Friday

Walked out to have breakfast with Iris before driving her down to KL.

I couldn’t finish my bowl of noodle, which I normally could.

“Eh, are you going for the interview or me?” Iris asked, pointing to that bowl of mine.

“Me. Heheheh.”

I was just excited and worried because the sky grew gloomy and it looked like it was going to rain and I wanted us to be back to the house before it really rains. We were without an umbrella.
I tembak my way to KL again taking another route this time because the route I took yesterday wasn’t exactly the right one. We managed to arrive with half an hour to spare.

But what was really scary is the parking place looked abandoned. So we parked near the lift and stairs like whatever happens, we can just hop in and out of the car.

The lift was not working. So we took the stairs. We tried another lift but it says “temporary shutdown” and I felt like it has been shut down temporary for so long. When we went up the stairs, it stank. When we finally got up to the ground level, we saw a rubbish dump just next to the staircase which explained the smell.

And you know what? It was raining. Once we stepped out of the staircase, the wind was blowing the rain towards us and so both of us had to walk till we find the building. And so I was wondering if I have parked at the wrong parking place or they have designated parking lots for people going to different parts of that building. We were wet. My sandals was soaking wet. Lower part of my jeans too.

“Grace, I’ve got no mood already. I’ll all wet.”

“Never mind, we will be there soon.”

We found the building but it took us 3 building lifts to finally get to the correct one.

“I hate this place! Is this a maze or something?”

“You better come back with an offer, okay?”

I was the only one there who isn’t going to apply for a position to the university and was seated in between these two girls who apparently are top scorers when my sister was inside talking to the professor.

Some chooses their choice of university based on ranking, status, location, tuition fees, accomodation and today I learnt that some chooses their choice of university depending on the grading system as to whether they are able to score. In this case, what matters to them most are the grades.

I was trying very hard to concentrate on my Reader’s Digest which I brought along with me to kill time but what I did was stare at the same page, same line, same word and listening to their conversations. It’s hard to focus when you have two persons beside you striking a conversation with you in the middle who does not play a part in the conversation itself.

Anyway, my sister came out, winking and raising her eye brow and with a little grin of hers. I knew she got it!

After that, we went down and found our way back to the stinky staircase, except that it doesn’t smell so bad now. Made our way down to the staircase as fast as we could. Hopped into the car. Locked car in an instant. I cannot imagine myself or my sister coming here alone. Or maybe I’ve not seen enough places.

***

Had dinner with an ex-colleague today. It’s nice to see her again even though it has only been one month or so since I last left that place.

Sometimes I see her in me. The way she cannot stop talking about her job, work, the happenings at the workplace and I can so totally relate to her. So for a while there, I enjoyed listening to her. The systems, the procedures..it’s still in my head. She told me about things she learnt lately and so I learnt something too.

“Grace, what happened to you?

“Why you quit?”

“Don’t you feel regret?”

I shook my head.

“Your parents okay with it?”

“Yup.”

“What if I’m going to be here forever? Maybe I’ll get to become a manager? But I don’t like to tell people I’m doing Customer Service. I want to do something else.”

“But I feel happier after the transfer, I get to learn something new. I can feel the job satisfaction. But I don’t know how long I’m going to be happy. They asked me if I regretted leaving the call centre but I said no. Even though it’s greener there, I feel happier here. I have got no time to look at Jobstreet anymore. Last time, I used to browse through it a few times a day. Now I’m so busy. I’m eating breakfast while I read emails in the morning.”

She got sick of answering calls too, just like me. And I know she has found job satisfaction and I’m happy for her too.

“I don’t know if I ever get to do engineering again because I think it’s too late now. It’s been two years already. And the day I told my dad about it, he seemed okay. And I forgot to tell you that I broke up with my boyfriend.”

That came as a shock. Cos it was a solid 6 years she had there.

“Are you sad?”

“Weekdays, I’m not but when it comes to weekend, I’m a little sad lor.”

“What happened?”

“I’m unhappy.”

“When I told my mum about it, she cried. My dad thinks he’s got a valid reason now to be angry of him.”

Funny ler cos sometimes I feel that most fathers don’t approve their daughters of their boyfriends. Happened to me before. And it has happened a few times that my dad is now blessing me to whoever I’m with. Maybe he’s immuned to it. Maybe he tries to be understanding. But one thing he’ll never fail to do is to tell that guy to take care of me.

My dad, the protector. Me, his baby.

After that, she sent me home like how she would when we were still colleagues.

“If you are bored, you look for me okay?”

She laughed.