G.E Wallpaper Grafitti

Every single day I’m the first in my department to arrive at the office. It’s not a big office but rather reasonably sized to suit the operation. The temperature inside the office is quite low and it’s normal for you to feel a bit chilly inside and which would also turn bloody cold full blast Australian winter-style when it’s raining outside.

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My boss is a Japanese guy with his name being A.Kobori. I once had addressed him in the email as just “Kobori” but my actions are not without any consequence. When I went inside his room to see him, he was furious with how I greet him. In a serious manner he cautioned me, “I will never allow anyone to call me Kobori. Call me Kobori-san”. He said this at the same time writing his name on a piece of worn out paper as if he’s teaching a kindergarten kid to write and read with the correct pronunciation. Apparently I had forgotten the word “-san” in the back. “San” sort of meant Mr. or sir, it’s something like that. It’s just how Japanese call each other no matter what’s your name. If it is Ali, then you shall be identified as “Ali-san”. I don’t know how to greet someone with the name “Hassan”, should it be “Hassan-san”? Funny. You know how the Caucasian mainly the British or the American would just call by the first name no matter what’s your position? I knew in Technip, I would just address my British boss as just Maurice instead of Mr. Nicholson. And all the Americans I emailed for work related purpose, I had only addressed them in their first names. It made me think of how vastly different cultures are. I wouldn’t even think of calling my Malaysian boss just as Jamal but rather use the term Mr. or Encik to add with it a certain degree or authority, of showing respect or it could be construed as just plain rude not unless he’s your snooker buddy.

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Well I’m just off course to tell the story of Kobori-san. Kobori-san is quite old. He’s nearly 65 years old. You can consider him quite ancient for a man at a workplace, which is an uncommon age to be in the office these days. He’s an enigma, drawing urban legend like stories of his expertise in engineering of compressors. My company designs and sells compressors mainly for the oil & gas industry. He’s a thin man, with an average height, having hairs so white and thick with the hairstyle from the 70’s typical of Japanese and wears a spectacle which made him appears as an intelligent man. Being Japanese, he’s had all of these fancy electronics gadgets on his table such as blue tooth headset, MP3 player, etc. I can’t envisage when my grandmother was at his age and still uses all the technological gadgets without any hassle. For the normal Malays this is quite unthinkable to be old and yet technologically savvy. In time we’ll change. Hopefully. The degree of Kobori-san’s intellect is quite frightening. I would discuss with him all the Thermodynamics stuff and he’s very well remembers and memorized all the complex mathematical formulas. He’s also able to pick up a number from the air for constants in SI or Metrics unit or percentage of whatever engineering requirement (engineering stuffs) in a snap of a finger. Also possesses the ability to mathematically calculate via the mind i.e. mental calculations.

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Well, there’s a saying goes like ”The most dangerous thing for us is not putting too high an aim and fails to achieve it, but putting an aim too low that we achieve it”. I would like to achieve a status as iconic as Kobori-san or even better than him. Maybe one day.

I’m thinking that my day job as an engineer has subdued by creative part. We had to hone our logic thinking and that comes with the daily job. Solving engineering problems and math and all. I felt that my logic thinking has been getting better and more dominating with my creative part slightly passive, and the outcome is that my writing suffers. I rarely write any poetry or any kind of writing anymore. Not as much as I would have liked anyway. This blog is in a way some way I can practice writing so that it’s a skill in me not vanishing whilst my practical and logical brain consume my creative part of my brain. Writing is in a way is sharing one’s experience and to express one’s emotion. To write is for another to read.

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Cheers. Thank you for your time.

Started my new job yesterday. It was okay I guess. Didn’t have any friends. No one that I feel like wanting to connect to. However, we still need to socialize and be friends. To make it easy on our work. Just think about the money & wanting to learn. Bloody hell, what am I saying. I just hate being without friends at work. What a bummer. Have to start being friendly and honest…Yea, that’s a start.

As I have quitted my job I had to move out from Forum. Home here in Gombak, how I hate it. The room is pretty messed up. I mean how could anyone live here. Everything is messed up real good. Practically everywhere is in a mess. Everywhere including around the PC I’m writing over here. Felt really like going somewhere else and have a room to myself or a house to myself. I could make the place liveable. Last night I just slept in the living room. Unbearable bedroom my brother has put up with. It makes you think this disorderliness makes your life kind of disorder and you yourself are putting an image of disorganisation. The smell is bad as well. You yourself are actually disorganised! And lazy to simply put into words…

I missed my room in Forum. A bit more tidy than here. And if I mess things up a bit that is only to mark my territory (hehehe). Not as much as my brother’s room. Total mess. I hate living here. I only lived here for one and a half months before moving to Johor and then to Forum. A stranger in my own home. Overall the Forum house is far more tidy than Gombak, considering my family is moving out of Gombak, probably things are a bit disorderly and unclean around the house at the moment.

That freedom I remembered in my mind when I travelled to my newfound acquaintance’s home in Prahran (City of Stonnington), Melbourne, I had this vision in my head of what my life is going to be in Malaysia. My own home, with this big television in the living room, and probably a DVD player as well (some dream!), clean and tidy living room with carpets and sofas to hang out on, paintings hanging on the wall for visitors to ponder upon, a small aquarium with some gold fish inside, a rack full of books in my bedroom with some of them I just hadn’t had the time to read (too busy with work - the books are just to impress unsuspecting visitors. Haha..), also a laptop with 24 hours internet connection. That’s just it. I got what I had hoped for in the past one year, to be in my own home. To live by myself. To do whatever I wanted to. In order for this dream to live on, I have just have got to get out of here…. I just HATE this place! Well, am I a loner???