So I'm back. It's probably the fastest week of the year I've ever had, and although the bag's unpacked and the reality of a mountain of ironing and a hole in my walk-in closet (don't ask) has set in, I still find it rather bizarre that my week in Singapore has just come and gone.

My Facebook pictures will tell the rest of the story. I just feel the need to reflect on the experience before memories grow dim and blend together into a happy mesh of non-stop eating and shopping. While my December 2007 trip had been one where I played both host and tourist, this trip saw me chiefly playing the part of the latter. I am no longer a local. Singapore moves at a pace so blindingly fast, that it'd be such a blatant lie to profess to be one. I used to live here. I no longer do. That's the honest to blog truth.

Since my last trip, the country had discovered desserts. Then in typical Singapore fashion, they had pushed through the most brilliant blends of East Meets West in a blurred frenzy of aggressive competition and sassy marketing. Mooncakes aren't mooncakes anymore - not when there's versions with champagne and cointreau. The cakes are light and sweet, and look like Japanese works of art. They've finally understood how to make a decent cup of Flat White. The menus and decor put any chi-chi Melbourne eatery to shame.

Shopping, if it were at all possible, has increased four-fold. The clothes are gorgeous but cheap (then again, anything compared to Cue is cheap), the malls are (trying to be) standalone works of art. The ideas! I miss the ideas. I miss the stimulation, knowing that the product in your hands has been prepared to be both functional and a work of art. The care in presentation, the finesse in delivery. Australia's beauty lies in her natural state. Singapore's lies in her ability to make the artificial sing to your soul.

I had forgotten why I got into Marketing in the first place, until I went back. And now I look at the work I've accomplished in Australia and wonder if I can ever grow as a marketer if I remain here. Singapore has stretched ahead so far, so quickly. I don't know why she keeps relying on foreign talent for, in actuality, they eat her dust.

It's bloody depressing.

In a slightly melancholic mood today, after watching the weepy and not-so-obvious drama My Sister's Keeper, based on Jodi Picoult's book of the same name. Also ran into a friend this morning, and found out that friends of his just lost their son in a freak accident, during the recent Tour de France. He was only twenty-seven.

It's enough to make me take stock and have a think. I haven't been feeling very deeply, lately. I'm wondering if this is all part of contentment, or a by-product of a cushy and monotonous life... but joy - or at least some level of constant happiness - isn't an emotion that rocks the world.

It's like Baroque music - soothing on some level, great for productivity... but if you pay strict attention to it, you'll find it's actually quite boring.

It's not like things haven't been happening. Work has been very stressful. On top of two major projects running concurrently, the direct report I have been grooming for succession is getting poached by another division even as I write this. The other isn't as crash hot as she thinks she is, didn't welcome the professional kick-up-the-bum, and is leaving anyway. I had seven meetings a day, this past week. Like, real meetings. Not the as-I pass-by-your-desk meeting, not the checkpoint-report-in-the-elevator meeting. The real kind – the kind that requires planning and paranoia, and only results in more work for the individual and the section I represent. And then I start the real work after 5pm.

We're looking again at our finances. We're trying to be clever and responsible with the money God has allowed us to make. We're working out complicated things like how Parent Visas work, and when's a good time to start. Turns out the application fee is about $1,500. And the second installment is $32,000. I was so alarmed, I went out and bought a big heap of Nine West shoes. I feel better now.

Michael Jackson died. You'd have to be hiding under a big rock to not have known that. The one day I took the bus to work, I got flanked by comeback-music – Thriller on my right and Billie Jean on my left. I found myself doing a head/neck groove thang without wanting to. A little girl no older than 9 moonwalked past me as she waited for her mother to come out of the change room. A friend swears he's a dyed-in-the-wool MJ fan, even though the last big thing MJ really did was the Dangerous Tour in '93, and he was only 5 then.

The Bandwagon Fan Club. Gotta love it.

The Mad Ones are still morally superious to me, but everyone else is behaving like that's perfectly acceptable, which makes me feel stabbed in the back every Sunday. I want to say that I don't give a stuff, but I do. So I eat lots of peanuts as protest. Actually, I lie. I eat lots of peanuts because it's less fattening than chocolate, and because they're right there in a nice glass jar, on the coffee table. But every time I cook with peanut oil, I feel slightly naughty.

I did laugh until I cried about two weeks ago, though. Had a couple of colleagues over for dinner and we laughed from seven to eleven. But laughter is a funny thing - you could be freakin' hysterical, but that doesn't always mean you're feeling deeply.

I've lost my passion to write. Again. I have slightly over a month left, and I'm not sure I can make it. Or that I want to. But I'm thinking it has to do with this constant state of noo-nee-noo, this lack of angst, this vanilla serenity. I don't think it's a coincidence that many artists are manic depressives.

I completely understand why some people are hooked on melodrama. Or why Christianity thrives in persecution. Or why passion flares when absolutely forbidden. Danger is an aphrodisiac, the ultimate adrenaline-inducing drug. Being on fire makes us feel bolder, superior. Ever notice that people who feel alive also annoy the living daylights out of others who don't? Like the yipping chihuahua at the heels of the emotionally neutered.

I'm so comfortable right now, I could fall asleep. And maybe I already have.

I was researching bible class topics to teach my primary school kids tomorrow, when I chanced upon this gem of a lesson aimed at kids aged three to seven.

After coming back from Perd, celebrating Tony's birthday and hanging out with the In-Laws in between, I feel like life is finally back to normal. Indeed, Tony's out in the hall screaming at his rather obtuse computer soldiers and we're just about to pop out to meet Claire, Kate and the Two Marks for some not-so-newlyweds social time. Things are settling back in.

One of the surprises to greet me upon my return to work was my successful appointment to the steering committee of Big Fat Organisation's women's network. Of course, all this happened in my absence and I didn't get to choose my actual role in the committee, but what the hey. Decisions get made by those who don't go away on holidays.

And actually, I'm not too cut up. It's about time I started giving back to the Big Fat in other ways, and nothing else has really interested me till now. My Umbrella for Common Sense is a little too broad to make me a conscientious health and safety rep, and I'd make a hopeless first aider since I can't even watch screen gore without running out the room, flinching. I'm not overly inspired by the Fire Warden role either – again, due to the very broad Umbrella of Common Sense. That, and I had been part of a this-is-not-a-drill evacuation at Big Fat Organisation. Forget going down the staircase by floor in an orderly fashion. All of us were out of there in a tremendous hurry. Including the Fire Wardens.

So I'm now part of the team that has to turn around an ailing women's network. And the very first thing I've been tasked to do is start a blog.

Short story long, we got to thinking about what to write and one of the brainstorm topics was on how to defend the fact that you - poor deprived woman - live in Canberra.

Admit it, those of you who still read my blog and come from other states. You pity me. You have no idea, apart from my willing submission to my devastatingly handsome husband, why I would want to live in Canberra. Land of small shopping malls, no Louis Vuitton, hopeless Singaporean food, zero nightlife. I get this a lot from friends who really love me - so it's not condescension, but palpable alarm. I've been made to promise one of them that I will not grow old and die here. Here, in this god-forsaken, landlocked, public service blandness. God forbid.

And when I am in other states – surrounded by Singaporeans especially – I buy into all of it. The fact that Canberra is small and dull, artificial and almost ugly. A glorified country town with nothing much to its name except dusty museums and annoyingly obtuse politicians. Pyro, porn and politics, isn't it? Except when you speak to Singaporeans, most of them wouldn't even know about the first two. They will focus on the fact that it isn't a true mecca of eating and shopping. And when I am with them, I focus on that too.

But here's the thing. If all there is in life to be stimulated by is eating and shopping, then why didn't I just stay put in Singapore? Why didn't any of us? To bring the same yardstick of success over - great hawker food, awesome shopping, easy beach access, rocking entertainment - is, perhaps, to miss the point about getting a change.

If I am to be perfectly honest with myself, I was getting bored with Singapore prior to my leaving. I was getting tired of the relentless heat and humidity, the crowds, the not-so-cheap sales, the lousy pay, the lousier staff conditions, Malaysia, and the lack of any other stimulation except to eat a lot and shop even more. And there are times in Canberra when I look around, and feel completely content with my new life here.

Today was such a time.

It was cool. So I got to wear fashionable boots, a nice woollen knit, and clump around at a handmade market at Albert Hall that held some pretty divine stuff. I chatted to a lady there about starting an online shop, because her handiwork was seriously awesome. I bought an ancient girls-only story book for Diane as a birthday present, because she likes old books. Woman of contradiction that I am, I bought a pair of homemade shoes for a baby girl - just in case I should need them one day. And within half an hour, I was this close to telling a kid that kept throwing back the curtains to my changing room to knock it off before I made her cry.

It was also very sunny, so the windows were down in the car and the humidity was about 55% so I didn't break a sweat and my make-up was perfect all day. The traffic was heavier than usual, which meant I took 22 instead of 20 minutes to drive to Woden. I found parking immediately in all the places I went to, and didn't have to pay. I didn't have to wait in line to be served. I ended up chatting to the Clinique lady for ten minutes about her children after paying up, and chatted to another lady at Diana Ferrari about boots and clothes. I took a long drive near the lake, partly because I was lost but mostly because the Autumn colours reflecting off the waters were gorgeous.

I smelled the roses, figuratively speaking. I moved like a lady of leisure. I took time to talk to strangers. I stopped occasionally, just to stay still.

Was I still shopping and eating? Yeah. You can take the girl out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the girl. Yes, the habits die hard. But I'm hardly feeling deprived. Because the rest of the week was spent doing other things apart from shopping and eating. And I'm strangely doing alright.