The Devil within Me
Monday was the day I was assaulted badly.
It was a different morning as I managed to spend some time slicing off the skin of two carrots before stepping out of my house.
My lunch date with my shi fu, Josephine, was called off after I checked my phone. I was instructed to take over Chenghong’s class for the entire afternoon since he was sick. I was told that I could skip the class at ten but little did anyone know how unprepared the class was for this Friday’s paper and that I could not afford to loosen down on myself. People made planning but they did not consider every detail well. Nobody knew how much I tried to hold my principles that they never knew how hard I had been pushing myself for others, thinking I was having a great life.
Apart from the lunch, I lost the chance to get myself the driving basic theory handbook for this Wednesday’s test and also, the freedom and concentration to do my own work. Basically, my entire plan was destroyed.
From slightly after eight AM, I started debugging and talking, and hardly had any time to even reply emails and SMSes. I could not even get myself out of the lab after ten and was late for the next class. At the next door, I accelerated on the speed of my words and injected more fun into the learning process. I did enjoy doing things I was good at but it only weakened my throat and the enthusiasm to even talk after work.
Dorothy was supposed to chew on bread on every Monday and Wednesday but somehow, she had a change of mind on this day. Since she wanted to dine at the canteen finally, Weitat and I waited for her and eventually went down first as instructed by her. Just as I was queuing up for the usual mixed vegetable rice stall, she told Weitat that she wanted to dine out instead. I could feel the dagger pointing at me. There was so much frustration within me for the afternoon’s extra four hours of workload, which I was very tired and irritated to take up, and yet I was somehow being pushed to go out such that I could be late for my duty. I was already exhausted like half of my soul was burnt.
I would really love to enjoy my lunch with my buddies, given sufficient time. The greatest thing to do was to keep them accompanied and make sure they were happy with my presence. It was obvious that my health was badly degenerated and that I had no other choice than to fulfill my tasked work, and I could not make better of my decision.
Nevertheless, I insisted to stay behind. Queuing up at the food stall boiled up my deceasing blood cells for the uncle claimed that there was no rice again. The percentage of this incident was far too high. I did wait on until Weitat and Dorothy turned back to take on one of the stalls instead of leaving the campus, and the rice was not even ready after they had finished half of their food. I switched to the next stall instead since I could no longer trust the “five minutes” promise, let alone there was still a queue for the rice. It was a good choice for I was very well served by the old couple.
Before I could go to the toilet to get my shit out of the loaded big intestine, it was time for my next struggle. I did have some peace for the first few minutes, trying to act as if I was a nerd, but I could not turn down requests for helps. It was all predicted that I would continue to rock my afternoon with non-stop debugging and squeezing all my brain juice just to explain why Billgates was trying to make data work.
By five PM, I was filled with fatigue. Some of them continued to struggle for results for this coming Friday and it was my usual characteristic not throwing them out even when I was in a rush to go and get my book. My throat was sore and my lungs were twisted; my brain was numbed and I could no longer feel anything. Apart from all these, I was having a gastric pain. Sitting at the front of the lab, trying to get my work done before my name was flying around again, my mind almost went to the heaven. I used to hate sleeping because it took up lots of time but it was now my greatest release from stress.
When it was near six PM, I was finally able to pick the remaining pieces of myself up to stagger back to office. Xiao Mei was sweet enough to offer me food and even making milo. I fixed up part of my broken face in the weariness to go to the boss’ room. In my hundred reasons of unwillingness, I officially promised my boss that I would help him up for another month because the kindest man needed my service and it was the greatest way to repay him.
It could be one of the stupidest mistakes I could have made in my life to toy with my health. There were beautiful reasons that I should stay, for the sweet colleagues, cute students and supposed-to-be easy money, but the evil forces certainly had the upper hand. The devil within me instructed me to do more than I could provide and certainly things beyond my job scope. Yet, different eyes seemed to be watching over me, telling their ignorant owners different stories.
I was never a saint and I could never be one. I did try hard but the demon got the better of me and almost got me destroyed instead. Often, I blamed myself for trying too much. Gilbert and Peh were all correct about me that I was never kind to myself.
I no longer had anything that I could look forward to after this week.
It was killing me.
Labels: friends, gastric, health, hero, job, lunch, record, shoutout, thoughts, work
... Skai (Kailun) dreams @ 2:30 AM
