Category Archives: Expat in Singapore

9:31 am - September 8, 2014 - sjcarlson

Writer friends, do you ever wonder if you might be in a little too deep as a writer? I think I may be in too deep….

Here’s one sign… You wake up after having broken face surgery and the first thing you do is have your husband take pictures of your hospital room.

Okay, so it wasn’t REALLY the first thing I did, but that definitely did happen.

Back story: So about a month and a half ago I decided, hey, writing a motorbike for the first time ever after not even driving a car for six months sounds like a great idea. In Cambodia. So I was trying to turn and I kind of face-planted in a ditch that was about 6 feet deep according to my poor, probably slightly traumatized brother. FYI: Cambodia is not the most medically advanced country in the world. But I did get an ambulance ride, a private room (which was combination supply closet), and pretty comprehensive treatment for what they had there. Never mind that no one spoke English and I had a concussion and apparently stitches and no memory of what happened for about an hour. On the plus side, all that, only $130 USD lol.

Anyway, so I went to a public hospital in Singapore because, you know, I had some kind of stitches in my leg (not sure if dissolvable or not) and I obviously hit my head and face and had a concussion. The doctor was like, why are you here? You were treated in Cambodia. And I said, yeah exactly, and my face is still weird and my teeth are numb. So he took some x-rays at my insistence and determined there was fluid in my face and he couldn’t see anything. Okay, awesome. Then he made me an appointment with a plastic surgeon like a month later. Why? I don’t know lol. So this was end of July.

Then last week, I had a filling issue. I went to see my dentist at a private hospital and got my filling fixed then mentioned, hey my teeth are still numb and my face is weird. He had me get a CT scan THAT DAY. And apparently my face was broken in two places. The bone under my eye and the top of my jaw. Which is why all my nerves were messed up. Thanks awesome Singapore public hospital jerk ER doctor for NOT catching that and NOT suggesting, hey maybe we should get you a CT scan to be sure. Fast forward from end of July to first week of September. Had CT scan and was in for surgery less than 48 hours later (this Saturday). Apparently my face was actually broken in THREE places, the side of my jaw, too. Extra props to that awesome first Singapore ER doctor for completely missing the fact that my face was broken in three places and not bothering to give me a follow-up appointment until the end of August, which then was pushed back to the second week of September. My face should have been operated on within two weeks not six. So gold star for you, Singapore Public Hospital that shall remain nameless but happens to be located on Alexandra Road. Gleneagles, you were amazing! Saved the day! Thank God I have medical insurance, that’s all I’ll say.

ANYYYYWAY so now I’m recovering and I’ll be fine. I like to look at the positive of things. So for this, it was getting the inside scoop on being in the hospital! In Hooligans, one of the characters ends up “in hospital,” but I’d never been a patient admitted to a hospital. So I got to go into an “operating theatre,” emerge from general anesthesia, play with the bed and the remote, eat crappy hospital food, have my blood pressure checked every hour, listen to the sounds of the hospital, and have an IV drip and all that. Now I can incorporate it into my story and make the hospital scenes even more real!

Here’s a few snapshots….

So this may be a sign that I’m a bit too committed to being authentic in my writing lol…. And that I should never ride a motorbike again.

Writer What lengths have you gone to in order to get your story accurate? Do you ever wonder if you get a bit overcommited?

Categories: Expat in Singapore, Non-writers just don't understand, Writing Tags: creativity, expat, Singapore, writing

12:29 pm - August 31, 2014 - sjcarlson

On Being the Token Yank: Fantasy Football Fail

So being the Token Yank has made me more excited about my American heritage, which is why I’m in not one, but two, NFL fantasy football leagues. And to spread the joy, I’ve recruited one of my British friends into one, which should be fun. I’ve been a Packers fan since I was born (my Dad’s from Green Bay) and this is my third year doing fantasy football. Now let me be real with you, I am no expert at football or fantasy football. I don’t research players before the draft and pretty much just pick the top-ranked players each round (starting with QB, RB, and WR) and people I’ve actually heard of. I DO remember to check my line-up every week and occasionally do more than swap players who have injuries or bye weeks.

Yesterday was my second draft. Tragedy struck. Really, I blame the time difference. So Singapore time, the draft was at 6 a.m. and I didn’t quite wake up by then lol, so nfl.com auto-draft FTW…or not quite. I believe the graphic above explains the outcome and directly below how I feel.

My QB is Aaron Rodgers and one of my WR is Jordy Nelson, so that’s awesome. Maybe someone in my league will trade me a good WR for Russell Wilson… Though perhaps all of this just fits well with my team name:

Whoever plays me in Week 9, consider this your birthday present.

Categories: Expat in Singapore, On being the token Yank Tags: expat, Green Bay Packers, Humor

11:09 am - August 31, 2014 - sjcarlson

Pics from the Land of the Merlion: Some of my favorite Singapore shots from the last few months

Categories: Expat in Singapore, Photography Tags: expat, photography, Singapore

1:00 am - August 22, 2014 - sjcarlson

On being the token Yank: I’m baaaaaaack!!!

….So this happened today. Yup, my first ever official beans on toast experience. I was at a “proper Sunday roast” complete with Yorkshire pudding and my friends were talking about beans on toast. Yes, I’ve definitely heard of it before and I’ve definitely mopped up some Bush’s baked beans with bread, but I’ve never actually tried it.

I’m a bit overdue on my grocery shopping, so today I was scrounging through our cupboards looking for something, anything, to eat for dinner and discovered we had a can of sketchy-looking Halal beans with no hunk of meat. So then it happened. Beans on toast.

It was…interesting, which is what we Midwesterners say instead of saying we don’t particularly care for something 😛

I’m blaming the beans. Totally the crappy beans. Next time I promise I’ll use Heinz baked beans.

Backstory for “On being the token Yank”:

Over here in Singapore I just don’t know many Americans, even though I’m sure there are plenty. I hang out mostly with English, Scottish, Australians and a few locals who also speak the British variety of English. Weird, right? Travel to the other side of the world to hang out with people from a different side of the world. It’s amazing how similar we seem when surrounded by Asians.

If anyone has any beans on toast preparation advice, please share!

Categories: Expat in Singapore, On being the token Yank Tags: culture, expat, Musings

8:13 pm - August 12, 2014 - sjcarlson

Two months, five countries, four islands…. Now back to writing your perpetually-nearly-finished novel and building your social media empire, Sarah J. Carlson!!!

Yeah, so this is me right now.

As I said in my ridiculously long, hopefully attention-grabbing title, I’ve been doing a little bit of traveling. Not only have I been traveling, as the official resident of Southeast Asia, that has made me a tour guide of sorts for the four fabulous, wonderful, amazing people who spent thousands of dollars to come over to Singapore et al to spend time with me. So…Singapore, Ho Chi Mihn City (Viet Nam), Koh Lanta Island and Chiang Mai (Thailand), Siem Reap/Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Bintan Island and Bali (Indonesia). Also one minor motorbike accident and an ambulance ride to the Cambodian hospital (um… interesting, though I don’t remember most of it because I had a concussion). Let’s just say, this white girl ended up in a private room that housed other medical supplies while the waiting room was filled with locals on cots. So sad :,( Cheap ambulance ride… 30 USD. Annnnnyway, I think that’s all the places I’ve been with my friends and family. Yeah, I’ve covered Indochina pretty well now, though there still is Laos and Myanmar….

It has been an exciting, expensive, and EXHAUSTING life that I’ve been blessed to live for the past two months. I can do without budget airlines for awhile. Air Asia, you kind of suck. Now it’s all coming to an end and it’s back to what I call homeostasis for one Sarah J.C. Singapore normal, if you will. Also that means I will get back to working on my novels, which is pretty exciting–particularly since I made a shocking discovery the week before my Southeast Asian Travel Extravaganza while doing what I really THOUGHT was a final revision. That realization…the reason why I didn’t particularly care for one of my characters. This launched a pretty major re-write that got interrupted by all that pesky travel 😛

So anyway, now it’s back to it…. Finishing up that major re-haul of my novel and re-starting the whole blogging thing. Like for real, I mean. I have been lazily posting pictures so I can get a gold star or whatever and say I’m still blogging, but I mean to get back to the whole non-writers don’t understand/promoting my work/writing in general/on being the token Yank kind of thing. Oh and posting proper pictures from my real camera (not just uploading from my iPhone cuz it’s easy) with details on my travel-ventures. Oh, the motorbike accident was just a teaser! There were very dodgy ferry rides, near ship wreck on a longtail boat, elephants, lady boys, many temples, jungle exploration complete with leeches, cat poop coffee, stegosaurus carvings in the Tomb Raider temple, extremely depressing poverty, massive monitor lizards, very annoying tourists (NOT American!), shooting guns with the Vietnamese army, durian and so, so, so much more. Plenty of fresh creative fuel for writing. Not gonna lie, I seriously contemplated taking pictures of my bruised up face daily to document the healing process in order to describe it in my novel.