Killing Time

Thanks to the Toraja coffee that I brewed earlier, it is now 5.53am and I am still wide awake. As a result, I am watching two or three of everything: Wonderfalls, The OC, Kevin Hill, CSI:New York and *sigh* Spiderman 2.

I hate it when people ask me if I am in a bad mood. Asking me that almost always guarantees one. Sometimes I just like to work or be quiet or crawl under my rock and vegetate and that’s that. No need to read too much into it. Some days you like ice cream, some days you don’t. So is life. I’m too young and too modern for mood swings.

Useful Definitions:

• Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future. (Mensa Invitational)
• Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.(Mensa Invitational)
• Dilberted: To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character. "I’ve been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."
• He’s 404: Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web message "404, URL Not Found," meaning that the document you’ve tried to access can’t be located. "Don’t bother asking him… he’s 404, man."

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I am having a good week. It has been raining so the weather is pleasant. I am spending a lot of time with my sisters and old friends, something that I have not been able to do for the past year and a half. And, my sabbatical is ending so I will be thrown back into the working population again soon. I love not having to do anything but knowing that I will not have plenty of disposable income to spend on my Renoma heels fetish unless I work my tush off makes me nervous.

And speaking of work, I want to rant. Last year I threw in the small fish towel and decided to join the corporate hostile waters, a decision that I was uncomfortable with from the start. However, at that point, I knew I would have to make the plunge if I want to further my career. I spoke to various people, clients included, to get their opinion. After thinking about it for a few months, I decided, okay I will give this corporate thing a try. Besides, I have been managing several difficult MNC clients, I figured it was about time I become part of an MNC myself.

Anyway, long story short, it wasn’t long before I was unhappy. Not with the workload, frankly most of the tasks I was overseeing could have been handled when I was an inexperienced 25-year old. I was hoping to be able something more strategic, that would be able to impact not just the organisation but also the society that we are living in. You think I had my head in the clouds? I did.

But okay, that is not the point of this entry. Even when I realised that I intensely (and please not that I use the word INTENSELY) disliked many of the people that I had to work with (or irrelevant, completely stubborn and out-of-depth people that I had to put up with simply because they are too big for their collective breeches), I decided to stick to my guns, to use an overused phrase.

Then one day, I received an amazing offer from another MNC. After rounds of discussions and some hew-ing and haw-ing on my part, I decided to leave the current employment and go with the new. And, although I would only start my new employment in July and I had part of May and the whole of June to kill, I made up my mind to leave as soon as my notice period was up. I decided I deserved a holiday and a respectable ‘mourning’ period to wipe the slate clean and rid myself of all the bad vibes. All is well, yes? No.

Just last week, I found out that a person from the old job called up the MNC that I am going to join TO CHECK WHETHER I AM REALLY WORKING WITH THEM. Then, rumours started to swirl around with people talking about how I lied about my new employment bla bla bla. Let’s not get into details. Suffice to say, I then received a phone call from my future employer to inform me of the incident. While they laughed it off and told me not to be alarmed about it, I am so f***ing furious.

Firstly, this is what I want to say: I know who you are. Just because I have not retaliated doesn’t mean I am unaware or is blissfully ignorant of your identity. Boy, you are a nothing and you will remain a nothing. Here’s my little secret. I knew you were about to be terminated but someone grovelled and pleaded and appealed to the powers that be to keep you in the company. Fact is you are still working only and ONLY because people took pity on you. Wake up! You and your posse can take your perceived superiority and shove it at a place where the sun doesn’t shine.

Secondly, I know enough that I can’t fight city hall. When remarks such as these were passed with alarming ease, trust me, I will not stick around to wait for the ink to be dry:

1. Don’t worry. I will keep all the [race deleted] united.
2. If I don’t take care of the [race deleted], who else will?

And thirdly, which is the most important, if you fish-mongers feel so unhappy, dissatisfied and angry about how my career is shaping up although I have no idea why things that have nothing to do with you or your lives would be the main conversation piece in your daily gossip sessions, you can just, quite simply

For goodness sake, I am no where close to Angelina Jolie so being the centre of your collective attention is really unnecessary. Go talk about Akademi Fantasia or the latest Bollywood movie or something for a change. Or, here’s a radical idea. You can start to actually work for a living. How’s that?

And to end, I leave you with my mantra, which happens to be a quote from a very famous physicist:

And you know what, I don’t care what you think. Go do something else now.

Or at least it will give you really REALLY bad headaches. Take my word for it.

I have been keeping myself busy for the past few days. While dusting and updating my portfolio I realised I need a scanner to digitise all these materials that I produced and I don’t have one! The slim and impossibly cute Konica digital camera that I have has gone bonkers (in all fairness, it is 3 years old and counting, long before the digital camera revolution swept the country). Tak apa. Let’s pray lightning strikes twice and someone will gift me a Digital Camera again this year.

My mood has improved tremendously since the last time I posted something in here. The rain helped.

(from Wikipedia: This beautifully moving drama is based on the real-life struggles of a 15-year-old girl named Aya who suffered from an incurable disease, but lived life to the fullest until her death at 25. The script is based on the diary Aya kept writing until she could no longer hold a pen. The book that later followed entitled “One Litre of Tears" has sold over 1.1 million copies in Japan alone.

Aya’s only wish was “to live." By carefully depicting Aya’s earnest desire to live, and the love of her family, friends, and lover, the drama, “One Litre of Tears" wishes to deliver her simple but strong message: “Just being alive is such a lovely and wonderful thing." —Fuji TV)

Speaking of dusting, I saw that we have the 1 Litre of Tears (Ichi Ritoru no Namida) Box Set, this Japanese dorama that Awa was raving about.  The title should be taken as a literal warning. I haven’t watched it but the title is telling. I wrote probably two lines of a song (ending with "1 litre of tears is all I leave behind") while thinking of what the girl, Aya, must have been feeling but then decided it was too depressing.

I have been thinking about death and the whole dying process. I suppose everyone does. No?  Well I do. And it worries me. Not the dying. But what comes after … like the unpaid bills, study loans, funeral costs et cetera. See, even when I am morbid I am practical. So, this is a new to-do thing that will be added into my new year’s resolution tally: once the new job is sorted out I will get my house and finances in order, review my insurance policies and EPF nominations, schedule half-yearly physicals (instead of yearly, which I always do roundabout the time of my birthday)… all those responsible, scary adult stuff. I really must start behaving like one now that I am merely 8 years away from retirement. Oh! Retirement fund. See, I knew I was forgetting something.

But till then, just being alive is such a lovely and wonderful thing!

1

When I was 17, I broke my arm for being too cocky during hockey practice. As a result, I had to wear a cast for 3 months. It was around the same time when the school was preparing for our annual sports meet. As I was good for nothing else, the teacher-in-charge put me in charge of equipment –meaning I had to look after them, pack them up and lug them back to the sports store room at the end of each practice.

I was standing alone at the end of the field when I saw the rest of the students running towards the direction of the dining hall. It occurred to me that it must have been 6.30pm and that the dinner bell had rung. So, mumbling and cursing my luck, I started to pack the equipment with my good arm while feeling very angry that no one bothered to offer any help. Then, I saw someone walking towards me from the distance. It was Jai. He silently helped me to pack up the equipment, then when we were done, he said "I’ll walk you back to the dorm". T

That was 15 years ago.

2

A phone conversation in 1999. I told Jai that he has to listen to Matchbox 20. He said he did. And he said he knows which song would hit me the most. I laughed and said he won’t be able to. Then he said, "Leave". I stopped laughing. How did he know?

3

Some time in 2002. I was angry about this Italian guy that I was seeing. I can’t recall exactly why. Jai sent me an email that ended with these words.. "If someone a hundred miles away can make you happy, so be it." In the next email, when I was raging over a different matter, he wrote "Why are you so angry? I never said a word when you were with Maman even though it hurt me too."

Postscript

Three days ago I dreamt of Jai. For some inexplicable reason, whenever I hear the song Drawing by Mr Children, I will think of him. In the dream, we were having an argument and I said to him, "You never gave me a chance!". He looked at me oddly and said with a raised voice, "I gave you 15." I woke up immediately and thought of the three things above. He had said this to me before. I knew it. But I struggled to remember when.

The words may not be exactly the same, but you know what I mean.

Of all the stupid and mean things that I have done to people (and most of them done intentionally rather than accidentally), Jai is the only person that keep recurring in my subconcious.

It was August 2003. I was playing Wild Arms 3 on the PS2. There was a feeling of impending doom that enveloped me the whole day long but I could not put a finger to it. Suddenly it occurred to me, I have lost Jai. I sent him an sms, "If you are seeing someone else, you are breaking my heart.". His reply? "I am sorry." Then the phone call. Then the stop-talking. We never spoke since.

I think.. I owe him. An apology.

Artist: Mr. Children
Title: Drawing
Words: Sakurai Kazutoshi
Music: Sakurai Kazutoshi

I suddenly had a momentary flashback of the scenery I dreamed of in my far far off childhood.
The young girl who kissed my cheek while laughing overlaps with you.

The floating time is marked by the faint rays from the cloudy sky
I wonder if I can pack air tight this wonderful troublesome feeling?

Even if I draw it, as time goes on, something will fade.
Forever is always a fleeting shapeless shadow,
with you, by me

If I could draw better and better pictures
what I really want to draw is you.
for me, you are, in short, those little points
and everything in total.

The real answer is slumbering within the foolishness and lies
I wonder if we can make it through this wonderful hasty life three legged?

No matter what I draw you’ll definitely be in the picture.
I know it when I take a deep breath with my eyes closed.
You’re always in my notepad.

Even if I draw it, as time goes on, something will fade.
Forever is always a fleeting shapeless shadow,
with you, by me
and always in my notepad.

Translated By: Brian Stewart & Takako Sakuma at www.centigrade-j.com

Translator’s Notes: "three-legged" means like with one of each person’s legs bound to one of the other person’s legs. Like in a three legged race.

Artist: Matchbox Twenty
Title: Leave

Its amazing
How you make your face just like a wall
How you take your heart and turn it off
How I turn my head and lose it all

Its unnerving
How just one move puts me by myself
There you go just trusting someone else
Now I know I put us both through hell

Im not saying there wasnt nothing wrong
I just didnt think youd ever get tired of me
Im now saying we ever had the right to hold on
I just didnt wanna let it get away from me

But if thats how its gonna leave
Straight out from underneath
Then well see whos sorry now
If thats how its gonna stand, when
You know youve been depending on
The one youre leaving now
The one youre leaving out

Its aggravating
How you threw me on and you tore me out
How your good intentions turn to doubt
The way you needed time to sort it out

Im not saying there wasnt nothing wrong
I just didnt think youd ever get tired of me
Im now saying we ever had the right to hold on
I just didnt wanna let it get away from me

But if thats how its gonna leave
Straight out from underneath
Then well see whos sorry now
If thats how its gonna stand, when
You know youve been depending on
The one youre leaving now
The one youre leaving out

The one youre leaving now
The one youre leaving out

Im not saying there wasnt nothing wrong
I just didnt think youd ever get tired of me

But if thats how its gonna leave
Straight out from underneath
Then well see whos sorry now
If thats how its gonna stand, when
You know youve been depending on
The one youre leaving now
The one youre leaving out

Tell me is that how its going to end
When you know youve been depending on
The one youre leaving now
And the one youre leaving out

The one youre leaving now
The one youre leaving out

4

As I wrote this, I remember a fourth memory. One morning, I put in a cassette in the tape deck and pressed play. It was a mix tape that I didn’t recognize, one that I have never played. I puzzled over its existence and knew I would only be able to understand it if I listen to what it contained.

It was Thursday, November 23, 2004. I remember because I wrote about it. I had no idea that this tape existed and finding it shocked me. I, too, have given tapes to people in past. There are only 2 reasons for doing so : (1) to persuade them to listen to something that they otherwise will never listen to; or, as in most of the cases, (2) to say something that I can’t say using someone else’s poetry.

The tape must have been given to me either in a moment when I was barely paying attention or left in my belongings with the hope that I would notice its existence. Either way, I was the careless one.

I played it. There was an unfamiliar song in side B. The song itself was nothing spectacular. The lyrics, were telling.

I knew what the tape was supposed to convey. I remembered what he said to me the last time we spoke. He said I was too late. I had my chance. When he said it then, I was furious. Too late for what? What chance? What the hell was he talking about? What did I miss?

There is a moral somewhere in this story. At that time, I missed it. How? Because I only listened to the tape, for the first time ever, two years later.

It was from Jai.