Addendum to Yesterday

Finally, at about 9.30pm, I got to make my way to meet up with D1 and D2 at D1's new place. It was a lovely flat, spacious with lots of storage rooms around the house, and very near my place too!

The two Ds were laughing about some kind of joke they shared with Tuna, which made me very curious so I couldn't help but interrogate them endlessly. Finally, we got into a skype video call with Tuna and Rabbit, and the two Ds brought out a little booklet for me. This little booklet comprised of birthday messages from my family, closest friends from college and varsity pals. Most of the messages in the book came with quirky pictures of my well wishers holding huge cards with my name on it, in all sorts of funny poses. I love it so much. All the jokes were just a smokescreen apparently, to just divert my attention. 

I left about 1.30 am and when I got home, I cried, just as I said I would to Tuna and Rabbit. I was so touched with the effort they put in. The best and most sincere birthday present ever, just made its way to me and I feel so blessed by God for having such wonderful friends. The day was irritable, yes, but only so it could end very very nicely.

Thank you Father! 

Annoyed

Selfish people get annoyed more easily because they always think about themselves first, which is why I was so annoyed today. I know it is my fault but still, let me just be really bad this one time and record the details here:

1. A friend could not give me a proper decision as to what our plan was today so I spent a lot of time texting my friends and trying to coordinate our plans together. I also wasted my time waiting for my indecisive friend who finally showed up, still undecided about his plans.

2. I felt as if I was responsible for entertaining another friend (B) who came to join us shortly after while the previous friend (A) just strolled around the shopping mall doing whatever he liked.

3. Friend A didn't mind making Friends C and D wait for us at Gloucester Road station, where they were waiting for almost an hour.

4. We ended up eating burger, which I didn't like at all and it was 'supposed' to be a birthday celebration for me and Friend B.

5. I felt as if I was dragged about all day, towards a goal of celebrating my birthday and B's in the end. The fact is, I didn't enjoy it at all. I spent a day of waiting, dealing with indecisiveness and eating a dinner I disliked.

However, there were highlights from today, especially seeing how happy Friend B was with his shopping and dinner. I'm glad he enjoyed himself! That really salvaged my day.

Anyways, I feel really lost now. I wished I was with family, people who really appreciate me, and not drag me around, hoping that I would plan my own birthday celebration.

Question Marks

are swirling around my head. You came, you talked, you made me smile, you took a burden off my chest. I know now. It's all about understanding you. Understanding what a prick you are, but that you're not a prick entirely. You don't have to know that I am a good person too. You just don't have that much impact in my life and I am not supposed to care so much. The trick is in accepting how things don't have to even out between the both of us. You can live with your ego. I can live with your insults. My tears helped. Your kind half just recently soothed my anger, made me smile again.

I hate you.

But I thank you.

I'm Not Me

Not being able to look at myself in the mirror and proudly proclaim that I like what I see has pierced me. What is the point of trying to be nice to other people when they don't appreciate you, take stabs at the product of your kindness and exult themselves while having total disregard for your feelings? Why can't I stand up for myself, stop others from patronizing me, instead of running away at the slightest jest? At least today I tried to hurl an insult back, but I could not live up to it, because there was a counter-attack. I am sorry. I only insulted you because you insulted me first.

You have done so many things to demean me but why do I still smile and let it pass? It's not because I decide to stomach it because you're my friend. I can't even regard you as a friend, you're too forward and honest and rude and full of yourself. Then I realize I'm so full of myself as well that it hurts so very much. Meeting you has thought me how similar I am to you, not in terms of confidence, but at least in the sense that we both do have good opinions of ourselves.

You have faults, you blind chauvinist pig, don't you see? Your pride hurts other people, your refusal to ask nicely annoys me to the core, your inability to blame yourself for your own darn fault is disgusting, your blunt way of not appreciating the things I do for you makes me feel sick, your insults are too sharp for my ears, your calculating ways surpasses even my own, you're a lot of the things I hate about myself amalgamated with even more self-conceit, sickening confidence and a false sense of glory. I've never admired yet hated a person at the same time as I have you. You make me smile but you also make me cry. I hate you. You're a judge. I'm  just a kind soul, that's all I am. Don't you dare judge me. There is a golden core inside of me that yes, it's personal darn well it is. You don't deserve to know that gold even exists, you'll never get to see it because you're so blinded with your own sense of philanthropy and belief that no one else out there can match up to you. You pig head. I hate you.

Cherished Moments

1. My boss realizes he has no stirrer or spoon for his coffee and reaches out to use a 30cm ruler from the table as a means to create a better coffee mixture to my utter shock. He goes on to say, "I firmly believe that people, children especially, don't eat enough dirt these days to build their immune system. We can just live on dirt alone did you know?"

I proceeded to mention something I saw from TV from the ex's place whence a woman was featured as surviving on soil alone. To this, my boss animatedly nodded and said with a cheeky smile, " My daughter came home once, with snail shells all around her mouth ( I was gasping loudly then when I realized the direct implication of what he just said!). French people do it all the time, it's just that they cook their snails."

On another day, from the corner of my eye I saw my boss use the same ruler to chop up his Krispy Kreme doughnut. The fact that I've used that very ruler a couple of times to do work gave me a little shudder both for myself and him but that didn't change the fact that I absolutely adore him.

2. I made some brownies to present to my colleagues on my last day. They were a bit too shallow as I used a pan that was too wide. My housemate made very bad remarks about it once they were done and today he even said they sucked badly. He even went on to say that he doesn't want me to bake anymore of them. Those remarks hurt and he added more salt to the pain by saying that his comments were constructive and when I retaliated by saying that I prefer to bake for my friends who appreciate my baking more, he said they only told me what I wanted to hear. Indeed, all those words hurt me but there was a grain of truth in his words. So far, he has criticized everything I made but today it just went overboard.

But where is the golden moment in this? It was yesterday when I told my boss about what my housemate said, to which he responded "He doesn't deserve to eat this. I give you 9/10. The brownie is chewy, the top is crispy, which I like. Just a bit too strong on the chocolate." I felt like hugging him. He scolded me for being too generous when I offered the baked goods to other people on the floor and tried to hide them away as another guy walked past our desk. He's adorable, and he appreciates what others do for him. He eats anything at all, as long as he sees your effort in it. Even if he was not entirely honest with me, he took care to appreciate me.

My housemate sort of made me feel obliged this morning to bake him something without even a word of please. I was enraged. Last night I already felt really bad from a comment WS made and my housemate just plucked the last straw out of me. I would have baked him something but ended up going for gelato with my senior instead. Sometimes, people just need more respect paid to them.

3. WS told me that whoever has me is a lucky guy. He hugged me and said that I should remember that I am a good girl. I almost cried.

4. VVNC embraced me and placed his cheek on mine on both sides to which I yelled jokingly, "Shave!! Shave!!". Boss hugged me and said, "You've been a pleasure to work with. You take instructions well and are keen to learn". I couldn't stop beaming, especially after he asked me to come visit next week.

5. I sang in a huge karaoke room, played drinking games, went to a club, drank champagne and got some spilled over me, tried to move (minimally) on the dance floor and got home at 3am, all in the same night, all firsts for me. I had a great time and to imagine what mom would say makes me laugh! I did not get drunk by the way but I've learnt that no matter how hard others persuade me, I should always say no if I'm not comfortable with something.

Magic

At 4am, I woke up and saw a couple of my friends back home on MSN. I told them I woke up from a horrible nightmare. One of them asked me whether it was Voldemort I dreamt of. I wish.

In the dream, there was a person on a racer bike, the slender, shiny and aerodynamic kind with a little baby at the back. I was not sure whether I was the rider or not as I viewed most of it from a third person view. The bike was speeding along a very narrow and winding tarred road in the middle of a white dandelion field. By speeding, I mean really really fast. My stomach churned whenever the bike took corners, which never succeeded in slowing it down; as with every corner, the rider increased his/her speed. There were warning signals which came in the form of a very foreboding gut, which I was sure both the rider and I felt but no heed was paid to it. Suddenly, an aeroplane came into the picture. Probably it was there because I recently watched a scene involving the vehicle in IRIS, a very popular Korean drama. Anyways, the rider never did slow down. In the end, the rider took a very dangerous corner along with the plane and my view never caught what happened. The rider zoomed past me so fast and dissapeared into my blind spot, with a strong gush of wind trailing behind. Everything changed to slow motion, the strands of dandelions bending ever so slightly to the left, as though bowing their heads in extreme sadness to the tragedy that has just come to pass. Although I never saw it, everything in the dream signalled the death of the little baby, how his/her head expanded in the crash and exploded. It didn't make sense at all, how that could even be possible but that was what my dream told me. 

Later, in a completely random scene in another dream, a coursemate of mine gave me a kiss on the forehead as a sign of care and comradeship. I didn't know what to make out of it. Dreams are there to confuse us, they can never be taken seriously. 

So after my chat, I went back to sleep. I woke up at 8.33am, did some room exercises and headed off for a jog. I then saw a 20 pounds note on the ground. To my dismay, I was appalled by my first thought. I am meant to meet up with Z and N later and I was already thinking of buying myself a huge fat meal and using the rest of the change from that lucky note to pay for my Harry Potter movie tonight. Another zero pence day to add to my repertoire!! 

How disgusting. Just a few seconds later, I realized how selfish those thoughts were. The note will be going to charity and no where else, just as it rightly should. Although I am selfish, I am grateful that God is still present in my heart, guiding me towards doing what is right and steering me away from temptations. 

Tonight, a whole decade of a magical experience will come to a close on the big screens. I'm catching the latest Harry Potter movie with my lovely coursemates in 3D and am feeling ever so excited! 

A tribute to my teachers

I'm blessed to have met VVNC as a teacher. This person has no obligation or motivation whatsoever to treat me with so much kindness and patience. Suddenly out of the blue, he is entrusted with a protege who takes everything too literally, is slow to understand jokes, asks stupid questions and only sucks more oxygen out of the room. Truth be told, this humble self is not even a protege; because with the level of skills she's got, she's just anyone from the high street. Deep down, I know how blessed I am, how God has brought me under the supervision of one of his angels on Earth. I could detect the genuineness of VVNC's character when:

1. He opened the door for me the first day I came to the office, brought me to  my seat, spammed me with office supplies and showed me the loo. When I was by myself later on in the week, I realized that not everyone would immediately show you the loo! So that was very thoughtful of him. 

2. He walked over the office to find me the correct colour printer when I printed from the wrong one.

3. He asked his colleagues from Amsterdam and Paris to send me notes or information to help me with my research over a conference call. He also ingrained in me a sense of self-worth by noting how important my paper was, when in fact I knew that it probably was just something assigned to me to fill up my time. But just because he took the effort to build my confidence, I had to do my work well. 

4. He sent me an email saying, '95% perfect!' on my silly draft. He also kept eyeing my monitor to make sure I was progressing with work and not slacking away. 

5. He put a smile on my face by saying how he's already loving my work that's not even remotely coherent. 

6. He asked if I wanted a coffee everytime he went out to get one. 

7. He ate all of my Min Chiang kueh when no one else wanted to. 

8. He pushed me slightly to the front so I could be closer to the sales people during their meeting when I was feeling too timid. I later met my colleague from Amsterdam too, who did the same thing to me. They must have noticed how scared I was. 

9. He sent me emails with all sorts of information that could assist me in my learning.

10. He asked someone to email me a spreadsheet with the names of clients all listed down, so I wouldn't have to do it all by myself all over again. 

11. He asked me if I would like to attend one of the conferences between a client and a professor. 

12. He told me about his life and his hopes and dreams, how he loves developing other people. He's a natural teacher, born as one I would say. 

13. He advised me not to be only motivated by money, because I'd never ever be truly happy. 

14. He copied me into an email this morning to tell me he'd have some flooding problems at home and would be late to work. Who else would bother doing that just for a temp? 

He didn't have to do any of these, surely. I don't know why God has been so kind to me. I met an amazing supervisor and VVNC. Both of them have done so much for me in such a little space of time, unconditionally. Their unselfishness leads me to believe that there is still hope in this harsh world. I've met too many people who only does things that would benefit them. Somehow, I find myself very much in that group of people. God is telling me to turn away from all that, to go back to where the human heart can thrive and beat for other people. Both VVNC and boss have done more than is required of them while I'm at their desk, for nothing extra. I'm just truly humbled by all of this.

I remember how last summer, it was weeks before I got internet access, and a work laptop. I was neglected and treated with condescension and at one point, even made into a scapegoat by my supervisor. Contrasting these two experiences, I am grateful that I have a chance to meet kinder people now.