So as many of you probably know (mostly from my griping), Singapore is located one degree north of the equator, meaning that it is very hot here most of the time. Looking back, it's actually kind of similar to DC summers in terms of climate - hot and sticky for days and days on end. The only difference here is that they don't have seasons at all and the weather never really changes; I keep referring to the MITers as being here "for the summer" and no one really knows what that means!
Additionally, another peril of Singapore (besides the constant threat of dehydration) is actually catching a common cold - bodies react very strangely to abrupt, irregular transitions between dry, 60 degree weather (i.e. anywhere air conditioned) and humid, 90+ degree temperatures (i.e. everywhere else). A couple of our students have already caught colds since being here, and I've been carrying cardigans around constantly to try and protect myself!
The only relief from the heat are the rainstorms, which have actually been few and far between since we arrived here 3 weeks ago. When it rains, however, it's a torrential downpour, and it actually pulls a lot of the water out of the air and makes it far more tolerable to be outside. Below is a view from our apartment during one of these storms, which usually are really quick (lasting for an hour or two at the absolute max).
As you can probably deduct from my lengthy discussion of the weather, not much has been happening in SG this week. Tomorrow is the launch of the SUTD entrepreneurship programme (British spelling and all), and yesterday was a postdoc in our office's birthday, so we celebrated at a little bar by Orchard Road. It was a lovely evening, although it was definitely tough to say goodbye to Anine, a good friend of mine from my office at MIT who left today to head back to the States. We'll miss her a lot here!
Anyway, I'll let all of you go - the adventure to Bali starts tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have lots to report after that. Wish us luck!
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