Sunday, July 27, 2008

Welcome (My First Post)

Hello everybody - this is my first post (of many)! I am excited about keeping everybody up-to-date about my adventures from the other side of the planet and excited about hearing about all the happenings in the Western world!

For those of you who don't know, Duke recently opened a medical school in Singapore and my dad was offered a job chairing the Health Services Research Department. My Dad came to my Mom and me sometime this past winter to let us know he had gotten the offer. The weeks that ensued basically consisted of me listing all of the reasons why we should go...and I guess the rest is history.

I will be leaving tomorrow (Monday, the 28th) evening. My parents and I will be stopping through London and spending Tuesday and Wednesday there. *Funny story - it turns out that my best friend Sean is in England right now, so I should be able to meet up with him for a little while there.

Wednesday we depart for Singapore. This is the first time I will be flying anywhere on a one-way ticket! Once in Sinapore, we will be staying in a service apartment (a mix between a hotel and an apartment) for a while until we find a place to stay. I start school on August 11th. I don't know much more beyond these couple of facts.

I'm going to be getting a new phone and I don't know what sort of plan I will have. What I can tell you is that I will have Skype. Skype is a FREE internet program in which two people can talk using either the microphone built on on laptops and some desktops or by using a cheap and easy-to-use plug in computer mic. If interested, check out this website for download: http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/. Once you've created a Skype Name, add me as a contact - danielmatchar. My email address is danielmatchar@yahoo.com and I have a facebook page that I check pretty often.

I hope to hear from everybody soon - leave me comments here, send me an email...just keep in touch. My plan is to update this blog pretty often (and include lots of pictures), so check in with it frequently. Keep in mind that Singapore is 12-13 hours ahead (depending on datelight savings) of time here on the East Coast of the U.S.

Peace and love,

Daniel

3 comments:

Ella said...

Skype me to explain what you did with Freddo. He's 1,000 years old in frog years, and should be considered a national treasure.
Have fun flying coach for 38 hours!

Deborah Shlian said...

Hi:
We will be Skyping you from our Mac (you only mentioned PC/Windows). Have a safe trip over. Looking forward to reading your blog!
Love, Debbie and Joel
(check out our blog on http://www.shlian.com)

Unknown said...

I downloaded skype but I'm pretty confused about it. You'll have to help me understand it.

Miss you already!