My auntie-neighbour brought her young foreign relative over with a laptop and woke me up from my nap. She spoke to me in both Chinese mandarin and dialect. As the elderly was completely IT illiterate, I had problem understanding what they wanted.
After some time, I thought the little girl wanted me to change the setting for her in order to connect to the internet. So, I asked them in Chinese to confirm. The auntie, upon hearing the word “change”, kept telling me they didn’t want to change the hardware. Yet, she kept repeating “change” in dialect.
I explained to them that when I brought my laptop overseas, I needed not change the configuration, which I assumed laptops brought over from other countries, such as Indonesia, needed not any special configuration as well.
I asked the auntie if she had internet connection at home and she answered no. Alas, I guessed the little girl just wanted to tag onto my internet network. I explained to them that my wonderful M1 network was down and would be down for only-pig-knows-how-many-days and thus could not help the little girl.
The auntie simply replied “You don’t know then it’s okay” as usual.
In fact, when her relatives came over, my family was always more than happy to entertain them…
I wasn’t sure of her actual thought but it kind of sounded like I was either stupid or unfriendly.
I think if you don’t know what you really want or can’t explain the problem, you shouldn’t just blame or think lowly of the person who can’t understand what you want.
Tag Archives: neighbour
Waking the whole family up
Bitch, Bitches
[Wednesday, 24 November, 2010]
I finished up a page about Stress Management for Smart Tuition and went to sleep as early as right after 2am.
I woke up before 6am because of Lucky moving around. I was very scared that he wanted to pee or even do his big business that I opened the door a few times for him. In the end, I switched off the air-conditioner and went back to sleep with the door opened so that he could go outside any time.
I woke up after 9am eventually caused by the renovation noise of the unit above. The disgusting bitch decided to join in the fun of the HDB home improvement after all my surrounding units had completed ours.
The renovation was actually planned well enough that the work would start for one unit on three storeys (vertical) each time for two weeks. In the mid of the two weeks, the next three units (horizontal) beside them would proceed. Upon completion of the first three units, the next three units below would have their turns.
I did not expect the terrible noise and air pollution would come back a month after everything was cleared up. I started cursing her when I recalled how much time I had spent cleaning the kitchen’s windows and frames right after our renovation, because the dust and dirt had their best hideout in between the windows and frames; unless I could remove the entire windows from the frame to clean them, nothing much could be done to clean them.
I was extremely disgusted and disappointed at the management of the project for allowing such incident to happen. The noise and dust had badly affected my family and I. I had to change my plan to go to the gym earlier to do work and train up before the meeting in the late evening. I had to stay at home to bear with the noise with all the windows closed, because I could not leave Lucky inside the kitchen anymore like usual when everyone was out. My younger brother went down to the third storey to escape from the shit soon since he had to study for his exams.
I was very fed up and the nasty network connection worsened my mood. I replaced the old router my elder brother took from his girlfriend with our original tiny one, and the connection was much faster and I needed not refresh the pages multiple times in order to get some images loaded.
In the early afternoon, nobody was at home except me. Lucky surprised me by going into the bedroom alone and slept on my bed. I went in a few times to check on him and he followed me out like normal but he went in again. I was not sure why he was so “emo”. He was never like this even if my elder brother was not home and I suspected it was due to the drilling noises caused by the bitch. Anyway, during my house’s renovation, I stayed inside the bedroom almost the entire day with Lucky, and I suspected it was partly due to this experience that he thought he should stay inside.
In the mid afternoon, my mum returned home with a neighbour who stayed next block. My house was the “show flat” again and I was quite sick of it. Moreover, this auntie asked me to carry Lucky when I was trying hard to rush my work. I got so disgusted for I could not do my work anymore.
In the evening, I tried my luck in Facebook to look for people to go to the movie with me for the next day. Luck was not with me but it was a really good try for I did not expect to get a response that I did not have for many years. Eventually I had to leave my house for the meeting at the gym. I tried to do my work-out but I only got to complete one station before the meeting started.
We were stuck at the same issue until Andrew thought of an alternative. Since it was not foolproof, I still could not see a confirmed success.
.
Lucky Chewed on My Spectacle
[Thursday, 14 October, 2010]
I spent the morning blogging on other blogs even though I knew I was lagging behind on my personal blog. I had a chat with Yaozhong before sunrise. I took some cereal and slept after 6am.
I was pissed off with the neighbour staying right above my flat for I had observed slamming of the bedroom door daily as early as 6am since long ago and finally confirmed it. It was definitely done deliberately for the banging noise was very loud. It happened almost every time when I stayed up till after 6am. When Lucky first came, the sudden sharp and loud noise would wake him up to start barking. I was not sure if the lonely bitch was the culprit or she could have rented a room, but there was a high chance that she was the sick fellow.
I woke up before noon and was pissed off with Lucky for chewing on my spectacle. One of the ends was torn and only the sharp metal was left. I threw him out of my bedroom and ignored him when he was crying in the living room alone.
I woke up again at 3pm and went to the gym after having my lunch. The main purpose of the early trip was to help Tze Khit with his website again. Bobby bought chay kuay teow for me in the evening. I did my workout after that and Letian came over to discuss with me over the business plan suggested by Andrew. Bobby was sharp and realistic and warned us about the little benefit we could get. I had my own doubts too because Letian was simply too similar to me and we were too soft to be good sales-persons.
I tried to show my brothers my spectacle at the house’s door and it broke immediately when I tried to remove it from my ears.
I rested for a while before going down to walk Lucky with my elder brother.
.
Renovation Work Next Door was Affecting My Family
[Wednesday, 13 October, 2010]
I dozed off at around 6.30am and woke up at 3pm eventually. My appetite was bad.
It was another non-efficient day since the renovation work of my neighbour next door started. The noise level was terribly irritating and that my neighbour came over to my house to use the toilet often. I did not realise until my mum told me that the neighbour even came over to wash clothes and bathe.
There were jokes about this neighbour going to another neighbour’s house, which posed lots of troubles especially with the insane peeing of her dog. On the second day of the renovation when it was clean enough for the dog to stay at home, she insisted to go over to the neighbour’s house again. We felt lucky that we had Lucky with us and thus we were spared.
I spent most of my day on the television other than playing with Lucky.
.
Saturday Early Morning
Last Saturday, I finally revisited the Chinese physician for my weak stomach. My mum wanted to go for acupuncture and thus she remembered that I needed to go back to get medicine. I was quite busy but also lazy to go back before that.
I was stunned when she went to my neighbour right before going to the lift. We had to wait for a while for this auntie who often dialed my house’s phone early in the morning even though she was staying only a few doors away.
It was a pathetic wait this time. Every old people seemed to be early and I suspected they waited at the door before the operational hours began.
It took quite some time for the acupuncture and the heavy rain stopped for us. Other than buying food, my mum also did some marketing and I had to accompany her.
.
Early Morning's Chores
One of the worst things that could happen in the early morning was when you were carrying two big bags like the army days, your old neighbour saw you and wanted to pass you some fruits.
When she opened the door, her dog went out and you knew her legs could not really catch up with the dog. You hurried to catch up with the dog in a marching style to grab her and return to the neighbour.
Since that was quite an old dog and had some smell, you had to go back to your house to put down the fruits and washed your hands.
It was a simple yet not good morning to start off.
.