"Its fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A"-- "The YMCA", Village People

Well since I have some extra time on my hands, I figured I might as well do an actual posting for the first time in a while, instead of just some randomness.I am currently in Singapore, staying at... the YMCA. Oh and unlike what the song says, this is not the place to stay if you are, "short on your dough." But its the nicest place I've been in over a month. It has A/C, no bed bugs, in fact no bugs of any kind, decent food, and the most exciting thing on the planet, a shower w/ a shower door. I've gotten all too acustomed to bathrooms where there's just a drain on the floor in the corner and the shower head usually pointing whereever you think you should put your towel and clothes.

Though being surrounded by motivational christian phrases/pictures, the constant christian rock music, and the mass gatherings everyother day is a little bit on the bizarre side... reminds me a bit of the few times i went to Young Life.

This here is the View from my room…

And this is the building next door… had trouble getting a great picture here…

Singapore is like a giant mall with roads running through it. Even the Supreme Court building has shops and "mall stuff" inside it... in fact even the hospital is set up like a mall and has a full chain-store drug store in it. Its kinda bizarre. And its more or less the same shops in each building... with just slightly different styles of stuff. And its all name brand shops... Gucci, Louie Vitton, etc. Lucky for my wallet very few things fit me as they are all made for little Asian women. Though I have been very tempted to go accessorizing, especially because its mid-year, meaning the great Singapore Sale is on. I don't really see whats so great about it, everything still seems pretty pricey.There are also tons of spa and massage places around. Especially reflexology places. I think that people here get things like that done the way they get hair cuts. Its just something you do once a month to keep happy and balanced or whatever.

I took advantage of the abundance of cheap fancy hairstylists, and yes, I got a really cute manicure.

It has tons of sky scrapers and lots of fun night clubs and bars that have crazy themes, like “the clinic” where they serve drinks from iv bags, or they show dirty jokes on tv screens.

And then there was this pretty cool street full of fans.

There’s also a lot of cool cultural centers… Little India was awesome, and definitely promotes me wanting to visit India, and there was also the muslim district with awesome architecture and surprisingly chill bars and places to hang out.

I've finished up my whole one week of class here, Comparative Legal Systems of South East Asia. Which for many of you out there would probably make you want to poke your eye out, but its really right up my ally... except that it repeated a lot of stuff that I learned in Comparative Governments of SE Asia, way back when I was Sophmore. The law kids are really great, and I get on w/ them really well, kinda sad we had a week together. But two of them will be in Cambodia w/ me which should be good. Its nice to be back around a bunch of Americans again... or maybe its nice to be back around people my own age.We got to check out the district attorneys office and the Supreme Court.

This here are a few of our boys looking sharp… Ari, Dave, Matt, and Rocky.

Unfortunately the past few days haven't been particularly great. I managed to get some sort of bacterial infection, and have basically been in bed since friday. So rather than heading out to Cambodia yesterday, I opted to stay in a place w/one of the best healthcare systems in the world, rather than go to one with one of the worst systems. So on Wed. I'll be heading out to Cambodia, and starting my internship on Thursday. Oh, and i'm doing better now; fever finally broke and I'm more or less eating solid food again... and lots of anti-biotics... Yay!

The running joke with my friends is my reaction to being ill… we were about to have lunch at the Supreme Court and I just decide that I need to leave… And for whatever reason I turn to Matt and go, “so hey, if you guys go out drinking tonight let me know”… This made my exit seem exceedingly shady… In my defense, I had figured that I just had a migraine and I would be fine in a few hours… few hours later, wasn’t really better, had started running a fever and things… but was definitely way out of it enough to claim I was feeling better… next day I ended up worse, headed to the clinic… had about a 104 degree fever… didn’t move for next few days.So hopefully next time I post, I will be in Cambodia, and it should be with pictures!Hope you all are well,Feel free to drop me some e-mails or comments or whatever, I'd love to hear from ya's!