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read between the lines
belated update: to still give thanks for note: actually starting this 7.53am on what is now 13 jan 2026.so, the things to be thankful for (which'll pretty much wrap up 2025's...er, wrap-up). of course this isn't an exhaustive list. but it has to be done (so that i can properly close the book on 2025). stressor/ mistake no. 1 things to still be thankful for the name of jesus really does hold the power to silence the enemy and stop it in its tracks. so does speaking in tongues. however, the utterer has to mean whatever they say, or else it's as useless as a rattling empty tin can. praise and worship is also...a great weapon against the enemy. stressor/ mistake no. 1b things to still be thankful for i got to know what i've always wanted to know first-hand about (kinda like the 70-year-old from new crea) what it's like for someone with his characteristics. for example, what it's like behind the great firewall. and other characteristics i'll not care to share about. oh, and it's the first time i've ever personally spoken to someone so deluded, i only learnt of the name for the term months later when news clips (that my parents' tv's yt recommended me) started doing features on it: AI sycophancy. no matter how...diplomatically i tried to put it across to him, AI had succeeded in fooling him into thinking that he was...creating phenomenally great projects, when they were all mediocre at best. sorry to say. since none of his projects had yet gone 'live' at the time, i believe 'the real world' will teach him the truth (or maybe already has, by now). stressor/ mistake no. 2 things to still be thankful for apparently, i am still valuable in terms of getting employed by others! both companies wanted me to work for them before even meeting me in person, despite getting many resumes from other job applicants. google for glassdoor reviews. and even if there aren't any bad reviews, it doesn't mean that the company still doesn't suck. check with official government sources if something feels illegal to do. oh, and sg still feels like (2nd) home to me (location-wise). it was glorious to return. also, i finally know what the procedure is like, to drive into sg and back, as well as to go through the bus-commuters' immigration clearance, post-lockdown. i also learned that sunday mornings are still jam-free. (sigh...i'd return to new crea services in-person if i didn't have dwindling $ issues to consider. but i'll definitely set foot there again someday soon. like within half a decade's time.) stressor/ mistake no. 2b things to still be thankful for absolutely refuse to hand over copies of personal documents or give out personal information, let alone agree to a medical checkup if the job offer letter (or in this case, a lengthy contract) has not first been given. i learned a lot more things than i would like to know about the inside of my body. such as the fact that i was pumping out extra heartbeats. (that said, jp did amazingly pray for the healing of "all kinds of arrhythmia...including extra heartbeats" during the next sunday service's livestream. so i may have already been healed, idk.) --- done! good riddance all you bad events of 2025. and here's to a wiser 2026 with less shit encountered and...more breakthroughs, especially for the things i've been waiting ages for, such as *cough* greater freedom from my mother *cough*.
belated update: part 3 as for stressor/ mistake no. 2b
when i was 'in transit' (still travelling in sg), like i said, the HR girl asked me for all these copies of documents (or ex-bosses' phone numbers). i said i'd send them later at night when i got back. she then asked me to photograph my IC first and send it to her first, which i stupidly did (and in colour too...*smh*), so that she could book me a medical checkup for sunday. i mean, at the time, i did truthfully write that i had never gone for a medical checkup before even seeing the offer letter. she then stated sth like how everything had to be done in a rush since i was expected to start work asap, so i complied. (little did i know, that at the very fucking end, when the medical centre mistakenly withheld my 'medically fit to work letter' from her for a while, that she would write back and say she wasn't giving me the job contract without that letter. at the time i was thinking, what?!? i went through all this hell and counting for not even something written on-record to show for it?) so yeah. once again (like how my christmastime was ruined because of this company), i had to have my sunday (which i devote to church and when-possible, do not run errands or go out-for-other-things on) ruined as well by a medical checkup. at least the medical centre was at 2 new shoplots that were situated roughly 15 minutes' drive from my parents' place. i only had less than an hour's sleep because i needed time to calm down from friday's-unto-saturday's scolding. ---sigh. oh my god. 10.30am here (on 10 jan 2026) and it's been 15mins since i've heard drilling goin' on next door. which has been irritating to my ears, to say the least. i'm wondering if i should just bail rn. think i'll see how much longer i can last, and will try to soldier on. nope, i can't. once again, this satan-caused sound of drilling sounds like my skull is being drilled into. i have so much left to cover, not to mention the things to give thanks for as well, that i might as well call it a night-turned-day. haven't even taken my communion and 'oil' yet. π·ππ«π€--- resuming this at 11.30pm on 10 jan 2026. the first test i am asked to do, after entering the MD girl's office, and a female nurse closes the curtain (all employees are clearly younger than me, btw), is an ecg, in which i am told to expose my chest to them and remove my top. i wasn't even warned about this shit, and i've never had to do such a checkup before, ever in my life. i ask if this test can be avoided (no) and is it included in the 'basic package'* (yes.) *because when i arrived and detailed the extent of my accident's injuries, the staff started to recommend extra tests for me to go through. i agreed since i had been told beforehand that the company would be reimbursing me (even though i had to pay up first). so since post-accdt me is...less averse to others seeing my naked body, i reluctantly complied and lay back down on the medical room's hard bed. it's a long story, but it was fucked-up how i was wheeled back from the operating theatre after my skin graft and stripped bottom-half naked, with all the patients coming up to stare at me. i had to insist on a curtain being drawn around my bed for any privacy. and that fucking witch beside my bed that is my mother, kept me up the whole fucking night by chit-chatting non-stop to a nosy patient next door to her, and then some elderly lady across the aisle that my mother was more concerned about. to make matters worse, even though all the medical specialists (from 2 different hospitals) i spoke to, said i could take desmopressin just before surgery, that fucking bitch refused to let me. as a result, i had to keep wheeling my drip and walking my thin-skinned leg back and forth to the toilet because the operation was half a day behind schedule. and even more humiliating, the knee surgeon had told me i could wear diapers yet at the very fucking end, i had catheter stuffed up my vaginaβ back to topic. i was wondering why the nurse soon called the MD girl over. when i asked if anything was wrong, the MD girl said i had an "extra heartbeat" and that she'd advise me to wear some mobile "holter" device for 24hrs, sometime in the future. i merely nodded at the time, because i thought it was just "advice" i could ignore and not a compulsory thing. i also asked her if there were ppl with extra heartbeats who've led normal lives. she said most ppl do and aren't even aware of their extra heartbeats. i later googled and it turns out, it's really nothing to be bothered about. because, among the causes for extra heartbeats were lack of sleep, stress, dehydration and lack of salt: all of which, i had at the time. and the 'holter' was actually a heart monitor made of a buncha electrodes to be stuck onto the skin for 24hrs. in this hardly-any-a-c sweltering weather and parents' house of mine? there's no way i'm gonna be sticking that shit to my chest (and for nothing) for an entire day-to-night-to-day. *inhaled and exhaled.* i'll skip the whole range of tests i did and only mention in-passing the huffy radiologist, who again didn't care to tell me (till it was too late) that there was a curtain to draw in the radiology room and i should draw the curtains next time. (thereby implying she had seen me topless too, even though i had twice asked her what to change into, because i had obvs never seen the room before and therefore wasn't aware that the loosest, chest-baring gowns i've ever come across, were in a corner on top of a shelf.) when it came time to pay up, just like christmas lunch at ikea, my PIN was rejected twice (tbh, the card terminal already said my PIN was rejected from the start) for both my credit cards (because the total was once again beyond 250 ringgit) while my other cards weren't accepted. so i had to call my mother...who was nearer to where eric's apartment was, but having breakfast at one of the shoplots in the neighbourhood. the supervisor thankfully agreed, i got the last of my tests (not only chest, but also knee and calf x-rays) done, and...when my mother arrived, her PIN also initially got rejected. she had 1 more try (before the card terminal automatically locked her out) so she deliberately, purposefully slowly keyed it in...and it worked. so it turns out that, like ikea, it was all due to the shitty, laggy card terminal and nothing to do with my PIN being incorrect, after all. after paying up, she and i asked for my medical report. because in sg for working-in-sg related applications, i just do a very basic chest x-ray, give urine samples, and then wait an hour at most before my standard results are out. i then pay up first and bring over my results to my employer, who usually reimburses me on-the-spot. after which, i start work the next day or after-the-weekend or something like that. but this company's case was already in error because, as a malaysian who'll be employed for a supposedly malaysian company (on the payroll at least), i don't need to go through this medical checkup shit, as long as i've already presented myself in-person (which i did, at the sg office on friday the 26th) and it's pretty fucking obvious i can walk and i'm not visibly infirm or physically incapacitated or sth. it was only then that the receptionists finally said i would be whatsapp-contacted within a week, because that was how long the report would take, and that i would be given some link to an app to download my reports from. at that point in time, i personally thought to myself, phew, i'll finally get a breather before this year ends, and get to do my usual countdown-night and leading-up-to-it self-review and not have these last days ruined by the company like my christmastime was. boy, was i so wrong. i informed the HR girl about this (medical checkup's report only being ready the next week) and said that, since my autopass could only be renewed no earlier than the 30th anyway, that i would most likely begin work next year. therefore, could i at least have time to look at my job contract? she claimed it was still being drafted. this was starting to sound 'sus' (as gen z nowadays says) to me. made me wonder how long such a "contract" was, and made me realise it was no simple offer letter like it...almost always has been. (and i've worked at so many companies in sg too, so i know the drill.) so within a few hours, i whatsapp-msged both her and the 'ringleader' about me needing at least 24 hours to look at the job contract thoroughly, i.e. i couldn't just start immediately, or sign the thing within an hour or a few hours only. the HR girl replied the next day, but the 'ringleader' never did, nor did he even bother to (blue-tick) read my whatsapp message, from that sunday morning onwards. *smh.* around 6pm the next day (monday the 29th) when i had just about finished submitting my autopass-renewal application in advance (i didn't want to send it too early so that, by the time my submission was read, it was finally the 30th like the date of my insurance coverage-in-sg was stated to start), the HR girl whatsapp-wrote that my medical reports are now ready, and that my consent was needed in order to relase the reports to her. taking a break. this shit is too mentally taxing. resuming 3.12am on 11 jan 2026. i wrote back to say i was surprised because the medical centre never contacted me, that yes i consented and, was there any consent form needed from me? the HR girl said she'd been "chasing" the centre all day for my reports (thus implying that they finally gave in) and that my message alone was enough of a consent. she then said that the centre would give her the reports by that monday night itself while she would try to "rush up" my job contract so it would be ready the next day. i reiterated my autopass renewal only likely being renewed after the next day (the 30th) and that i needed 24 hours (at least) to go through the job contract and that new year's day was a holiday anyway. so, i might as well go through the contract during the holiday and she therefore need not try to finish my report by tomorrow. her emoji reaction was π so i assumed she agreed with me. (i was wrong.) btw: i also had also written her a few hrs ago, with a reminder of the official toll calculators for both sides of the causeway, and how, even after i calculated rather conservatively for petrol and lunch expenses (after pointing out that lunch was 3x my pay, since on friday i was told that no one else claims for lunch β yet that question of mine [about whether anyone else had to enter and exit sg as frequently] was ignored), my total estimate was still 76.40 sg dollars per day. she wrote to ask if i would carpool. i wrote back to tell her that the 'ringleader' had already suggested that a tuesday ago and i had said no. tuesday the 30th arrives. (i get an email mid-afternoon saying my autopass' renewal had been approved, like i'd mentioned a post ago.) the HR girl starts writing me when the medical centre's official whatsapp asks if i am free for the MD girl to speak to me. i tell the HR girl about what the medical centre said and yet how i still haven't seen my medical checkup's reports. the HR girl PDF-sends them over to me. i call the medical centre but no one picks up. (it turns out that every time i call for the rest of that day, i never get answer, despite the number's status being 'online' and someone soon whatsapp-messaging me instead.) i say i am ready, but whoever-it-is tells me to wait till the MD girl is free because she's speaking to another 'patient'. in the meantime, i ask for my reports and ask where that link to an app is, that i was in-person told i would be getting? i only get sent the link shortly before the MD girl calls. so when she asks, i truthfully say i haven't yet seen it, so she shares her company device's screen with me and goes through the report. (the screen is actually too small for me to make out much, so i refer to the HR girl's PDFs instead.) as is common in this state (and she did this too when i first entered her office on sunday), she immediately starts babbling in some nonsense language i can't understand (that is, mandarin). i have to politely ask her to speak in english because i can't (and won't, because of their mostly irritating-to-me, often-bullying-me-for-it culture) comprehend it. when i later relayed this to my mother, she was furious (but not furious enough to go over and scold them, or even call them up personally). she said they had made a "big blunder" and if i really did have heart surgery, "where's the scar?". then only did i think back to when the MD girl was reattaching the electrodes to my chest, as if to make sure they were recording my heartbeats correctly. it didn't even occur to me until my mother mentioned this part. in any case, if it really was a job i wanted, the medical centre could've easily cost me my job for this mistake. which i thought i did...until i saw the job contract. which i'm about to get to. so i said to the MD girl sth like, "ok, so now u know u've got the wrong person, can you release that letter to my company's HR?". this MD then kept trying to cajole me into seeing a cardiologist for the holter device thing and to get back to her. i said the company certainly wasn't going to pay for future fees and neither was i. i even pointed out that my reports' comprehensive blood tests did include a summary that i was at "low risk" of "cardiovascular disease" and that my platelets', white blood cell and red blood cell counts were all normal. (sigh...at that point, i started to have flashbacks of beagle's blood tests and how his white blood cell counts were too high and he was listed as anaemic...and yet, the fucking vet immobilized him and told my parents not to bother the dog even though those were his dying last few breaths...*was gonna cry but stopped myself*, back to topic.) so the MD girl then said she'd issue the 'fit for work' letter, "but you have to promise me that you'll bring back the holter's results to me, okay?". i reiterated there and then that i was truthfully not going to do any such thing, and anyway the company has been reluctant to pay me my not-even-asking-for-extra per diems to sg, so β if she wasn't gonna give my company the letter, i would just take it as "a sign from above" that i wasn't meant to join the company. the MD girl then said she'd "discuss with the other doctors" what to do and would get back to me. *literally smh rn...what is there to discuss.* we then ended our call. i then called the HR girl to explain things. at that point, she also said that "after a long discussion", the company wasn't gonna raise my per diems to any higher than 50 sg dollars. i said that was too low. "so if ur not accepting the job, then i don't need to send the job contract?" she asked. something in me said i had to get something on paper for all i had suffered (as mentioned in an earlier post). so i said sth about needing time to deliberate on whether it was worth it to incur all these losses (when it actually wasn't) and we ended call. a few mins later when i asked for my job contract, she said she wasn't giving it without that 'fit to work' letter. i was thinking to myself, what the hell?!? so that's been the truth the entire time, and you've been making up excuses not to tell me about it! thankfully at that moment, the medical centre's whatsapp line sent me the 'medically fit to work' letter as well as some referral letter to see a cardiologist. i called, no one answered (though online). asked to speak to the MD girl. she soon called back and i thanked her for the letter (and said a whole buncha things including why i still need that letter even if i don't accept the job β best i don't share the details here other than, i need paper proof for reimbursements i had still by-that-point not yet received). i fwded the letter to the HR girl, she said my contract was on the way and...only 15 minutes later did she say it had been "sent". but there was no attachment in her written whatsapp. that was when i checked my email: it was the only email i ever got from the company, like i'd said (in my earlier post). when i asked for my reimbursements, she said they were cleared and "in the process". after checking my email and seeing the attachment (but not yet opening it), i asked if i only had 24 hours from then to make my decision. i erroneously entered the date i'd sent her the 'fit to work' letter (roughly 5.15pm) as a time suggestion. she said sth like "yes, so we have time to make plans". so there i was, the pre-sunset before new year's eve, and still having this time range again ruined by this company...for the last time, i decided. i think i'll only point out 1 more (though there are many) below. contradiction no. 4: the contract stated that as much as possible, they try not to work outside office hours and discourage employees from doing the same. yet, in all my interactions with them so far, they have worked outside of office hours, and ruined both my christmastime and new-year-countdown-and-reflection time, back-to-back. i'll never get those lost moments of end-of-2025 back to spend-without-stress-on again. it's...gone, just like that. and if i'd actually accepted such a job, most likely every holiday and probably every week would be spent working beyond office hours (without extra pay), regardless of what the contract stated. my mother wanted me to officially decline the job sooner but i rightly said that i was waiting to see if i'd get my reimbursements before then like the company was supposed to've done. the next day, the HR girl wrote to say that my per diem had been raised to 54 sg dollars and that that amount was final. i rightly pointed out that that was still 21 sg dollars-per-day still too little. at mid-afternoon, i started crafting out a reply email stating the main reasons i was declining the signing of the job contract. the first one started with me doing a literal mathematical breakdown of how much $ i was losing for the first 2 months alone, assuming my per diems were not in the "gross" salary as inaccurately stated in the contract. i even wrote that, if it really was (my) gross (salary without per diems included), i'd be earning in the negatives for the first month. i submitted my email by 5pm or so. also wrote a similar "sent" whatsapp-msg to the HR girl...who also took a while to get to my email. i then asked again for my reimbursements. she wrote back that she was "chasing" for them "now". a couple hours later, the HR manager whatsapp-calls me and asks me for confirmation again about my reimbursements. (by that point, i just want whatever $ i was promised. so i don't bother telling her that my train and bus fares weren't included even though the 'ringleader' had originally said they would all be covered.) i was telling the HR manager that her company themselves were losing $ by making me go for such an invasive, error-filled medical checkup before letting me look at the contract, which i could've declined prior to that (and then saved them and myself time and $ in going for such an invasive checkup for). the HR manager said she'd been on leave the whole time and had no idea on all that i had gone through. she then sent me a screenshot of my $ having been remitted over (via [transfer]wise) with a "pending approval" message in it. i had thought at the time that it was (transfer)wise that needed to approve the transaction. yet an hour later, the HR manager whatsapp-msged to say that the 'ringleader' had finally approved the transaction. (so that was whom the message was addressed to. i've never had a business account on there so idk how it works.) i happened to be checking my email, so my bank email-notified me that my reimbursed $ was finally in, shortly after that. that was new year's eve, 8.15pm or so. needless to say, i had a looootta sleep to catch up on. hence me deciding to (unusually) fall asleep early, and then set my alarm to blog ('live', not like now, which is actually at a belated timing of 6.09am on 11 jan 2026) a few minutes before 2026 ended. thus ends this looong spiel of the 2 major stressors or mistakes of 2025. i'll mention 'things to be thankful for' (from these same 2 specific stressors or mistakes) another day. i need a break after all this...mental unload. it is sunday early morning here, anyway. (sunday is my sabbath mental-rest day, as i said.) thank god the bad part's over (and that i am nearly done with 2025's wrap-up).
belated update: part 2 note: actually starting this 5.44am on what is now 10 jan 2026. stressor/ mistake no. 2 paid job no. 1. so i decided to look at their messy website a bit more. i was thinking to myself, there's no a way a human rights company could be corrupt, right? well, i was about to find out i was wrong. anyway. i spent the whole night-to-day filling in rather tiring google forms on their website asking several essay-type questions at a go. (the internship was for 3 positions, yet i saw 4 full-time positions which i had the skills for but lacked the years-in-experience for.) finally submitted my application with a bloated stomach and me feeling so sick, i couldn't even eat any dinner, let alone breakfast. took a (rare time these days) pantoprazole from my old stash of gastritis pills, and went to sleep. 2 days later, i was finally w/apped-msged back and asked down for an interview the following week. but the whatsapp messages clashed with the information provided in the emails i was also sent. then only did i decide to do what i regret not-doing for the last paid-job i worked at pre-accident (which was also in medini): i decided to look up glassdoor for reviews. i was shocked to see abysmally bad reviews for the same "internship" (read: free labour) from mostly the company's above-my-country's branch. and when i said, 'abysmally bad', i meant it: ppl wrote how they felt like dying. like how they were publicly humiliated. how the 'ringleader' was actually a disgraced politician (i looked this up and it was true, it's just that post-accdt me couldn't rememberβ i could go on, so i won't. i'll skip to the part where i corrected the emails i was sent, and politely counter-offered my terms in a manner i knew i would be rejected for. it was the-next-morning by then, so i went to sleep. i was right β i saw an email in the afternoon (despite me w/apping in the morning about it) that also politely declined my counter-offer. that was saturday the 13th (of dec, 2025). paid job no. 2. since i was up early the next day, i decided to call the no. listed on their kl website, to ask if my email application had been seen and whether it could be fwded to their HR dept (because once again, i found an email address on the company website instead of bothering to respond to the job ad's generic resume-submitting site). their kl website's operator wasn't forthcoming and told me to apply to the job ad's site directly. i then called the no. listed on the sg website...and the same girl picked up. i was told politely but firmly not to bother her again, to apply directly and (after i asked once again) that okay, she would fwd my email to HR, but there was "no promise" that it would be seen. (with a response like that, i was even more deterred from applying directly to the job ad's site.) i spent the next 4 hours in vain, looking up that job ad's site and not seeing anything that particularly interested me. which was when i finally decided i was done for the day (this was shortly after most companies' lunch breaks) and took a toilet break, thinking i'd next get around to finally having a look at this still-not-fully clear-to-me business idea i have yet to flesh out (to my satisfaction, in order to get it to go 'live'). i got back to a w/app call from an unknown no. that i was wondering whether i should pick up or not. immediately after that no. stopped ringing, there was a msg from it saying she was the company's HR manager. i called her back. she explained that the HR girl in charge of hiring ppl had gone on leave, but she'd seen my email and would fwd it to the company's founder (another 'ringleader', i eventually discovered). i asked her what my chances were and she said they were good, and that she already "liked" the sound of me. we ended the call amicably. i then got on my com to craft an email to someone i still consider very dear to me in my life, when...eventually, my com started ringing with a w/app-call. it turns out my tablet had been pinging with w/app msges that i'd ignored, coz i just thought they were the usual app alerts. i picked up the call with my tablet and it was the 'ringleader'. he asked if i'd seen his msges (no) and if i was free to talk. i asked for half an hr more, he said ok, and i finished up my email, with just 5mins or so to gobble down lunch, before calling back the 'ringleader' on w/app-call. we ended up talking for over 2hrs (i hadn't realised till he said it) at the end of which, he considered me already hired. however, he brought up a whole buncha points that were favorable to me (or at least nicely requested-of me, such as could i "please" give him 2 mths' notice before leaving β this implies he has never gotten such a long notice for the position i applied for) that i later-on discovered were contrary to what the HR girl had drafted in her nearly-didn't-give-it-to-me "job contract" (it wasn't even a short offer letter: it was 14 pages long of mostly-unfair-to-me terms and conditions). chances are, i'll keep forgetting what to mention in the job contract that contradicted what i've mentioned on here that i was otherwise first told. so every time i mention it, i'll mention the contradiction in the job contract itself that i eventually, with a fuckload of pestering and also having to say i was "considering" at the end (even though it was clear to me by then that there was nothing to consider), managed to get a hold of. so here's contradiction no. 1: job contract matter-of-factly stated that i could only give 2 months' notice when i was leaving (labour laws here list it as 1 month for a job of less than 2 years' old). the job contract also stated that it was a "requirement" for me to work "1 year" minimum at my job, yet the same contract stated that i could be dismissed, during probation, immediately. he then asked when i could next start. when i said "after christmas", he proposed i head over to his office on christmas eve "to see if you like" the working conditions and the job scope that the outgoing (as in, opposite of incoming) girl in my position was going to give me an overview about. when i reiterated that i preferred to start after christmas, his counter-claim was that it wasn't on christmas day itself. i stupidly reluctantly agreed, and he said he'd get back to me after checking if the outgoing girl was gonna be on leave (thank god she was, when he called back). he then asked that i come down to the sg office on friday (26 dec 2025), despite me applying for a position in the not-yet-open jb office (which he said was going to be factory and wasn't sure about having office space for β the HR girl told me otherwise when i did come over on friday). since that was already the end of monday the 22nd and a buncha things* weren't sorted out yet, i told him that with such short notice, i would have to take the official cross-border cab in. things that weren't yet sorted out:
back to me taking the cab into sg. he said "no worries" and that he'd get his company to pay for it, and we also ended the call amicably. later on, my mother kept insisting that i whatsapp-write him the total amount of per diems for my daily trip into and out of sg. he kept writing that he was okay with whatever the amount was. i assumed his word was to be trusted, since it was his own company and...well, my pre-accdt paid job paid for all my per diems, wherever i travelled, no questions asked. (but then again my pre-accdt company was an MNC, whereas his was "an SME" [or small or medium-sized enterprise].) i then wrote down that, with such a high amount as a daily per diem and him requiring me to travel into sg every weekday for the first 3 weeks, followed by every tuesday, that i might as well rent a hotel room with that same amount of $. contradiction no. 2: job contract never mentioned any such training in sg being required in writing, despite being so anal-retentive about things such as not even permitting staff-who've-been-fired to speak to ex-colleagues, and how everyone needs to inform "the company" if any such occurrence happens. i've never applied for a company that already sounded so orwellian, even before agreeing to work for them. i've also neverβ i'll mention mistake no. 2b later. as i was saying. i automatically assumed that travelling in and outta sg daily was allowed coz i'd done it so often (but was either on student or work-related passes while i was...which i'd forgotten about). but because my parents worried and brought it up so often, i finally looked it up on sg's official govt website page. it literally says that "If you take up any on-the-job training, you require a work pass." and that their govt still needs to be informed, even if it's for 'allowed' activities. if i were to guess, i would think that this clause was deliberately left out of the long and thorough (and mostly unfair-to-me terms) contract because (at the least, HR) knew it was illegal. in fact, this was the last point i'd written (in the only, hastily titled [as my first-name last-name] email i ever got from the company) as to why i was forgoing the signing of (and taking-up the offer on) the job contract. (i calculated it to amount to 250 ringgit per day, or something like 80 sg dollars β i used online toll-fare calculators, added in petrol as well as my lunch there in sg. by on the phone, he had agreed that per diems would be separate from, and additional to, my already-lower-than if-i-worked-in-sg pay in ringgit. i did see the same job ad in sg offering a more suitable pay in sg dollars, but he said he decided he would rather hire a johorean who travelled between the two offices [and surrounding areas] and 1-2 times a year to the kl one [and its surrounding area].) contradiction no. 3: absolutely nowhere in the job contract did it mention anything about per diems; in fact, my salary was stated as a "gross" amount of shitty-in ringgit (and not even close to its sg equivalent). it was my father who pointed out that 'gross' means per diems are also included...i googled and the definition of 'gross' did include that (as well as other things). the next day (tuesday morning of the 23rd of dec, 2025) after writing me a few bullet points of only-the-employee-benefits of his company, he suddenly wrote that 80 sg dollars was "too expensive" and sought a zoom call with me. i finally tore out the scotch-taped post-it note from this laptop and was waiting (despite not having slept the night before, coz i was about to)....like motherfucking 29hours of not sleeping yet for him to write back, which he never did. at which point, i gave up and decided i'd at least catch some sleep during office hours' estimated lunch break timings. i did actually already reject the job in writing, since that amount was too large an expense for me to have to incur (on top of already shitty pay). he claimed the pay he offered was "the market rate", yet i saw many other similar jobs in jb only requiring me to travel to their site-of-work (only 1 place in jb) and back, for the same pay range. i awoke after an hour and...had my lunch, and basically prepped to sound more awake. soon enough, the 'ringleader' called back. he asked if i could take the bus instead. (i adamantly said no, what with the pushing and shoving and me being wary of ppl banging into my hit-and-run's scarred leg.) he then asked why i can't carpool, like his once-in-a-while employee did. i said it wasn't official, so i could easily get kidnapped (i actually meant to say 'sex-trafficked') and no one would know...unless it was someone regular. i asked him if the employee got someone regular to drive her in and outta sg. he said yes, but that the driver prioritised daily commuters (i.e. implying the driver would bypass her if his car was already full). 'ringleader' said he'd check and call back. which he did, but instead told me "you shouldn't jump the gun", that suddenly, 80 sg dollars was a "small sum", and that "i made you a promise for friday" ("you did?" i asked, stunned), and that "everything can be worked out...so don't be so quick to say no". and that he would see me on friday, and that yes my transport would be paid-for. he wrote down sth like to "have a good rest", but it was anything but that. my mother had gone to the insurance company to pay the 50 ringgit. i used whatever papers she'd returned with, as well as me having to google [as well as trial-and-error] a lot for other requested-for online photos or documents, to apply for my autopass' renewal. (i did ask eric [for where to find such documents] who'd done it before post-lockdown, but he said he'd forgotten by then.) i later found out, when my autopass renewal's application got rejected on friday afternoon itself, that it was because the 50-ringgit coverage "was listed at a future date" (i.e. just 4 days later, on the 30th of dec 2025). i made sure to apply on the evening of the 29th and...got my approval the next day. except that i no longer had a job to drive out to, so...*i literally exhaled*. i'd love to visit new crea in-person again, except that i (still) currently have no new income coming in yet. and initially, neither of my parents were planning to celebrate christmas, let alone its eve. they didn't even put up any christmas tree. (my mother only hurriedly dragged out the stressful-af tree that she'd bought for me 2 years ago and scolded me for, when i said it was so difficult to move houses with without a box, and she even dictated what ornaments should be hung on the tree when i was living at the haunted house...so in the end i returned the tree to my parents because what the fuck kind of "gift" is this when it comes with shitloads of scoldings and dictatorship orders about how the tree should be arranged and where it should be placed (like the rest of all the furniture for all places i've paid for within these 2.5 years to rent for what was supposed to be my space away from that witch, dammit)β back to topic. yet when i was prepping to go out for dinner on the eve's pre-sunset itself, and was asking my father to coax my mother out, he finally got her to agree for us 3 to eat out at some restaurant nearby. while at the restaurant, my mother suddenly asked to have xmas lunch (but leave in the morning) the next morning. and it so happened that when i photographed a we-fie with the restaurant's manager, who'd recognized me before i recognized her ("long time no see!" she said), i spent the hours-until-midnight doing up (and editing) the wefie to send it to her...except i wanted to first receive confirmation that i'd gotten the correct number. however, i never got a response (till several days later). the rest of that christmas-eve night, as well as my following christmas night, was spent either on last-min christmas-greeting emails or preparations for my boxing-day (or 26 dec 2025) trip to sg that i hardly got to sleep at all. and fucking hell β my mother scolded me for all of that, and refused to let me drive out at 11pm to the (at) larkin (by now instead of jb town) cross-border taxi stand, to book in-advance a taxi for hours ahead. fucking bitch...she all-of-a-sudden kept making various excuses to stop me and finally admitted it was because she found that timing "dangerous" to drive out during. she even scolded me for driving back to the restaurant pre-sunset (because i wanted to ask the manager if i'd gotten her number right). (i waved at the manager as she was walking upstairs to [i didn't know till then that she lived upstairs] her abode for a break but she ignored me. so i got my confirmation from the in-her-place manager below and also ordered a surprisingly tasty iced chocolate with caramel drink. until then, i had only thought caramel went well with tea or vanilla ice cream, because i hadn't come across such a drink mixture yet.) back to topic. she said i should've gone to the taxi stand then, when she knows full fucking well that (esp post-accdt me/) i prefer to drive out when the sky is dark, so that it hurts my eyes less (esp if i've been running low on sleep), and that i have always been a night owl. (except nowadays, i am a night-to-day owl. like rn. it's actually 9.09am atm on 10 jan 2026.) *exhales* christmas itself was also stressful. eric initially said he'd pay for christmas lunch at ikea when i said i was gonna stock up on f&b (like the previous times when i was living in his apartment, and my parents forced me out to eat there [and get yelled at] with them). but when i got back, he had changed his mind. i therefore had to pay for all the unnecessary extra f&b i'd gotten back, on top of christmas lunch, and the usual mountainful of chicken wings my mother'd got for her mother (aka. my gran). so fast fwd to boxing day. i hardly slept and had to deal with yelling at and refusing that fucking witch from dropping me off at larkin, what with so much stress she was giving me already. so i drove myself stressfully to larkin, parked there, and thankfully immediately got a cab that took me directly to the sg office without a hitch. i arrived early, with enough time to change downstairs (at a food court's toilet) into office clothes before heading upstairs to the company's factory-lot situated on a block's rooftop of its industrial complex. and when i arrived, the 'ringleader', who was supposed to be on leave, greeted me together with the HR girl (who was more like a lady...looked my age or around-that-range, though she openly thought i was half my age...woot! β even the 'ringleader' on the phone thought i was younger when he asked me, based on the 2hr convo alone, on monday) who had been on leave on monday. one of the first things they brought up, after we were seated in their glass-walled (overlooking hot-desks workspace) meeting room, was the high cost of my per diems (to and from sg). it was once again brought up that other employees carpool. i asked if other employees had to enter and exit sg so often or if their pay was higher. they avoided answering me. and somehow, both the 'ringleader' and HR girl pared down my per diem to 30 sg dollars less, because they assumed that malaysians pay less to cross the causeway (this logic does not compute β malaysians always pay more, because our currency is 3 times less of singaporeans'!) and don't have as many extra tolls and fees to pay (despite me previously listing official toll calculators for both countries). although i wasn't on board with this, the 'ringleader' said sth like, "and this is based only on what we're estimating so far", so i assumed that he implied that he'd pay me accordingly once i actually drove in. he also reiterated once again that my transport that day would be paid-for. contradiction no. 3b: the HR girl only asked me for my cross-border cab receipt back, despite me saying i would take the train-and-bus back (since it wasn't rush hour yet). so not only was that later part not covered, but i also cheated halfway and took a cab coz it was already getting late. (in fact, i'd wasted sth like 2 hrs walking around the area and trying-and-failing to hail a cab, because that particular area didn't see much unoccupied-taxis traffic.) i'll skip the rest of my time at the sg office, because it isn't relevant. the outgoing girl was...my gosh, i felt so sorry for her. (i'd guessed she was a fresh grad, and later on when i got back to look at her socials, her linkedin did indeed state as much.) coz when i later finally had a look at the contract (days later) with the orwellian policing and all, i finally understood why it seemed like she wanted to say more (and i myself wanted to ask more)...except we couldn't, when the HR lady came back into the room, as if to monitor our conversation. so...there i was in sg, trying and failing to hail a cab back...and walking around and not being familiar with the many-changes-made (since i last left that area in 2018) place. i even got myself a new ez-link (train and bus) card from the train station when i saw others using it, and topped up 50 sg bucks into it, thinking i'd be using it soon. (so eric was wrong after all, in telling my parents that only credit and debit cards were now being used. he left out the part where the ez-link doesn't charge 60 sg cents [or 1.80 ringgit] extra per trip if credit or debit cards are used.) i endured a mild form of pushing and shoving at the usual sg checkpoint section where ppl "queue" to take the bus back. (they don't queue. they make a fucking run for it. even the metal railings themselves have more than 1 person at a time walking in, before the final free-for-all scramble into the various buses. and that wasn't even peak hour, when i was there slightly after 5pm on a friday.) i reach into my bag for my car keys...and find them missing, together with my keys for the house's gate and grille, as well as my steering lock's key. they're not in my pockets or any of my clothes (extra or worn) either. and i am hungry and tired. i call my mother but she doesn't pick up. i call my father and explain things. he implies as if my mother's at home sleeping, but that he'll come over soon to pass me my car's spare key (with the spare key for the steering lock). i tell him i haven't eaten yet and intend to either drive or be sent to larkin junction after arriving home (and unpacking and changing and using the toilet), but he says there's no need to coz "there's always something at home". so i assume he has let my mother know of this as she awakes or sth, just before leaving the house. he unlocks my car and its steering lock. he checks my car's interior for the possibility of me having left my keys inside (in case the car auto-locked itself or sth). nothing. he watches as i drive past, just to make sure my car keys aren't under the car or around it or sth. nothing there either. since i reach this house (of my parents') first, i make the mistake of deciding to park my car under the lamppost. this is only my 3rd attempt at doing so, and for the last attempt, my father said i'd parked too far out onto the road. so this time i try to get as close to the lamppost as possible...and drive straight (in slow motion) into the lamppost. as in, i leave the gear in 'drive' and let the car auto-move until it gets stopped by the lamppost with a loud thud. i get out to check. at that moment, my mother appears (as if) out of nowhere (from across the road, where she's apparently just parked) and starts scolding me for driving my own car into the lamppost. she scolds me for losing my car keys (and the rest of the keys in the ring, despite none of them having any form of identification for what on earth those keys are for, in case the stranger who finds them has bad intentions). the next night and the day after is filled with yelling and screaming and blaming. for most of the time, my father is clutching his chest (because it hurts) and...it is usually what makes me eventually back down (because that's usually a sign of someone about to have a heart attack, right, when they start clutching their hurting chest due to stressing out?). because as usual, my mother always wants to fucking win the argument. and when she knows she's in the wrong, she brings up the kitchen sink to find fault with me through some other manner. moved the next section to a new post coz this one's getting too long.
a belated update to yet another stressful year note: i'm setting the date to 31 dec even though i'm only starting this on 9 jan 2026. my goodness...my life just keeps getting worse and worse, in many ways. yet at the same time, i'm seeing a lotta good too. so i struggle, with what to...write on here. how do i not-put myself down when future-me reads this? i've been asking for grace to write this, and...we'll see that grace spill out onto these (online) pages. here we go! after wondering how to best retell...such catastrophic and disappointing shit of the past year, i've decided to point out the 2 main...stressors, which have been further exacerbated by my still-lifelong-so-far-and-counting stressor that is my mother. my god, my god. i know you never forsook me. but when, jesus, when? abba, you said "who the Son sets free is free indeed". but i am still waiting..........ugh. anyway. suffice to say, out of these 2 main stressors, i'll try not to mention it all. because so far, when i've retold the story to others, it has taken hours and days to retell. and i get temporarily mentally exhausted from it all. another thing i realized i'd do after retelling these 2 main stressors. the 'grace' part is this: i'm going to list down the 'things to still be thankful for' that came outta these 2 main stressors. (i'll also call them mistakes too...because they friggin' are.) stressor/ mistake no. 1 yup, you heard that right. this has never happened to me before, and for every previous move-in, i have always ensured that i recce-d the place before renting it. it's just that, for this case, i had to wait because there was already a previous tenant squatting there and my mother kept saying "you never listen to me!" as a sorta threat to get me to stay at eric's purchased-here-before-he-moved-overseas apartment. to clarify. i did look it up online. water hammer. concrete expanding and contracting. all sortsa..."logical" explanations. those reasons soon became moot, because i realized that the noise-maker was always responsive to my noise-making retaliatory actions (more on that below). and so, for the longest time (specifically 9 june 2025), i really thought it was down to a neighbour who hardly ever sleeps and is always indoors like me. like maybe a housewife. i mean, it got so bad that security and building management knew my face and name by heart. due to a manpower shortage, they weren't able to station themselves outside or above my apartment during the initially-like-clockwork timings. so i took it upon myself to walk outside and try to find the culprit. except i never could see anything. sometimes i heard the same sounds. but when i approached the area...nothing. by the way, it had long been established that no one stays in the apartment above mine, although it was occasionally let out to guests (they call it 'homestay' here but elsewhere calls it 'vacation rentals'). and building management's chief was the first to suggest to me that the place above might be haunted. to a skeptic like me, i was pretty dismissive of the fact. in fact, i was so dismissive that this got me in temporary trouble, because it made me do something i would never otherwise have done. will mention that later in mistake 1b. so back to me still thinking it was a neighbour. obviously, there was no neighbour directly above me. so i initially kept thinking it was a neighbour on the floors directly above my floor. security and building management soon told me that from their experience (with temporary complaints from other residents β i was told mine was the longest unresolved complaint ever, with a motherfucking ghost attached to it in the end, and a very childish one toward me, at that), the noise doesn't travel that far down. i did climb up the staircase, which just so happened to be in front of my apartment, back when at-least the door-slamming used to occur around 5am every weekday. but all i ever heard was the door-slamming. i never got to see who slammed it, never consistently saw lights on at the time. so after i eliminated it being all also-corner-lot residents above my head. i then wondered if it was the neighbours above-and-beside me. it certainly wasn't on my floor. because next door was also a 'homestay', but i would always know if people were in. the sounds were different. the only time i mixed up the ghost sounds with a bona fide human upstairs was when the house cleaner entered maybe once or twice on a weekday at close to noon. she would always leave the door open and her mop, bucket, and cleaning supplies just-outside the door upstairs, though. i never spoke to her but maybe she could also sense that motherfucking ghost's presence as well, when she came over to clean things. and it just so happened that every other resident along my level was never in 24/7, from beside me right until the set of lifts and the trash-discarding-into room (which i knew were outta earshot, coz i've never heard the sound of lifts moving or ppl throwing trash or ppl exiting or entering lifts from my corner-lot apartment, or should i say eric's purchased-over-here one). so, for the looongest time, i kept thinking it was the housewife living directly above-and-next-to my corner lot. i never knew until toward-the-end that she wasn't actually a housewife but also went out to work...and that sometimes, both her and her teenage son weren't even in at all. (the guards showed me videos of this, and frequently enough too.) back to 9 june 2025. up until then, the noise just kept getting more frequent in timing instead of only 5am's door-slamming on weekday nights. i would hear persistent knocking-and-hammering nightly at 8.30pm, then 9.30pm, then 10.30pm, then whenever the hell it felt like making that noise (because it had gotten to the point where i would always climb upstairs to try to catch the culprit in action...by which point, the noise would cease). although i did start renting the place last year and hearing upstairs' noises (like a bouncing of a ball) almost immediately, it would stop (in response) when i would fling up my own rubber stress ball, which i just happened to get as-a-freebie because i'd overspent a lot on the only christian gift store (there used to be a christian book store there too in my teens, but others told me the islamic authorities chased it away) at city square on my hit-and-run's anniversary. the stress ball had the words 'jesus loves you' btw, and so i'd often leave it somewhere i could see it, to remind myself. and...strangely enough (i mean it was strange at the time, but of course after knowing it's been a ghost the entire time, it ain't strange to me by now), there was total, complete silence around the week of christmas up until the first few days of 2025. i was also filled with..."joy unspeakable" like the bible said. and the silence was so...peaceful, that i was starting to think that maybe i had become desensitised to hearing upstairs' noises or maybe i was imagining that it was really that bad all along. and then that motherfucker upstairs started making noise again, gradually and more loudly. a stressful example was on resurrection sunday (20 april 2025). i was low on sleep (no surprise, after being kept up by that unseen noise-maker) that i decided to sleep before new crea's final sun svc livestream started. unfortch, i was awoken to persistent, deafening (until it awoke and scared the crap outta me) hamering-and-knocking for 15 minutes straight, around 7.30pm that night. it totally fucked up the rest of my mood and night, because i remained in a state of fear. (more about that 'fear' thing egging on that fucker later.) added this part days later (16 jan 2026) when i remembered. other edits i made on this date will be italicised and coloured in pink. another stressful example was the month before, when i was peacefully asleep until repeated knocking and banging woke me up in daylit morning. flinging the stress ball onto the ceiling didn't help like it used to. so from then onwards, it became a regular affair to me to start standing on top of sofa heads and banging back on the ceiling with the back of my broom-handle. (i broom-handled so much, my right arm [and scapula's easily-pulled muscle, as a relic from my hit-and-run,] started to ache.) because initially, the noise was only concentrated there. see indented text above. it was also above the bed area a month ago. but on 9 june 2025's afternoon, i heard some rustling goin' on upstairs. coz these are the sounds that the childish fucker of a ghost upstairs likes to make*:
*repeatedly, mind you β the worst part was i'd be trying to focus on watching as many sunday service livestreams from new creation church that i could, and there'd be door-slamming goin' on every half-hour or so, or knocking-and-hammering goin' on for 1.5 hours straight, and so on. little did i know at the time that it was the most literal version of spiritual warfare goin' on, and the ghost really hating...it gets silent at the name of jesus, btw. and some worship songs, especially those that mention jesus (not all though...so maybe it also depended on the spirit/ intention of the song being written), or the 3-in-1 godhead, or...interestingly enough, jp speaking in tongues. i tried playing other ppl's videos to no effect. but when joseph prince speaks in tongues (and conveniently there was a new upload of his evergreen back-in-suntec hits of worship songs, followed by him speaking in tongues, and then songs again), it always silences upstairs' ghost. and then when jp's speaking in english again or pausing, the ghost will continue with the noise-making racket. as i was saying, i heard rustling on 9 june 2025 when i opened 1 of the windows of the glass wall that faces the outside. speaking of. i soon noticed, from looking upward, that the windows of the apartment above-and-next-to-mine always had all windows wide open. this had led me to falsely believe that some housewife was always in 24/7. but after this 'window' incident of mine, it soon made me realize that...maybe she knows that leaving the windows open, has some effect on silencing that noisy fucker. i tried looking this up online and found suggestions in my country (that worked) of ppl opening up entire roof tiles to 'let out' the evil spirit bugging someone's bought-from-others bungalow house for weeks. so i was so frustrated (and still thinking it was a human at the time), that i slammed the window back in anger and broke its handle. at that point (after alerting my parents, eric in nz, and building management's chief below), the chief finally made good on her promise to come upstairs. coz so far, she'd been sending out what she called 'broadcasts' i.e. mass whatsapp messages that implored the residents around me to stop making loud noises with examples included (i'd documented all sounds...it's just that the video was always of ceilings, instead of the face of the culprit itself). she had told me on the phone that she would come upstairs if the noise persisted but she hadn't, and this window-breaking thing finally got her, her staff and a guard over to my door. she then got the guard to (request permission and then) enter the apartment-next-to-mine and for him to video-call her while she and the other staff stood in my apartment, with her encouraging me to broom-handle the ceiling like i usually do. the guard said he couldn't hear a thing. (i would've preferred to enter upstairs myself, but i decided to take his word for it. because he had nothing to lose by telling the truth β in fact, he would free up guard resources if he had just declared that my broom-handling could be heard from that apartment so that i would stop bugging the guards nearly 24/7 too. but he said he really couldn't hear a thing from me. at that point, the chief ended her experiment, and...she once again politely but firmly told me that sometimes, i just had to believe it was a ghost. and that "you 'kena' 'tabah' [or you 'have to' 'persevere'] in malay, and other encouraging words and advice that i won't get into on here, coz it's a lot. there was an 1 of the guards who had this problem too with his apartment in pandan...except he lived with his mother, so he was never alone, and therefore the experience wasn't as scary. same thing too...he told me he learned that the less fear he emoted, the less the 'guli-marble' ghost pestered him. my no-help mother told me off for being scared of nothing. i had to repeat several times that i have been awoken from deep sleep by that ghost, so it's not like i wasn't already peacefully asleep at the time!) at that point in time, i still didn't believe it was really a ghost. it was my mother who convinced me when i called her later on the phone. and the worst fucking part? well 2 things, technically:
of course i wanted to move out asap. but my brother coaxed me to stay on, because he had plans to return soon, and if i moved out, it meant no one would be paying the rent and bills. why the fuck i (as someone who has not had the freedom from my mother to do my own thing, and has been unwittingly using up my out-out-court settlement's dwindling $) agreed to do that, when eric has been earning in nz dollars and can easily afford nearly 2 mths more of this shit, i will never know. (more like, i know why the softy in me always does these things. and these fuckers take advantage of me, they always do. my mother is the no. 1 culprit. i still don't know how the fuck to permanently break free from her chokehold of apron strings, or at least create more breathing space between them. back to topic.) side note: the reason i was so convinced it had to be a human was because the noise-maker was always responsive whenever i was...which was, almost all of the time (because i was getting increasingly frustrated at the disruption to my peace and found it almost impossible to not make-back some noise in anger). as in, if i made noise back (yelling, broom-handle or mop-handle or squeegie-handle tapping), i would always hear some kind of response in return (as in, whether a pause, or the same noise being made back). if it really was a "water hammer" or "concrete expanding and contracting" or something inanimate, the noise would just continue at a steady pace regardless of whatever i said or did...and there'd at least be some downtime, instead of occurring 24/7 (if no jesus-related intervention) towards the end. in fact, during 1 of the final month's few nights in which i would only return for a night or two at the end*, and had already "cottoned on" (as oz, nz and the uk like to say) that it was a ghost, i was squatting down and painstakingly wet-wiping a tile on the floor at a time. *and then return to my parents' to get some undisturbed sleep...but then
awake to get disturbed by the yelling & scolding noise my mother made, which was really fucked up, because: i was forced to choose between either: do i want to endure noise made by my mother or the ghost?. (because i had long discovered that it saved me more time in eric's box apartment to just use wet wipes to wipe the dusty tiles instead of mopping up the entire place and waiting for it to dry, and then still finding it dusty to-the-touch and repeating the whole procedure ad nauseum [or soon give up, like i did for one of my post-accdt rental apartments in sg].) back to that 1 night (technically it was sunset) of me wet-wiping the tiles. this fucker of a ghost actually started dropping guli marbles directly above my head, and mimicking every movement i made from tile to tile as i was cleaning the floor. when i got up and walked away, the guli-marble rolling still followed me directly above my head (not even from a distance), as if someone was looking directly above me and mimicking my every move. once again, the noise-maker was responsive in temporarily pausing when i yelled at it to Stop in jesus' name(!). i mean, there is no human (who's not astral projecting or remote-viewing) that can see directly through the ceiling above me and copy my movements by throwing imaginary guli-marbles above my head like that, according to which tile or direction i moved in. and yet, my mother seemed to think i was imagining all of this because she wasn't there in-person too. so in the end, i moved out the night of 27 july, with my mother scolding and yelling at me on the phone for leaving late, despite knowing full well that i've been spending over a consecutive week going over to pack, and then having to drive back and unpack some more, because there is no space in this house. in hindsight i should have moved out elsewhere instead of returning to this witch, because now i've lost even more money, and i'm still losing it because i'm still here. as for stressor/ mistake no. 1b he did (hear the same noise), btw. this was in early may 2025. he also found it a cop-out of an answer when i said that management's chief put it down to a ghost living above my head. my mother later claimed, in her backtracking, that management "want to get of you always pestering them, so of course they would tell you it's a ghost above your head!". the worst part was when eric and his wife returned in aug, went overnight to his apartment to stay there, and sent me the same knocking-and-hammering sounds that stressed me out so much for the rest of my night here-at-my-parents' again. his wife believed me but eric somehow thought it was the sound of strong wind knocking against the window...*smh*. at least eric admitted that he could be wrong, whereas my fucking bitch of a mother refused to not-backtrack after opening this whole can of worms, and continued to make my life worse after that. she still continues to. i can't wait to be free from her, but i just don't know how to. because i've tried moving out for the past 2.5 years, yet that witch has always followed me wherever i go. so now i'm poorer, she's still demanding $ (for petty things like dessert i don't need), and she's stillβ back to topic. except the conversation didn't end there. i found out this was his first time in this country and that he'd arrived a day ago on his own, from thailand (i forgot where by now...i think he said bangkok). and that his english was pretty good for someone from china (even though it was heavily accented with the from-china accent) because he'd studied in australia (tasmania) for a while. he also claimed he was a "digital nomad". (i had no idea [until later] that he was an even-more-deluded dreamer than i was, and that he was also relying on his dwindling savings. except he had easily picked up blue-collar work on-the-side, before. so he could always replenish his savings wherever he lived. and he was free from his mother β that is another key thing.) so i agreed to drive him out to the mall the next morning, so he could stock up on groceries. i had no fucking clue he was going to take up 8.5 hrs of my time (despite me already running low on sleep and saying at the start that, in my post-accdt past, strangers have mentally exhausted my worse-post-accdt brainpower by taking hours and hours to talk, talk, talk). it didn't end there, coz he kept whatsapping pretty often too, despite me taking my time to reply and already saying, once i saw him off at the door (next to mine), rather apologetically that i can only handle once-a-year sorta interactions (with this type of...'victim'-like leech). eventually, i had to tell him off again firmly (in writing on there) till he finally, surprisingly, stopped. (i was about ready to block him if he didn't, like i've had to for most of the rest.) there's a lot i hated about the 8.5 hours, so i won't get into it, but 1 of the worst things i heard was this: the previous night, he said he was only staying for a week. but the next day after spending wayyyy too fucking long talking to me (he kept wanting to talk and switch places to talk*)β *which reminds me a lot of a 70-yr-old from new crea who kept doing that until i literally became broke, had to use my emergency $ (because i obvs needed to spend on some kind of liquid to keep insipidue-me hydrated [coz i wasn't previously warned about her leeching onto me for that long]), and the-next-day at work got unfairly fired, incidentally also because of the (slightly more malevolent than eric's apartment's childish ghost, who merely made more noise when i said sth like "you cannot make that noise any more, you have to stop!") mischief of another guli-marble (and what sounded like the buddha statue floating around and knocking the walls of the partition across from me) ghost. got carried away. as i was saying. but the next day, the from-china guy suddenly said he wasn't sure about leaving this country any more because of me. i already pointed out, at that point, that i had no mental capacity to be meeting him regularly (and so literally exhaustingly long). but he still said he wanted to stay on. this stressed me out, knowing he still lived next door. i was rather thankful to hear (on written whatsapp) that other guests had already booked the place the following week, so he had moved...but had still moved to within-the-apartment-complex (just to a different block). i stopped speaking to him before i knew the ghost was real (and before i knew i'd be moving out for sure, of course). i'll continue with the 2nd stressor after a "dinner" break (it's actually 2.33am on now-turned-10 jan 2026, in terms of the actual timestamp). pre-cursor to stressor/ mistake no. 2 before
i begin, i want to point out (because eric's wife was the who pointed
out why she and eric felt i should have taken up any job): i've only
applied for 2 jobs in the whole of last year, during last month. and i
only did so because my mother was driving me up the wall again. but even worse, she had to do it for a whole week leading up to the anniversary of my hit-and-run...which is already a sensitive date for me. back to topic. that witch was insisting i pay for my car insurance all of a sudden...which she has already bought for me. like, how the fuck is that fair: i have to pay, but i don't get to choose what i pay for. i don't even remember how the process works, and it's all online now anyway, so i could've done it online on my own, without her interfering. instead, she started saying "you should know!" and bringing up instances from my pre-accident past about me purchasing jul's insurance, which i can't even remember doing, because i fucking lost my memory after the accident, you bitch! ugh...sry. anyway, i asked my father to drop me off at larkin junction (how sad is that...my car is parked at a difficult-to-maneuvre place) so i could regain my sense of composure over coffee and a short read. (it was my first time finally trying 'kenangan coffee' for a change, and i honestly couldn't tell the difference in my salted caramel macchiato despite palm sugar being used instead of regular sugar.) i enjoyed reading just a tiny bit more of ali abdaal's 'feel-good productivity' before my father drove over to send me back home. i felt much better already and honestly thought i could finally end my night a lot more peacefully. instead, i got back to my mother yelling and making her god-awful expressions of disgust on her face before slamming the door, that made me burst into tears and eventually drive off in angry tears and shouts for hours (most of which were spent returning to medini, and wistfully wishing i was working and spending most of my waking hours escaping there [from this bitch who happens to be my mother] again). it was truly a miracle i didn't crash my car while struggling to maneuvre out between 2 vehicles and a lamppost beside it. and a miracle i'd ended up vlogging at the richer, quieter playground in my neighbourhood for an hour, before finally driving off to medini and back. this was the day after my hit-and-run's anniversary. and what riled my mother up was that, because she refused to explain to me the details of the car insurance she paid for, i decided to look things up online, found an online platform-seller thing, and message the whatsapp on there because their email-details-to-me function wouldn't work without my sg whatsapp line. it just so happened that the insurance agent who answered me, was chatting to me on-and-off until the wee hours of the morning. (she used a.i. for some answers, but i asked very specific questions and found her on linkedin anyway after i asked for her name.) this "chatting with strangers" for "insurance you don't need for another year!" thing infuriated my mother. the stupid motherfucking bitch...if you won't tell me, then why scold me and make disgusting facial expressions when i find out from others, right? ugh.......so anyway. the nightmare didn't end after i drove back (with my head full of that wistful-wishing i was back in medini goin' on). i mean, at least i slept well. but unfortch, the next morning, my parents forcefully made me buy stuff i didn't want with the 100 ringgit's worth of groceries that my mother kept nagging at me was going to expire hy this 2025! tbeh, i was prepared to not-use the 100 ringgit because (a) i still have some of that settlement $ left, and (b) my parents erroneously thought that the allowance could only be used at a most stressful branch of a hypermarket here, that i've had bad experiences (all of them human noise-related) during the few times my parents have brought me there. it's just that my mother nagged so much, i told her she could use the 100 ringgit for herself, since she's been scolding me for eating yucky food here and not paying for it, yet not letting me go out whenever i want, to get food i prefer. *smh*...back to topic. so i said i'd only go along, since my IC was needed to card-swipe the final purchase. unfortch when i got there, my parents said i was wasting their time for the little i said i wanted to get...and then they fucking bulk-bought to oblivion those same things that i wasn't prepared to see so-much-at-a-time-of (not to mention, this hoarded-up house of my parents' here already has hardly any space that i really would've preferred not to add to the hoarded-up mess). the absolute worst part of all was when the teenage cashier mistakenly gave back my IC and some change (because my stinge of a mother decided to go back in and get more unwanted-by-me bulk items when the amount totalle 94 ringgit with the rest being non-refundable) to my mother. after this, my mother wanted tea so my parents decided to take a short 'teh tarik' break at the hypermarket's new-last-yr food court. they shared some 'naan' bread whereas i merely sipped my tea (coz i'd only had time to eat lunch and hadn't even gotten to drink). so much for "wasting their time"...as usual, of course they would have time to waste if it's spent on their terms....*literally smh*, back to topic. the cashier later apologetically did a πwhen i went back (after 'teh tarik' break ended) to (rather foolishly, coz i kept saying thanks and smiling and repeating) explain why i wasn't so happy about that last part. my mother of course forever thinks she is in the right. (in every argument, she always argues that she is right even when she knows she's wrong.) as my parents drove back, it rained heavily so those fuckers stayed in the mpv my brother bought them (which has thus caused my parents to have 1 less parking spot, and resulted in my car being permanently parked in a sun-scorched, difficult-to-maneuvre place under the lamppost ever since). my insipidus-prone bladder was calling coz my desmopressin melt was running outta efficacy, so i had to grab the house keys from the car and an umbrella to get myself outta the car and into the house. that was the final straw in getting me involved in stressor/ mistake no. 2. which i'll continue after i make and drink my tea. |
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