniture, and man have I been busy unpacking! It is nice to have familiar things and personal items surrounding us! I must say though, it has only been 4 days and i already miss the morning breakfasts and room cleanings that we were lucky to have at our temporary residence apartment. Now it's on me to make breakfast, make the bed, and clean -Imagine that!!

Anyway I have attached photos of our quaint little place, and again it's pre- personal goods so its not really that sterile looking anymore!