I’m A Mummy

I bought a pup. It’s long-haired miniature dachshund, and I named him Micah. It’s a cute little bundle of fun and so gentle and calm, although whenever I leave him in his crate he goes mad and cries like he’s been abandoned forever. I guess this is normal for a pup, since he is only around two months old. Born on Valentine’s Day, to be exact.

I kept text-messaging my friend from work, Olivia, who’s pretty experienced with dogs, and she told me that it was quite normal for pups to cry a lot. I guess Micah misses his sister, because when I visited the kennel where he came from, there were two of them and the other one was a girl.

When I saw him, I knew I had to have him – after a long search of a pup ( I considered a Beagle, a Golden Retriever, and even a Pug and a Chihuahua), I finally settled to a Dachshund. My other friend at work, Febrina, already suggested me to get this type of dog but I didn’t like it since it wasn’t “furry” therefore it would feel weird to pat it, and the only sausage dog I knew was the short, shiny coated one. When I saw Micah though, I thought, yep, this is it. He’s the one that’s most suitable for me.

We visited the kennel last Friday and the breeder brought along the father to show us what Micah would look like when he gets big and he was the most elegant, calmest dog I’d ever seen. He didn’t lick around like many other dogs either, which won me another point.

The weird thing was, to Micah I was able to baby talk and do all kinds of motherly things I didn’t know I had in me, and it was weird since I never would have done such things to real babies.

After spending an evening with him, where he was crying and whining a lot, I felt so tired and drained, and only hoping this was temporary.

Lucky for me I would never considered having a baby in the first place because if a puppy could exhaust me this much, imagine what a baby could do. My boyfriend, who was staying overnight to look after the pup told me he was knocked out as well of having to soothe and tell the pup to go to sleep all night long.

I can’t wait till Micah grows up.

Not All Churched Up

On my latest attempt to go to church purely because I wanted to, my boyfriend and I set off to one of the well-known Christian church located at Nikko Hotel. It had its own website and everything and from what I saw they held a pretty impressive crowd.

We planned to attend the second mass which was at 10.15 am and I woke up late, so when we got there the place was already filled and some people had to sit on the steps because there was no space left. It wasn’t like a traditional mass either, where normally people – well at least I would – feel comfortable to be there.

At first I was pretty naive and to be perfectly honest I wasn’t expecting anything out of it – well, yes, a little bit, but the normal stuff; I expected that I would meet people who were like me – real people who wanted to go to church because they wanted to worship and praise God and just merely be merry about celebrating Easter. Pretty much like the masses I’d seen on movies with all these black people singing and praising and just looked so happy to be in church.

But to my disappointment, I came across to a de ja vu-like experience of being surrounded by superficial people who put so much effort on their appearances and looked at us up and down as if we shouldn’t be there at all. The people there looked pretty well-off and most of them were Chinese and when I saw the way the look at my boyfriend I was filled with so much dismay I felt the urge to leave straight away.

Not to mention that the church committee was so inattentive and ignorant, they reminded me of one of those shop-keepers at expensive boutiques who wouldn’t even say hello to people who looked like they couldn’t afford some ridiculously overpriced keychain with the designer’s logo stuck on it.

There was another mass which started at one thirty but by then I already lost my motivation to church. Appalled as I was, I didn’t really believe that they were that bad – I even asked my boyfriend whether it was the standard atmosphere setting for most of Christian churches, to which he said that back in his hometown, his church (which had branches all over the world and used English as its main language) always welcomed newcomers and escorted them to their seats and the people were polite and friendly to everyone.

Call me idealistic but I thought the whole idea about church is that it’s a place where people feel safe and comfortable and welcomed, so that they can all gather to sing and praise in unison and enrich their spiritual needs, not a place where people feel the need to dress up to the nines and the girls wear heavy make-up as if they are attending fashion shows, and by “welcomed” I mean people from different races and backgrounds because going back to the basic knowledge, God loves everyone nevertheless so why couldn’t people do the same?

I realised that it was foolish of me to think that such place could be found immediately without much additional effort. But I was somewhat encouraged because deep down I had faith that such place must exist somewhere.

We ended up trotting around Plaza Indonesia and I had to buy these insanely overpriced but super cool Havaianas flip-flops because I hurt my feet from walking to fast in my three-inch wedges due to our lateness to attend mass. We got some other pretty good stuff too – like the original soundtrack to Happy Feet which my boyfriend wanted so badly and couldn’t find at any other record stores (we both love the movie and have seen for at least ten times), and design books at reasonable price for our library collection.

When we got to the car, we both prayed that we would find the church where we could truly belong and meet people who were just like us. I am still positive in this holy quest and I trust that God would show us the way.

Written on April 8th 2007

You Get What You Give.

A couple of weeks ago I bitched about my manager who was, thoroughly, a bitch in disguise.

My hatred to her grew even more severe when she gave me a verbal warning because I left the monthly R&D team meeting after the working hours. Yes, it might come as a shock to you all, but the people at work have no life whatsoever. They think it’s normal to stay behind and work overtime and if anyone leaves at exactly four pm (that’s the end of the working hours), they call it ‘leaving early’.

The meeting wasn’t finished when I left, but I finished my presentation and even then they were only discussing the leftovers from last month’s meeting.

I had my own reasons too. The last time we had this meeting, it dragged over until to eight in the evening and I really couldn’t be arsed listening to the managers complaining and blaming other departments, even though they only had themselves to blame for not being smart enough to solve their own problems.

So my manager called me round to her office, and the first thing she said was, “Did you know what time the last meeting finishes at?”

Which was weird, because she knew I left before it was finished. I mean, why would someone ask a question they already knew the answer? Did she think I was stupid or something?

I said I didn’t know. I knew what she was onto. So I decided to play the game.

Right as if on cue she started going about how it was rude of me to just leave like that, how unethical it was and that it was a real working world in here and if I still wanted to work here then I had to follow the culture, not the other way around.

“Oh,” I said, “So if the meeting dragged over until ten in the evening then I should stay too?”
To which she said of course because that was what she and all the other managers had to do as well when they had a big meeting with the board of directors.

“So what is the point of setting up working hours from seven thirty am to four pm if that rule does not apply?” I threw back at her and all the time I kept looking into her eyes just to show that I wasn’t at all intimidated by her.

She started going on again about Code of Ethics and how important it was to respect other people. Which was a full on joke because she always bitched about other people behind their backs and badmouthing other managers whom she didn’t like, as well as gossiping about people at work and asking things that were not related to work at all just to find some more juicy details. Of course I could’ve spat all of that out to her face just to shut her up but I felt sorry for her because I knew it would just embarrass her.

Then she said,” So I can’t never really know the actual reason why you left because you didn’t tell me and I didn’t give you the permission to leave.” She concluded.

I said to her, “I have no reason. I just wanted to go home. Working hour was from seven thirty to four. I left at five. I shouldn’t have to give you any reasons. I don’t want to be like the others here who feel the need to give a reason just because they wanted to leave at four on the dot.”

She was dissatisfied, I knew. Then she told me that according to the company policy, she should have given me a warning letter but she told me she would only warn me verbally because she was not at all happy telling her staff off and she didn’t like it herself that there was a ‘problem’ in her own department.

I was a bit disappointed then. I was actually looking forward to getting the so-called warning letter everyone was so scared off. Just to see what it looked like.

The funny thing was, I was the one getting told off but she was the one with the trembling voice and the shaky hands. Right then I knew why – she had never come across into something like this before, and it scared her off because it showed how inexperienced she actually was. Which was both sad and pathetic, since she’d been in that company for a decade.

This was the second time she told me off for invalid reasons and she was making big deals out of nothing because I knew she disliked something about me that had nothing to do with work and she was trying to find an excuse just to piss me off.

I am good with what I do and if it wasn’t because of my designs, her ass would’ve been gone by now. If there was something, my attitude to her has been a bit disrespectful but then again I’m only reciprocating what she does to me and I know she can’t say anything nor have the guts to do it.

I told my boyfriend about this and he told me that the same things always happened to him – managers or other staff looking for trouble and bringing up shits just because they had a personal problem that had nothing to do with work. He was so used to it and he was never worried because those people were always taken care of. They always reap what they sow.

I guess he was right, because just yesterday my manager was demoted from being a Packaging Development and Documentation manager to just Packaging Development, and she had to share her own office with the other new manager who was now in charge of Documentation. Most of us had heard about her not holding Documentation anymore but none of us were prepared for the rough transition and how inelegant the whole process was.

The shame must be unbearable for her, because her office was visible from just about every direction and everyone could see what was going on, and out of all the managers in the office, she was the one who had to share with someone else. She used to be so proud of her own position, and now she had nothing else to show off about.

What was even worse was that everybody knew Documentation did jack shit because most of the staff there were infamously known for distributing daily junk mails and they did a lot of presentation for sharing knowledge because they had so much spare time it was such a joke. There was even a time when some work from other department had to be allocated to them because they had nothing to do.

Now everybody knew that my manager could not lead let alone manage the easiest department in the whole R&D, and everyday she had to be reminded of it, because of the presence of the new Documentation manager in her own office did just that.

I felt so sorry for my manager and yet at the same time I wanted to go at her and yell, “Eat shit motha*****!”

Do You Believe In Soulmates?

Those who were either in a long, steady relationship or married were rather uncomfortable upon hearing the very question when directed to them.

Some people who were curious about my relationship were more taken aback when I told them how it all happened. They seemed to think those sorts of stuff only happened in movies, or we either made it up because we were pulling a prank on them.

I think I tire myself down whenever people ask me about it and I have to keep retelling the same story and they will not believe me when I bandy the words like “soulmates” or “my other half”.

It is typical of them to response;

“How do you know that you’re soulmates?”

“I don’t believe in it. Relationship is hard. It’s all about give and take. Things don’t just happen just like that”

“There’s no way that you don’t dislike any single thing about him. Come on, there’s gotta be something. It’s just not realistic.”

I find it appalling that so many people look into relationships in such a negative and complicated way. That when it comes to having a great relationship they must work so hard and learn to understand each other by reading self-help books about Men from Mars and Women from Venus, compromising the needs and accepting the strengths and weaknesses of each other, tolerating and giving more until there is nothing left.

What appalled me more was that I used to be one of them. And in just a matter of a few precious hours, I was turned a hundred and eighty degrees, as if God was saying to me, “Lookie here, you’ve been traveling the wrong path but now I’m setting you straight. Go forth and tell the others that it is so. It is not too late for them to believe again.”

I know how unsettling it must be when you’re with a partner and as time rolls by, disappointments come and go, realization hit you hard and you find out on your own terms that relationship is a struggle to keep and you’re wondering whether it will get any easier. It breaks my heart to see that even those who are already in a relationship are still feeling empty and lost, and rather than finding the answer to their partners, they turn the other way and behaving as if their partners are strangers who must be studied and understood.

I feel even sorrier for those who are in the search of The One; it seems that it is such a difficult and tremendously time-consuming activity that wears people down because the whole idea of meeting The One is so close to impossible that they usually settle for the next best thing.

Impatience, desperation, the feeling that they’re not getting any younger and pressure from families are what usually driving them to just settle with any one who is good enough, and ignore the most important factor of all; That the person they are settling down with is probably not The One, and the problems that might arise in the future are well ignored and brushed away because they tend to not want to deal with what cannot be seen.

I wish people would have just a little bit more faith and belief that there is someone out there who is made exactly for them, and that by all means, relationship shouldn’t be that hard. I wish people would not just swallow in all the brainwashing thoughts the modern dating world has created for them, because rather than making it easier, it actually goes the other way around.

Just a little bit of faith. That’s all it takes. A little bit of faith that you’re not alone in this world.

That somewhere out there, a person who is your other half, exists and is made for you, waiting for you to believe in them too.

The Beginning of Parental Crime

This term came up when I was having dinner with my boyfriend at a nearby eatery around the Cikarang Baru area. The place was located in a middle-class area and there were scruffy-looking little kids who came around every now and then, begging for money and pretty much annoyed the heck out of us.

It didn’t affect us much until it became a lot more frequent, and bothered us from enjoying our dinner. It was quite tiring, really, flagging our hands off every now and then whenever one of them came to our table and started murmuring something in a pleading voice.

The whole thing might sound cruel and inhumane, considering that our conditions were a lot more fortunate than them, and of course they didn’t choose to be born to beg. But I couldn’t help wondering that perhaps they did it because their parents told them to. When I saw them I wondered where their parents were and I was amazed that they’d let their children roam the streets at night, begging for money from one venue to another. And then it clicked me that the parents were probably sitting comfortably at home, thinking that their kids were the one working their ass off to feed the family.

I told my boyfriend about it, and he agreed, and then goes, “Roughly said, some parents invest in their children the same way they invest money in a property or a business, and they give no options for the children’s own freewill to choose their own paths. They probably don’t realize it, but it’s a crime itself to think that that’s what having children is about.”

Right away I thought about those rich upper-class families who send their children abroad to study business management, e-commerce and the likes just so that the children could expand the family business and triple the profits for the next seventh generations to come. I’ve known some of these children who were in dilemmas – they have their own dreams to pursue, dreams that collide with their parents’ wishes.

It struck me hard to think that these rich parents were no different than those who let their children became beggars in the evenings. The purpose was none other but the same – so that the children are the ones making the money, not them.

“I wonder what the hell were these people thinking when they were having children. Did they just did it and hope for the best or were they not thinking at all?” I said to my boyfriend.

His reply, “I don’t think they have a single clue let alone realise the responsibility of having children. Most people do it because they think it’s the next step to do after they get married. I’ve talked to those who had children, and they said that life was not the same if you never experienced being a parent, and yet they complained about taking care of their own children. It’s funny how they say one thing that contradicts the other. They go around telling people to go have children because it’s great and yet they don’t want to take care of their own – I mean, look at these kids. I’m sure they’re let to beg the streets because their parents didn’t want to take care of them.”

Just the other day, as I was helping out my boyfriend moving out from his old boarding house, I saw a cat giving birth, right in front of the fence, and all the kittens were dead when they came out.

I thought how odd it was that cats breed all the time, uncontrollably, and yet they contribute nothing to the environment. They just exist and multiply but fail to have any sort of purpose or means. Just like how it is with human. They go forth and multiply, and yet their existence causes nothing but to waste more oxygen. All they know is that they have to have children, fill this already over-crowded earth, hoping that these kids would grow up finding their own ways and washing their hands off from the responsibility of parenting.

Besides, there’s always destiny or the society to blame when things go wrong.