foreign cheques take forever

i banked in a u.s. bank cheque last month on the 27th of january and it is only today that the amount has been credited to me. argggg. it took forever to clear and whatsmore, the u.s. dollar has been slipping resulting in me making a loss of 20 singapore dollars. it was 1.67 buying rate when i banked the cheque but based on my calculations, i am now getting it at 1.62. hrumph! on top of that i was charged by the bank a service charge of 20 singapore dollars. all in what was already very little became even less. next time i amd going with telegraphic transfer. they only charge 10 singapore dollars there. and at least i would not suffer from any drop in currency exchange rates that is as substantial as this.