KnackeRed

I just learned this term and it makes my mother-in-law laugh when I say it, probably when the "r" is emphatically pronounced. But this is the word that best describes how I am at this very minute. I've been working 10 hours a day this week, including today (supposedly), but I had to call my boss because I just can't concentrate anymore. Keeping two part-time jobs at once is too much now and I'm so glad my afternoon job is finishing end of this month. I 've handed my resignation letter but I don't know yet when my exit interview would be.

Next month, I would be concentrating on a job which, interestingly, I found quite enjoyable. I love books, research, and all paperworks that go with it. However, some people assume that we know everything. Somebody popped in at work one day and asked me unceremoniously: When was hippy school founded? Sorry? Hippy school. I typed on the computer, h.i.p.p.y.s.c.h.o.o.l. The screen displayed: 0 search results found.

How do you spell that, sir? H.I.P.P.E.R.

Ahh, Hipper School.

I'm so knackered!

I'm white but not british

I was on my seat, relaxed, ready to take on my work-load of the day and whatever the public I'm serving would throw at me. Sure enough, an old gentleman (as opposed to a gentle old man) came, literally threw at me some stuff he wasn't sure of. When I declared what it was, and how much, after checking my screen, he exclaimed, contempt on his face, "Ah! so you learned the language, eh?"

In circumstances like this, I try to think of my Employee Handbook (which I can't remember ever perusing) and other people around who may have heared the remark and who could be affected by my reaction. But as instinct would have it, I smiled and ignored what the old man said and focused instead to his...hm, age! Yes, he's old and should know better to be lambasting racist slurs, but then again, he might have had a terrible experience with "foreigners" or might have gone to some concentration camps in the service of the crown. Or he might just be reading too much Daily Mail.

On the other hand, westerners in Surigao are most of the time heckled and greeted with "Hi, Joe!" as if all white men in the world are Americans. It is a remnant of the years when the Kano (american) soldiers were all over the islands establishing and maintaining their naval bases while impregnating some willing virgins at the same time. When K stayed in Surigao for 3 years, this greeting irritated him. Three years and they still called him Joe!

In Chesterfield I am a foreigner, in Surigao, K was. Now we're even.

Work Party

No, there's NO rice at all. Of course there's no lechon! No sweetened spaghetti; no 7-Up or Royal Tru-orange; no sawsawan.

I was hungry after the party.