At The End of The Day

So I was eating dinner at this deli and happened to watch the usual, mind-numbing goody-goody "sinetron" (electronic cinema or what’s best described as local soaps).

I didn’t catch it from the beginning, still it doesn’t matter at all. The story went stupidly predictable and so lame, I thanked God my dinner was very delicious, I didn’t have to puke it out.

What bothered me was this. The heroine’s father was berating her when I first caught it, telling her she must never marry her boyfriend - at least not before Daddy died.

So. Let me ask you then. If it were you, what would you do?

You’d be mad at your Dad, I think. Fuming, bitching to your friends, confronting your Dad and what have you. Maybe you’re one of the types to be patient about it and try to look as if it’s OK and think for another way to persuade your Dad otherwise. Good for you.

But would you mope about it, locking yourself in your room and refuse to eat?

I’m telling you now, if there are any of you who think that that is one of the many options for you: it’s absolutely moronic.

It’s blackmailing your Mom and rebelling towards your Dad. Plain and simple.

What was maddening to me was the fact that the sinetron portrayed this as a courageous act of the heroine, as if it was a right thing to do. Courageous my foot. There was even this sickening scene of the heroine saying this to her Mom, when confronted with her disinclination to eat, "If Daddy says I have to wait for him to die to marry my love then maybe I should starve to death."

Put it this way, in writing (not using the innocent face of a young star, crying her little blackmailing heart out), you can see it’s downright extortion, right? Let me marry him, otherwise you’ll have my blood on your hands.

Only slightly higher in morality than terrorist: I’m going to kill someone because you won’t give me what I want.

Bullshit.

If you kill someone, it’s always on you.* Even if it’s slow suicide.

What’s wrong with this country is that we are airing this kind of thing as daily consumption, masquerading as religious shows. Makes you wonder how low a country can go, right?

OK., so it gets high rating. I’m not going to preach about abandoning that - everybody’s got to earn a living. But the least the government can do is to rule it out of the religious scope and put it into the category it deserves: crap.

*) Self defense aside.

Minggu ini cocoknya dinamain Minggu Kenangan kali yee…

Because of one thing and another, gw kemaren-maren keinget lagi ‘ma my darlin’ slave. (Jangan tanya deh, dari mana tu nama dateng, panjang cerita!) Pokoke keinget dah… trus sempat sedih juga, karena kangen. Dan juga masih menyesali… kenapa gak jodoh ya…

I remember the times when you used to fantasize about how our live together would be and say, "I wish this could be true…" and I feel the same mystification: why? Why couldn’t it be?

Heh, trus tadi pas lagi nunggu nasi goreng di tempat Ipoel, kucuk-kucuk dateng cowok yg bujubuneng mirip banget ‘ma my Lil Boss. Gw sampe mangap-mangap ga pecaya… Sumpe, mirip banget. Dari depan, dari samping, dari belakang, dari tadi juga mirip banget!!!
Cuma ni cowok muluz gitu tampangnya, sedang si Boss terakir gw liat sedang manis-manisnya miara jerawat dua biji. Hehehe.

Lagi melankolis nih… Lagi mikirin kos lama juga, kangen banget pengen bisa "pulang."
Gak bisa bilang kerasan di kos yang baru - cuma gw juga dah gak gampang ngamuk-ngamuk lagi (abis aer dah nyala 24 jam seh, coba kalo belom…) Pokoke, intinya sih, gw dah pasrah lah, kos baru gak seasik yg dulu. Cuman kalo bisa sih, maunya tetap di kos yg dulu.

En kayanya bentar lagi gw bisa nih… Tunggu aja kabar selanjutnya ye…

Recently a student of mine uttered an opinion that sent me spiralling into eddies of heavy pondering, trying to convince him otherwise.

He was not an ignorant young thing, far from it - and yet this rethorical question he posed to the class bothered me because the thoughts behind it might lead him to that direction.

"Why are we studying all of these things? Wouldn’t it be enough to study cost and profit and that’d be it? After all, those are all I need later."

I looked at him, an earnest student who I knew never missed a lesson and study dilligently, maximising his bright minds, hoping to be a businessman someday.

Why?

I beat myself everyday because I feel I can never make any student see that everything, yes, everything you study in your long, boring hours of school will someday prove useful to you.

I am not saying this because I happen to be a teacher - I’m saying it because it’s true. I had difficulties back in school too but even then there were a lot of times where I found myself amazed by the enlightment I acquired through a teacher’s explaination, a paragraph I read in a textbook or a comment made by another student.

Furthermore, there were even more chances where I found myself thinking, "Jeez, I remembered this from Junior High… What a disaster it would’ve been if I’d somehow forgotten it!"

As a student, I was most enamoured by Math. To me it was the most superior subject. In my later years, it has proven a help to many things I endeavour to do. Statistic, pattern even prediction - were I a non-Christian, Math would be my god.

I used to sit blankly during hours of History, Geography… any social studies. I thought them boring, useless and aimless. All the same, I was hungry for things out there - something I always associate with living in the middle of nowhere. I was hungry to know about the world, so I guess information simply came into my mind and stayed there.

I was partly right when I thought social studies taught in school were useless, basing my thoughts on the idea that social conditions change all the time. Yet, those things taught to me in school drew my attention to the changes that happen and kept me up to date with current affairs.

When I first came out into the world, some people would dismiss me, seemingly because of my youthful face or perhaps they thought of me merely as a pretty young thing. Hope I’m not making an ass of myself here.. but true or not, I don’t know; that’s the impression I got.

Still, I found myself able to carry conversations with people, most of the time even able to impress them and changed their opinion about me. And for all that, I give the credit to the education I got at school.

Vive le school!

What the hell was wrong with me?

My classes for today were supposed to be Basic 3, AES and a private class in the evening. What did I do, though?

I prepared myself for YAC 6 and AES - not remembering at all that I have YAC 6 on Tuesday-Thursday. Great.

And if I hadn’t been nice (Ha) and hadn’t gone downstairs to get the attendance folders, I wouldn’t have found it out. I would’ve gone on merrily on my way, thinking I was done preparing all of my classes. Now I had only half an hour to prepare for Basic 3. God.

When I told him about it, pRetty Boy told me to relax - even though I’m quite certain he had no idea WHAT A DISASTER IT WAS. Thank God you’re pretty - otherwise, I would’ve folded you into an envelope and mailed you to Alaska.

Although, much to my surprise, I wasn’t as panicky as I supposed I would be. Perhaps because I knew it wouldn’t be so difficult preparing for this particular Basic 3 meeting or because perhaps, I’ve grown more mature (most unlikely!!!)

Long weekend… almost over. Hiks.

I had just finished with the ‘big project’ (and gotten the payment) Thurday last week and was superglad I made it that far, that I wasn’t even resenting the fact I would be the last to go home that day due to my evening class.

Note to self: NEVER again take a translation job for as long as you are still a full-timer at the office.

The evening class’ guys had my hopes high when they still didn’t arrive at 7.30, only to squash them dead by arriving one by one at 7.35-7.40. By then, everybody had left but Esther, I think.

Anyway, by the time I finished, everybody’s gone. Still, I was too tired and relieved to even think about it. Was about to sink myself into a chair and sleep well into the next millenium when I got startled by the sound of the office door’s being opened.

I was rather surprised because noone was supposed to come in at such time. Sam doesn’t usually clean up at 9. Either 8.30 or well past 9 - when our room’s completely empty.

It was pRetty Boy.

He was coming to get me. I didn’t realise it until later that there was absolutely noone left upstairs but me.

Silly boy. Such thing doesn’t scare me in the least but it was nice of him.

He waited around while I put things away. At one point he jokingly turned off the lights, thinking I’d be scared - not knowing what a horribly dangerous position he’d put himself into! Ha.

Anyway, that was thoughtful of him. What a sweet way to end a very long day.

The rest of my holiday didn’t go on as good as it had started. The person who had ruined my days by starting off nasty rumours recently came back with new ways to mess things up and hurt me.

I wish she would just leave me alone.

To take my mind off things, I went out. Simply going to get dinner was difficult because I was so distraught, I had make an effort to even talk to people.

Sigh. When was it that life hadn’t been this complicated?

Am reading Frank McCourt’s ‘Tis. Cursed myself that I didn’t get his Angela’s Ashes when I got the chance a while back. Was too busy trying to buy as many thriller as I could I told myself Angela could wait. Now when do you think I could get a chance to go to Kinokunia and buy Angela?

I got ‘Tis by a lucky chance at Kharisma, Puri Indah Mall. It has started stocking salable novels at the end of last year and I stopped by from time to time to see if I could pick up something worthwhile.

Have been following American Idol and was surprised last night that Gina Glocksen was sent home. Ahead of Haley. That girl should’ve been on her way long ago. Anyway, just for the record, I hope Blake wins.

Looking forward to watching hubby Iker this morning. Soon it’ll be Monday again and I have an early class at 8 AM. Sigh.

Happy Easter, everyone. God bless you all.