the rat race

me: I got promoted
parents: oh. what are you now?
me: associate
parents: oh. i thought you already were an associate
me: no i was a junior associate
parents: oh.
me: ....

(silence)

parents: when are you getting married
me: -_-

Ching Ming

My last memory of Gong gong is that of me getting up to leave my aunt's house. He was in Singapore for cancer treatment, and I was visiting during the last school holiday before my final secondary school exam. I got up to leave, and said goodbye.

And then...

He took my hand. He had never taken my hand ever. And he took it then. He looked at me, and held it for a while. I wanted to cry, but I instead, I said I would see him soon. I never did.

When he died, I was at home, studying for my exams. There were people with him of course, my father, my aunts, my uncle, of course, my grandmother. Not me.

During his funeral, I hung around the parlor, talking to long lost relatives and just sitting. When everyone left for lunch, I stayed. For a while it was me and him, and I cried and cried. And my father walked in. I remember putting my head in his lap, and asking him to make it all go away. To bring Gong gong back and make the nightmare end. That... didn't work.

When he was buried, I stayed at home. I told my father I needed to study. On that day, I went downstairs and washed his car. When I finished I sat there, on the pavement, sobbing. I didn't study that day, and not the day after, and the day after that.

Today, sitting in the hotel room in Sydney, the memories come rushing back in a torrent. I remember him, his dark tan, his gruff voice, his slow gait, his gentleness, his everything.

Ceng Beng. Festival of the Dead.

I miss him so much.

OMFG

OMFG!

KRISPY KREME IS COMING TO TOWN

this is part of a diabolical plan to fatten and then eat me.

by someone very diabolical.

Me = Bane

My goal for the next few months is to create a reputation for myself that will inspire fear and loathing in the travel office people. On a scale of 1 to 10, I am currently scoring a very respectable 8 in the fear and loathing axis.

A 10 would be when they stop answering my emails.

You say, "Pfft, it's so easy peasy to inspire fear and loathing!"

But I beg to differ. You see, in order to inspire TRULY inspirational fear and loathing one must do the following:

(1) Change my flights a minimum of two (preferably more) times a day
(2) Delay answering their frantic emails to confirm my flights until the last minute where I then deluge them with 10 consecutive emails to see whether my flights have been confirmed
(3) Give very vague and deliberately unhelpful answers to their questions, e.g.:

Travel Agent: There are two flight options, one with a stopover and the other a direct flight but leaving at a later time. Please advise on preferred option so that we may make the appropriate booking.
Me: Yes please go ahead and confirm booking.

(4) Demand absurd things

Me: I want a car from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur
Travel Agent: I'm afraid there may be a mistake in your email, I've arranged for a car from the Singapore airport to CBD
Me: Sorry which part of my email was not clear enough. I want a CAR from SINGAPORE CHANGI AIRPORT to KUALA LUMPUR AIRPORT
Travel Agent: *Dulan*

Ladida

So apparently Last Blog Post Day was an Angry Day... (NooooO? really?) Well yes. A friend lost a job, and in a very very nasty way, so it was well deserved.

I DESERVE THE RIGHT TO RANT.

It's called democracy.

Today, is Tired Day. I am very tired.

I have also run out of clean underwear, which makes things rather difficult, and tomorrow morning I shall be faced with an Impossible Dilemma between having

(a) wake up early to wash and blow dry my underwear with industrial strength hairdryer
(b) sleep later

with (b) having its own very unique, and perhaps not-so-hygenic consequences.

Also today I didn't brush my teeth, because this hotel has NO FREE CHEAP PLASTIC TOOTHBRUSH. This has made me slightly upset. I mean, I was already pretty upset when the sun kissed wind blown surfer type receptionist announced (in a Rather Loud Voice) that BOTH my credit cards were insufficient to cover my stay. This graduated me from Mildly Annoyed to Disgruntled. And then when I woke up this morning, and discovered SANS TOOTHBRUSH, I was, to put it mildly, FREAKING THE HELL OUT.

In the end I had to resort to frantically chewing gum continuously throughout the day. Goddammit, this better pay off in the form of a very sleek good looking jawbone with all the exercise I'm putting my jaw through.

So, if I had to describe my Australian journey thus far, I would label it: Very Unhygienic.

But aside from that, Australia, is well, exactly the same as KL. I mean, I shuttle from the hotel to work, and the office more or less looks the same except I have to PAY FOR COFFEE which is wrong and obviously against some sort of fundamental human rights. On the bright side, it has a Shower In The Public Toilet... where, get this, THERE IS A CHAIR. This made me incredibly excited and I spent a good number of minutes sitting on said chair, and picturing the luxury of Showering While Sitting Down, which is surely the height of luxury, and what all this billion dollar investment banking CEO's must do.

"Faw faw... I have just gotten a bonus the size of New Zealand's GDP... Oh my goodness. What shall I do with all these gold bullions lying around my living room? Oh! Of course! I shall install a plastic seat in my toilet so that I may sit down while I shower!!!"

This, while unsaid, is undoubtedly what goes through the mind of all those CEOs and their magical world of ESOSes and Golden Handshakes.

When I get home, I will install a plastic chair in my shower so that I may enjoy the bourgeois luxury of the upper classes, in an affordable manner. Until, of course, my mother forces me to remove it from my bathroom.

SPEAKING OF WHICH

Why does my mother have so much say over what goes into my room?

Hmmph.

AFTER ALL... I am pushing thirty.

Is it not right that I should be able to read comics and stick up Star Trek posters if I damned well feel like it?

For sure, I do not pay rent, nor do I contribute in any monetary way to the household finances. However, I do, for no charge at all, provide my amenable company and glorious presence.

Which is priceless. PRICELESS.

I must sleep. But it eludes me. Like a solution to my stupid model.

sigh.

Good night world.

Good night Bee. I hope you are inside, and parents have not locked you out, as they usually do when I'm not around :( I miss you. Alot. I'll be home soon! Pwomise.

Muah