of jackasses

This is a bitch-rant blog. That was your first and last warning…=P

To gain access of the photography facilities (i.e. the processing room and the dark room), you have to have a PIN, which has to be on an access list (presumably) to get in. I have a PIN, way back from first year that has served me well. This PIN however, didn’t work for the photography facilities. So I went to check if it was right (after all, it’s been a long time since I actually had used it last) and they gave me a new one. Bah. At least it was easy…

Anyways, so I go to use it and surprise, surprise… it doesn’t work. *grumbles* Dattie’s PIN worked… why not mine? Emailed the person who was in charged of the PIN access for DAB facilities, but she’s on maternity leave, so I get this guy instead. Emailed me back saying that it was right and that it should work. Thinking that he put me on the list, I went home.

I tried it a couple of times later, but it still didn’t work. Went upstairs to the DAB faculty office to sort this problem out. Starting from today, the office was going to be closed from 9am to 1pm. *checks mobile* 12:01… That’s just great. Called up Dattie and he supplied me with his. Thank goodness for kind friends. I promised him that I’ll get my PIN sorted out, so I wouldn’t have to use his again. Developed my negatives, checked time: 12:52pm. *packs up and leaves for the office again*

I’m gonna call this guy Jackass because he is. The receptionist called out to him as he walked by and told him the problem. Jackass asked in a very condenscending way, “Did you put it in right?” I confirmed that I did, tensing my jaw. *looks unconvinced* “Did you use it correctly?” If tones of voices could turn people into different ages, I would be 2 years old by now. His friend who walked into the office with him sniggered. *calm, stay calm* “Yes, I did,” I replied through clenched teeth. I wanted to yell at him, ‘I’ve been here for 6 bloody years! Of course I know how to bloody use it, you piece of …” His friend typed something into the computer, cursed after a while, and more typing and clicking of the mouse. Dunno what they were doing, but Jackass, looking exasperated, went to Rhonda’s (the original person who was in charge of this) office and did some typing and clicking of his own.

*hands her back her student card* “Your PIN doesn’t work because it is VC week, try it when semester starts again,” he said, was there a little malicious glint in his eye? “What?” says I in disbelief and getting severely pissed off with his attitude. “But I need to use it.” He explained it to me like I was 3 years old. “That’s not right,” I argued, building up steam. “My friend used his PIN and it worked and he’s in the same faculty as me.” Jackass furrowed his brows. “What do you mean same faculty?” sounding annoyed. I wanted to kick him in the face. “Like, he’s in same course as me, doing Engineering” You prick, I added silently. He breathed out an exasperated sigh and called someone up. While he was talking, I gave him more information, my tone barely civil.

“Right *hangs up phone* It should be working now, go downstairs and try it.” He sounded less patronizing at this stage. Maybe it was because he finally realised that there WAS something wrong with my PIN and not me. Bastard. I’m quite sure he’s had a lot of students who can’t get into some where cuz they’re unobservant idiots who don’t read the notices that are pasted right on top of the keypad. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but there is NO excuse in treating people that way.

Because I was raised to be polite and that I believe that you should try to be polite to people like Jackass, I thanked him and left. Though I did leave fuming, and thus, this blog.

… Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have put my hair into 2 pig tails today -_- It just sends out the wrong message to some jackasses.

snapshots

A series of events had happen recently that touched me oddly and I can’t seem to get them out of my mind. Inspired by David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten, I began fantasizing about how the conversations / occurrences came about, how it ended, and (most importantly) how I could write it.

This is obviously a work of fiction and I guess, stands in its own right. The truth is there if you look hard enough.

I apologise for the roughness of the story and also its flaws, inconsistencies, and the slight manglation of the English language (and the Cantonese dialect for that matter). I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. =)

~~**~~
SYDNEY
You look like hell, I thought as I gazed at an extremely tired-looking face in the mirror. You could have called a pleasing face once, but life had worn it down to what was once soft and full to harsh, sharp angles; etching deeper lines as the years went by. My hair was Deep Chestnut, I couldn’t deal with seeing greys in my hair already. You don’t look 29, I chided myself silently, You look 50. I sighed, no, that wasn’t true. Some 50 year olds are pretty darn good looking. Damn them.

I finished washing my hands and exited the bathroom. A wave of chatter washed over me. It’s surprising sometimes how quiet the toilets can be. I resumed my window shopping, but thoughts crowded in my head, pushing and shoving for attention, and the displays mostly went by unseen. A child’s thin wail wafted on top the waves of conversation, making me snap out of my moody reverie. I paused and searched for the source of the lamenting cry.

A little boy was standing next to his mother, who had his thin little arm tightly clutched in one hand and other hand looked menacing in the air. She looked pissed, she looked harried, but most of all, she looked jaded. Giving him a final talk to in low, angry tones, moved to clutch his hand and dragged him off to where ever she needed to go. Maternal instincts welled up inside of me, an old ache resurfaced. My vision blurred and tasted salt from the corner of my lips. Crap, a more sensible part of me panicked and tried to calm the emotional part down. Brushing away the tears, I squared my shoulder and changed direction towards the carpark. I have decided.

“I have decided,” I declared to my husband, as I leaned against the door jamb of his office. He paused the tapping on the keyboard and looked up, blinked. “What?”

“I have decided,” I repeated impatiently, walking through the doorway. I ignored the mess of papers, folders, and cds that normally would have deterred me from my original reason as to why I was there, bitching to him about having a cleaner office and obsessively try to clean up, which most definitely would eventuate into an argument. It’s been a sore point between us for a long time and it took every ounce of will to not tidy at least something up or say something, but it was flailing.

Joshua looked impressed, it’s been thirty seconds since I’ve stepped into his office and I’ve said nary a word about the mess; this is more important than that. I squared my shoulders and panicked slightly. I’ve forgotten how I was going to tell him, what if he said “no” all because of my delivery? I tried to think fast, but everything in my head was a jumble and nothing made any sense. But he was the one who came up with it first, it was you who was against the idea, a quiet voice reminded me. Ah fruit, that’s true. I had forgotten that. So really, this wasn’t my idea at all. I tried to remember when was the last time he had brought it up…

“Ami?” he prodded, there was an edge to his voice, but curiosity was lurking in the background. I blinked and looked down at him. Then I noticed my hands was getting busy with some papers that was in reach. I snatched them back. Oh hell. I took a deep breath and let it loose. “Honey, remember when you said…”

It was dark when we stopped talking. The room was illuminated by his screen saver fluttering around. By now, I was sitting in his lap with a huge smile on my face, an arm draped across the back of his neck. I watched him as he typed the auto-reply email.

“Done!” He let an explosive breath out and leaned back, holding me tight against him. Joshua kissed the top of my head and we sat there in silence that was laced with a slight bewilderment of what we were about to do.

CHINA
I flopped on my dingy bed, I was so tired. How did you get yourself into this? I chided myself for the millionth time as to why I decided to become a nun. You’re underpaid and overworked, this is not worth it. Tai-Kun’s cheeky face floated up and I could hear the faint ghost of his laughter. Who was I kidding? How could I leave this “job”? I love this kids, I can’t abandon them to those cold-hearted baht-…umm, the sisters. I haven’t managed to shake the “evil” habit of swearing yet. “Forgive me Father…” I murmured. In his infinite wisdom, I’m quite sure he understands that I’m trying.

I sighed, remembering “old eyes” that some of the children have. But then again, living in a orphanage does make them grow up a little more quicker; learning that the ways of world is harsh and cruel and that only the quick-witted, street-smart ones would make something of themselves.

I thought of the newest addition to the pack. We called her Zhen-Yu, precious jade. Her mother turned up this morning, and practically threw the baby at us before stalking off. We tried to call her back to fill out the necessary forms. Her long black hair streamed behind her as she started running, evading anyone who tried to stop her for us and slipped out of sight amongst the crowd in the market place.

She was a pretty one, I remembered. Her daughter was almost like an exact copy of her, right down to the little adorable mole that graced near the top-left of her upper lip. Kind of like that model, Claudia Schiffer, I mused.

The girls who gave up their children did it for money or shame. Sometimes it was because the child is a girl, I bitterly remembered the disgust in one of the father’s face – HE wanted a boy, his poor wife didn’t have a say in anything, all she could do was to cry silently. Pok gai, I viciously thought, then felt immediately guilty. It was unchartiable to think of others like that, even worse to hate them. Forgive me Father…again. The other sisters clucked and nodded their heads in understanding as they took the offending child away. I sighed again, such is the Chinese way – to value boys more than girls. I shook my head at the wrongness of it all, went to brush my teeth, prayed for the children at the orphanage, and slept like the dead.

The next afternoon, a Chinese woman came with a gway-lo. It was probably her husband by the looks of it. They looked tired, but the woman had a light shining from the inside. It made her skin glow and her cheeks were flushed. The gway-lo was nervous, but he too had a similar light. They practically were screaming out, “I’m here for a baby!” I smiled to myself inspite of a pang I felt in my heart. One of these children will have a fair and proper chance in making a successful life, even with this knowledge, I will miss them.

“Ni hao mah?” I greeted them warmly. They both blinked. I wanted to laugh, they looked like a stunned fish. The woman gave the gway-lo a quick look before looking at me.

“Hao, ni hao?” She asked tentatively, heavily Western-accented. “Wo…umm… Wo…” This would be tricky. None of the other sisters knew English (presuming that this couple spoke it), I was the only one, and I wasn’t fluent in it at all.

“Er.. Welcome?” I tried again. They both blinked again and relief filled their faces. I stifled another laugh, this couple was so funny. The woman started rattling off something in English. I tried to keep up, but all I could understand was “baby” and “home”. She finished with a smile and looked expectantly at me. Well, it wasn’t hard to figure out why they were there.
“Er… Come, come. Er… Walk here,” I was mangling the English language. I sent a silent apology to my English teacher.

I brought them to the nursery and let them see the babies in their cots. It wasn’t even five minutes when the woman let out a soft squeal at Zhen-Yu’s cot. By the time I got to them, she had the baby in her arms, cooing at her, eyes bright. The gway-lo held her close and with his other hand, was brushing gently at the baby’s hair. The woman looked up at him and he smiled at her, imperceptibly nodded once. She looked at me with such bright eyes, I knew she was trying not to cry, but not succeeding very well. I patted my pockets, pulled out a tissue packet and gave it to her. She took it gratefully.

An hour later, Zhen-Yu was gone. Even though I knew her for less than a day, I missed her and her little mole. She was adorable, she’s going to be so pretty when she grows up. Just like her mother. I shuffled the forms, there were two more adoptions today, both boys, both to Chinese families. I filed the papers away and shut the cabinet quietly. I will add them to my prayer tonight, along with my apology for not studying English as well as I could have and vowed to be more studious.

HONG KONG
“Omigosh, look at how like, wide her hips are!” squealed Aileen, pointing to the offender. We all looked and exclaimed. “I am SO glad that my hips are like, small!” We all agreed that big hips were up there in the “so-not-hot” list.

Cathy made a face. “Honestly, I don’t know how like, people actually give birth!” I went cold all over and almost stopped walking, it was only by pure force of will that I kept moving and pretended that I didn’t feel anything. “It’s so like, icky and gross, not to mention the pain!” I tried to block out memories that threaten to resurface, making me think of them, and faintly agreed with them.

“I would so much prefer having a caesarian done,” announced Aileen. “That’s if, of course, I have like, kids.” She hastily added. Cathy assently rigorously, nodding her head. I copied her. They both looked at me, a little bit too suspiciously.

“Joanne, what do you like, think of having babies?” her voice was sharp. I played it cool.

“Omigosh! It’s so like, totally gross having something living inside of you for like nine friggin months, let alone having to push it out like, through your -” The girls wailed, clapping their hands over their ears.

“Noooo!!!” squeaked Cathy. “Ewww!!!” Suddenly, she gave a little screamed and pointed. “OMIGOSH! It’s like, Sammy Cheng!!!” They both ran towards her to get autographs, while I followed behind. Crisis averted. My best friends are flaky, but they’ve got good hearts. I pushed those memories down and squealed, “SAAAAMMMMMMMIIIIIIII, I love you!!!” as Sammi tried to get away from a mob that started to form.

“Pok gai!” my dad swore at the computer. I poked my head in.

“Wassup? What happened?” I’m so nosy, but I don’t care. I mean, I have a right to know, right? I live in this house too, though sometimes I wish I didn’t. Dad can be a big pain in the …

“That Joshua guy!” he fumed, interrupting my train of thought. “I need to ask him about this software, but nooo… he had to go – ” He trailed off into a grumble, muttering pok gai several times. A little irritated that he cut off my train of thought, I peeked over his shoulder and read the email:
“I will be out of the office from Monday, 16th September to Sunday, 22nd September. My wife and I are going to China to adopt a baby. I apologise for the inconvinence caused and I assure you that all questions will be answered ASAP and that current projects will still be completed on schedule.

Yours Sincerely,
Joshua Spirva”

What the… I vaguely remembered Joshua Spirva, we had met him when we were holidaying in Sydney. Dad never can stop talking about business. Somehow, the person he was talking to knew someone who could help us out, and we ended up meeting that Spirva guy. He was kinda cute, it was a pity he’s married. Fat cow. I rolled my eyes. Okay, she wasn’t fat, but she wasn’t skinny either. I don’t know why such a good-looking guy like him actually married someone like her. I mean, come on. Ew.

Then it hit me… baby… they were adopting…

An unwanted pang of guilt and loss shot through me. The memories that I had suppressed in the mall today burst forth: Aaron’s face, the 9 months of anger, 16 hours of pain, and 1 mess that turned out to be one pretty baby. I wanted to cry, a sob caught in my breath. Dad didn’t notice, he was still bitching about Spirva and banging away at the keyboard. I quietly left, ran to my bedroom, and buried my face into the soft quilt on my bed. I did end up crying.

Stop crying, I told myself viciously. You’re being stupid. It’s only a stupid baby. She would have complicated your life way too much. You know that dad would have a fit and kick you out. Even so, it hurt still and I didn’t know why. I hated the baby when it.. no she, was in me, almost as much as I hated her father. He was full of empty promises and had me completely fooled. When I realised that he had ran, it was too late to have an abortion. So, did the next best thing: I went to a witch doctor and got her to put a curse on him. That would serve him right, he deserved whatever shit he got.

Last year was a bitch. It was suppose to teach me my “mother” language, Mandarian, but I hated speaking it and China wasn’t the best place to live. I missed HK so much and my friends… then Aaron came along… Pok gai! I thumped the bed with my fist. He almost ruined my life.

Feeling the anguish slow ebb, I went to my bathroom to wash my face. I looked up at the mirror, taking in the red eyes, messed up hair, slightly snotty nose. All that looked good was my lips and the little mole that adorned my top lip on the left-hand side. Pretty like Claudia Schiffer, everyone had said… Well, they still said it. I unconsciously smugly smiled at this, but caught the curling of my lips in the mirror. I looked into my eyes and thought, you look like hell.

of funny things dara says

I was talking about “foot in mouth” disease with dara just then. For those who’s not quite sure of that this disease entails, it’s when you say something that embarrasses you or those around you. BM has it badly and I think it’s contagious, ’cause I seem to have the symptoms lately…

He somehow thought it was a great idea and apparently on my say-so, he managed to get three toes into his mouth, the big toe almost touching the back of his mouth (gross neh?). Then he was afk for 10 minutes, washing his tongue – coming back to say it was a flexibility issue that he couldn’t fit more ofthem in, then coming up with this:

dara’s hungry says:
maybe i can get more toes
dara’s hungry says:
at first i lifted my foot up and i couldn’t get it in
dara’s hungry says:
then i relized i could move my head fwd
dara’s hungry says:
-_-

hehhehe… it could possibly be a “you had to be there” kinda thing… but that just cracked me up ^_^ hehehe mebbe cuz i do stuff like that too… all the time…. =P

of duckie patrol

BM is a duck hero. He and I were on Duckie Patrol the Monday that just went by, picking up these lil fluffy ducklings who fell off the side of the pond and putting them back into the pond. We were in Darling Habour wasting some time before I had to meet up with Rick and BM had to go to work. They were so adorable. There were six uber tiny fluff balls swimming around the pond that was between Tumbalong Park and the Chinese Gardens with their mother. There was an assumption that the adult duck as the Mother and it was kinda got proven correct cuz one of the last times he picked up a duckling to put back into the water, the mother got real mad. There was a dangerous glint in her beady eye and a bitchy tone of quacking. I warned BM to move away, but he didn’t listen and she launched herself at him, churning up a lot of water and wetting his whole right side. Hehehe, BM got owned!!! By a duck no less teehee

Anyways, there were invariably people who were stopped by the cuteness of it all … and those who fully got suckered in and had to pull out their camera or phone camera. There was a group of asian mothers with their babies who rocked up and made such a big fuss, what with their loud voices and disturbing the ducklings by splashing water at them. -_- So so slack. One of the times a duckling got pushed off, we went to put it back, expecting lots of running around cuz they get so scared. But this one was cool as a cucumber and jumped onto BM’s hand. It got impatient with his so ascent and so began jumping up and down until it could jump into the pond from his hand. It was so so cute. When people saw the Duckie Patrol (i.e. BM and I) fishing them out from the drains, they’d smile and go “awww”.. and one of them called BM their hero. Sadly, one of the ducklings got stuck underneath the drain and we coudlnt’ get it out – it was totally freaking out under there what with all the water rushing down from the over-flowing pond. Another one somehow got out and was all the way down the other side of the park and a council worker fetched it back, bringing the total the seven.

When we had to leave, I was a bit reluctant. I mean, who’s gonna help them back up? BM called the Wildlife Service and I think they came relatively soon afterwards, but we had gone by then.

 

~~**~~
I’m bad… like really bad… I was telling myself, “Okay, you can do it, just flip the blanket over and get out of bed. C’mon, I know you can! You got lots of uni work to do. Get of bed! Must… get… out of… comfy futon… *snores*” -_- That happened several times. I woke up several times feeling really guilty and the whole vicious cycle would start again. *sighs* Sometimes I get the feeling that my body likes to betray me. =P 

 

~~**~~
Gen. Hobo, BM, and I were walking towards Darling Harbour for Mong-Mong’s bday dinner at Chinta Ria. I was complaining about this little white spot on my thigh that wouldn’t go away (or get tanned). BM asked, “Can’t you lick it off?” O_O *awkward uncomfortable silence followed by a burst of laughter* “Aww, that’s SO wrong. Let’s not go there, I don’t wanna know,” Gen. Hobo commented. BM, rather embarrassed, stuttered an incoherent explanation of his Freudian slip. =) teehee 

Dinner at Chinta Ria was quite nice, food and atmosphere was great! Thanks to Awesomo and Heavenlilub for the absolutely scrumdiliumptous hazelnut and chocolate mousse cake – it was to die for.