A Singaporean In Australia

If you take a drive along streets of Perth, you'll notice the streets are relatively clean. I won't say it is Singapore-clean clean but the difference isn't vast. The obvious difference between the two cities, however, is the number of public dustbins on the streets. In Singapore, there is 1 bin placed in every 30 metres. In Perth, there may be some public dustbin somewhere but I have yet to see a single one throughout all these 5 years. I have yet to see a public cleaner cleaning the streets after the people either. There have to be a few hundred or thousand of them around somewhere keeping streets clean but whatever the figure is, it will be easily dwarfed by the 70,000 cleaners employed in Singapore to keep our 719.1 km² of land clean.

Perth is rather big in comparison, at about 5,386 km². With literally no public dustbins and a fraction of cleaners employed, rubbish should be filling to the brim here - going by Singapore's rate of littering. What littering? I am pretty sure many Singaporeans don't even know what I am talking about. Take a walk under a HDB flat at 3am in the morning and have a hard look to find out. Then imagine the scene if all cleaners in Singapore go on strike for a week. No wonder going on a strike is illegal in Singapore. Take a look after an outdoor event, at the heaps of thrash left behind by participants. 

So why is Perth still being kept rather clean against the odds? How different are the residents of Perth and what special things do they do? The fact is, there isn't something special about Perth. It isn't abnormal, Singapore is. It was reported a couple of years ago that Taipei employs some 5000 cleaners to keep the place clean, 14 times fewer than Singapore. I don't think there is a need for a research to conclude Singaporeans are hardcore litterbugs. What do we expect from a population who cannot even clean their own houses and have to employ a slave maid domestic helper to clean our shit assist in keeping our hygiene level at world class, green-clean standard. I knew people who even claimed their littering habits were keeping the cleaners' jobs, otherwise a massive number of people will be unemployed. I couldn't tell if those were said in jest or not.

After the holiday in Perth where I did the fateful Walk of Desperation, I returned to Singapore and life went on. However, the dustbin issue bothered me to no end. It tells me that Singaporeans do not care about their environment but the roots run much deeper. We are selfish and live only for ourselves yet hypocritical enough not to admit it. It is not limited to caring for the environment but stretches to every crevice of all aspects of Singapore life. We secretly celebrate when our classmates fail the exams, gloat when we buy a new car or get promoted at work but go deep green when nice things happens to the others. The way we backstab one another to climb, the way we hunt for glory. Every god-damned mother fucker and his dog is suddenly related to Joseph Schooling after his gold medal swim but the losers have no friends, quietly forgotten or dishonoured. Everyone is proud to be Singaporean with renewed pride when one among us can swim remarkably fast but no one is ashamed of having to employ 70,000 cleaners to veil our lack of civic mindedness. No one is ashamed of our ruthless driving attitudes, our racism towards the minority races and our treatment towards the weak, the old and the disabled.

Officials called for stronger enforcement to deal with the dipping cleanliness standards in hope of, perhaps, reducing the shocking cleaners headcount for the first time in history. Barking up the wrong tree is what we often call 'pragmatism' in Singapore. That's one thing I really dislike about our problem solving attitude. The easiest solution is often seen as the best solution but is it really so? After 5 decades of nation building, we cannot even educate a population to clean after ourselves like the first world human beings we like to see ourselves as. To reduce cleaning workers yet maintain an acceptable of cleanliness, we need to up enforcement. What a joke.

Enforcement again. No wonder they see us as animals or at best, retarded kids. We need to be round up by a shepherd dog all the time like hapless herds. There are enforcement for parking because we cheat whenever we can. Millions has been invested to automate parking, so that enforcement cost can be reduced with an anti-cheat system in place. We cannot be trusted to buy our own bus fares. So the Transit Link paying system had to be replaced by Ezylink to prevent commuters from paying $0.60 for every bus ride they take.

A friend working in a community charity organisation told me one major reason why criteria are set so strict in order to receive financial assistance is that his clients tend to cheat, taking advantage of the system by getting themselves qualified - on paper - to receive social assistance when they do not need it. Then we read about grown adults arriving in their Mercedes Benz at a book distribution scheme for the needy to jostle with the others for free books.

It comes back to that same chicken and egg question that Patrick and I will usually take opposite sides on. Did the system make the people behave this way or the people make the system because they cannot be trusted? Does the constant limitation of resources cause the people to be selfish, kiasu and mean? Or was the system in place so that people are protected from the undesirable traits commonly found among Singaporeans?

When I showed Angie the open BBQ pits that are free for everyone to use here, she immediately commented that system will never work in Singapore. It will be abused to no end. The users will not clean up after use either, like most of the users of BBQ pits in Perth. Judy told me there if grape vines were to hang freely in vineyards like the way they do it in Perth, there will be nothing left to harvest by the time they ripe. Most of us accept this dog-eat-dog, paper grabbing, money chasing system as a way of life. I don't believe in such things because I saw a place where things are better, people are kinder and have lived here to confirm it.


To me, the definition of a First World country is not about building expensive skyscrapers, introducing sophisticated technologies, paying obscene money to maintain a beautiful and clean facade and banning discussions about race on the pretext of racial harmony. Instead, it is the quality of the people that defines a respectable civilisation.

Lately when I passed by this place, I couldn't resist taking a picture for remembrance. I might have tell this story before. I've been jotting down these crap for the past 5 years. There are over a thousand posts by now. There is no way I can keep track of what I said before.

Well, this tale is important to me. Utmost. So important that it is symbolic for me, as it represented the awakening of the eye.

The tale goes back to as far as 2007. It is a tad shocking to realise it has been 10 years since. Perhaps a fitting moment to honour the event. That year I arrived in Perth for the first time in my life as a tourist. I was already in mid 20s by then, yet I rarely traveled. For me, the world seemed to revolve around Singapore, the paradise on Earth. I was one of those who believed Singapore was the best place in the world, where everyone outside wanted to get in and those who wanted to get out were criminals and losers. Thus I know very well how many, many Singaporeans back there look at people like me. I was there, I was one of them. I know.

I came to Perth to look for Jen, who was staying with her sister then. I was put up at her university friend's place in an unknown suburb, which I found out only much later. One morning, I woke early and was bored. So I decided to have a morning walk towards where I thought Jen lived. Little did I know she was a few suburbs away. The only bearings I had was a faint memory of the route she took to send me back to my accommodation. I had no maps on me, no GPS, nothing. I had no money on me and did not even know how or where to take a bus. I didn't even know where was my starting point. Yet I walked, and walked, and walked.

I was soaking in everything I saw on the streets. Coming from Singapore and having worked in an urban planning department in a stat board, the streets of Perth looked disorganised to me. Inconsistent building setback lines, inadequate planting verge, non-existing road reserve on certain roads. In midst of my constant fault finding, I couldn't help but like the place. The weather was simply amazing and the cloudless blue sky that morning was framing the flawed urban diamond perfectly. I walked past hedges of lavenders and rosemary, growing in glowing abundance. I couldn't help but stop to take in their unmistakable scents.

Soon enough, things turned sour. The bladder started to feel heavy and I chose to walk on with confidence. "There should be a shopping centre, a fast food restaurant, a coffee shop or petrol kiosk to settle the problem," I thought.

So I walked on, with hope in my heart. However, as the bladder got fuller, it was increasingly difficult to keep the flames of hope high. Before long, I was desperate and ready to perform the call of nature in nature. I was exploding but I couldn't find a suitable spot. I just couldn't do it in front of somebody's house. It was one of those situation you wish you are just a dog. Over a few kilometres, I couldn't find a single dustbin along the road. "W.T.F," I cursed. "Where do these people throw thrash?" I couldn't even find a plastic bottle or bag in a bin to pee into.

I staggered on towards a busier road on the horizon. That had to be a major road. I bet the last glimmer of hope on it. Imagine my relief when I saw the green signage of the fuel station at the end. I ran towards it with cherry blossoms floating the air. The toilet was huge as compared to those in Singapore. It was also dry and clean. I was grateful. I continued to walk on and actually ended up in Jen's suburb but I couldn't find the correct road. She turned up to my rescue after a phone call. On hindsight, I was fortunate she was awake at that hour.

The incident highlighted how naive I was, to think the rest of the world should have been constructed in a Singapore blue print. I was so used to bumping into a shop, eatery, public building or petrol kiosk every few hundred metres in Singapore. That didn't bother me more than the non-existence of public dustbins. How did the streets still appear relatively clean, no dirtier than any street in Singapore then?

That question was the awakening.

Wanna know why people have a 2nd child?

Parents have short memories. They forget PAIN easily. Many experienced parents (aka parents with older children) told me parenting gets more and more challenging as the child grows up. I found that those are bloody lies. However, I don't blame them. Like I said, parents have short memories. Yeah, parents of teens claim quarrels with their children keep them up all night. That's bullshit. Perhaps I took that too literally. The last time I remember, after a huge burst up with my dad when I raised a chair towards his chopper when I was in Secondary 3, he went to bed snoring as sound as a baby that night. Those parents that claim they stay up probably have insomnia in the first place.

Back to the question, once the first child becomes more independent, such as being able to feed, clean and dress herself, things start to feel more rosy. Parents (like us) tend to get complacent, totally how bloody tough it was for us to get to that stage. Then the wife suddenly have a bright idea. Since parenting seems fun now, why not have a second kid? Only to find out the horrors of taking care of a new born all over again.

Believe me, there are times I even gave in to temptation and dished out some solicited parenting advice. I was surprised how confident I sound. Little Ant brought me down to earth in no time. Whatever prior parenting experience seemed ineffective against the baby boy, who has totally different character, personality and habits to her sister. He surprises us with more antics in a few months than Albany in 5 years.

Little Ant learnt to walk soon after he turned 1 and began his great exploration in earnest. With our backs turn for a minute, he would be stirring water in the toilet bowl, switching on electrical switch all around the house, dipping his hands deep into moisturizing cream jars and so on ...  Lately, when he even dipped into the carton-full of apples we bought for just $2.99 and started munching on it silently while I was busily preparing dinner. We had to unlearn most of the things we thought we knew about handling a toddler and relearn accordingly - fast.

He rarely cry outside his basic needs, flashes his dimpled cheeky smiles often and is a curious learner. By now, he is able to feed himself by hand. At this rate, it looks possible to get him proficient with utensils before the year ends. 

I was asked why my kids could sit still at the table until the meal is over. The answer is straightforward. There is nothing they cannot do, if you allow them to fail. The role of the parent is make sure they do not get hurt during failure, not to prevent them from failing. At this stage, we also have to clear up the mess every single time until they get it right. I know many parents will rather keep things simple and save all the trouble by spoon feeding them. They will rather send them for enrichment classes, brain enhancement programs or whatever crap the businesses sell. Yet they spoon feed them, dress them, clean them and wipe their asses at the age kids somewhere else can make simple meals.

There is no such thing as good parent or right parenting. A set of parenting principles are as good as an opinion. I prefer to maintain my caveman style of parenting by teaching them basic survival skills first before anything else. Kids must be able to clean themselves and the house at a young age, then cook, swim, identify dangers and how to negotiate them in following years. Till now we have been focusing on instilling a strong learning attitude in them instead of forcing alphabets and numbers on them. They'll be alright.

When I was preparing to leave Singapore, I went around bidding my friends goodbye. One of them told me, "If you cannot change the environment, change yourself." He was referring to one of my main grouse about how uncomfortable I felt the overcrowding in Singapore. When I left Singapore, the population was 5.18 million. The current population of Singapore is 5,744,135 as of today, Tuesday, January 17, 2017, based on the latest United Nations estimates. He was damn right about not being able to change the environment. However, he got the second part wrong. The only way for me to accept an ever-increasing population on a already jam-packed tiny island was to believe living like sardines in a can was necessary - and whatever lies the PAP tried to axiomise. Changing my mindset about the PAP, their cronies and their legalised corruption is much harder to do than to change the environment that I live in. So I chose the path of least resistance.

Do not get me wrong. Wait - even if you do, I don't fucking care. Truth to be told, I never forget the advice friends gave me. While I appreciate each and every one of it, it does not mean I am able to take them all the time - at least not immediately. Will I change the way I think about Singapore one day? Perhaps. I don't know. I sure keep that advice in mind to change the way I think about something I dislike, before it mutate into a cancerous level that I will never reconcile with anymore.

Summer in Perth is something I strongly dislike and I do not hold back my views about it. Ironically, I have been told I have been writing about Perth life with rose-tinted glasses. If I want to explain what selective reading means to my kids in future, I'll cite this example. Over the last 5 years, it has become a routine for me to curse the searing heat of Summer in Perth from December to the next February, sometimes way into March if Autumn comes late. 

Sure, it is possible to change an attitude. The difficulty ranges from easy to near-impossible. Changing my attitude towards Summer in Perth is easy, as compared to the PAP and where they are taking Singapore to - that's on the opposite radical end. To take my friend's advice, I look at the best things about Summer, which is the availability of some of the most amazing fruits I enjoy. Melons, nectarines, peaches, plums (yuck), grapefruits, grapes. It is a period where harvests of such fruits are bountiful and prices are decent for consumers like me. I even took the trouble to move to an area within the metro region in Perth with the biggest concentration of vineyards. I figured that, if the next Summer is not as forgiving as how the current one is turning out to be, at least I will be happy watching the vineyards on the way home. They are beautiful, don't you agree? 

I will never imagine myself saying this. I am actually enjoying this Summer. There are very few very hot days so far and there are many days with a comfortable range between 18C at night and 27C at their afternoon peaks. I told mum the other day that even if the rest of Summer is as hot as the previous five, it wouldn't be half as bad overall. After all, we are already halfway through Summer by today. In addition, the Summer flies didn't seem to arrive in Perth this year (yet?) We did have a taste of them at their peskiest best during our camping trip in December but I have no trouble with them once I returned to Perth. This is turning out to be great.

The effort put in by MIL seems to be paying off. Most of her plants are doing well. The trees are slowly maturing.

first of all, I'm sure you have received a lot of acknowledgements for having your blog set up for the rest of us to benefit, but here I am saying kudos for having that site up and running since like forever. Or in simpler terms, thanks a lot for the site!

A little bit about me:

I'm a 35-year old Singaporean married to an Australian for the past 3.5 years. I was born and bred in Singapore, did my national service and reservist and am comfortably working in a German shipping company here. The lack of personal space and the state of things (controlling government and seeing old people working to death) here basically were the push factors for me to leave Singapore.

Also, having been living in Singapore as a PR for the last 3 years, my wife has decided that we should move back to Australia and start a family. I lost my mom last year in April to terminal cancer, and ever since then I no longer have any immediate family members holding me back in Singapore. Dad died when I was 12, and my younger brother is getting married to a local Singaporean this year and will be having his own family.

So back in August last year, I finally started the process of getting the partner visa, and in December, I got the Permanent Partner visa (subclass 100). I was quite surprised at how easy it seemed for me to get the permanent visa, but then again, I had been married for more than 3 years and had the supporting proof of it. Needless to say, the whole paperwork exercise was time-consuming but hey, in the end it was worth it.

So now the dilemma for me is to basically try to get a job in Australia in order to provide for my family (me and wife). It is kind of difficult to leave a well-paying job for an uncertain future but I am dead set on making this work, no matter how scary it is.

I'm in the shipping industry, and you know Singapore is the major shipping hub of the world, and almost all the jobs are here. But I'm also looking at becoming a tradie or even doing something totally not related to my work experience in Singapore. I love carpentry and gardening, all those hands-on stuff, and am even looking at going back to school to get a diploma/degree in physiotherapy.

We are looking at settling down in Brisbane, simply because that's where most of my wife's family is from. It would be great if you have some contacts there for me to get in touch with, just to have a more intimate knowledge of the job prospects as well as living in Brisbane.

Also, just some questions I hope you can enlighten me:

1. As a holder of the permanent partner visa, I am allowed to live and work in Australia without any conditions. Does this mean I am technically a Permanent Resident of Australia now? And as such, I have access to Centerlink and the other social services?

2. I surfed online previously and found out that it was very difficult for holders of the temporary partner visa (subclass 309) to get a job, simply because they were on the temporary visa. Would I as a permanent visa holder, face the same dilemma? The optimist in me says otherwise!

3. In the event that we finally make the move (planning for 2nd half of this year), what's your advice? Do we firstly find a place to rent in Brisbane, and start looking for jobs if by then I still have no offers? Or crash at my in-laws place up in Rockhampton and continue my job search from there?

4. I currently have a HDB flat in Singapore, and obviously I have not met the min 5-years period in order to sell it. As such, my plan is to rent the whole place out and get it to pay itself (the HDB loan) till the 5-years is over and I can sell it off. By then, I would be able to apply for citizenship in Australia, and all going well, I can collect my CPF money then. It seemed very straight-forward, or am I missing something? 

5. So once I'm living and working in Australia, I will be paying the taxes in Australia. How about the taxes in Singapore? I'm guessing I still have to pay the property tax for my flat. But since I'm not working in Singapore, there's no income tax to be paid right?

I know this is a very long-winded email coming from a total stranger, but in any case, I hope to hear from you soon!

Best,

Shafiq

Yes you are a PR of Australia, though your initial visa is a temporary one. After a year, your TR will be converted to a PR. And no. As per the immigration website [link], newly arrived residents will have to wait for 104 weeks (2 years) to receive assistance from Centrelink. However, this does not include family assistance payments. So, if you have children here later on, you will have access to family tax benefits and so on.... 

No such thing bro. You are either eligible to work or not. Your type of visa does not give you additional advantage. However, during interviews, it may be harder to impress and land yourself a job over the locals due to obvious reasons. So just try even harder. 

Crash with in-laws if you can stand them.

You can only withdraw funds from your CPF account if you renounce your SG citizenship. You will only be allowed to renounce, under normal circumstances, if you have taken up citizenship of another country. To be eligible for citizenship, you need to be a PR and have stayed in Australia for 4 years. So you do the maths.

At the moment, Singapore does not tax overseas income. Maybe one day they will, when they are desperate enough. However, that will push many Singaporeans holding Australian PRs give up their Singapore citizenships for sure. Property tax will be ongoing as long as you hold it.

Hope my answers are satisfactory. Good luck and update us when you sell your HDB flat!

Camping isn't the kind of thing Singaporeans normally do. I used to like the idea of camping as a youth but I didn't get around doing it much. We used to do a lot of BBQs during Secondary School Days. A few times, we ended late. So late that the only way back home was cycling back from West Coast Park to Choa Chu Kang with a guitar on my back on a single gear BMX bicycle with a rare back-pedal coastal brake ... which actually belonged to Master Wong. I had no idea why that bike was entrusted to me for so long but it remained the outstanding and memorable one among the rest I actually owned later throughout my days in Singapore.

Those days. Those are the days without NightRider Bus Services. So if you miss the last train or bus you are pretty much fucked. Taxi was a last resort thing, used when we heard our dads were hitting our mums or the house was burning. If not, something else would be burnt - our hollow pockets. Why don't we just pitch a tent and camp? I ever asked. "Crazy," I was told that I was. Well back then, camping was illegal in public parks. They were normally done in "rural areas" like Serimbun or the offshore islands such as Pulau Ubin or St John Island etc.

By the time we finished NS, camping in parks were allowed in Singapore though none of those impromptu ones I needed when I missed the last bus was possible. We need to pre-book those or risk being chased away by rangers. "Wanna camp?" I asked Tucky once. He retorted, "In army haven't camp enough izzit!" So the most memorable camping trip I had in Singapore remained that one done in my poly days in Pulau Ubin where we cooked chicken buried in the soil with charcoal, saw amazing sights and possibly supernatural stuff better left untold.

I learnt from your comment in your blog post http://asingaporeanson.blogspot.sg/2012/02/how-to-apply-for-australian-permanent.html that James A Hall of ANZ Migration was your agent and he rejected your application, and he told you how you could get qualified. If I understand from your blog posts correctly (as I have read a few of them randomly and I may not get the full picture or most accurate picture at the moment), you have chosen to apply for your PR visa from the Australian immigration department directly and you succeeded in getting your visa in this manner, is that right?

I really like the way you describe the situation, for it reminded me of how I felt in 2008 and with my limited literacy level, couldn't have describe it better than your good self. The only problem is, why did you take that long to realise it, assuming your non-subscription of their brand of nationalism isn't a recently adopted one.

Perhaps it wasn't appropriate for me to term that as a problem. I believe the realisation of where Singapore is heading to and predicting our position in it in the future is a good thing. It forces us to start thinking if there is anything better we can do for ourselves. If you or your wife can still get your Aust PR via the migration agent's help, don't delay much longer.

I wasn't qualified to come to Australia via skilled migration at the time of assessment. Mr James Hall told me if I could switch to the construction industry and chalk up 1-2 years of working experience, he should be able to qualify me with my Diploma, instead of using my IS Degree which I am short of 4 years of working experience in various job roles I tried but couldn't land one to start off with. Thus, I switched to the construction industry. Later on, I was too impatient and applied for a Spouse Visa instead, tagging on to my wife who gotten her PR before we got married.

Doing the application ourselves instead of going through the migration agent is a separate issue. The sole reason of doing that was to save (heaps of) cost. On the flip side, the risks to get it wrong are higher and being meticulous is required.

Hope I cleared all your questions.

"Life begins at 40," they say.

Bullshit. 

How many of us really believe we can live to 80 and beyond? How does the final decade of our lives compare to the decade before we hit 40 years old? It isn't even a comparison. One is putting the second foot in the grave and the other is the peak of our life force. Thus even if some of us can live till the ripe age of 100, we would be - at best - at 50% HP by 40. In human speak, we would have expended half of our life forces by then. If you life begins at 40, it must have been a rather wasteful one.

Some of us actually count the final decade of our lives as 'living'. Really, this isn't a cup half full or half empty argument. They call it the sunset years for a reason. We are dying at that age. Fact. There is no point calling it otherwise. I cannot see better things life can offer by then, at least in comparison to the prior few decades. We don't really have as much time as we think. Yet, where do we set our priorities? When organs are falling apart or have gone missing, joints are creaking badly if not functioning is not entirely ceased yet, I wouldn't say anything we have gone after in our entire careers make much difference by that stage. Money? Why delay the inevitable ....? Achievements and glories? Insignificant. 

Truth to be told, there isn't much time left. If you have 50% HP left with a lifespan of 80, all you have is another 3 decades of living to do, before you start your wobbly stagger to the grave. 3 decades. That's how short it is. Some of us may die even younger at 70, in which we'll have even less left to live. As far as I know, many of us have already decided to live those years as living dead, working to no end, seeing no light and day. Now, for those who decide to live that short 2-3 decades, how much are you willing to give up ? What do you really have to fear? After those years are gone, so will you. All will come to nought. What is there to be fearful or worried about? 

Why do we have to wait for a friend dying of terminal illness to tell us to live life to the fullest? Isn't that obvious enough?  Why do we have to subscribe to the axiom that we have to keep working at peak output for the rest of our lives?

Happy New Year.

Miss me? I bet.

I haven't felt like blogging because I have nothing left to say and you have nothing new to ask. For all senders of un-replied emails, please just do a search on the blog using keywords of your questions, you should be able to find something about it. If you have time to burn, you can wait for my eventual reply - which can take from a day to a year. The faster way would be to send me a text on whatsapp. 

Anyway, I was asked a rather weird question which the answer will be too long to reply on whatsapp. So I am doing it here, for the benefit of others who may find themselves in the same predicament. Here's a potato for you in advance.

So here goes

When I first came to Perth, I couldn't even cook green vegetables or white rice. I kid you not. Oddly enough, today somebody asked me for cooking lessons! Well, don't take it that I am a good cook. Of course not. The impression I probably give is, if that guy has survived 5 fucking years, there must be food to go around somehow! Due to the high cost of eating out, that cannot be a sustainable option. Thus, there must be some mysterious way to get food in the belly so much so we don't get bankrupt first before we die of hunger.

Simple.

Know this. EVERY household in Perth has an oven, rental house or not. Even if you rent a shack, we can go into Microwave 1.01. Until then, you should do fine with Oven 1.01. We are talking about filling the stomach, not fine dining in a Marina Bay Sands restaurant. Beggars cannot be choosers. Besides, this list will be a better menu than a typical beggar's...

First, the golden rules of the Oven 1.01. 

If it burns, decrease the temperature.

If it cooks too slow, increase the temperature.

then fucking wait.

Note that oven cooking is different from anything else. The drawback is obviously the amount of time taken to cook. The advantage is very minimal preparation and passive cooking. this means you can do everything else while your food cooks, leaving nothing else left to do except to enjoy a good meal when it is done. If you ask me, that's a good deal. Now you know the rules, here is a recipe book.

1. A Fucking Baked Potato.

Buy a potato. Bake it at 168 degrees Celsius, for easy memory, if you are a superstitious hungry Chinese Singaporean. Leave it inside for 90 mins. By the time you finish your laundry, house cleaning and pa chiu cheng, you have some potatoes to eat. Finish the desired toppings. Just don't put the wrong white creamy stuff on it.

If you cannot crack eggs over asparagus, a veg that requires minimal washing or chopping, then you deserve to starve. Else, a nutritious side will be waiting for you if you do this.

Bake veg (with bacon if non-muslim) at 240 C for 8 minutes, remove tray with gloved hand and crack eggs over them. Roast till eggs are cooked to the preferred level, note the time taken so you don't have to be there again the next time, setting the timer to remind you.

Buy whatever toppings you like. Buy sliced bread for $0.70 a loaf. Put toppings on bread. Add cheese. Place into oven and bake at 200 C until cheese is baked at desired level. Note time for future passive cooking.

Rotate recipes until you get sick of eating them. Chicken, fish, lamb, vegetables, deserts. Name it and the oven delivers. Soon you will search for oven recipes and go forth to be the next oven master.

Good luck. If you want to learn more advance, dangerous course, please post your money order to book your lesson in Boiling 1.01.