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< in short, five things | posted at 2:13 pm on August 19, 2005 > so it has been ten days since i last wrote, which is a bad thing. a few things have happened in those ten days, so this will be a long entry.the first thing, i guess, is that andrew met my family on the 13th (last Saturday). and i�m not just talking immediate family � he�s met them � i�m talking extended family. which is my dad�s six brothers and sisters, their spouses and kids, and my mother�s three (well, she has 12 siblings, but they�re not all in australia) brothers and sister, and their spouses and kids, and my mother�s best friend and her family. so perhaps around thirty people he met. and that was pretty confronting. my grandparents are very traditional vietnamese and do not really approve of my dating a white south african welsh new zealander, who by the way towered over everyone there. and then he came and saw my house (my parents� house) and had tea and then had to leave. and then i overheard my parents talking about him to my mother�s best friend and got angry and upset and annoyed. i had a big argument with my mother. and so i felt like crap. actually, the wednesday before he met my family, my mother and i had a big talk, which really just resulted in my feeling a whole lot of asian guilt and feeling awful. she saw our accommodation details in singapore (we are staying there for a couple of days) and said �one room? one room hey? are you on the pill yet?� and of course THAT conversation didn�t go well, and god... just reliving it... talking about how i don�t feel guilty enough for the things that i do that she doesn�t like, talking about how she was raised in vietnam and she knows that i was raised here and things are different but it�s still very hard to reconcile herself with that, talking about �i was 100% sure when i was with your father� (after the whole �are you on the pill?� question thing). not something i want to think about. so you can see that my argument with her on Saturday when i heard her saying not-so-nice things about andrew (when he had put in SO much effort, and the only thing �wrong� he did was not be vietnamese) was prefaced by something not so great as well. and actually she resents him for taking me to africa with him, because she�s �scared to death� of what might happen. but that�s not his fault. that�s my decision. anyway it�s all just shit. the second thing, i guess, is that i got a pay rise. a pissy, crappy one, but one nonetheless. and i was angry � actually, not agnry, but disappointed � with my boss, as she did three things that annoyed me. the first was that she brought up other people�s salaries and actually told me how much they got paid (isn�t that one of the biggest no-nos?), the second was the she brought up my age (actually in the discrimination act � my job hasn�t got anything to do with my age anymore, it�s about my skill) and the third was when i mentioned that i�d been on my shitty salary for a year and i thought that the experience and efficiency i�ve gained over the past year was commensurate with high remuneration, she responded with �but remember that we gave you the opportunity to develop those skills and experience�. so what? that means i have to have a lower income when i work with you just because you let me have the job? that�s ridiculous. anyway, like i said, i�m not that angry about it. but i�m not loyal anymore. meaning, i know that i will leave in the next year and there won�t be anything stopping that, bar my boss leaving herself. i have to finish uni while i�m still at this place but i know that as soon as i do i will be looking for other jobs. the third thing is that someone here asked me to write a film for her to produce. she wants to start producing films � and i think she�d be a great producer � and she wanted to collaborate with me for her first one. she wants it to be almost about me � not biographical, but using a lot of the experiences that i�ve had. so that is very very exciting and i want to do it, it would be a great side project, it would calm me down when i was stressed with work (and vice versa). though it would be a long commitment. the fourth thing is that it is andrew�s birthday tomorrow and unbeknownst to him i have organised dinner with his friends. we are going to spend the day together and then go to dinner, and he thinks it is just me and him. we have the day planned out � actually he does. we are going to the city in the morning, however, and i don�t know why, and he won�t tell me. so essentially he is going to surprise me on his birthday... very weird. oh well. he doesn�t think that i have a present for him, so that�s two surprises i have on him. so there! the fifth thing is that there will be a film coming out next year called �black sheep�. the tagline is �there are 40 million sheep in new zealand... and they�re pissed off�. Yes, it�s a film about killer sheep. in new zealand. what more could you want? those last five |