Coordinating meetings in town is easier now that Aquinas has a new phone. We got lucky with the timing and I was able to pick up Aquinas after work in the taxi on the way home without any trouble. And the taxi driver was friendly and cheerful.

Before I installed the Simple Machines Forum, I didn’t know how complicated it could be to run a forum. (I used PHPBB for a while, but didn’t really get it off the ground because it was public and kept getting useless spam registrations and nothing else.) The permissions for forums are particularly complicated. The permissions belong not only to user groups but also to individual boards, so it’s hard for me to know at this point what a particular user can and can’t do. The online documentation has so far enabled me to fix every problem that’s cropped up, but I can’t believe we’ve seen the last of them…

It was not my most punctual day. I ended one class too early and started another too late. That’s what happens when you start mucking about with someone’s routine!

I don’t know why it happens, but my left ear has at least three times gotten painfully clogged up. This time I got to it before it was painful. It was still gross.

Parkway Doctor says: nothing smaller than an elbow should go in your ear. Especially Q-tips!

I was at Tanglin Mall at Orchard and it was getting on towards dinner. I thought of eating Indian food, but not at the very fancy Indian restaurant there. Where could I find hawker centre prices for Indian food? I wasn’t in Little India. Where was there a hawker centre at Orchard? Wait, maybe there was a food court with Indian food. The basement at City Square Mall at Farrer Park MRT has Indian food. The NUS student cafeteria has Indian food. Not helpful!

But then I went to the basement, and there was a food court, and it had an Indian vegetarian stall. With not just pratas but also massala tea (lots of places just have teh tarik, I think). Yay! I also got a bunch of cut fruit from another stall, and that was lovely.

Now we’re both sick. Yay.

In Singapore if you say someone is “blur” it means something along the lines of “stupid, careless, confused, ditzy, tired, and/or distracted”. I confess I was so blur one Saturday morning that after I made myself coffee I put it in the fridge, ate breakfast and then left the house without removing the coffee from the fridge and drinking it. I was halfway to work when I realized I hadn’t had a hot beverage at home and was going to have to get one at work.

I’ve been avoiding weekend breakfasts at the mall because the nearby hawker centre closed down for renovations and caused a dramatic increase in waiting times at the fast food outlets where I used to get breakfast on Saturday and Sunday. I don’t bring coffee with me from home, but after I make it it’s too hot to drink right away. Hence the idea of putting it in the fridge while eating.

When I got home, Aquinas was like, “By the way, what’s this?” Oops.

On the plus side, it didn’t spill in the fridge.

Unlike our dinner plan on Sunday, this one worked like a charm.

We love the Omar Sharif (Indian restaurant at Bukit Timah and 6th Avenue), by the way.

In January 2013 we moved to Clementi, which took us away from a lot of places we used to go (and still go), including Providence Medical Centre.

And at some point or other, I was really suffering from a blocked ear. I identified a clinic in Clementi and went there for help, since it was nearby. I’ll skip the description of how my ear got unblocked, but suffice it to say I was relieved.

I was home in Clementi and needed medication for a sore throat and for an ear I was worried was on its way to being blocked again. I figured I’d go back to that place I went before.

Problem: I didn’t know what it was called.

Also: I got distracted by my email and missed their morning/afternoon hours. I’d have to wait until evening, and be sure not to miss that window of opportunity: the next day was a public holiday. Fewer clinics are open, they might be busy, and there’s might be a surcharge. And I wanted meds sooner rather than later.

I did a search for clinics in the area and identified three, one of which sounded vaguely more familiar. Aquinas tried calling them to see if they had me on record, but they all claimed not to. So I figured I’d walk over.

Luck was with me: the first one I found was the one I’d visited before, Union Clinic and Surgery, which had somehow left me with the impression of being green. They did have me on file after all. I handed over my new insurance card for them to update my file and entered the queue as #12 around 7:30. The doctor was going to come in at 8:00. I said I’d go away and come back around 8:30, which was when the receptionist estimated the doctor would have gotten to #12.

In retrospect, that seemed like a strange estimate.

I went away, had an acceptable but overpriced meal at Pastamania, and returned around 8:00. I saw that the waiting room was rather full, so I walked around and found the other two clinics (West Coast Clinic and Surgery and Tan Clinic and Surgery). They looked less busy. I went back to Union and claimed a chair and sat down to read. I was called forward around 9:00, which is when their evening hours are supposed to be over. The doctor addressed my concerns kindly, but, it must be said, concisely. I wasn’t the last one in the queue.

It occurred to me to wonder what happens if he (it was really a one-man clinic) can’t process the queue by the end of the day. My guess is that he just has a slightly longer day, rather than that they turn people away who are already in the queue.

Doctors’ offices in Singapore are run like businesses and patients act like customers (I get the sense that most don’t have company-sponsored health insurance—it’s all self-pay with cash). The situation allows a certain amount of added flexibility (after all, this was a walk-in visit for me) and seems to leave everyone in a cooperative mood during all the necessary transactions.

I left with my meds. I then passed by the West Coast Community Centre, which I figured would be closed, with the idea of trying to get a PAssioncard membership. They were still open at 9:15! And a friendly, bustling lady got me a card on the spot.

A gratifyingly successful mission!

While waiting for my turn away from the queue at the doctor’s office, I wanted food. I decided I didn’t want a salad or sandwich, but pasta would hit the spot. I went to Pastamania.

I ordered beef bolognese and a coke float. The beef bolognese was okay, I guess. I kinda wish I’d stuck with just the tomato sauce bolognese. It would have been about the same taste but cheaper. Likewise, I was a bit sheepish about the $.30 upgrade to wholemeal pasta.

But what really gets me is the amount of ice they put in the gelato coke float. It was more like an ice float. And it’s not like it was super cheap. It had so much ice it was difficult to consume. I couldn’t stir it. The ice was huge and didn’t melt. I’ve never felt so thwarted by a beverage.

Lesson learned: next time I’ll buy my own coke and ice cream and make coke floats at home where ice is free and I can leave it out completely if I want.