Thursday, January 05, 2006

The Anecdotes of Being Alienated

Day 3 at the foreign workplace. My miserable-ness has slightly been diverted because I am lost every day in my work schedule & designing stuff. My first day was quite bad. I was so used to hearing Jen's cheerful voice when she picked up the phone, rolling her eyes & making funny faces when the callers turned out to be freaking buggers. Or calling Ainie's name every time I saw her. Or listening to Roy bickering with the Legal Manager for fun. It was just - homely.

My previous work environment was colorful, to put it literally and also in context. When we were bored, we went window shopping or buy hotdog from upstairs. Or sit around, watching people. Or whatever. Sure, most of the time we were stressed out, but at least we got something to keep our minds away at times.

And the people. They are colleagues, neighbours, etc. We're like, this one suburban community working at the same company. So I knew you, you knew me, we knew everybody.

So urban KL is - urban.

At least by today I wasn't crying my eyes out anymore. The first day had been terrible. I had to bring my stuff to office by taxi, and then commuted home. The lrt was jam-packed. I missed commuting between Skudai-office when I can feel & smell fresh air while riding at 120km/h (ok, so I'm exaggerating, the air smelled like carbon monoxide, but at least it didn't smell like someone's armpits). Gob-smackingly delicious feeling. At that particular moment, back to the present, I was trapped among sweaty bodies exuding all kind of smell that made me feel dizzy. When I arrived at the lrt station, I had to wait for half an hour for the feeder bus to come.

It started to rain by then. I was looking up to the dismal sky, feeling totally lost, bewildered, sad. My mp3 player was playing a sad song. I was close to tears, I nearly bawled there & then.

I hate, hate, hate, hate this bloody city.

I wanted to turn off my mp3 player, in my pocket, when my fingers brushed against something. There it was again, turning up like some guardian angel. The 109 beads stringed together. How it ended up in my pocket when I was sure I had removed it I had no idea.

This time it didn't make me cry. I clasped it with both hands, feeling my heartbeat returned to normal. This is like a talisman, but it's not and I don't believe it is. But oh boy, it reminds me that back in JB, there are friends who still wanna make me smile.

Erm. Thanks Ainie. Thanks Jen. Thanks Layla & Pakcik & Kak Za & Survivor & Chairman and all that. You know, I'm glad that I made that voice recording even though Jen sounded like Evil Queen. But yeah, that helps a lot.