this should go below the picture... but blogger keeps messing up!

yesterday i turned the big 2-4 --thanks for all the birthday wishes from home! it was the best 36 hours of birthday i ever had ;)

this pic of us is at cafe iguana- which is in clarke quay -- a strip of clubs and restaurants and such along the riverside here in singapore -- very nice to eat outside by the river-- and the food was mexican and (surprisingly) excellent! afterwards we headed to a local club 'attica' and hung out for a bit- breathing on the dance floor was like smoking a cigarette so we mainly stayed out on the patio -- none of my usual dancing antics (proof i suppose of getting older!)

i have been here in singapore since we got back from vietnam and have had the pleasure of writing a 48 hour take home exam on material i had no clue about this past weekend... my only hope is that my ramblings were sufficient to pass (they should be as they were taken in entirety from the professors book!)

as jenn is coming at the end of march and chris at the beginning of april, i am attempting to force myself to do work (3 essays) so that i will be able to more fully devote myself to dicking around for the last 5 weeks of my exchange... this plan is not working well -- this week i:

1. slept most of monday (because i spent sunday night making up for procrastinating throughout the weekend)
2. went to a photo exhibit at Alliance Francais on monday night (instead of working on a paper with a friend) and then because i didnt have enough free wine, went to this bar called 'Loof' which is a play on how asians say 'roof' -- its on a roof too and its pretty chill - nice patio, not too loud music- and the singapore standard- steeply priced drinks! (read 78 sing dollars for a bottle of house wine!)
3. slept most of tuesday - save a half hearted attempt at working in the mid afternoon with jo-- its like having a fever, its so hot here mid day (say about 40 with the humidity) and then your bod goes into shock in the air con (which i swear is like 10 degrees) -- no happy medium, therefore no happy student!
4. wednesday was my birthday -- no one works on their birthday -- plus i ate chicken at the thai place in our canteen for lunch, because i do really like green curry -- and figured that one cant contract bird flu on their birthday -- but i've been feeling sick since then...so i'll update you on the results of that theory
5. today jo physically dragged me to go study with her at the business school... i spent at least a third of the time stretched out on a bench napping (oops)
6. tonight i went out with my law buddy and one of his friends, wai lai (prob spelt wrong) for dinner - we went to holland village - which is this trendy, kind of ex pat little area not too far from the school -- we had noodles and Marc (my buddy) ordered his with pig intestine - just so he could force me to try it --- if you are wondering about this- it is NOT good - it was a little sour and i just couldnt help myself from remembering what intestines do!!!

--> as usual i learned some new 'tidbits' - here is the most interesting:
we went to different places to try some 'singaporean desserts'.. at one of our stops we each got a different dish -- mine was this brown liquid with nuts and barley and dried longun -which is supposed to make me feel better in light of my recent food poisoning/brush with bird flu
another one was made of beans in a thick syrup with fried dough on top -- simple enough, but
the fried dough is done in rows of two -- this is because once there was a chinese admiral who was murdered by a man and a woman who were traitors (of the government), the frying of the two rows is symbolic of frying the murderers and apparently at the grave of this admiral there are statutes of the man and woman (one on either side) that the people who visit the grave spit on!! imagine ... and i thought fried dough was just tasty fattiness!

and that, my friends, is all i got...