My friends and I were computing how much I should demand if they force me to transfer to Singapore.
Based on this self-assessment test by the Ministry of Manpower, the minimum salary of someone with my position and profile should get at least SGD 10,000++ or around USD 7,400. That’s the minimum and does not guarantee that I would get an e-Pass. A rival company had advertised for SGD 13,000 (USD 9,000) so they would have to justify why I would only get SGD 10k and not SGD 13k.
Given that the parent company is cheap, they wouldn’t give me the SGD 13k while the SGD 10k is too tight a budget given that HDBs in SG for 2-bed (it has to be 2 bed or otherwise the apartment would be too small) is SGD 2,600 in the outskirts like Jurong West. The school around that area is OWIS, which is around SGD 20k a year but the reviews are terrible given that it’s a budget international/private school. Ok, let’s just ignore the reviews for a second there. My housing would be SGD 2,600 + SGD 400 (utilities) + SGD 400 groceries + SGD 4,000 (school fees and other expenses) = SGD 7,400. It would be SGD 2,600 for everything else–that’s SGD 10k net. So that means I need to add 15% for tax and whatever contribution to pension or whatever the government subtracts.
I don’t think this would be a happy arrangement.
I think I would win the argument and they would let me just stay here.
I never knew that roses could be labor-intensive. Pruning leaves and deadheading flowers help in producing more bulbs and flowers. I need to check and make sure that there are no diseased leaves in any of my flowering plants. I also started pruning my vegetables as well.
Mum. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
So far so good, my flowers are still surviving weeks after I bought them. Pruning and deadheading is a daily task if I want my plants to continually produce flowers. That’s the error I committed in my previous attempts at growing plants. I just couldn’t commit time before since I was busy with a million and one things. I had too many things on my plate. Now I can devote 30 mins a day every morning watering/fertilizing, pruning, and deadheading my plants.
I see more bulbs! Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I also started making my own fertilizer. First off, I am composting my kitchen scraps. I will take a photo of my simple compost bin that I treated with my mom’s activator for rapid composting. I am doing this rapid composting in an urban setting for her since she hasn’t tried this in a household setting (she’s too busy to bother). She had been doing this on a large scale system i.e. plantation and smallholding for decades (including integrated pest management) but never in an urban/apartment setup. She told me to record my experience and get some data.
My mom is an environmental scientist and organic farming is her life’s work. She just won another award this month but the announcement will be in January next year.
Second–this has an eww factor–but I am using diluted urine to water my flowers. This has been the practice of many gardeners and farmers for centuries if not thousands of years. This only stopped with urbanization and the development of the sewage system. Good thing I no longer have a partner because my ex-partner will surely frown upon this practice.
Fresh human urine is sterile and so free from bacteria. In fact it is so sterile that it can be drunk when fresh; it’s only when it is older than 24 hours that the urea turns into ammonia, which is what causes the ‘wee’ smell. At this stage it will be too strong for use on plants, but poured neat on to the compost heap it makes a fabulous compost accelerator/activator, with the extra benefit of adding more nutrients...
During a pee, a healthy adult will release 11g nitrogen/urea, 1g phosphorus/super-phosphate and 2.5g potassium.
Basically, the inorganic fertilizer that our farmers buy is NPK–which they call the complete fertilizer. Why NPK? Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K). We had agriculture courses in elementary and high school that’s why I know. We were also taught how to calculate fertilizer (NPK) weight (yes, you just do not apply inorganic NPK haphazardly or else you would end up with an imbalanced soil). But if you use organic fertilizer, you don’t have to bother with that.
I’m not bothering with the soil pH because I don’t have any pH meter to measure it. Even a Litmus paper.
So I just use powdered egg shells for added calcium, probably once every two weeks, and I haven’t used white vinegar to adjust the soil pH. So far so good. What I do is whenever we cook with eggs, we clean the inside of eggs shells (just to make sure there is no salmonella or other bacteria lurking there) and we dry it out in the sun. Then after a few days I crush them into powder using my food processor/blender.
There you go. Healthy plants. We cannot just water plants and leave them to dry out in the sun. They need fertilizers because growing in pots is a sad way to live.
Among the other things we learned in our high school agriculture courses is animal science. We were taught how to raise farm animals (except for cows) so we had goats, ducks, chickens, and rabbits in our high school compound. We also tilled the soil. I remember growing watermelons, pechay, and onions on my plot. We spent afternoons tilling our plots and weeding them. We raised chickens, slaughtered, and dressed them (yes, I can dress a chicken and even cleaned some gizzards). These are practical knowledge not taught in Singaporean primary and secondary schools (I checked some schools’ curriculum), which are important for survival. As we experienced systems breaking down during this pandemic, I think we need to go back to these important survival skills. One magnitude 8.0 earthquake here in Metro Manila will surely result to Armageddon. It’s not an “IF” situation; it’s a matter of “when” as we are in the middle of the Marikina Valley Fault that begins from Central Luzon down to Calamba, Laguna.
Computer science courses are default now and I can enroll my kids in basic and advanced programming, as Twin I wanted to so I had her take some online courses and she’s now tinkering with Linux. But the skills I mentioned above cannot just be taught off-hand. I came from a long line of farmers and trial and error is just a costly way to learn.
The silk squash grown by my mom in her backyard. Photo by ArtCaves.
The silk squash (patola) grown by mom in her backyard are huge! They’re 100% organically grown. One day that 150m plot (excluding the 100m front yard) will be mine to grow a food forest.
The other skills lost nowadays are practical home arts. I learned to sew and cook in school. My mom was too busy to teach us those (plus she wasn’t good in those–she tried though–but she’s really an academic). I learned how to repair things from my father and in school. These things are important to know. When we had shortages of masks, I made my own. I sew when we need to repair clothes; we just don’t throw them out. Or we repurpose them. I just don’t throw out things and pollute the environment–we repurpose or upcycle them.
Had a call with my APAC boss this afternoon. She told me she would lobby before our global boss to allow me to stay here in not be transferred to Singapore. She agrees with me that there is little reason for me to uproot myself and be there since–there’s nothing there really. I just have to travel in every city that we cover and that’s fine with me. And it’s a wonderful way of cultivating relationships with my contacts across Southeast Asia.
I hope things will go well before the year ends so by January I can plan my life well.
I will soon be moving up. But I was asked if I can move to Singapore. I said I did the math and there is no way in this world I would be able to afford to send my children to school there on a single income. Housing costs are way above my head too. I told my boss I can travel to Singapore every other week but I can’t leave my kids here and be fulltime in Singapore. I would lose custody of them because the court may decide that they will be better off living with their dad, who remains unemployed and still sponging off his 89-year-old dad.
My colleague in Singapore and I did the math. It’s like the tuition is USD 2k a month per child (minimum) then housing is shared (and I don’t know what quality of life we’ll have sharing a house with another family) at USD 2k = USD 6k already just for tuition and housing. This does not include utilities, transportation, food, healthcare and miscellaneous items (clothing, school materials etc). I won’t be saving anything. We won’t even qualify for public school admittance there. Private schools are about an average of SGD 40,000 (USD 30,000) per child a year.
Singapore makes no bones about the fact that it puts its own people first — as such, school placements are offered initially to citizens, then to PRs, and finally to non-PR foreigners. Furthermore, unlike citizens and PRs, foreigners cannot request a particular school — essentially, you’ll take what you’re given (if you’re lucky enough to be offered a place at all). And if you’re not happy with the offer made? Or you feel that there was a mistake made somewhere along the way? Too bad. There is no review or appeals process available. As we might say to our own children, “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset…”
All applications are made through the Ministry of Education (MOE) which is somewhat tight-lipped on what proportion of its annual submissions are successful. According to the most recent figures, between 3000–3500 foreigners applied in 2016 and, while the numbers aren’t official, the available information indicates that about one third of applicants are given places.
Local school fees for foreigners range from $6,000 to nearly $10,000 annually.
“I understand if schools have no vacancies for foreigners. But it would have been better if they stated the criteria more clearly,” she said...
Since 2014, International Education Placement and Services has even stopped trying to help clients enrol in local schools. Instead, it diverts them to international schools. “We are getting more frustrated parents, usually from China and the Philippines, who cannot afford international schools,” said its director Kenneth Choo.
Why even bother move there? What I’m receiving now is minuscule to whatever my boss is probably getting but I still manage to save a lot.
My colleague said, why do you even need to be here anyway? I said, boss said they need to someone to watch over the bureau. Then my colleague said, “Watch over what? Coverage? Employees? I’m the only one here!”
Exactly, I said. I don’t even have to be there everyday.
She said, “XXX the editor of XXX is actually in KL the whole year…He’s under SG contract and got PR (permanent resident) last year).”
I said, I will cite that example to management. There is little reason for me to be there. I can pack all the meetings and housekeeping duties and coverage during the weeks I’m in Singapore and the rest of the work I can do remotely here in Manila. Besides, my coverage is no longer just Singapore–it’s all over Southeast Asia and I’ve been doing it remotely since the beginning of time. It requires more travel outside Singapore. The reason why we are required to station ourselves in Singapore is because the regional offices of banks and law firms are there. The private equity offices are there. But the people from these firms don’t even stay in Singapore all the time. They travel a lot.
If push comes to shove, they should get another manager who is single, willing to relocate to Singapore, and suffer the high cost of living without the expat package. Plus willing to bear the regular stress of having your employment pass rejected by the Ministry of Manpower. My colleague’s E-Pass renewal application this year got rejected and we had to appeal. Good thing she’s already a CFA, which is a plus point for her, and finally she was able to renew her E-Pass. But it was a stressful time for everybody.
And I can run the bureau from my office here. As I always have.
Somewhere in UP Diliman. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
The government loosened the mobility restrictions to Alert Level 2 in Metro Manila starting yesterday so children can finally go out of homes and visit parks. We went out this afternoon so the girls can ride their bikes here in UPD for the first time in so many months. I still didn’t bike; I’m still gauging my strength so I just walked, did laps, and stretches.
Finally free. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This morning I pulled my lazy butt out of bed to cook brunch. I had been very spoiled by Grab Food for a couple of weekends now so now I must flex my muscles in the kitchen.
Baked ham with cheese. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I made baked ham with cheese, which I learned from Imamu Room’s cooking vlog on Youtube. Then the usual tamagoyaki, rice with furikake, zucchini tempura, and miso soup.
Brunch today. Photo by CallMeCreation.comFire engine red. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This is the first time I also used the new microwave oven to defrost the ham. It’s cute but smaller than my old Whirlpool. Oh well, I’m shallow like that.
And yes, Kimchi still hates me. She runs away and hides from me. I still have to endure her grumpiness for a few more days because she needs to complete her antibiotic round, anti-hairball/antacid and the supplements.
I love my cats and I want them to be always well. But it’s hard to give medicines to those damned creatures! I got this scratch before I clipped Kimchi’s and Sushi’s vicious nails/claws.
To think I need to administer three liquid medicines to Kimchi twice a day for seven days. Agggghhhh!
Grumpy cat. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This guy makes it look so easy. His cat is not as grumpy as my Kimchi. Masungit Kimchi.
Last night the traffic was so heavy in our usual route that I had to drive an extra 20 km to take another route. It took me 2 hrs and 45 minutes before we reached our apartment.
So today I did all the DIY stuff that I left hanging. Stupid me, that made me exhausted today.
I refreshed the white paint on the wall where my living room windows are. I also finally changed the curtain rod brackets downstairs and was able to hang the Christmas curtains that I bought from Shopee one night I wasn’t able to sleep. I’m afraid I overdid the Christmas thing.
Looks kitschy. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
But I think it looks better at night, less overpowering.
I have to make it grow on me because these damned things cost me PHP 500. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
And I did not stop there. I added curtain rod brackets in my room because my annoying cats keep on climbing the curtains and they’re not exactly light.
Since I felt so energetic today, I proceeded to sand my closets because the paint is peeling and Kimichi kept scratching the corner so it was worn.
I turned my impact drill into a sander. I uncovered several layers of paint. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I chose Boysen Skyblue for my closets. There was something off with the Tiffany blue that came with the apartment when we moved in so I decided to go for a lighter shade of blue.
Unfinished. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I didn’t paint the upper cabinets yet because I was so tired and I looked like a Smurf because I was already blue all over. And my paint was the quick-dry type so it was sticky, smelly, and hard to even out. At least I was able to fill out with wood filler the scratches that Kimichi made and I was able to cover it with paint. Now I’m getting high with the smell.
As I was letting the paint dry, I grilled marinated chicken outside while my kids and our househelp, Ate C, lighted candles for our departed loved ones. Today is Dia de Todos los Santos (All Saints’ Day) and tomorrow is Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) but in recent years Filipinos started visiting the grave of loved ones on 1 November instead of 2 November. Traditionally the holidays are 31 Oct-2 Nov but was truncated this year to only the 1 Nov. Dia de los Muertos is more known to be a Mexican holiday but most Spanish and Portugese colonies have their own way of commemorating the dead. In the Philippines, it’s more subdued compared to the Mexican one. When I was a kid, some people spend the night of the 31st in cemeteries to hang out in their family mausoleum or tombs until Nov 1 and have some kind of family reunion there. Filipino Chinese families light joss sticks and offer food and flowers. In our family we just clean the tombs, offer flowers, light candles and say our prayers. We stay until the candles have died out.
Lighting candles in front of the apartment. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This is the third straight year we just have lighted candles in front of our house. In 2018, the traffic was so bad that I just opted to stay at home. Last year and this year, obviously, we had to stay home because of Covid-19 restrictions. My mom is already contented that I brought her last week a huge pot of mums and the purple hydrangea for my father’s niche at the columbarium near my mom’s house.
Since I’m making the most of my stay here in this apartment, I will be filling up the walls with crafts and art. Next time that will go home to my mom’s house, I’ll be taking my old drawings with me and put them in frames and hang them in my room. I bought some frames from Photoline in SM that were on sale last week.
J left his drawing on my refrigerator door and when we broke up, I shoved it in my closet and let it stay there almost 11 months. I decided to take it out again and put it in one of the frames I bought. He drew this scene from Istanbul when he was demonstrating to the girls how to use their color markers.
Photo by CallMeCreation.comPhoto by CallMeCreation.com
I had hung his drawing in the place where his workstation was. He may not be a nice person, but for old times’ sake this is how I am choosing to remember him: a traveler. I am just one stop.
Soon this room will be filled by my old drawings/paintings and cross-stitch projects. And probably new ones too. His drawing will just be one of the many that I will have on my walls.
