Foamy Latte Problems

Earlier today, I tweeted:

Felt totally passé using my MacBook at a cafe today. Yes, this is clearly a Foamy Latte Problem (TM @dbarefoot http://bit.ly/doCzgC)

The shortened URL links to Darren Barefoot's blog entry, "Single Serving Site Idea: Foamy Latte Problems", where he defines Foamy Latte Problems as:

... “the trivial problems which Westerners find absorbing in their own lives” or “banal issues we obsess over because our lives are, from a global and historical perspective, astonishingly easy and luxurious”.

When people ask me what I've been doing lately, I feel like everything I mention is a Foamy Latte Problem. Like running around trying to find the right legal entity to authenticate copies of my passport for a UK bank account application. Or squinting at faded stamps in my expired passport to track down every last detail of every overseas trip I've made in the last ten years (UK student visa application requirement). Or figuring out how to pack and store my furniture and personal belongings for the year I'll be away.

So you know, I've been busy, but by no means has anything been bad. I still have time and energy to think about wrangling myself an iPad (sold out all over Singapore, with new stock scheduled vaguely to arrive in two to three weeks). I received a gorgeous and totally unexpected farewell gift from some dear friends last night (while discovering the wonders of chye poh tofu at an HDB coffeeshop cze char stall). I have enough time to spend with family and friends (and cats!) whom I'll really miss when I'm away. Life is good, yo.