A Lofty Farewell

Bidding an unexpected farewell to my lovely loft. Will definitely miss the bright natural sunlight that streams in during the daytime, the cozy and quiet weekends, the beautiful parquet flooring, the airy high ceilings, the 4 solid walls of the bathroom, my very lived-in living room and all the little touches I've added here and there to make it  home. 

But as they say, with endings comes new beginnings. So looking forward to making a home with my new roomie (who celebrates her 22nd bday today!); to the sharing of comfortable silences and what will surely be many crazy moments, to learning together and from each other.

Forward ho! 

Home Additions

While still trying to keep the clutter at a minimum, made a few more additions to the home: some of my photos up on the wall, and 2 new chairs.

One chair I added to my kitchen table so I am not at the mercy of the floor / coffee table or a stool when I want to get some proper work done.

With the other chair, I created a new little space in my studio - a reading nook! It's in between the fridge, washing machine and bathroom so admittedly, it is in a strange place, but I personally don't mind.  I wanted to make the most of the natural light and thus, wanted to create a space around the largest window in my room. It tends to get a little dark by the other window deeper in my room; I wind up using artificial light when it starts to get dark which I feel is rather silly if the other end of my room is still bright! Oh, and it finally gave me an excuse to buy the chair I was obsessed about years ago!

These were "impulse" purchases. Impulse in the sense that I made a last minute decision to run to IKEA at 9pm one evening to buy and lug these home, "impulse" in the sense that I really have been sitting on this idea for quite some time now.

A lot of people wait until they own their home before making an effort to make it.. homey. To be fair, I was, and in some regard, still am of the same mind frame. Why make an effort to invest in a place that isn't yours? At the same time though - who knows what the future holds for any of us? I still have no idea where I want to make a permanent home for myself, or if I even want to ever own my own home. I know it's rather cliche but all we can be certain of IS today right? So while I'm making the most of my present, I may as well make the most of where I'm living too.

On another note, I just signed for another year in my little home. My my my - how fast a year can fly by!

Neighborhood Digressions

Living in this area, and in my studio has it's ups and downs.

Downs? I apparently can't get cable as per my landlord's last try! Because we're only 12 units, it's too costly for Starhub to wire up this whole place!! Harumph! Will try my luck anyway and see what they say.

Another down which I was quite aware of when I came in, is of course, distance from an MRT. Bus is fine and dandy but sometimes, you just wanna get somewhere a little faster without having to pay a mint for it. Flashback to an evening I spent $50 on cab fares because I had to shuffle back and forth from the city to my home due to bad planning from my end.

One big up, is the immediate neighborhood. I like that I'm surrounded by a maze of homes. While this new patchwork of homes are ironically more magulo than what I have back home, it definitely makes my evening (power) walks feel more familiar as jogging about the neighborhood has been a long time practice of mine.

I knew the details of my old neighborhood like the back of my hand - what to expect on certain streets, and would always notice when something was different. Familiarizing myself with my new neighborhood and paving my exercise route will take some time, but just as living Singapore went from unfamiliar to familiar FAST, surely it will be the same for this.

I always find it interesting to look at different types of abodes and get a glimpse of what people are up to. In Singapore, I've found that people are not as private as in Manila.. or perhaps maybe because it's safer? While the gates are closed, many home owners leave their front doors and windows wide open.

As always, I digress. Back to "up" experiences.

I recently made my way to East Coast Park, which runs along the shoreline. It's a 15 - 20 min walk from home so it will be a nice route alternative for daylight exercise bouts (which hardly ever happen). I've seen grander parks for sure, & coming from a country with 7107 islands, it is FAR from being remotely beach like. BUT, i must give it to the locals as they seem to TRULY enjoy the space. Never mind that a major highway runs along one side, and oil tankers can be seen in the far distance on the other side - people enjoy this park like its no one's business. I only explored a portion of the park, but the little I saw was bustling! There were groups of people kite flying, bike riding, pitching tents and lolling about, picnic-ing and BBQ-ing, building sandcastles (in this little square patch of land for sand castle building, lol), jogging, skate boarding, enjoying water sports in their small man-made lagoon... the list goes on.

Lastly, another big up are the amount of doggies in the neighborhood. I seriously can't get enough of it. Every morning while I wait for my bus, I see dogs being walked.  I go out for an evening jog, I see even more dogs being walked. I think on average I see about 15 dogs in the evening? Not including the doggies I see woofing at me from behind closed gates. Another special treat is the pet supply store below my studio. Owned by some peeps who train dogs for competitions, I always ALWAYS get a kick out of peering into their store and seeing their 6 look-a-like black and white doggies jumping about. I saw a help sign on their window recently and was very tempted to call. hehe.


Ups for sure outweigh the downs and I hope to God that rent doesn't go up next year as I'd like to build my home here while I'm away.

Home Happiness & Then Some

One last home discovery I forgot to mention in my last entry:

• Dylon: my jeans stained this bright yellow silk shirt I recently bought. Was pretty bummed as I didn't even have a chance to wear it. Was wandering through a random store this weekend and found (in the arts & crafts section no less), a product called DYLON. This particular product claimed to restore "items stained by colour runs". I figured what the hell, let's give it a go. Guess what? My shirt's as good as new. Now if only I could get my hands on a product that would iron / press laundry so when you pull it out of the washing machine it's wrinkle free. 

On another not so happy home note:

• Iron Burn: Thrilled to finally use my mini table top ironing board from IKEA (which I think I bought more because I thought it was cute), to iron my sheets. I sat on the floor doing this only because I thought it would be easier to manage a bed sheet that way. Unsurpisingly, the iron found it's way out of my hands and onto my bare thigh. Thankfully thigh lang diba? You shouldn't be too surprised to hear though that this isn't the first ironing accident I've had - I burned my costume the first time I ironed on tour in 2001. Then on another tour in 2006 I burned my hand. Ironing burn victim twice on tour and once living on my own - I think I've pretty much given away my personal ironing habits. 
• Internet: the connection has been more spotty than usual. I should be grateful for the "free" internet but it's recently been getting to me. Hopefully the people providing the upgrade (fibre optics!) will do it soonest. 

Home Happiness

Made some recently "needed" acquisitions that sweetened my last week:

• Hand Vacuum: At an attempt to create specific areas in my studio, I purchased a rug without realizing the kind of upkeep it needed. In true cheapskate style, I tried to get by cleaning the rug by brushing, sweeping, "lint-rolling"(ie: SCOTCH TAPING). All of the above took too damn long so I caved in an purchased a hand vacuum. Recently finished with it's initial 16-hour charge, it is patiently waiting for me at home so I can give it a test drive tonight. 

• Suction Fixtures: tried to stay away from this for the longest time as I've always found them kinda tacky. Unfortunately, I can't drill holes into my walls without having to go through the trouble of plugging up the holes when I move out. And between suctioning something to a wall, and drilling holes- suctioning was an easy choice. Hee hee. Thankfully the fixtures I found weren't too much of an eyesore. And now my mind is soaring with everything else I can adhere to walls via suction / strong adhesive. I currently have a small shelf in the bathroom and a "towel" rack in my closet. The bathroom fixture's main purpose is to provide me with a place to hang up a hand towel and my jammies, PLUS make use of some badly used space in an already small bathroom. The rail in the closet was a solution to hang used clothes for reuse (ie: jeans, etc). Will need to add an additional rail above that, as well as some "S" hooks for my necklaces. Weeee! Excited. 

• New Sheets: I borrowed really lovely sheets from a friend. I changed them recently with some sheets I purchased at IKEA when I first arrived here. While visually quite lovely, it feels incredibly different to the touch. Magnify that by my body's surface area. While I didn't think it would make too much of a difference, my body apparently felt differently as I tossed and turned the whole night :) So while I didn't get the exact sheets I wanted (bloody expensive!), I did get some sheets which I do think will be a nice middle ground. Never mind that I discovered I purchased a size too large when I went home, I'm excited to try them out in a few weeks. But "bloody expensive" sheets - I've got my eye on you. I'll own you one day!

I was wondering why I've recently not been too excited to purchase clothes / shoes / bags. Looks like the girlie need to shop is still there, I've just expanding the objects of my desire.