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.
I had back-to-back-to-back conferences and calls today and it will be like this for the rest of the week. The most hectic will be on Thursday when I will have 4 press conferences on top of big regional conferences. I wonder how I will stretch myself.
I have two interviews tomorrow and three regional conferences. I’m tempted to add another screen to my dual monitor setup. Hmm… Maybe I could use the laptop’s screen as a third screen. Crazy week.
We already made peace. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Kimchi has somehow forgiven me and has started hanging out with me again. But I still need to continue giving her the antibiotic and antacid. The vomiting has stopped ofter 24 hrs of giving her the oral meds last week.
Florals. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I still sew masks to help me relax at night while watching YouTube videos of crafting, interior design, or whatever creative things that help me calm down. I’m going to give this batch to my cousin who just arrived from Ireland. It’s her birthday today. I think she still has my drunken video about Chris Hemsworth from 2018 when she and another cousin came to my old house to celebrate my singlehood. The next day I was so hungover while packing my bags and was almost late for my flight to Singapore.
Prior to this, I gave the last batch of masks as an appreciation gift to one of my friends from the industry who sent groceries when I was half-dead with Covid. They posted my gifts on Facebook; it seemed like they were really happy with them.
Next projects would be curtains again but with crochet laces at the hem. All handmade by me. Good luck to me.
Morning sunlight filtered through my muslin curtains that I made. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I thought I would be having a more relaxed day today so I savored the morning sunlight while in bed. I thought I would take it easy.
Then my cat vomited again. This is the third time it happened. The two times it happened last week were in the mornings and every time Kimchi vomited, she went back to her food bowl and ate again her kibbles like nothing happened. So I thought it was just a case of hairball. But when the girls told me this morning Kimchi vomited twice, I decided this is no longer a hairball case.
Long story short, I spent like 2 hours in the vet clinic. It turns out she has an infection after her CBC came back. I came out of the clinic with a shopping bag full of meds and supplements. I was PHP 4,500 poorer with a very grumpy cat because she was poked three times (CBC, antibiotic, and antacid).
A very grumpy Kimichi. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Another cause of stress is this: While I was at the vet clinic, a colleague under my watch messaged me he is resigning. Then I called him. That was a bummer because he is productive and resourceful and I was the one who brought him into the company. The biggest push why he is leaving is because of mismanagement–which I had been struggling with for several months now, too. Actually the issue has been festering for a long time now but I just grinned and borne it for years. That issue has been causing me so much stress and probably that’s another reason why I no longer have the motivation to write. I had already warned our APAC head about this months prior and told her people are really unhappy and I’m doing my damned best to keep the team intact while I battle some kind of power struggle because as I step up to help my teammates, I get hammered from above. I am already at the edge and there is little that’s holding me in place now unless they do something to improve the situation.
So I told my junior co-worker that if he talks to the APAC head tomorrow, “please do us a favor; you should tell her everything that is wrong and that I would soon be following you if things don’t turn around.” I’m just holding on because I like the flexibility that I have right now as I can work at my own pace and I can work from anywhere. However, they have let this really bad situation go on and on and on and on for a long time now and I was the one holding up the ceiling. I’m tired. And if I leave, everyone will leave as well as I was the only one keeping the team from falling apart.
The issue has been causing me so much stress and I was just sweeping this under the rug for months because I can handle only one issue at a time. I had to recover first from my heartache then I would tackle the work problem, I thought. However the two had been overlapping, causing me so much anxiety and stress. My back and neck muscles are stiff as hell and I’ve had trouble sleeping for several nights now because of my stiff neck. I booked a massage tonight and that somehow that eased the physical pain.
Kimchi in her double decker bed. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Every cell in my body was protesting against returning to work today. I just wanted to sleep and read. But no, I have responsibilities to my team and I was needed today so I got my butt out of bed.
Then I wrote a story in under an hour this afternoon about a topic I wrote about two weeks ago, which was one of the top 5 most read stories in the region for us. I think I’ve got some of my mojo back. Probably I need a longer time to recharge so I can get back to my old productive self. Driving to my hometown, seeing old friends and bantering with them did wonders.
I didn’t realize that shutting the world out drains me more. Shunning the world and shutting myself in my apartment because I’m afraid of catching Covid again sucked the life out of me.
Maybe I need to drive back to see old friends again and/or drive to Makati and have dinner with friends from the industry whom I haven’t seen for 8 mos or more than a year.
Speaking of friend, one friend from the corporate communications industry sent me a a grazing box with cream cheese and caviar and the usual contents of a charcuterie board as a birthday gift. Too bad I can’t drink alcohol these days, as the doctor ordered. I still enjoyed it with my children even without wine.
Mmmm. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I think I will make a huge charcuterie board for Christmas and one leg of Chinese ham. Make my wicked potato salad, which all of my friends said it was the best potato salad they ate.
