You are responsible

I spent a rather frustrating day today. I'm not quite sure what brought it on, but all these teeny-tiny trivial irrelevant things were setting me off. Like my flatmate de-moulding the bathroom ceiling. She tried white vinegar, as I suggested, but it didn't work. I later found out that it was because she didn't actually leave the white vinegar on the mould overnight to work its magic but just tried to wipe it off with the squeegee only to claim it 'didn't work'.

Anyway. She bought some kind of anti-mould stuff full of chloride, which was so toxic that it worked straight away. And then I asked her what she did with the squeegee. "Don't worry, I washed it. And I washed the sink as well. And I left the squeegee outside so that it could dry where it was well ventilated." Hmm, so all those horrible chemicals were washed into our waterways...

Then, of course, I started thinking of those millions of households around the world where people wouldn't even think about the consequences of washing chloride down the sink and came to the conclusion that it was everyone else's fault that the environment has gone to shit.

Worse still, I went to lunch with an acquaintance from my RA days. I can only take this girl in small doses cos she talks a lot and doesn't listen, plus I don't find much of what she says very interesting anyway (it's always about trouble with finding a husband). The latest debacle involves going out with a guy for two months and then he breaks up with her because she starts foisting her insecurities on him.

What's worse is that she readily admits she is insecure and too hasty to dismiss people when she thinks they can't deal with her and yet can't cope when someone else makes a decision that she believes is 'too hasty'. And won't do anything to understand why she is so insecure. You know, like, great, you've admitted that you're insecure. Have you found out why? Have you done anything about it? Gaah!

Then she spent the rest of the afternoon not listening to me and complaining about traffic tickets (for going through a red light). Like, stop maybe? "Oh, you can't expect someone like me to stop because I'm so busy." Well, accept the fine! Only, of course, it's not about the money, it's about the demerits and she was on her last demerit point so she paid someone to take the rap for her so she can still drive around. People like this drive me crazy!

(No pun intended, actually)

Let me get this straight, YOU are responsible for decisions you make in your life, dependent on your environment. Correct? Correct. So I don't think anyone can complain (with any seriousness, anyway - I mean, I get in a rant here sometimes and that's hypocritical on my part). Where was I? Oh. I don't think that anyone can complain about things that they have control over.

This girl complains about being busy. She has three jobs, people. Her 'day' job pays well. It's a government job and I reckon probably pays around $60K. She also tutors English and Vietnamese and translates. Another thing that set my teeth on edge is that she takes sick leave from work to do translating jobs. "You don't understand, I have to be busy because then I get bored. This is for my career."

WHAT career?!? You want to be a tutor and a translator and you do a crap job at both! And I know this because I had to rewrite your units when I was at RA and half the time I don't understand what you're saying even though you're supposed to have a PhD in ESL and be fluent in English! GAAH!

(Don't mind me. Head exploding. Rach, Anton and I already concurred last week at yum cha that we surely do not live in a meritocracy otherwise all three of us would be rich and powerful).

Fortunately my friend Faun (also ex-RA) came later and was a buffer. We were kind of buffers for each other. Faun decided that after stopping in for gelato we were to head down to Ball's Head and tramp around in the bush for an hour. Which was nice, actually, I shall go there again.

Nothing much else. Oh, the Palimpsest books will be ready tomorrow. And I'm finally replying emails sent to me in August. It's September, isn't it? D'oh.