Choices

I was given two choices last Thursday evening: “No. 2 has complained a lot about you and your work. We do not wish to see the two of you continue to be unhappy with each other at the office so we’re giving you two choices here. Either we give you a letter of termination or you sign on this resignation letter that we have prepared for you.”

Just that morning, No. 2 had made me sit in her office and have me listen to her shouting at me and then making me listen to her talk about God’s love.

“I’ve been through tough times before. But I’ve had my church mentors to see me through. When you go through difficult times, I want you to know there is a God out there. Go down on your knees every night and pray. That’s what I can tell you as a boss, friend and sister,” No. 2 said to me.

 No. 2, you’re seriously demented. No wonder you’re still single. No wonder you've had to collect so many short-course certificates throughout your life to satisfy your fat, ugly self.  You want this, want that, always give out strange instructions and no one even knows what you actually want. I’m not even supposed to be responsible for office cleanliness but you threatened to give me a warning letter for not keeping the office clean? What the fcuk is wrong with you? What has your pastor taught you in church? Can't blame you for being insane because even your own church pastor keeps getting involved in scandals.

I called M three times two days ago. He refused to answer the phone. I called again the next evening. No answer. Just that continuous ringtone with the naïve caller waiting and hoping like a stupid fool, and M on the other side of the line probably sniggering away while going about with his plan to be famous worldwide. He used to always like to tell me this: "I want to be famous, I want to win an Oscar award and a Nobel Peace Prize." 

"I want, I want, I want". That's all he knows at most times apart from some other things that many average people haven't heard about. He always considered himself special and "I don't want to live like the rest of the 6 billion people in the world".

You fcuking retard! What are you a deity of some sort? Oh wait, you like calling yourself a "Jedi", with strange powers and some sort of deep knowledge of the mysterious unknown. I did a search on Wikipedia and the description totally floored me (see footnote).  

Fcuk you, M. You made me come all the way to this new place, promising me we’d be together for a long time, but you just pulled the rug from under my feet and made me go crashing all the way down, not knowing how I could ever pick myself up again.

You wouldn’t even care if I were to end up dead today. I should’ve known you were only using me to get what you had wanted. You always like to use people, influence people to make them give you what you want. Free meals, free rides, free lodging- simply because people adore and worship you, like how I used to.  

You’ve mentioned many times that you HATE children (because your god, Richard Dawkins, said children shouldn’t be brought into existence to go through life’s sufferings). OK, so I thought I could get on with my life without hearing the sounds of little feet pitter-pattering around because we could still be happy together. I had told myself that you’ll be the only man whose hand I’ll hold for the rest of my life.

Sad to say, you said families and relationships are “petty” and you have a greater cause in life to fight for.

Strange how you could change your mode so quickly after using me.   

I had made a very bad choice. I truly had.

Jedi: The Jedi are characters in the Star Wars universe and the series' main protagonists. They use a power known as the Force, and weapons called lightsabers that emit a controlled energy flow in the shape of a sword, to serve and protect the Republic and the whole galaxy from conflict or government instability.

This is getting seriously disturbing.

Breakdown

I can’t believe I just broke down and cried in front of Lady Boss’ crazy No. 2 this evening. I can’t believe I’m still working for and reporting to these insane church-goers.

“You’re not up to my standard. I can’t understand your report. Why repeat the names and dates so many times when all you have to do is to type it once? Why haven’t you told Ms E to rewrite her letter properly? The alignment is still out. It’s not professional at all,” No. 2 blabbed on.

When the waterworks came about (“I’m sorry, I’ve never been like this before, sob, sniff”), No. 2 said, “Something’s bothering you in your personal life. Nevermind, we’re here to help you….”

Sure. I can’t wait to go through another pummelling session tomorrow. Nothing beats getting bashed up on a daily basis by a caring, loving Jesus-lover-of-my-soul follower.

The only reason why I have not done anything crazy like jumping off a building or hurting myself with knives is because of my parents. I cannot disappoint them.  Whatever money that I am able to save up on my own would be for them as they approach their sunset years from here.

My recent meals have never costed more than a total of $3.00 on a normal working day. Doesn’t matter if I end up looking real skinny because no one’s gonna be too bothered about this anyway.  Special meals that I used to buy for M sometimes almost reached $20 for each meal but I never thought too much about the price. I used to even walk around in the rain to buy him food when he was too sick to get up. At one time in the middle of last year, he ended up almost broke, but he always had really silly people around to rescue him. He always knew how to get people to buy and get him anything. I totally gave away too much to this useless man.

Health-wise, I’m still OK so far (I’m not referring to my mental state of mind). Motivational books and articles that tell me to “Love Yourself” and “appreciate what you have today” might work to a certain extent, but I still do end up crying while walking on the streets or sitting in front of my computer most of the time.

“You know, I used to hate listening to mushy love songs. But it’s different now,” I used to tell M.

 I now hate listening to mushy love songs. They make me sick.

The Chicken & the Snake

It's really dreadful having two crazy female chickens running an organization. They seem to know what's best all the time, barking out orders like there's no tomorrow just to satisfy their egos. These barking chickens have recently caused quite a number of office slaves to throw in their resignation letters. Can't believe even one particular learned professor could suddenly decide to leave as well (the ONLY professor in this organization, you idiotic female chickens!).

Anyway, Lady Boss' new No. 2 has started to attempt to push in her personal friends into the school. One has managed to get in, and many more will follow suit. Many bosses and politicians would do this, I suppose.

Today, I will show you how a chicken can morph into a snake.

No. 2: Are you happy with your work here?


Me: Yes, I'm doing fine.


No. 2: But it's not fine with me. I don't see what's fine here. Why is the office still dirty? Everytime I walk in here, I see rubbish. That's not fine. You have to be more sensitive to what's going on around you. Anyway, I want you to get all the Form Teachers to see me tomorrow morning about last month's student attendance. Remind me to meet up with the Science Department teachers during the teachers' personal free time tomorrow. Get Ms. E to rewrite the annual camp cover letter for me. It was so full of grammatical errors!

Focus on the above 2 sentences in bold fonts.


Whatever. I'm not the only person in the department who's getting all this shit from No. 2.

So I decided to text No. 2 at 7.30pm today: "Ms. E has rewritten the cover letter. The Form Teachers will meet you at 4.00pm tomorrow".

No. 2 replied: "OK".

About 1 hour later, No. 2 texted me, "What is the meeting with the Form Teachers about tomorrow?"

I replied: "About last month's student attendance".

No. 2 probably wanted to "save face" and avoid sounding like the dum-dum that she is, so she replied: "OK, I will see the Form Teachers individually in their free period as agreed. Don't change my instructions".

I'm not surprised with her reply. She goes to this insane church where members are regularly told that "you're born to be the head and not the tail!", and "as a Christian, you must be able to blend with any situation".

So far, No. 2 has managed to always win all arguments with anyone (ie: always being the head and not the tail) and changed her stories so many times to safeguard herself from any form of humiliation, much to the chagrin of many office slaves (ie: blending in with any situation by twisting and blending her words around to suit the occasion).

Armed with these powerful words of wisdom from her church, this noisy chicken can morph into a snake anytime when need be and still get away with it.

Quite a good thing she's not married 'cos she can even suddenly morph into a black widow spider and eat up her mate. Can't believe she's only been here for 2 weeks and managed to make the school spend so much money.

I've never made my previous dates spend too much money on me. I buy them stuff to repay them for whatever money they've spent on me. But they still ran away (maybe I should've been more crazy and demanding?). We shall save these lame stories for another time. I do want to tell you more about useless M and how he has to run away and hide from assassins and then leave me all alone to fend for myself while being made almost homeless twice in a row, but that would have to wait until another time.

In the meantime, I shall just go to work and pretend life is normal, I'm doing fine, I'm happy, when in fact I usually end up bursting into tears while thinking about useless M who should be fed to two noisy, carnivorous female chickens (that can suddenly morph into snakes, spiders, whatever).

I HATE Mondays!

Another weekend is drawing to a close and it’ll be Monday all over again tomorrow.

Reminder to self: DO NOT stay back late at the office to do extra work. Your effort will only go unappreciated. Drop everything by 5.30pm and get out of the office.

Last Thursday night, Lady Boss and her new No. 2 (brought in to replace Lady Boss’ hen-pecked husband) waddled into my office like two ample, bosomy hens and clucked at me angrily as I was still using the air-conditioner after office hours.

“Good heavens, why are there so many lights switched on in here. Do you know that it’s very expensive to use the air-conditioner for extended periods of time? And why is the office so dirty?” Lady Boss complained.

“And why are you not taking care of the hostel students upstairs?!” Lady Boss asked me, and then said to herself, “No, wait. You already moved out.”

Yeah, you were the one who had forced me to move out from the hostel in less than a week. Totally forgotten about it after your one-week vacation in Australia, haven’t you? Good heavens, people like you get to travel around the world anytime while people like me have to work like dogs and get lashed at just to satisfy your raging hunger for control and manipulation. Of course the office looked dirty because your cleaner had run away because you gave her too much work and paid her peanuts.  But it doesn’t matter because all your sins would’ve been forgiven each time you go to your church for Confession. Dirty slate wiped clean. Brand new start each week. Doesn’t matter even if you were to have stabbed someone to death today because your awesome god can still forgive you after you've confessed your sins.    

Lady Boss gave me a glare before walking out from the office with her new No. 2.
I used to cower in fear each time she glared at me. But that evening, I just stared back at Lady Boss blankly, my eyes devoid of expression. What was I supposed to feel? I'm tired of and indifferent to many things around me by now.

I is sad.
At least that's what I'm feeling now.

On the plus side, Landlady invited her children and me to her place for dinner yesterday evening. She said it’s nothing special but just a day she where she wanted to see her children again.   

“I thought about having this dinner gathering on Sunday tomorrow but my daughter wanted to go eat special roast duck somewhere else tomorrow,” Landlady said.

After dinner, I walked back to my apartment. Landlady called not too long after that and asked if I would like to follow her and 2 of her other young tenants for a drive around town. Couldn’t refuse this offer since nothing interesting ever happens during most of my weekends. Even church people cannot sincerely accept me because I’m just another stupid Asian immigrant “stealing” resources from the citizens of this country, so these people think. Love thy neighbour, indeed.

That evening made me realize that Landlady had always had this one kind-looking old man around to look after her. He was the one who had given her an apartment just for her to live in, a car for her own use. He was also the one who had brought her to some of the most wonderful countries in the world where she could meet important people and royalties. And he was the one who had driven us girls to some of the most happening hotspots in town last night.

Soft-spoken and well-read, this old man patiently drove on and explained to us the names and history of the places we saw. I suddenly thought about M. M was outspoken, insane and well-read. And he has this natural habit of always running away and hiding from his loved ones. Stupid, stupid M. Who would’ve thought a somewhat well-known figure like him could do such a horrid thing to this silly girl he had once enticed and wooed.

It’s almost dinner-time. I should go look for my $1 meal now.


My boss

F.A.M.I.L.Y.

A few friends had previously forwarded this particular email to me that taught me what F.A.M.I.L.Y. means:
Father And Mother, I Love You.

Not too long after I had moved into my new room just a few days ago, the Landlady had spoken to me about how her daughter kept reminding her to "don't bother me all the time"- don't cook for me, don't do this, don't do that.

"Maybe she only wants to be independent. Most young people are like that. They want to have their own life," that's all I could say.

But I know I was merely plucking random words from mid-air and trying to arrange them in a way that I hope might comfort the Landlady in whatever way possible.

This morning before I left for work, the Landlady came in earlier than usual to clean up the apartment once again. Such are those few things that keep her going with her life. Her daughter woke up and groggily emerged from her bedroom not too long after that. Mother and daughter met in the kitchen.

Perhaps this mother had tried to talk to her now-grown-up child this morning. Perhaps this mother had wanted to somehow reach out her hand to this once little hand that she had used to hold on to so lovingly and protectively 30 years ago. Perhaps I like sounding dramatic in my sentences once in a while.

All in a sudden, daughter went back into her bedroom and mother was sitting down on the sofa, flipping through today's newspaper.

The Landlady then saw me and smiled sheepishly. I wasn't sure why. It's that kind of smile you get when something unbecoming had happened to that person who had smiled at you, only to make you think that nothing's wrong. Like a person who had just taken a rough and nasty tumble onto the floor but could still force a smile on her face.

I made my way to the kitchen to wash my hands and noticed these freshly-written words staring at me from the whiteboard in the kitchen: "Please don't talk to me in the morning. Use this board. - Jen"

And then I immediately imagined myself as the mother who's just had those red hot words directed at her.

"It's difficult when her father tells her bad things about me," Landlady told me a few days ago.

"I understand. It's tough not knowing whose side you should be on in such a situation," so I went about trying to think of nice things to say once again to the Landlady.

I could also imagine that particular hatred boiling within Jen. It's that accumulative, pent-up feeling that could only be purposely and instantly expressed in ways where your sole purpose is to retaliate against that person who had hurt you either intentionally or otherwise- an eye for an eye, tit for tat.

Same as to how I had quietly left my mother alone in the kitchen to prepare this year's Chinese New Year reunion dinner dishes after she had stubbornly decided to ignore me and prepare everything on her own because she never wanted me to get my hands dirty in the kitchen. It's been like that ever since I was a child.

"You know how to cut vegetables or not?? Cut also cut until night-time!" my father had sarcastically said when I tried to help out in the kitchen that morning.

I decided to take an extended afternoon nap in my room and pretended not to hear my mother calling me when she soon realized I was missing from the kitchen. The father got a much colder treatment from the daughter soon after that vegetable incident.

"Since you're so smart, why don't you go prepare everything on your own?" I thought to myself as my mother kept on calling out my name and knocking at my bedroom door.

Father and mother, I love you. But I hate it when you do and say things that make me want to intentionally hurt your feelings in return simply because there's too much shit going through my mind.

Valentine's Day, 2011

While queuing up for my dinner this evening, I had to control my urge to pick up a coin a woman had accidentally dropped onto the floor  and use it to buy my dinner which was exactly the cost of that coin from the floor. I have never treasured money this much before. I have also never been this broke before, and not able to tell anyone about it (now you know). As if M would even care.

Before I left the apartment this morning, the landlady arrived to run her usual housekeeping errands at the apartment. She asked me if I had joined some sort of Alpha Bible study program before. Just last weekend, she had excitedly said we could go take an evening walk together one of these weekends when the weather is good.  A strange pang of sadness started to well up within me when I realized how much this landlady wanted some form of substitute to fill up that void in her life when things had not worked out that well in her family life long ago.

 “How was your Valentine’s Day yesterday? I played mah-jong with my lady friends yesterday. No one mentioned anything about Valentine’s Day, hahaha,” landlady said.

“Oh, nothing much. Just busy with work,” I answered, somehow sensing the landlady’s pain and loneliness.

I kept myself very busy at work on Valentine’s Day this year. After work, I rushed to that evening class I had just started to attend. For our class presentation, volunteers went to the front of the class to present their thoughts on Valentine’s Day. I realized there were many single men and women in that class, one of whom is a divorcee who had loudly and proclaimed her single status to everyone, added with her intention to date again. That’s the kind of intention I would not wish to think about anymore after this.

“This is the Valentine’s Day card that my husband had given to me 26 years ago. I’m still keeping it to remind me of that one time when our love was still strong,” so said the crazy brave and bubbly divorcee, much to everyone’s amusement.

It was already very late when I got back to the apartment. Valentine’s Day was almost over by then. Along the way home, I had to pretend I had not seen girls walking around with their boyfriends; girls holding red roses; couples sitting together on roadside benches. But I could still imagine and remember those unwanted snapshots in my mind so very vividly while writing about this.

What a day it had been. I was so glad I managed to keep myself extremely busy.

As I was about to enter my room and call it a day, I heard the sounds of drumbeats pounding from my housemate’s radio and a girl moaning excitedly in my housemate’s room. I soon realized my housemate’s BFF who spends every day and night at the apartment isn’t exactly her BFF.

At least both girls care for each other and were able to spend a meaningful Valentine’s Day together this year behind closed doors and also have their love for each other unknowingly made known to this accidental passerby. 

                                                   

Almost Homeless

This morning, I visited a Catholic church with my new landlady. I’ve never had a landlord or landlady before throughout my working life. Had always been accidentally lucky enough to be provided with accommodation without ever having to pay for rental.

I had been working in a school for the past few months and had moved into the school hostel not too long after starting to work here because M had told me to leave his apartment.

Just last Tuesday, I had asked the lady boss if I could be excused from night-time hostel duty on Monday because I had an evening class to attend. She immediately told me to leave the school hostel and find a place outside to stay in. I couldn’t feel anything anymore by then. I’ve reached this stage in my life where I’m just already completely numb to feeling pain, rejection and dejection.

Knowing her, she’d intentionally make me move out from the school hostel within just a few days’ time. True enough, I was told by the Human Resource girl that I had to move out before the week is out. That was the second time I was made almost homeless in this foreign country.  The first time was when M told me to get out from his apartment (guess he got bored of having me around by then and had to think of a creative way to politely kick me out).

I know there is a God up there somehow despite the fact that church-goers can be complete duds at most times. I managed to find a decent place to stay in 2 days later at an extremely strategic location.  

The landlady’s daughter and another girl stay in that same apartment I’m now staying in. Both girls come from divorced families. I know how they feel. I would understand them totally if they wouldn’t want to ever be involved with any guy at all in their entire lives because it really hurts to completely give yourself to a man only to have him suddenly push you away from him and then have him behave as though you’ve never existed before in his life.

It’ll be Valentine’s Day tomorrow. I’ve never been on a Valentine’s Day date before in my entire life. When my relationship with M started one week before Valentine’s Day, I could only wish him from my home as Chinese New Year had coincided with Valentine’s Day last year. Come to think of it again, M has not celebrated Chinese New Year with his parents for the past few years (because he's just so emotionally retarded).

I’m thankful for being able to find a decent room to stay in so soon. I hope lady boss dies in an accident soon because she made me cancel my Christmas flight ticket home and ordered me to clean the school hostel until midnight on Christmas Eve last year.

Gracist Chinks

“Are you a foreigner?” woman sitting at the front pew suddenly asked me.

I muttered a soft “yes” and stopped maintaining eye contact with that stupid female chink Chinese woman. She turned away from me and didn’t say anything else after that. Oh gee, all the friendliness had so suddenly disappeared soon after Holy Church Woman found out I’m a foreigner.

We might look and sound alike, but the moment some of these chinks  Chinese people find out where certain other Chinese come from, that’s where all the judging and stereotyping step in.

So this church that calls itself “Grace” isn’t exactly full of grace after all. What do the members from this church call themselves then? Gracists- pronounced with a silent G??

Damn, it's tough living in a foreign country.

It's tough not being able to tell your parents about all the office shit you have to go through each day because you don't want them worrying about you.

It's tough forcing yourself to stay normal while at work and everywhere else when you've got this supposedly wonderful man who so suddenly told you to get out from his life because you're no longer of any use to him.

It's tough when you suddenly find yourself without a place to stay in very soon and have to quickly find your way around just so you don't end up on the streets.    

It's tough when someone has advised you to seek professional help but you can't because you don't want people to know that you've somehow lost your mind.