Two more days and I am free. I sentenced myself to three months in this prison when I signed that lease. But on the 1st of December Im out of here so Im excited about that. So how did I end up here? Chasing that Singapore dream that was sold to me by my buddy Leo. The safe and clean streets, amazing MRT system which is there metro system and cheap hawker food and great paying jobs. To be fair when I say sold me the singapore dreams, he merely suggested I try out Singapore that I might like it and then my day dreaming took over the rest. About 3 months after this brilliant idea, I got rid of my apartment, moved all my stuff into a storage unit and caught a flight to Singapore. Leo of course let me stay with him for the first few days, and actually offered to let me stay as long as I needed which was very nice. But of course I wanted to get out there and find my own place. So I started to call around, and every place I spoke to asked if I was a PR (permanent resident) or had a work pass. And of course I didn’t seeing as I just got there. To my surprise most places would not rent to me. So after a few days of calling and getting the same result, I panicked a little which then led me to this jail cell. So I called a guy named Alvin off some add on craigslist and he said he had a room. One thing i’ve learned while being here is discrimination is the norm. There are really no laws to protect from that because the first thing he asked me was ” what are you” which I replied with a cheeky response as “human”. He then continued with “Where are you from” which I then stated “The United States” and with a little frustration in his voice said ” what color are you…what is your background”. Normally I would somewhat be offended but seeing as he was the first person that didn’t say right away that they wouldn’t rent to me I decided to continue with this strange interview. The point of all these questions was to see how close I was to looking like a filipino and that I wasn’t from India or Indian decent. ” Your background is Indonesian? You look close enough to being filipino you don’t have any problems with filipinos do you?” After a 30 min profiling call he agreed to have me come by and look at the place. The place is on the corner of Jalan Besar and Lavender. Its centrally located for Singapore so obviously you pay for location as most cities. I believe most small township jail cells in the US are larger then this room. The windows are covered by newspaper, and there is loud traffic noise as I am on the busy corner but on the plus side there is a 24hr hawker centre which is a food court which you can get a meal for about 2.3$ and up. All this for the price of $800SGD which equates to about $650 USD. Later I found out that all the other tenants are paying half that so I def got taken on that one. I know you are probably thinking 650 a month isn’t bad, but let me also add there are 7 other rooms in this building with about 9 other people, we share 2 bathrooms and a kitchen with no common room. I’ve been here for 3 months with about 1.5 of them traveling which was nice to get away for a bit and am about to leave on the 1st to KL but that plan might just change.