I didn’t blog last night because I was really way too bloody tired and had to go to sleep. I’ve been working at the Singapore Air Show the past couple of days and it has been a unique and interesting experience. I joined alone but I made several new friends along the way so it’s quite fun.

I like being immersed into new scenarios and environments because nobody has preconceived expectations of you and you can choose to be whoever you want to be. I decided I was going to be a stable, reliable, well-adjusted, hard-working and likable guy- and it seems to be working! Along the way I’ve also developed a reputation as a joker, but I have come to realise that I can’t really change that very much.

I’ve spent most of the time so far as a traffic marshal. The first day, I was stationed at the entrance of the massive carpark to marshal vehicles in- it was theoretically an easy job, but the sun beat down on us mercilessly, and all the caps and sunblock didn’t do a thing. One of the guys got so giddy from the heat he had to go home. Me and a couple of guys came up with a system where we would take turns every 5-10 minutes while the other guys could rest in the shade. It was really that terribly hot.

On the second day I was posted as a traffic marshal at the taxi drop-off point and it was frustrating. It wasn’t as hot as the day before because there was some degree of shade, but we perspired relentlessly all the same. The worst thing was realizing just how stupid and/or selfish taxi drivers can be. Time and again they would do ridiculous things like drop off passengers at the choke-point BEFORE the drop-off point and clog up the entire carpark with lines of 20-30 taxis, when they could have simply moved forward and allowed for three rows of 5-6 taxis to drop of passengers at one go. They would often try to rush into space and block too lanes at once, and insist on dropping their passengers while stopped that way instead of moving into a position to allow other cab drivers to move into position. It was ridiculously frustrating, and I can’t decide if it would be kinder to call them stupid or selfish. I’m supposing it’s a bit of both.

My calves and hamstrings are terribly sore from standing for hours and hours, and my shoulders are burning from doing all the traffic marshaling. I’ve chalked up $156 dollars worth of pay in the past two days; although I’ll only get paid at the end of it all. Not TOO shabby i suppose. I’m going to work the night shift tomorrow, which should be an interesting experience- and thankfully sun-free. I’m pretty sure the view of the stars is going to be as good as it gets on mainland Singapore too, the skies have been exceptionally clear these few days. (Curses!)

I also want to talk about the community spirit and sense of brotherhood you feel doing hard manual labour. I’ve witnessed it before with lorry drivers and construction workers when helping out with my father’s company, and I’ve also experienced it working at Shangri-La- there are few people in the world as generous as the poor and the suffering. I honestly believe that everybody should try working a scummy hard labour job just to experience the camaraderie and altruism in those communities. When we were working on the first day at the carpark, there was a logistical error along the supply chain and we were to get our food a couple of hours later than expected; meaning we had been in the sun from 7am to about 3-4pm without food, and not much water. The men working under a separate contractor- they might have been cleaners or something else, I don’t know- brought us their food and drinks and shared them with us. I don’t think any of us ever felt so thankful before. Their kindness to us was quite literally like an oasis in the desert. We would witness this again and again- security guards who offered us cigarettes and girls working in the registration area who offered to swap positions with us so we could rest…

And, oh god, the shower when you get home and the bed you sleep in afterwards? Bliss.