Conversations in Pilates Class

I've managed to attend pilates sessions quite regularly. It's been interesting talking and listening to the ladies and instructors there. Some recent conversation topics:

1. Jury duty - apparently you get called up for jury duty about once a year here. And some people, like my instructor, don't like it at all, cos it's just takes up time and she'd rather be working. Another lady in my class was looking forward to serving hers though. Since juries are an alien concept in Singapore, it was quite interesting to meet people who do serve on them. My instructor was dismissed from jury duty just a few days ago - some case about a superintendent who brought a knife to school!

2. Self-defence - the ladies talked about this today too, like how they never park beside vans (so as to avoid being abducted), and how they walk with their keys held facing out (so as to inflict more damage if attacked), and how they (well, one of them) only goes for walks with her dog (for protection). It's a reminder of how much more unsafe this country is. I was just reading an article about a boy who was snatched while he was playing on the street outside his home! At church, before we leave the kids at Sunday School, we have to sign them in, get name-tags for them and corresponding tags that we're supposed to show before we can pick them up. And at J's summer camp application form, we had to put down a password that we have to give to the camp counsellor before picking him up. It's kinda creepy, but I appreciate the precautions.

3. It doesn't seem like it, but this is a country at war. There are small reminders though. I've met a lady whose son is serving in the military in Iraq. And in some of the neighbouring towns, there are banners along the roads that salute and name people from that town who are serving in the military. When we were at the Shamu show at SeaWorld, they called for members of the military (past and present), people who had family members in the military, and people from countries allied to the US, to stand up, and gave them an ovation. One of the ladies in my pilates class said that after 911, she took out all her nice crystal and china and started using them. It's pretty sobering. 911 happened to this country, and these people. It makes real what we read in the papers and see on the news.