Friday, November 7, 2008

MEN !!!

I am sitting here , at 11.30 at night , asking one of friends online why do i always end up with men who are somehow screwed up in some ways ?? This is a million dollar question that i think all women regardless of their age will ask themselves at one point of time in their life . For me this is a question that i have been asking myself since i had my first crush when i was 15 !! well that wasn't so bad because as someone who has been taught to only see the positive side of life , i kept telling myself that maybe the next one will be better !!

Huh , so much for being better the next time !! sometimes i think maybe its just me , i know how some people are bound to attract the wrong kind of men , but ...come on!! is it supposed to go on your whole life ?? yeah i have come across some good men in my life , some perverts and some who just wanna 'have fun' like we all don't know what fun means eh !!

Even when you think that you couldn't be bothered with them , they just creep up on you and without you knowing it , you are having sleepless nights over them , which is so not worth it !! I 'll be lying if i say that i haven't done all these crazy stuff , like checking to see if your phone is really working , checking your emails every 2 minutes, logging in to see if he is online ........why is it that when women says that "i 'll call you later " they really call you later , i mean within the hour or two or the same day at least . But when a man says "i 'll call you later ok , i 'm kinda busy " they never call !! and then after a few days , or sometimes after a few weeks you finally hear from them, so the moral of the story is , later for men is whenever they feel like calling or talking to you or when they are free and bored , when their friends have ditched them and you are like the last resort ......bang !!! they think about you .

Men !! typically irritating species , not that i hate them or anything , its just that all the men that i come across are prone to be hated by me :) The most annoying part is when they lie to you, even if they know that you know that they are lying , they will continue doing it , as if its the most natural thing in the world , of course next to masturbating !! God !! the excuses they give you for not calling could be the lamest of the mother of all the lamest excuses , and what do you do ?? you just listen to him and tell him that you hope he's been doing well and take care !! yeah , that's what i do .

I feel absolutely absurd for being associated with these kind of male species , hey but life is such that you have to go through various types of human being through out your time on this earth . I guess some people are just lucky to have found the right guy and settle down , but even then they don't seem to appreciate what they have , boy , have i come across women like that ! it just makes me so bloody mad to see how when good things are served to you on a silver platter and you can't see it , you walk past through it , and pick up something from a cheap looking paper plate and drool over the stuff in there, if you get my drift. Its so unfair to not to be appreciated and to regret later when your silver platter changes hand and you have to live with your rotten paper plate !!

I'm 32 this year , i 'm still single and i date occasionally , twerps mostly , so i gave up looking for the perfect someone, because even a blind bat knows , there is no such thing as perfect , and again i keep telling myself that good things always comes later in life , i do believe it because everybody deserves something good in their lives no matter how long it takes for them to have it ...........Cheers from a happily single woman of this millennium !!


Monday, November 3, 2008

MY 1st INTERVIEW WITH THE UNHCR

It was still very very dark when i woke up today cause it was 5am !! i had a very important job interview at 8 am , can u believe it ?? after 3 long months of unemployment , and after 63 jobs applied through the net , i got 1 call last Tues , and that call , i told myself will be able to change my life if i do it right . It was from the UNHCR !! United Nations High Commisioner for Refugees , i was super excited to hear from them , it was so unexpected cause i applied for the job like 2 months back , after going through more than 400 applicants they finally short listed 28 , and i was one of the lucky one :)

So i primped myself up as early as 6 am , with my official looking outfits and unmessy tied up hair :) the agony that i went through for the past one week was inexplicable okay !! i was reading about UN , googling possible interview questions and man was i a nervous wreck !! finally when the time came , i was ready , as ready as i can be and i was the first one there , by 7.25 am i was seated in the waiting lounge.

UNHCR is an old white wooden bungalow , kinda english looking with lots of land and a small area for refugees (better than the camps we see in tv ) , it was an experience going into the building , the guards were all non Malaysians , very polite and helpful , they salute you when you walk by , man did i feel like a General !! haha.....

As candidates started coming in , we got to know each other, they were 14 of us , after 15mins past 8 , we were brought to a conference room , a cute white guy came up and tried his best to fix the overhead projector for like nearly 10 mins , and finally he realized that the main switch was off!!

In came the Head of the Refugee Dept , asian guy , loved the way he spoke , he could have given a speech on Humanitarian Rights off his head just like that , well anyways , we were showed a video of all the aids and assistance that UNHCR been doing for the past years. Of course it was heart wrenching to see children and women suffer, being forced to flee their own country for fear of being persecuted and lack of legal protection from their own country.

After the video , a short speech by the head of the dept and we were divided into 2 groups , 7 on each sides, ours did the written exam while the others went for the interview . That done , since i have been burying my head in UNHCR's website day in and day out , and been reading all the available articles on Human Rights and how its related to the Malaysian context , it was .......i would say quite challenging but i was able to tackle it. hehe

Next came the interview , a sweet looking young lady , soft spoken and polite , asked me questions , you know normal interview questions , which was easy , then came the questions about refugees and , internally displaced person , how Malaysia is dealing with migrant , definition of some terms , okay , i must say that i was practicing this at home and got it right .

One question that caught me off guard , was "how would you describe the political situation in Myanmar ' !!! i was like oh shit , i m dead , so i got creative since i only know bits and pieces ....hmmmm. i think i may have screwed it up , but on the contrary i managed to 'come back' by referring to the latest news in Congo and Palestinian border flood , last week . i must say that my interviewer was quite happy with that :)

It went well overall , if only i had a degree in law , the chances would be higher for me to secure the job , i have 2 weeks of waiting till they come up with the second batch of shortlisted candidates !!! 2 bloody weeks ........i m crossing my fingers and toes and everything else that can be crossed ...hahahahaha. What a day , anyway thanks to all friends and family who wished me luck . I thank God for making this ordeal a memorable one .

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Enduring Memories

Dear All,

this is not a fiction that i came up with , its true , my mom passed away 9 years ago . My family went through a difficult time , but we were all there for each other , i hope i will be able to relate to some of you who have gone through some sad and bitter moments in your life.Life has to go on , but the memories will live forever .


My family is small, I have a younger brother Venoth Khanna (we call him Khanna), mom and dad. We live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, we’ve always lived in a city except for when we were younger, I was 5 maybe and my brother was almost 2, we were in our grandparent’s house, a typical village house nearby an old mining pond up the hill, because both our parents were working, anyways we were there not long, maybe a couple of months. My parents finally managed to get a babysitter back in town and realized that their children were best suited living in an urban jungle. Live was good, we were not rich, dad was working as an assistant editor and later became a journalist for one of the local newspaper and mom was an admin secretary in a housing development office. We had a happy childhood, it was full of fights and arguments and happy memories, since he was four years younger than me, I was always the bully in the house, until he turned 13 and grew bigger than me and I had to stop bullying him for fear that he might beat me up to a pulp.

We started schooling and life went on, all this while we stayed in a small flat .I finished my high school worked for a couple of months while waiting for results and after a year enrolled in a fashion design college. Khanna graduated high school four years after, undecided about his future.

Mom was still working when I was in high school and dad retired early and was traveling at least once a year for 2 years in a row to India for his research on temples, mom was a diabetic and she was not taking care of herself properly due to work and stress of being left alone most times of the year. Whenever my dad comes back there was always arguments in the house and we kids always keep out from these incidents, as much as they love each other , they would argue and make up within hours, we were a typical family with working parents and financial problems along the way. Somehow we always managed to overcome our problems and always were there for each other.

After I graduated from fashion school and my brother started working, mom fell sick, her diabetes was bad and she developed bronchial pneumonia, coughed a lot and was admitted in the hospital, tests were carried out and doctors found that she has also developed some kind of heart problem and her heart function has decreased to 17% and the chances of survival were quite thin, the whole family was devastated but stuck together, dad was affected the most, he was strong for us but deep down we knew he was crying a river for her, the love of his life. Amazingly with god’s grace mom got better and was discharged, we took her home and dad was always there for her, we always spend as much time as we can with our mom , we watch movies together, have dinner together, mom loves to gossip , so she would ask me to sit with her and talk about what’s happening around the neighborhood, knowing very well that I hate to gossip especially about the neighbors, she had this good neighbor friend of hers who used to come and accompany her every afternoon and update her on the latest news around the world and the neighborhood. Mom spends a lot of time reading, dad too, which explains why the house is full of books and now I have inherited their habit, and I am proud of it.

Few months after that mom was admitted again for her heart problem and her almost failing kidney. It was a private clinic this time so that we could visit her anytime and be there for her just in case. One early morning, around 2 am, we received a call from the hospital saying that mom had a stroke, we rushed to the hospital, her doctors were there, and she was in the radiology for a brain scan. Everything went well, it was just a very minor stroke, for the second time she survived, but we couldn’t see her suffer, we always put up a happy front and cry inside in silence. She came back from the hospital and we didn’t know at that time that it will be the last.

At home, things were bleak and miserable, mom was deteriorating in front of our eyes, so much so that she needs someone to assist her to bathe and go to the bathroom, she used to be such an independent spirit and looking at her now broke our hearts. She was suffering so much in pain and sometimes we would pray to god that he takes her and release her from all the suffering because she is such a good person and doesn’t deserve this.

One morning, as usual dad was feeding her coffee with a spoon (she loves coffee and must have it everyday) she drank some and just lied back down on the floor without speaking anything. I was in the room , I heard dad calling me to come see mom , when I came out we knew what was happening, I called my brother at work , she was still holding on to her dear life, around 1.15pm Khanna came back , all three of us were there holding her hand and kissing her forehead when she finally let go.

It has been 8 years now but it still feels like yesterday. Dad has been there for us, being the best mom and dad and still is, Khannna is married now, so its just me and dad now. Even though we don’t see him as often as we like to, we will always have our memories together. Till today we talk about mom and the happy memories we had together.