Cozmopolitan Sunkyoung

My family and many friends have asked what my place looks like and I’ve finally got some free time to upload the photos. So here they are.

In Singapore, there are four main types of housings: condominium, HDB, apartment and private houses. Of these, I think the first two housings need to be explained a bit. A condominium is a kind of apartment complex which usually consists of a swimming pool, a tennis court, gym, and BBQ garden. HDB, acronym for Housing and Development Board, is government-built housing and is often located in a very large cluster near public transport.

Varsity Park, where I live, is a condo near my company and I think its name ‘varsity’ comes from its location close to National University of Singapore. When I first visited this condo for viewing a room that was being rented out by a family of four from Sri Lanka, I took to the place right away and you can see why.

Of many good things about my place, I like that it has a lot of water space throughout the area. It does help cool down the temperature and is also good for mentality, I think. The artificial stepping stones on the left are my favourite part of the condominium.

A small hut on the right in the first photo is a reading room, most part of which is stood above the swimming pool. Next to this small studying space where I often go to use the fast wireless internet, there are function room where one can organise (religious) lectures, (children’s birthday) parties etc. – These are the occasions I’ve watched so far -, and another floating house that is not seen on the photo is gym.

This is a swimming pool where you can hardly see a crazy person swimming in rain. It is only a couple of steps away from my place. So, when you visit my place, make sure that you bring a swimsuit with ya!

P.S. – As I’m reluctant to post my address and mobile number here at my blog, if you email me, this contact information will be shown in my signature of the reply.

두 친구는 눈밭을 가로질러 집으로 돌아가는 길이었습니다.
피글렛은 푸 같은 좋은 친구가 있어 너무나 다행이라 생각하며 살며시 미소를 지었습니다.

푸는 속으로 생각했습니다.
‘이 돼지 녀석, 재채기 하기만 해봐라, 아주 뒈졌어.’

This is the picture file I got from my friend, Gillian in London, soon after the outbreak of swine flu occured. This world-wide contagious disease has influenced a lot of aspects on our current life, no matter how serious they were, and, to me, anything related to pandemic influenza is now an indispensable element, at least for my work.

My official job title is ‘Project Executive for the ASEF Network for Public Health.’ This network aims at establishing a stable and constructive working collaboration between various regional, international organisations in Asia and Europe with particular regard to preparedness planning for and rapid containment of pandemic influenza. Initially, the project mostly mentioned avian influenza as a representative example of pandemic influenza but it was only five days later since I started working when the swine flu hit the world.

Currently, project manager and I are on the status of consultation process, meeting as many relevant people and organisations as possible in order to seek for useful ideas and insights for designing the network. For this reason, we’ve been confirmed to travel to Jakarta on the last week of May and another trip to Bangkok the following week is being planned. Unfortunately, we don’t see any possible meetings or events in Europe this year but hopefully next year.

As many of you know well, what I do now is exactly what I have always wanted to do: building up or enhancing collaboration between different cultures/organisations; working in an international setting; having chances to meet people from various backgrounds. Work is not everything but something very important on how you feel about your life. And I now feel pretty good about this new chapter of my life.