Prayers From Friends.

Aunt Su is still trying to recover from the confusion of the new world order where it is possible for me to have friends I have never met sending their prayers now that they know I am out of work and looking for a job.

Aunt Su and I are now a family of two living out a life we have chosen because she has had enough with old folks' home, and they've considered me suicidal for my own good. Sometimes I think all this is my imagination gone wild, a long dream that will soon run its course and that I will wake up in my bunk to the sound of a tropical storm in the middle of South China Sea.

No way.

This is not a dream because I just got out of a job interview with a guy that looked underfed for a managing director of a company dealing in industrial cleaning services. Do you speak any English? No. Education? Form two. I somehow knew that he wanted to ask whether I had just got out of prison, or a drug rehab centre. For fun, I waited for him to ask but he avoided my eyes as if I'd grab him in the neck and put a knife to his nose if he'd ask me that question. In the end he said do you have any experience handling industrial cleaning machines? No, sir. You didn't put down any work experience except 'kitchen hand', and you didn't put down where except 'restoran', frankly you are quite a mystery. We'll let you know, thank you.

This is a difficult situation. In the other interview I had put down work experience as oil rigger and no sooner than I could say where, one of the partners of a law firm said, you must have made this much a month, why that's more than what we make. I'm sorry, ma'am, but it's not my fault that they pay us that much in US Dollars considering the kind of work we've got to do. In the end one of them said, I don't think you'll be comfortable with what we are willing to pay for a driver since it is peanuts compared with what you used to earn. If only I can make them understand that I need a job, not so much the salary because I need to do something productive, never mind if it is just driving lawyers like these two legal eagles who look like parrots, to and from the courthouse, or to a murder scene where I get the chance to play Gibbs, or DeNozo, or a forensic expert, or a constable assigned to look for clues like a strand of hair or something.

I got home late afternoon after having been all over town, trying to get used to driving in the city. It's different when you are from out of town coming to the city as a tourist, staying in a hotel, spending your money on fancy meals. It is an entirely different story being a newcomer to the city trying to find something like a job.

Any luck?
Nope.
Have you eaten?
Nope.
Wanna eat?
Did you cook?
Nope.
There's a restaurant downstairs if you want to go have something to eat.
No, I've had enough of restaurant food.
Let's cook something.
Like what, roast beef?
Rice and ikan goreng.
Sounds like the kind of food for a family of two.
...a family of two with no job. No future.

I'll figure something out tomorrow. No, I won't rob a bank or something.

Ha ha ha.
No wonder you are called Syarifah Suraya Al-Khaleej, you are so pretty when you laugh.