The Bird Feeder

I received this email a couple of weeks ago. Read it and then compare your opinion with his/hers and with mine.

THE BIRD FEEDER SYNDROME-A SURVIVAL THOUGHT FOR TODAY


I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it is, as I filled it lovingly with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table,and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile,the chairs, the table .. everywhere! Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket.

And others birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn't even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio. Soon, the back yard was like it used to be.... quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now let's see.

Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing,free medical care, and free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.

Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families; you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor; your child's 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn't speak English.

Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to 'press one' to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than 'Our own' are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

Just my opinion, but maybe it's time for the government to take down the bird feeder.

If you agree, pass it on; if not, continue cleaning up the poop!



That’s the writer’s opinion. Here’s mine.

First of all, taking things literally, I think the writer shouldn’t have fed the wild birds anyway. They are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves and feeding them leads to over population and aggressive behaviour, as was what happened in the story.

Great analogy, but I think the writer is wrong about the moral of the story. What makes him think he is feeding the migrants just because he pays tax? Migrants pay tax too. He is just one of the birds, and the country, not HIM, is the owner of the garden, who fed the birds. And for me, the moral of the story is people living together should try to get along, whatever kinds of feather they have. They shouldn’t squabble and blame each other for hardship and problems. They should take care of the place they live in and not shit around in it. They shouldn’t attack people who are kind to them and take care of them. If the birds had done this, they would’ve still enjoyed free food won’t they?

60 kilo mark

When I was in highschool, a very skinny boy called me ‘living skeleton’. He obviously wasn’t familiar with the pot calling the kettle black proverb, or maybe was delusional. But I’m not going to talk about him. Last week I stepped on the scale and found I’ve passed the 60 k mark. Yeeey! I guess I’m no longer a living skeleton. Unfortunately, my weigh is mainly alocated to my hips and stomach (and maybe my hair). So picture this, long skinny arms and fingers, long neck, big stomach, flat chest, big feet, short forehead, big hair. Who do you see? I see a female ET. Aaaaaaaagh!!!!

And today I put on one of my pair of jeans before I went to buy groceries. It was hard to button. I almost suffocated. Walking was horrible, like in an armour. I’m sure I looked more constipated with every step. Just because I was too lazy to go back to change.

I will have to buy a new pair of jeans.

Bahasaku

When I was teaching in Jakarta I also moonlighted as a translator. Since nobody ever gave me feedback on my translations, I was pretty confident about my Indonesian language competence. I felt superior when I compared myself to other Medan Chinese Indonesian, languagewise. After all, Indonesian is my mother tongue. And I was born in Medan, the homeland and source of bahasa Melayu (Indonesian, not Malaysian), which is the root of Indonesian language. Moreover, my adoptive relatives from Mom’s side are mostly Malayus. So when I was offered an editing/proofreading job, I quite confidently took it on. My employer happened to be Chinese Indonesian, but she moved to the US when she was 11 and went to school there. She does not speak BI very well, but unfortunately (or fortunately) she consulted KBBI (The Official Indonesian Language Dictionary) a lot. And so she gave me feedback. And from there I realized how little I know of my own language (Hey, it’s MY language, and I AM native, I was born there. I’m not indigenous, and neither are you, unless you come from one of the aboriginal tribes, who are still living in the forests now. Yes, I am, even though the Indonesian government never granted my application for citizenship, for which I’m still feeling hateful, spiteful, vengeful, as you can tell from my tone here.)
Here are some examples:
Which one is correct, dimana or di mana? Kedua or ke dua? 1960an or 1060-an? Mahluk or makhluk? Apapun or apa pun? Bagaimanapun or bagaimana pun?
Did you know that the relative clause with dimana/di mana does not exist in BI? This construction gave me a heck of a headache when I edited the texts.
And then there is a whole bunch of exceptions, such as: mukjizat, but kemujizatan. Where did ‘k’ go? Menyejajarkan, but penjajaran, not penyejajaran. Why??? Mengontrol (‘k’ disapearred), but mengklasifikasikan (‘k’ is kept). ???
There are also the choice between ‘s’ and ‘k’ endings: organis/organik, neurotis/neurotik, somatis/somatik.
My goodness, if there were such a thing as TOIL (Test of Indonesian Language), which I think there is, I don’t know how much I would score. That’s why I’m searching for the holy book of Indonesian grammar: Tata Bahasa Baku Bahasa Indonesia. I found a book here by one of BI expert (Chaer), but it costs about four times the price in Indo, so I refused to buy it. I’ve just borrowed a book from the library: Indonesian Reference Grammar, by James Neil Sneddon, and he’s not even Indonesian! So far, I’m up to Chapter 1, and I might as well be learning Martian grammar. I understand the examples, but the rules are completely alien to me (not Mr. Sneddon’s fault, I’m just completely ignorant). So, hat’s up to all the BI experts out there, native and non-native speakers. I hope you will write more BI grammar books, so I could buy a cheaper one.

My Rambling

A few weeks ago there was another shocking case of student shooting in Finland. The photo of the shooter was posted in the media. I looked at his face, his clothes, his hair and I couldn’t find anything to distinguish him from the boy next door. Normal hair cut, average looking face, no missing or crippled limb, he didn’t have a stutter or a funny voice. Nothing. He didn’t look dirt poor either. What was his problem? Why did he hate the world and Mankind?
Just now there was a news report about the return of Aussie’s Paralympic team. Each and every one of them has a disability. Yet they all looked happy, confident, proud to have contributed something to their country, and most importantly they are not homicidal-suicidal.
I’ve read somewhere that a person’s disposition isn’t determined by what they had gone through in life. A Tigger would be a Tigger in a hardship. An Eeyore would still be an Eeyore after winning Lotto. This seems true.
Then there is a strange social-role phenomenon. Look around a room full of people and you can always find somebody that you like the least, even if you basically liked everyone. Look at Big Brother’s House. After they get rid of the most annoying person of the week, they always find somebody else to take the place as the next most annoying person. When a leader of a group goes away, another person would naturally take the place. Whether he/she is a good leader or not is a different thing. But there is always a particular role in a group and somebody is always assigned that role, willing or not. Have you ever seen the girls in America’s Next Top Model and choose one as the ugliest? Isn’t that crazy? My point is, the normal looking shooter guy may have been assigned as something by his group, or himself. We don’t know what role his environment or himself assigns him. We just know he must be very unhappy about it.
And then there is the law of relativity. What is hardship, bliss? According to whom? What makes a person happy, angry, sad? When I was in the third grade, a friend gave me a marble. Then my friend lost a game and she asked me to give the marble back. When I got home I went to my room and cried my eyes out. Does it make sense to you? My brother heard my sobs and asked me why I cried. I told him a friend gave me a marble and then took it back. He didn’t understand either. You see, I had moved from two schools before, four houses, moved to Malaysia and back again. I never stayed in one place long enough to develop friendship. To me the marble was a token of friendship, so I was really touched by the gift. It wasn’t just a round glass thing to play with for me. It was so much more. That’s relativity. Next time you see kids fighting over a toy, remember, it’s not just a car, a dinousaurus or a red spade or a blue spade. There’s always something else.
Going back to the shooter, who knows what his marble was. There was an Aussie actor who committed suicide recently. He was young, good looking, starred in a popular TV drama, popular among his friends. What’s his marble? I wouldn’t understand even if they explained it. I don’t have any sympathy towards the shooter, or the actor. They had their own reason and reasoning. Hitler had his reasons and reasoning. Genocide must have been very logical to him. I’m beginning to ramble here so I will stop. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if there is a person at the office or in the family circle that you find annoying, maybe they’re not really annoying. Maybe you just assign them the role of VIP (Very Annoying Person). If that person moves away, most probably you will find another person to hate. Lastly, there is always a reason, even in madness. What is logical to you may not be logical to other people. If you sometimes think, “Why is he so unreasonable?” think again. And if you’ve said “I understand,” most probably, you don’t. You’re just saying that to make them feel better. And if you're feeling miserable, and you’re blaming your fate, your job, your boyfriend, your mother-in-law, your pet, they may not be the reason at all. Maybe you are miserable by nature (harharharhar!-Pirate laugh).

Stingy

Mom always says that I’m stingy. Her actual word is thrifty, but I know she means stingy. Sometimes she calls me stingy without even saying the word. Well, whose fault is it anyway? When I was in elementary school, who gave me a meagre pocket money? Who never allowed me to buy anything from the school canteen? Who, every month or so, said that she needed money and would be very happy if I could help her? (Like a good little moron that I was, I gave my savings to her. Shame on you, Mom. Tsk...tsk...tsk...)
She was right, though. I am thrifty. Borderline stingy. More and more so. My motto on books is, Never buy what you can borrow. If you can’t borrow, buy second hand. And since I came to Sydney, I’ve grown from books to many other second hand things. The first one was a reading lamp ($6). Then a CPU tower ($ a hundred something). Then a hat ($3). Yes, I was worried about lice, so I soaked it for several hours in detergent. And more books (Adrian Moles Diary (60 cents)). But my biggest testament of stinginess is a coffee table that I picked up from the side of the road nearby. Hey, it was in good condition and the owner didn’t want it anymore (I asked, hehehe…). It is now sitting proudly in the living room, with the $6 reading lamp perched on in. Hmm… I think the lamp is a bit overpriced.

For Yani

(Image from Wikipedia)

Before I knew Yani better, there was an incident about her that I remember. We had a very strict new coordinator. Yani was working in admin downstairs. One day she made a mistake, and our boss went down to reprimand her. I must admit, our boss could be a dragon lady at times. I don’t know what was said to Yani, but upstairs we heard that she fainted during or after the encounter. Later we found out that she was born with a heart defect.

When Yani moved upstairs, I got to see the real Yani. She was always cheerful. Always had a big smile on her face. When she spoke it was always with a childlike expression and enthusiasm.

Yani shared a story with us. She and her husband had been trying to have a child for several years. Since the office consisted of moms and grandmoms, they eagerly gave her all kinds of advice. Some serious ones and some very funny ones which I can’t repeat here for the adult content of the advice. I was actually a little worried because of her heart problem, but she surprised us all. A few months later she declared that she was pregnant. I don’t know which advice was accountable for that. But the mommies teased her endlessly about it.

The pregnancy went smoothly and months later we visited Yani at hospital where she gave birth to a healthy, cute baby.

That was the last thing I remember about her. She moved to another branch, and I moved to Sydney. More than three years passed. Then a friend told me that Yani had cancer. That it had already reached stage three. That she was skin and bone and hollow cheeks. And today Yani passed away. I remember her as young and full of life and courageous and that’s the way I will always remember her.

Religion

Men and women of religion. I’m afraid I haven’t had much luck with them. From the nun who slapped my kindergarten friend around and out of the class (I wonder how many of us in the class had been traumatized by that incident), to another nun who neglected to record the school fee that I gave to her (during high school, while my father was suffering from stroke), to my accounting teacher (same school) who made me make a name sign for his church (aluminium and plywood, he said. I was a high school kid, how on earth was I supposed to do that?), to the headmaster who slapped my friend in the face with a bible, for skipping mass. My friend was a very nice girl, a star student, for goodness sake.

If that wasn’t enough, add some hate sermon at the mosque. Add a charity group who refused to help a family because they were not Moslems. Add the priest who molested school children, and is now still free. The church has not even acknowledged the problem (one of the girls committed suicide. The parents came all the way from England to talk to the Pope, while he was in Sydney, but they didn’t get to talk to him). Add terrorist groups. Add the Spanish Inquisition. Add witch hunts. You’d think religion is definitely worse than an asylum.

Unfortunately for me, I am now working for a religious organization. This is a more contemporary religion compared to Islam or Christian or Hinduism or Buddhism. So you’d expect something different, right? Wrong. It seems that there is something about faith that makes people a bit nuts, no matter which God they serve. I realized this when my employer called me and used all the manipulation technique in the book to make me accept something that I didn’t want to accept, and when I complained the next day, she denied saying what she said. I never expected to deal with Mother Theresa. But really, I was expecting something much better than that.

I’d like to think of myself as a peaceful person. I don’t like to quarrel, and I don’t like to see people quarrel. Whenever my hot-headed family members fight each other, I usually grabbed my shoes and walked out of the house. When I return, normally the fight is over. But some people just get on my nerves. They could not open their mouth without offending me. Unfortunately for me, some of these people are my bosses. I was still angry at my current employer for bullying me into accepting something that I didn’t want. I was also still angry because she didn’t keep her word. In our initial agreement, she told me that there is no time limit, and I could take my time to finish the project. Then suddenly she started counting the pages that I finished, and started sending me emails that said you have to finish this much pages per day. I was maaad. On the day I submitted the work she called again and complained about something that we had agreed on before anyway. I was reaaally maaaad. So my grumpiest bear-voice came out and I didn’t let her finish one sentence.

Later on I calmed down and it dawned on me that I was rude to a client. And that’s not good for business. What to do? Apologize, of course. For being rude only, because it’s wrong to be rude. Her memory loss is her own problem, not mine. Guess what, she said it’s ok and she blamed it on my reactive mind (this is a religious term, meaning I was reacting based on a bad experience in my past, so I wasn’t actually responsible). I don’t know about that. But I know I felt much better after my grump-fest. Venting felt wonderful and I felt ready to go on with the next project.

Computer Class 3

On the third day of the program, another interesting person turned up. He was wearing a dark suit, a trendy, light one. The kind guys wear to go to the clubs on Saturday night. His hair was slick with gel, and he was wearing sunglasses, in the classroom. The glasses looked more like goggles because they covered the eyes completely, even from the sides of his face. The teacher told us his eyes were sore.

This new student, let’s just say his name is John, was very enthusiastic in class. He responded to almost all of the teacher’s statements. then there was a part about workplace safety, and the teacher showed a picture of a monkey throwing a banana peel on the floor. John piped in, “My wife was a monkey. She was stupid. That’s why we got a divorce.” The teacher looked at her notes and said, ”We didn’t need to hear that, John.” Then she added jokingly, “It could be harmful to our psychological health.” The class laughed.

During the break we went down the elevator together. “I’m a computer genius,” said John. “Really?” I asked. “Yes, but not the usual kind. I’m a code-breaker.” I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I kept my mouth shut and smiled politely.

After the break we returned to class. A few minutes later John went out and leaned his forehead against the wall. We could all see him, by the way. The teacher pretended not to notice and continued with the lesson. After about ten minutes, John returned to his seat.

I know people came to the class for different reasons. Most of us want to improve our computer skills. Other people, like John and the guy-with-the-dog-in-the-shopping-bag, who knows what they are looking for. Attention? Friends? Sympathy? Escape? The teacher may seem cold and uncaring, but these guys are looking for help in the wrong place. And if the teacher listened to the stories of their lives, the rest of us will get nothing in the end. Still, I feel sorry for these guys. Aliens would probably fit in more easily than them.

The Computer Class 2

Back to the first day, about an hour after the class started a man came to the class. He apologized for being late, and was explaining that he couldn’t find the building. The teacher sensed that it was going to be a long one, so she asked him to take a seat. The man was carrying a green supermarket shopping bag. The kind you carry whenever you go to the super market, if you can remember to. We were surprised to see the content of the bag. It was a little dog! The dog was sitting calmly and patiently. The man said that he had permission to bring the dog to class. The class continued.

At some point during the class, the man could not follow the lesson. He tried to explain why to the teacher. Again the teacher said “It’s ok” and continued the lesson. The man showed up a few times after that, and then stopped coming at all.

My Computer Class 1

A few weeks ago I started going to a computer course at a government supported school. The first person that I noticed before we went into the class was an Indian lady. She’s middle-aged and has short hair. She didn’t look very friendly. A few sessions later we net in the elevator. I asked her where she is from. She gave me three guesses. Three guesses? Ok.. That means India is obviously out of the question. She doesn’t look Pakistani, so that’s out of the question too. So I asked, “Sri Lanka?”
“No.”
Not Sri Lanka. I tried to remember what other Indian-ish are there out there. I remember my friend Michelle, so I asked, “Goa?”
She looked really surprised. “How do you know? Most people have never even heard of Goa! Is it my name?”
I have no idea what Goa’s people’s names are supposed to be. Lucky guess, but she was really impressed hehehe…

Blank

Do you believe in karma, fate, destiny, signs, etc. etc.?
This morning I woke up thinking, “I’m sure Maggie’s boss will call me today.” Just because I wouldn’t be able to teach. I have a job interview. Guess what? She did call.

This was the third time she called, and the third time I had to say no. The first time, I was in Melbourne. The second time, my cell phone was in silent mode. I blamed it on my TAFE typing instructor who asked us to turn off our phones the night before. (Of course it’s my fault that I forgot to turn the sound back on, but I’d rather blame her.) The third time was as I mentioned before.

I was at the station when she called. I told her the truth. I had a job interview. Then I thought, “Why on earth did I tell her that? Why didn’t I just lie, for goodness sake.” Now she would think that I was bragging, or that I didn’t want the job and she would never call me again. I continued walking and cursing myself until I realized that I didn’t know where I was. The police station that I was supposed to go to was nowhere in sight. (I went there just last night) I tried to remember the turns that I took after the train station but I couldn’t. the last thing I remembered was pushing the crossing button. There was a blank space from there to the poster of Andy Lau on a shop’s window several minutes later. What happened during those blank space?

There was another incident a couple of weeks ago. I was on my way home from the train station. A girl asked me for directions to Bunnings Warehouse. I ouldn’t help her because, as you know, I have no sense of direction. I was deep in thought, trying to figure out where it was (I’ve passed it a million times). I crossed the small street. Out of nowhere there was a loud honk. I almost got hit by a car. I usually make sure the road is clear when I crossed. How come I didn’t see the car? Where was I during the blank seconds? I’ve been forgetful and absent minded all my life. This is why I can’t work with lists of numbers. Why I refuse to drive. I usually laughed my absent-mindedness away, but maybe it’s more serious than I thought. These incidents are signs to me. Snapshots of years to come. In a way I’m glad I have this blog. It’s for, you know, just in case those blank spaces expand and took over. At least my family and friends have this to remember me.

So, what’s all this got to do with the phone calls? I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.

Croissant

A few weeks ago, Maggie asked me to stand in for her at the language school. When I got there, there were two students. One was Thai, the other was Vietnamese. The Vietnamese was a brand new student, fresh from his home country, with almost no English. I found myself repeating lots of words and trying to make sense of what he said. Then I noticed he was saying something familiar. Qu’es que c’est a dire? He spoke French! From then on I began to understand what he was trying to say or ask. That was the first time that my elementary French was put into use.

During the break he asked me to have coffee with him, so I did. I refused his offer to buy me coffee but he bought me a croissant and a custard cake anyway. He puts them on the table, placed two fingers on the croissant and said, ”Hot. Eat. Hot.” I was eating my scone, so I said, “Thank you. Yes, after this.” He touched the croissant again and repeated, “Hot. Eat.” ((((((:

There was a short period in my life when I refused to eat the chicken-congee-on-bicycle, because I saw the seller break the krupuk and sprinkle the fried shallot with his bare hands. The same hands he used to handle money and gripped the handle bars of his bike. After a while, gluttony took over and I said to myself, “Heck, I didn’t get sick eating the congee all this time. Why should I stop now?”

It’s the same case with the croissant. If I didn’t eat it, I might offend the kind student. I didn’t know what the fingers had touched since morning. But what’s the worst that could happen? I put away my scone (so he wouldn’t touch the croissant again) and ate the nice, warm, crispy croissant. Yum!

Melbourne, Tuesday

This was our last day in Melbourne. We thanked our hosts and left. The girls decided to visit Melbourne University. It had been the only sunny day so far so I went to the Botanical Gardens instead. I must have been crazy because I had my Bandung suitcase with me. I dragged it around the garden. One hand on the handle, the other on a map and the camera. The garden looked so much better than it was a few days ago, when it was cloudy and miserably cold. I stopped to look around me (and to catch my breath, the footpaths were not suitcase-wheel friendly) and thought of a friend who also love trees and plants in general, and a few minutes later she called me!





From the gardens I went to Melbourne Museum to meet the girls. I thought history repeated itself when we got to the counter and saw a children everywhere (a few months ago I went to Sea World Jakarta and found the place crawling with children. It turned out there was a Jakarta-wide competition for kindergarten students. I think me and my friends were quite traumatised by the experience). It was a huge relieve to find the parents were there with the children, and everybody was well-behaved. It was an even bigger relieve to find out that there was a dinosaurus exhibition and that was where most of those kids were heading. We left out suitcases at the bag counter and started to look around. In one section of the museum there was a Body and Mind exhibition. No photos should be taken in this section. First, there was a plaster cast of the remains of two girls from Pompeii. This is how they got the cast. When the volcano erupted, the moist dust encased the bodies of people who died. This moist dust hardened like a shell around the body. The body withered away but the shell remained intact. When archeologist found these empty shells they filled the shells with plaster. When the plaster dried, we got the statue like shapes.
Going back to why no photos should be taken, there were big posters on naked people of many ages and races. There were life-like statues of naked people too. They weren't in provocative poses so it was't pornographic. Then there was a section of disection. Body tissue, brain, internal organs, bones, ... began to feel queezy so I went out. I don't know how people could hang around in there. Those things came from PEOPLE, people!!! I took a photo of a dinosaurus' skeleton instead.

Melbourne, Monday

Next on the agenda was Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. Sovereign Hill is a replica of a gold-mining town. It had one real ex-gold mine underground, which we explored, with a guide. Outside there was a small stream where children tried panning gold.

Melbourne, Sunday

Next was Brighton and the colourful bath houses.



Then the graffitty alleys.

Mebourne, Saturday

On Saturday each of us had our own activities. I preferred to explore the city so I did. I went through Chinatown and visited the Chinese Museum.



Found a wonderful little cake shop and bought a slice of mudcake. Took trams arcoss the city and ended the day in a Japanese resto. That wasn't really the end, though. Dhena joined me at the resto and before heading back we took some photo of the Yarra River at night.

Melbourne, Thursday and Friday

We bought a weekly ticket at Seven Eleven and walked to a tram stop. My made-in-Bandung suitcase was as unsteady as ever and it turned over everytime I tried to walk faster, and gave me a lot of problems when crossing the street. At one point my hat got blown away by a monster gust of wind. Ira ran after it half-way across the street. A truck came and the wheels ran over my poor hat, twice. Don't worry. The hat survived. Ira was also unharmed. After that I only put it on when it wasn't too windy.

We took a tram to Ira's relative's apartment and spent the day exploring the city.

The next day Dhena arrived. We packed some lunch and took a train to the Dandenong Ranges. Most people come to Dandenong in private cars or tour coaches. They usually take Puffing Billy (a steam train) to see the forest reserves. We, on the other hand, decided to leg it. So we asked around and then took a bus. We got of, had lunch in a small resto and asked for directions again. We found a guy with long hair (never trust a guy with long hair (I'm being racist here)) and he was very helpful with a lot of hand gestures. I wondered if he knew we didn't travel by car, so I told him. He was stunned. "Anyway", he said, "just follow the road and be careful of the cars."
We continued walking, turned around after a few meters, found a map ("Hey, we're not very far from the reserve!"), asked somebody again ("Sorry, I don't live around here. I live at the foot of the mountain. But there's a path just behind this school. I'm quite sure it leads to a bush-walking trail.") We followed his directions and found a picnic area full of tame birds.



From there we found a small gate where the bush-walking trail started. We walked through fern gullies, crossed small bridges, uphill, downhill. I'm really a big fan of workout. Lucky for me, Ira and Dhena often stopped to take photos. Still, I huffed and puffed and sweated waterfalls. It was very green and peacefull in the reserves but I was very glad when we finally finished.



I was really surprised that Ira and Dhena planned to go to Hard Rock Cafe to buy some souvenirs afterward. I definitely declined and went straight back to the apartment.

Melbourne, Thursday

The five-day-trip started at 5:10 a.m. with a call from my sis. I haven't taken a shower so I just changed clothes and carried my suitcase down to the car. We picked Ira up and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. We got on the plane and found our seats. Ira continued her sleep. As the plane took off the air pressure increased and a toddler behind us started to cry. (I'm just guessing that it was the air pressure.) She cried on and off, depending on the parents' techniques to get her to quiet down. Then another tolddler a few seats in front of us fell off the seat and started crying too. When I said 'cry' I meant the high pitched, maximum power, straight-from-the-diaphragm wails. These wails upset a baby somewhere and it started to cry too. The cabin was like a childcare center on a bad day. Thank God it was only 75 minutes. We arrived safely to a cloudy, windy and chilly Melbourne. That was how it would continue for the rest of the trip, except the last day.

Koala

Reckless

Another reason why I haven’t written for a while was a job that I did. I did some proofreading a while back and the next step was updating the documents. Updating means making sure that the comments during proofreading has been entered. It took me two weeks to do the update check. I finished last week and I was very happy. During the two weeks I also went for and interview and took a translation test. It was crazy. The interview was done by a panel of three. It was nerve-wrecking. I didn’t do very well but not very badly either. They promised to contact me in couple of weeks. The interview was on June 10th . It’s been a little over two weeks so I have very little hope at this point.

Two days after the interview I took the translation test. It started at 9:30 in the morning and finished at 12:00. I started to feel hungry at 11:00. My tummy growled and grunted and made all kinds of very scary and very loud noises. Good thing I was alone in the room and there was no one to supervise me. The walls were pretty thin, though. I think the people the next room was probably wondering what kind of wild animal was in the room with me. The next day I woke up with a horrible tummy pain. The late lunches and stress had taken their toll. I took some Mylantas and bought a packet of digestive biscuits. I actually love digestive biscuits, I demolished several packets in a matter of days, just as snacks, with the excuse, “I shouldn’t leave my stomach empty for too long.” The pain had gone, but I stocked up on the biscuits anyway just in case.

Then I went for a very dodgy interview. Dodgy because I don’t even know when the job is going to start. Maybe in two-months time, maybe never. The story is that somebody is starting a new language school. He is Pakistani and funnily reminded me of my old boss in terms of looks, except that he has a very nice set of white teeth. He needs a teacher/coordinator as part of the requirement to get accreditation for the school. My friend introduced me to the boss of his friend who then introduced me to this guy. To make the story short, the owner (the Pakistani guy) will continue completing the requirements and I can pull out or continue anytime I want. The problem is, of course, there are no students yet, no books, no accreditation, nothing. But hey, it’s not like I’m swamped with work at the moment, so I said yes to something that may of may not happen.