Boo-urns. Booooooo-urns.

Today, I went to Sentosa Island with the EAP crew, which is essentially a big, fat tourist trap full of big, fat tourist-y things like laser light shows, 4-D movies, a big statue of a Merlion with eyes that glow neon green at night, and other flash-bang attractions intending to fool you into shelling out money to buy their hokey souvenirs. The point is, somewhere between the morning of boarding the bus and the evening of being back in the residence halls, I lost my cell phone.

Now if Robbie (my apartment mate) was here with me, he would probably find it in a very obvious place where I misplaced it and call me a slut, which is what usually happens when I am back in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, I am in Singapore, which means that somewhere between NUS and Sentosa Island, my cell phone is being held hostage by a very malevolent force. Sad, sad, sad. I guess I will have to shell out approximately one hundred Singaporean dollars tomorrow at Clementine, the nearest shopping center, to regain cellular connection with the rest of the world.

In spite of my immense irritation / confusion, I am trying hard to keep things in perspective. After all, there are far worse things to lose when you are traveling abroad. Such as: a passport. Or a wallet. Or a limb. Or your soul.

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Even if you are in another country, you are still occupying the same internal landscape of your own personhood. It's a naive expectation on my part that going to the other side of the world will somehow allow me to escape certain issues that I have been mulling over before I left. As someone pointed out to me, you are still you even if you happen to be in Singapore and not back home.

Going abroad has a way of making you overly contemplative.


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UPDATE:

So just kidding. Someone found my cell phone on the bus. I am one lucky duck.

Went to Singapore's one Ikea store today. Unfortunately, they did not have what I was looking for: Christmas lights to amp up some mood lighting in my otherwise bare and boring room. The search continues.