Disclaimer
This is a disclaimer.
It sits at the top of the page. A disclaimer disclaims. It tells you what not to assume about the contents of what you are about to see.
I am disclaiming that I understand how these things are important, how they fit.
But I do however claim that they are in fact important.
******
Half of Ho Chi Minh City is on vacation this morning. The power is out throughout half of district one, the heart of the city. Even my office is without power, but for a different reason.
It burned last night.
That isn't the beginning though.
Today is Thursday. Yesterday was Wednesday, and on Wednesdays, much like on most Thursdays and Tuesdays, you will find me in my office reading the newspaper. That is my job. I sit and read the newspaper and occassionally take time from my busy reading schedule to write articles of no-great import on the tourism and travel industry in south-east Asia.
Having worked there for four months, I realized about three and a half months ago that there isn't that much to write about in the tourism and travel agency. My stories can be summed up in three words, New. Hotel. Opening.
My writing tries to be informative and inviting, without being simpering.
It actually turns out dry, like a roast left too long in the oven.
My director is leaving, and has been leaving from before my joining the company. He should've told me that fact before I was hired. He didn't. I staed anyway, and so, I sat reading the paper, believing that I'm doing a poor job. I'm counting the days until I am fired.
At five pm, my director, and the general director of the company worldwide called me in for a meeting. I tensed up. This was it. My ass was gone. Instead, it was a meeting about my work for the next four months, complimenting on what I've done so far, and that
I should go to Myanmar soon to meet with the other regional directors.
I felt sick.
I didn't get sick though. I ran out of my office, late for a teaching class because of the meeting. Because I haven't told my company that I'm still teaching because they frown upon it, frown upon me splitting my newspaper reading time with my English teaching time.
I arrive for my class late. Taught for two hours, and realized that I'd left my mp player at the office. I returned to get it, only to find the roads blocked on all sides. I parked a couple blocks away and investigated on foot.
Upon arrival, I found billows of smoke issuing forth from the my office building. People were sitting around the building, smoking and looking unconcerned. None of my co-workers were in evidence, I figured that my mp3 player would probably not get stolen that night. Nobody seemed to concerned.
The tallest building in Vietnam continued to burn.
I hadn't been to trivia night for a while, so I went, and in the middle of it, I received a phone call from my mother. My cousin told me that my mother had gone to the hospital, and was on an IV drip.
Now normally, this would be a big deal. This past Saturday morning, a co-worker's mother told her daughter that she was feeling faint, and in the afternoon, her mother was dead. So this was not a "normally" moment. I should have worried more, but I worried less. I told my cousin that I was teaching and I would be there as soon as I can, and turned around to continue with quiz night.
Am I a monster? Probably. Most assuredly. My only defense is that sometimes actions and events can reach such a volume that nothing seems real anymore. That the concrete details that surround us in our daily feel more like the arbitrary decisions of an inferior being, myself.
My team went on to win the trivia competition. I won a bottle of wine. I went to see my mother, who had just left the hospital. I met her at home. She was weak, but okay.
She told me not to tell my brother, so I just e-mailed him to say that he should call Mom and that it was very important.
I was still feeling sick.
******
I didn't have to work this morning. The office smelled like smoke, the air was wet and the foundations were warped. The office was twisted with the smell of smoke and the humidity of the air and the warp of the floorboards.
So I left the office, visited my mother, and sat out on the street with half of Ho Chi Minh City to watch the world pass us by.
It sits at the top of the page. A disclaimer disclaims. It tells you what not to assume about the contents of what you are about to see.
I am disclaiming that I understand how these things are important, how they fit.
But I do however claim that they are in fact important.
******
Half of Ho Chi Minh City is on vacation this morning. The power is out throughout half of district one, the heart of the city. Even my office is without power, but for a different reason.
It burned last night.
That isn't the beginning though.
Today is Thursday. Yesterday was Wednesday, and on Wednesdays, much like on most Thursdays and Tuesdays, you will find me in my office reading the newspaper. That is my job. I sit and read the newspaper and occassionally take time from my busy reading schedule to write articles of no-great import on the tourism and travel industry in south-east Asia.
Having worked there for four months, I realized about three and a half months ago that there isn't that much to write about in the tourism and travel agency. My stories can be summed up in three words, New. Hotel. Opening.
My writing tries to be informative and inviting, without being simpering.
It actually turns out dry, like a roast left too long in the oven.
My director is leaving, and has been leaving from before my joining the company. He should've told me that fact before I was hired. He didn't. I staed anyway, and so, I sat reading the paper, believing that I'm doing a poor job. I'm counting the days until I am fired.
At five pm, my director, and the general director of the company worldwide called me in for a meeting. I tensed up. This was it. My ass was gone. Instead, it was a meeting about my work for the next four months, complimenting on what I've done so far, and that
I should go to Myanmar soon to meet with the other regional directors.
I felt sick.
I didn't get sick though. I ran out of my office, late for a teaching class because of the meeting. Because I haven't told my company that I'm still teaching because they frown upon it, frown upon me splitting my newspaper reading time with my English teaching time.
I arrive for my class late. Taught for two hours, and realized that I'd left my mp player at the office. I returned to get it, only to find the roads blocked on all sides. I parked a couple blocks away and investigated on foot.
Upon arrival, I found billows of smoke issuing forth from the my office building. People were sitting around the building, smoking and looking unconcerned. None of my co-workers were in evidence, I figured that my mp3 player would probably not get stolen that night. Nobody seemed to concerned.
The tallest building in Vietnam continued to burn.
I hadn't been to trivia night for a while, so I went, and in the middle of it, I received a phone call from my mother. My cousin told me that my mother had gone to the hospital, and was on an IV drip.
Now normally, this would be a big deal. This past Saturday morning, a co-worker's mother told her daughter that she was feeling faint, and in the afternoon, her mother was dead. So this was not a "normally" moment. I should have worried more, but I worried less. I told my cousin that I was teaching and I would be there as soon as I can, and turned around to continue with quiz night.
Am I a monster? Probably. Most assuredly. My only defense is that sometimes actions and events can reach such a volume that nothing seems real anymore. That the concrete details that surround us in our daily feel more like the arbitrary decisions of an inferior being, myself.
My team went on to win the trivia competition. I won a bottle of wine. I went to see my mother, who had just left the hospital. I met her at home. She was weak, but okay.
She told me not to tell my brother, so I just e-mailed him to say that he should call Mom and that it was very important.
I was still feeling sick.
******
I didn't have to work this morning. The office smelled like smoke, the air was wet and the foundations were warped. The office was twisted with the smell of smoke and the humidity of the air and the warp of the floorboards.
So I left the office, visited my mother, and sat out on the street with half of Ho Chi Minh City to watch the world pass us by.