over the edge

Cool morning. Dark clouds. SBS bus service 179 smelled like the hospital.

On my way out of the restroom, I see the nice elderly lady who works as a cleaner in the sports and recreation centre. I gave her a big smile and said, "Auntie! 早安 (good morning)!"

Auntie took this friendly gesture of mine as an invitation to tell me how her morning went. She told me that she'd just sat for an examination and how thick the notes she had to study were. She went on to say that even cleaners nowadays have to take exams and that it's not easy working in Singapore. She then told me what some of the questions were about in the exam - how to dress appropriately on the job; personal hygiene etc. The conversation lasted about 5 minutes with her talking about 95% of the time and once she realised I was going somewhere, she bade farewell to me.

I thought it was rather interesting that she would tell me about this.

Then the rest of the day I was in the lab till about 10:10pm doing column chromatography which lasted about 6 hours.