Why I Write ...

Purely as a form of expression to the emotions that run riot in my life at different junctures. This blog has seen several title revisions that also reflect the state of being and evolution I am constantly in. If one were to remain stagnant in hope of never changing their temporal present, one will awaken someday to much regret. Life is about living, evolving and adapting to the constant changes all around us.

My spot on the web is essentially a journey along with my monologue ramblings of my coherent mind accompanied by the incoherent thing called life. Read me if you like ... if you don't it is not the end of the world. I am at the very least a believer in humility lifts us further than pride.

Happy trails

4 June 2008

Fooked AGAIN Dammit!!! Jun 4, 2008

YES !!!! Petrol price leap frogged from RM1.92 to RM2.70 - a 78 sen increase and the PM says that we're still the cheapest in the region. And then there's always that wonderful reality that come Aug/Sept this year, the government is bloody damn well going to fook the rakyat again and raise petrol to RM3.60 per liter ....

This is apparently the so called new fuel subsidy to help already super financially burdened rakyat - well this is my fooking response to it @#%!@!@@&#*(%*&%@$!#~#~$!%!$

I mean the whole price hike this, price hike that, price hike my wobbly behind damnit ... the only thing I have NOT seen hiked is my bloody salary!!! At least not anything decent enough to even mention here and not to mention short of grabbing a bicycle and cycling to and fro 200km for work, I'm dead meat as far as my finances go.

Food prices are up. Our basic rice is double what it cost a few months ago. Public transport companies want to raise ticket prices 100%, every damn thing is going up and how is the average Joe on the streets supposed to manage?

It's not a wonder than that crime rates are going up. It's a sociological reality, when man is hungry, he will do anything to put the fire in his belly out. So what if it is at the expense of some innocents life, so what if the woman he mugged is a single mother with five mouths to feed and he's left her brain dead ...

This is what happens when education is limited, people have no opportunities to rise above their squalor.

I have long believed I'd rather be super rich or dirt poor - this middle class living is killing me. On my meagre so called professional take home pay 50% monthly goes on my car Hire Purchase, my toll and my petrol and my ever increasing car maintenance bills.

With the remaining 50%, I have to put food on the table for my kids, pay my bills and credit cards. I have been reduced to living on credit because I just don't have enough liquid cash monthly to raise two kids and also fend for myself.

I need a car. I drive 200kms a day, this price hike means an additional RM300 a month on fuel alone. Am waiting for the bloody blood sucking Toll Concessionaires to raise their rates as well - which will effectively mean 60% of my take home is just on getting to work. Is there a reason to go to work anymore????

Ironic is it not???? Sometimes I get so fooking depressed, I wonder if ending my life in an accidental manner might at least give my kids some of my EPF and Insurance money for their future - but dammit, no fooking bastard father, they cannot NOT have a fooking mother as well - so I scrap the fooking idea!

I have tried so hard to get a better paying job. Its not funny this job market we have. Lesser experienced then myself drawing anything between 2 to 3k more than me monthly. It makes me wonder too about loyalty and dedication to seeing ones project through no matter how shitty it gets - it doesn't really pay in the end does it?

I'm at a cross roads. My desire to stay and finish what I have started, but I am suffering. I have even stopped eating lunch or going out at all. And I have cut back on treats for the kids and am fraught with guilt of what kind of mother am I - not even able to give a simple McD or KFC treat to my children without first counting the pennies in my wallet and the days till the next pay day, how much petrol and toll and I going to need cash for.

This is not the life I want to live. This is not the life I want my kids to live. And when I got married, I thought I had it all planned out how my children would not have to hear the 'mommy has no money now' tagline. It kills me.

And it sometimes drives me insane that I know someone who has no such stress because that someone draws 5x what I earn in a month. And instead of my girls having more opportunities in their lives, its been given to some others who came along when times were good - life is a tragic comedy I have to insist.

This evening, when the price hike news reached me, I nearly burst into tears at my desk in the office. In fact my eyes all welled up and my face went red from holding the tears back. I felt such a pain in my heart and such a fear and dread at how am I going to manage to keep putting food on the table and providing for my kids. I felt like an abject failure in every essence of the word. Does not help when the big boss of your company just recently called you a failure. And that is ringing in my ears, and now more financial stress to cope with.

It was still raining when I walked to my car so heart heavy. I sat and I cried cried cried my eyes out because I was at a wits end. Ani how are you going to keep this together at this rate. Jacob is living his life of luxury and if he is suffering at all it's because he is always about showing off rather than living with some sense. He doesn't care what happens to the girls. I HAVE no choice but to keep at this till I drop dead trying. I have to for Ashna and Kasha's sakes. I will not shortchange their dreams.

I cried so long and so hard. And I was talking to God. I begged Him, please God show me a way to make things better financially for the 3 of us and also for my parents whom I live with. Times are getting harder. I could always turn to the world's oldest profession (seeing as man never stops that no matter what happens) but seeing as I look like the behind of a camel's backside - I ain't going to earn much from that venture. Ha ha I say this in jest - me the prude working the oldest profession - you have to be kidding right??

Multi level Marketing - I am allergic to. Pipelines and whatever make me sick to the core. It might be about building a business and a future but it's not me to live off the efforts of others. I am probably one of those slaves who work till the day we drop dead because we have pride in our work and remain constantly pushing to give more of ourselves. The flaw with this plan is if who we work for do not see our efforts or loyalty or dedication then yet once again we are fooked!

I am sitting here tapping away at the PC and I have sent an email out which I hope will bring me some positive news to my predicament. I might mean I may have to burn bridges that currently sustain my existence, but sometimes we have to start thinking about ourselves before others. Take instead of giving. And as a mother, I have my children first to think of before anyone else.

Having to give up more things comes easily to me, if it means I can scrimp and scrounge more pennies for their futures. If I have to disengage myself from Malaysian soil and move to be one of the workers just to make sure there is always rice on our table, then that is the sacrifice I will have to make.

My only hope is that in having to separate myself from my girls, they realise it is only because mommy wants to ensure there is a future for them that is better than what mommy has. And I will die trying. But I like to believe God had a plan for me. All my efforts are not wasted. Someone somewhere is going to see the potential in me and show me how to nurture it to fruitful gains.

In the mean time, I dig in my heels deeper and think harder, what more can I give up to save some money ... what more will make a difference in my ever shrinking purse. I have had to long ago accept the bitter fact that Jacob is a useless bastard. If he were half a man and had half his balls in his control, he might be half decent towards supporting his daughters financially. But he is neither half decent, nor is he even a man with balls. So it's useless expectantly waiting for any sense to fall upon his head.

Ashna and Kasha poor things are stuck with a mommy who no matter what just cannot seem to catch the big fish type job. Every interview is ended with 'congratulations, welcome on board we will draw up the papers and get in touch with you' and then suddenly the roaring hot flames become fading ambers and someone else gets the job. I wish I could sue each one of those companies who took me on a emotional ride only to dump me without so much as a proper 'we're sorry' - I'd be fooking financially done for the rest of my life. Thankfully I never take their word and tender my resignation, I wait for the black and white binding document before any such madness.

I have a job, doesn't pay me well but well there's still a tiny purse to navigate with. I am sure there is something better out there for me. And it's going to come.

In the mean time, the government of Malaysia is slowly but surely killing the middle class (wo)man with rising costs and no mandate to the private sector to give employees a raise - apparently the PM didn't want to make it mandatory because he didn't want the private sector to see him as a dictator - can I please be allowed to laugh here - for once could he NOT have had some balls!!

And so we can expect more rising prices, more inflation, more lay off, more suffering and tightening of belts and more crime where brutality disbursed is never an option not explored. A hungry man is an angry man. An angry man has no time for rationalising what he should and should not do. All he is focused on is feeding that gnawing fire in his belly.

Where are we heading to? And how long before the tides change for the average Joe on the streets of Malaysia? I know I am for one suffering in my middle class quicksand. Neither here not there and yet stretched to the maximum of my sanity in trying to just make my Ringgit stretch longer and longer and longer ... I think Malaysian currency should elastic ... it's currently not stretching very far in these hard times.

Buckle Up and get ready for the ride, it's going to be like white water rafting with no clarity of what is beyond each bend and fall ... Good Luck Malaysians .. we're rooting for each other to survive this trial.

Wish me luck, that I remain strong in these trying times if not for myself then for the sakes of Ashna and Kasha .... my futures.

God Bless ...




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