Things have not been running smoothly for me. First of all, I have to continue doing the stupid presentation slides, collating all the achievements from different groups and the slides have to be interesting with some animation using PowerPoint. I have been facing this set of slides for more than a month. Why do I call them stupid slides? I am forced to do them and yet we know that the monster is going to reject my hard work. I seldom invest my time and efforts on meaningless and fruitless projects. And yet, I am force to do so just before I leave. I am doing these slides because my colleague who is pregnant asked me to help out. If I do not do it, the job will land on her. When my RO asked the scholar to help me wioth the slides, he simply sent me a very long email of comments. That obviously did not help me. I kept quiet. My RO got pissed off and asked my pregnant colleague to guide me. When my RO came back for a meeting, then he sent an email to ask me how the slides were coming along. That was really smart of him, doing the right thing at the right time in front of the right people. If not, during my RO’s absence, he simply did not care. That is how these people promote fast in my organization.
Beside my current job which will be ending at the end of this month, I also have to send resumes and application letters for new jobs. If there are any interviews, I need to claim time off for these interviews. These places may be far away and may not be easily accessible. So far, I only managed to get one interview. I am feeling very drained. When bad things come, they come together.
A few days ago, just before I went for an interview in the West from my workplace, it began to rain cats and dogs. I was quite drenched on my way to the MRT station near my workplace. After alighting at the stop of destination, the sole of one of my shoes came out. I could not remove the sole as the heel was getting in the way. I was limping my way to take a cab to the place for interview. Surprisingly, instead of cursing and swearing, I looked at my shoe and thought of how to salvage the situation as it would not be nice for me to reach there with the sole half dropping out in front of the interviewers. I asked the cab driver for rubber bands. He gave me three rubber bands. Guess what? They work. I tied them around the shoe, using the ribbon on the shoe for the leverage to prevent the rubber bands from slipping off. I managed to go for the interview and struggled my way home. When I reached the place for my interview, there was no reception counter. All the partitions were built high up. The office was deadly cold and quiet. If a pin dropped, I could hear the pin. I was blessed that one of the staff could tell I was lost and helped me to get the interviewer. She was having her lunch when the interview should start in less than 5 minutes’ time. During the interview, another interviewer who was the head of the department joined us. The 45 minutes of interview was very disruptive. She was out to attend to her phone calls for 15 minutes while the phone kept on ringing for the remaining time. I just stared at the phone each time it rang. She felt so embarrassed that she hid the phone behind her. I do not understand where her professionalism has gone to. If she is not sincere in employing people, don’t waste our time. I wasted my time, efforts and travelled all the way there just to see her answering her phone. Nevertheless, I am thankful that despite all obstacles along the way, instead of lamenting and swearing, I have managed the situation well.
What I gather is life can get tough. Frankly speaking, I am sick of the life here with some FTs choosing not to blend into our culture but have chosen to be rude and aggressive. I do not have any objection against them coming here as they have their ways of contribution. But, I am very sick of them pushing through their ways to grab seats in buses, taking up a lot of space in sardine packed trains and yet still yelled at us when they have pushed us, a few of us got scolded and yelled at by them when they were wrong, they would slam the doors and gates waking the babies in my home up crying, racing their bicycles at the expense of the safety of pedestrians, etc. I feel that this country is getting smaller with no space to breathe. I am not sure if their contributions here can justify the social problems from them. It is tragic to see some of them kill themselves here. I even witnessed my Chinese neighbour dying on the spot after jumping from my block which took me two weeks to get over the trauma. I really pray to get out of here. I do not feel safe here. I have no space to breathe. I get very irritated daily in buses. People tried to push. When they sit down, they will always come into my space and I am driven into corners. At work, I am driven into corners by my heavy workload and micromanaging monster who causes a lot of tension. My colleagues behind me keep on scolding and swearing loudly over work matters until I lose my focus totally and get frustrated. No amount of massage and seeing doctor can relieve my insomnia, symptoms and pain.
Now, I am just trying to do what I can to survive. I always believe in lemonade out of lemon. If I were a lemon, I do not expect orange juice out of lemon. I do not expect myself to marry rich man and be happily ever after. This happens only in fairy tales. I do not expect myself to have any chance to go for higher learning. I can’t even hold on to a job for long due to certain suspected condition. How can I ever go for higher education with the higher expectation of focus and attention to details? Whatever I am blessed with, such as my talents (not sure what), personality, temperament, interest and other resources that I have, I am trying to find ways to see what I can do about my life as I do not believe in getting sympathy from others and expect others to help me nor trying to be who I am not nor just lamenting and complaining and yet doing nothing about it. I do hope to have a chance to stay overseas for a period of time where the big city can hide my difference or eccentricity since there would be many people who are as weird as me and some countries are more accepting of people who are different from the majority. I do not even mind washing dishes or any manual jobs overseas. I just need some space to rest and enjoy life as who I am even if it comes with hardship.
I have watched the Secret Garden for the second time as my reflection. Earlier on, I have mentioned about my descent into the underworld for soul searching. I am lost now. I have used the Secret Garden as my inner world, enhancing my active imagination. Of course, I am not expecting to meet any rich guy who will marry me like the one in the show. In reality, let’s face it, it is never possible. At least, it will never happen to me. As I was watching the show for the second time for reflection, one scene captured my attention and I found it beautiful. The female leading character lost her parents at young age and she was poor and had to survive as a stuntwoman where she had injuries all over her body. She swapped her soul with a rich man who liked her and the man realized the injuries all over her body as he was in her body. It was funny that the rich man simply could not believe he loved her as he always went for the best things, food and even woman in life. At first, he kept on telling the woman that she was just a mermaid who would disappear into foam as she looked ugly, poor and tomboyish and she was nothing to him. This captivating scene started by him telling her he would be the mermaid who would stand by her and support her quietly and disappeared into foam instead when the time came for him to be forced into marrying another woman by her mother for business purposes. What struck me was he went to see her just to give her a hug and told her he welcome her as who she was after they have swapped their souls back into their own bodies.
As I was watching this scene, it suddenly came to my mind about the rich embracing the poor and the poor appreciating this embrace, eliminating the gap between social classes. In Christianity, there is no such thing as social class. Social classes are set by human beings to differentiate themselves as superior or inferior so that they may abuse the lowly ones in some ways. Social classes may well be their ego boost. When the rich and handsome man embraced the poor, ugly her, that scene touched me. Does that happen in reality? How many of us embrace the poor, widows, sickly and any other underprivileged brothers and sisters in our lives? How often do we ostracize people who are not as likeminded as us or not as rich or influential as us? How many people have we abused even verbally? I admire the female leading character in this show. She did not force herself to go up to the level of the rich man. She simply continued to be who she was and she accepted that she could never measure up to his perfect standard.
One thing I admire about the male character was he was all out to protect her and went down to her level to walk with her despite his mother’s objection and other people’s mockery though he might have abused and hurt her with his actions and words at first. It is also not easy for him to come down to that level to love her as who she was with all the rejection and despise from his own social circle. It takes a lot of courage to do so. That also comes to my mind how many of us have that courage to do what is not popular and yet right with God instead of pleasing others. Do we even try to connect our own little worlds with the little worlds of the poor, sickly and underprivileged people? One part which captured my attention was when the rich man went to her house to wait for her and embrace her instead of him expecting her to go to him. Most of the time, when we feel more superior that someone, we expect the deemed lowly ones to come to us, emphasizing on our importance and position in the society. The act of this rich man going to her and even waiting for her just to embrace her and welcome her as who she was expressed his unconditional love for her. Have we ever made the move and approached the lonely ones, sickly ones, elderly ones and the less fortunate ones to express our love for them and celebrate their existence and worth in the world as they are also children of God?
I enjoy my stay in this Secret Garden. It may be a lonely garden but God is there with me. On this Sunday, I am celebrating the existence of my mum. I may not agree with her on many things and she is not my best friend. But, the fact is that without her, I would not be brought into the world. At least, she did raise me up for the first decade. We are going to have high tea buffet at the Carousel restaurant. I am also very happy that my grandfather can finally go home tonight. Good for him to get out of that trash bin. It hurt me to see the fireflies feeding on his infected raw wound on his leg when I visited him a few weeks ago. I hate to see that. He is a human who used to contribute to the society and raised his children up who are contributing to the society now. He is not a trash to be dumped for the insects to feed on. I think he must be rejoicing to go home. My relatives wanted him to stay there as four meals would be provided and caretakers are there to take care of him. My grandfather objected. I also objected when my mum told me that. Ask them to stay there for three days. See what they will say. I do not agree that we put someone there so that it is convenient for us unless the environment is clean and nice. For that kind of dump area, I totally object. I know my grandfather would want to go home to enjoy family life. At least, he is going home. Hurray for my grandfather! On Monday, I am going for my Newpaper Big Walk. Yes!! Time for fun with my friend. As for tomorrow, it is my Bong Bong’s (godson cum nephew) graduation day. So cute! Going to see how he performs.
Ok, it will be a meaningful and busy weekend for me. No matter where you are, enjoy your weekends. Weekends are especially important for us to spend time with our loved ones and friends, especially for busy working people and working parents. So cute! There are many baby photos appearing on my facebook page. Many friends have given birth. Congratulations to them! It is a blessing to have children at home. I begin to appreciate that as my nephew and niece are in my house until night daily during weekdays. Find them noisy at times but I enjoy their presence. My nephew is getting naughtier. When I see him, he reminds me of the toddler me. I was much worse. My niece is getting chubbier. I love to see her wearing pink. She looks like Miss Piggy. I always call her Muppet Baby. She would always chuckle whenever I say ‘Pink Pig!’ I love her a lot. I am still praying that she does not have to remove her kidney when she turns one and a half year old next year. Really do not want to see her suffering from the operation. She is very chubby, cute and nice with two dimples. How would anyone want to see such a cute baby going through such trauma?
Back to my boring slides. Luckily, it is half day today as we are all going out for telematch at Woodlands Waterfront if I am not wrong. I am not even sure which games I am playing. God bless.
With Love,
Elena
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