Therrysays.com

The highs and lows for today:

Highs>
Having Strawberry Sunday with Via at PI’s Maccas
Feeling the cool evening breeze on my way home
Finding out that my downloads were successfully completed when got home

Lows<
Being on the phone with unresponsive clients and having to talk to them for hours
Stuck in a non-airconditioned car on way to and from work

Very tired today. As usual, I’ve had my sleeping pattern stuffed up during the weekend and always failed in attempt to have enough sleep on Sunday evening so could function properly on Monday and not look like a walking zombie.

Even worse, was supposed to teach the Head of the General Attorney for the West Jakarta division this morning but when got to his office, he said to reschedule to three pm. Was fine by me, except that I was still flustered and sweating out like a madman since it was supposed to be my first in-house training and it happened to be a v. important client. Anyways, I didn’t end up teaching him because when our operator tried to reconfirm his appointment, she couldn’t get through to his numbers.

He looked pretty scary, by the way. And his personal office looked like something a hermit would’ve habitate in, since it was dark and gloomy with only his desk lamp and the television on, as opposed to the bright day light outside. Plus, the secretary, who happened to be watching some soap on TV, looked kind of weird just sitting on a desk next to his, her hand holding the remote control and her face a bit uptight.

Heck, if I were her I would be uptight too.

Apart from that, the whole day’s work was a bit slow and dragged on. Had some unresponsive clients and whenever this happened I got all paranoid and started thinking that I must be a terrible teacher.

Was catching Busway from Plaza Indonesia to the parking lot near Atmajaya - the usual spot where I carpooled back to West Bekasi freeway with other working-class people. It was getting dark outside and I had just finished having a Sundae with Via. I felt kind of dizzy with so many people on the bus and the funny smell that emanated from them and I was just watching the buildings through the window as the sky was getting darker when I noticed a Toyota car dealer that was brightly lit and surrounded by the freshly-out-of-factories cars.

Nothing really special about it I guess, but it reminded me of the neighbourhood I used to live in Melbourne. It was this suburb called Camberwell, which was sort of posh and had that family-atmosphere about it. Most of the houses were built Victorian style, and Collings street - the street where I lived - were just off Camberwell road, where there was a Toyota car dealer right in front.

I used to pass Camberwell road so many times since the tram went that way and the Toyota car dealer was such an odd, brightly lit building in a quiet neighborhood and it stood out even more during the evening. I remembered always seeing it when I got home from uni, thinking how funny the building and the cars around it looked, and how it was all dark and quiet and the only activity on that road would be the occassional tram that would pass or a couple of people walking their dogs around.

When I saw that Toyota car dealer through the Busway window, I felt as if I was forced to remember how life used to be back in Melbourne - how quiet the neighborhood was, how everyone was mostly home at six in the evening, probably having dinner and watching the Current Affairs on channel Seven.

I couldn’t remember exactly what I felt but it was v. close to loneliness.

Amongst the swarming number of people on the bus and the cars and motorcycles around me, I felt somewhat lost and alone. I missed Melbourne terribly, especially during those hours, even though it was so quite and so much of the opposite of what happened in Jakarta.

I kept thinking that life in Melbourne was so much like a dream and the shocking harshness of Indonesia brought me back to reality.

And I remembered how clear and cloudless the sky looked when the sun went down in Melbourne.

This entry was posted Monday, May 23rd, 2005 at 8:58 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.