Moving on to a New Home

Singapore, 26 June 2016

I was excited when I first received my letter of acceptance from NTU to pursue my master’s in Strategic Studies. That was a quite a while ago. Now, I’ve moved from the comfort of my family’s house to a new world in Singapore. This apartment room will be my new home for the following year. It’s going to be lonely.

At first, I had a lot anxiety prior to the big move. Would I be able to fit in? Would I be able to cope with my studies? What if I stress out about finances, considering Singapore is one of the most expensive countries to live in? What if I had trouble with my paperwork and I was deported? Believe me, I had days prior to departure when I would just sit and ponder all the bad things that could happen to me abroad. Even though I’ve had experience living abroad previously, this was the first time I would be doing it all on my own without my parents holding my hand.

Moving to this new home of mine was also emotionally taxing. I had to leave good friends back at home. I also had to enter a long distance relationship with my caring girlfriend as well. Here, I’m all alone.

As soon as I passed through the immigration gates (while not forgetting to take some snapshots of Changi Airport), my worries began to subside. Getting into the country was easy. Getting to the university apartment was equally easy. Settling in wasn’t as hard as I expected. I managed to get my daily necessities easily at Orchard Road. Getting to Orchard Road was a breeze too. A part of me told myself that I truly was overthinking everything.

The first thing I did when I woke up on the 25th was take a LONG walk around the university. It was a workout as well as my orientation exercise. When I come to a new place, it’s just my nature to locate the essentials around me, such as shops, services, and most importantly, food.

One more thing about walking. I love taking long walks and getting lost in thought. I couldn’t do that in Indonesia. Sidewalks are small, sometimes non-existent, and often encroached by peddlers or used as a parking lot. I had to be alert all the time lest I be run over by a fucking entitled motorcyclist who would encroach the sidewalks. The constant buzz of vehicles makes it impossible to think, and the air pollution is unbearable. I imagined myself being able to walk everywhere in Singapore, where it was cleaner and pedestrian-friendly. On my second day, I must’ve walked over 10 km, a personal best.

They weren’t kidding when they said Singapore was the most expensive country to live. Once I got over the fact that buses and the MRT were goddamn cheap, my jaw dropped when I saw how expensive everything else was. As an Indonesian, I am used to converting any foreign currency into IDR and then passing the cheap/expensive judgment. That’s what I did when I went shopping for bedding and daily stuff. I couldn’t believe a normal bolster pillow was around SGD30. Back home, that much could’ve got me 2 good pillows! Luckily, Daiso was there to help me out. Gotta love their cheap stuff. That’s also my life-hack of the day: when in need, go to Daiso. I would also consider myself lucky since I could still eat at the campus canteens, where food is relatively cheap and I don’t need to cook.

So yeah, I think that’s a good start for my year in this Little Red Dot.