Cockroaches Hysteria

If one day God magically appears in front of me and ask "If I could make one creature disappear, what creature do you want me to kill off forever and why?". I'd undoubtedly reply "COCKROACHES please!". And that's because they are the most disgusting creatures on earth and they have no use at all! Okay I am sorry if any of you are cockroaches-lovers. Excuse me for being too harsh on cockroaches but I really hate them from the bottom of my heart! I was born to hate them. I was meant to hate them. It is destiny.

With their long bodies, long antennas, tiny feathery feet and SHINY bodies OMG how can you not get phobic to those things?? And some of them can fly! They can get stuck in your ears too!
They are capable of spreading viruses thingies. Maybe like salmonella or something (I read it somewhere on the internet). I got a strange phobia with cockroaches. I am a cockroachphobic (i don't know if it's a word but you get what i mean, don't you?)

I had a long old feud with cockroaches back in Indonesia. I don't know since when or why but here's what I can remember :

I was walking to my living room to watch some TV when I felt there's something on the back of my neck. I tried to make it go away by grabbing it. And when it fell to the floor and there I saw it. I screamed like I was seeing ghosts and pleading for my maid to kill it. Even though the cockroach is killed and thrown away to the garbage, I still could feel it all over my body. For days.

I was getting ready for school - I had my breakfast - I put some socks on. When I put my shoes on, it felt not right. All of a sudden, a cockroach appeared from the shoe where I step my foot on and it went right up to my thigh. I was in so much shock and excessive fear that I screamed and literally rolling on the floor with my feet kicking the air. I was crying and screaming. My dad was panicking and thought I got some electric shock or something. He got angry at me for being too dramatic but then laughed at me. And I kept crying.

I was afraid of sleeping in my bedroom alone. It was haunted. I am not kidding but it was haunted. So I slept on some mattress on the floor in my parents' room. I was maybe half-asleep when I felt something walking on my hands then to my arms. I spontaneously got up screaming - thinking that it must be a cockroach. AND I WAS RIGHT! It was a cockroach! Again I cried and my mom was the hero that night. My dad chickened out and my mom stepped up and killed the cockroach.

Well my dad also hates cockroaches. Whenever he saw one, he would use up one full bottle of Baygon. There once he found a flying cockroach and he didn't know that it could fly. When it first time flew, my dad was terrified and fell sitting on his butt. I and my sister were watching from afar and we laughed so hard. We weren't being disrespectful or mean but it was really funny!

In the middle of a night, my maid knocked on my parents' door and crying. She was in so much pain. She said that her ear was hurting so bad and she felt pretty sure that "something" got inside her ear. So we went to doctors and guess what? It was a cockroach! The doctor found a cockroach dead inside the ear. OMG I felt so sick. I guess it's best to plug your ear with iPod while sleeping. Safety comes first.

There was one night when I was alone at my home in Indonesia. My maid was going back to her home. My parents were attending some kind of party. I was chatting on MSN on when a cockroach suddenly walked passing on my table! I was screaming in horror but at that time no one could help! I called my mom and dad and they couldn't hear what I was saying because the party was so loud! So I texted them. I got angry at them for leaving me alone at home. I knew it was stupid. But I was in so much horror. I spent hours alone at my home with a bottle of Baygon on my hand - staying alerted for any cockroach. Or maybe I was paranoid : eyes open wide and even the slightest sound or movement can jerk me out. Not really alerted.

I had never seen cockroaches in Melbourne. It is one of the reasons why I love Melbourne. Cockroach-free. Just when I thought so, I saw one this morning. I was in a hurry to pee (since I drank a lot of water) then I saw this very BLACK cockroach. I didn't know what to do. I was alone at home. I knew my sis was having tutorials. I immediately called Nonoh just to get some company. I really wanted to cry because I knew I was helpless. I needed to do it myself. I had no insect spray and I got no broom! Then vacuum cleaner came accross my mind. I turned my phone off, trying to call my sis but as I had expected she didn't pick up the phone. I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and when I got back to the toilet. It's gone!! Geez I hate this feeling! Not knowing where your enemy is is the worst feeling ever! Knowing that it can attack you anytime unexpectedly can drive you insane. So I kicked the door hoping that the cockroach would get shocked and run. But nothing. I turned the vacuum cleaner ON - even the sound of the vacuum cleaner made me jerking out. Then I waited patiently til I saw it coming. It was hiding behind the toilet. I waited for the right time and I sucked it into my vacuum cleaner while screaming. I didn't turn it off. I was afraid that if I turned it off the cockroach would crawl back and got back his freedom. There's no way I could let that happen. Then Nonoh told me to wrap around the vacuum cleaner head with a plastic bag. I tried to do it with the vacuum ON but the plastic got sucked up so I really needed to turn it OFF. I turned it OFF and quickly wrap it with a plastic bag.

But I was left feeling paranoid. Trembling. What if the cockroach somehow manage to crawl back? What if it already bred somewhere? Where did it come from anyway? Only God knows...

And The Fat Kid Confessed.....

I spent my childhood as a fat kid. I am dead serious when I wrote "fat". I was seriously fat.

Whenever my uncle saw me, he would just catch me and wouldn't let me go until I said "Okay I am ugly, too-tall, fat, have big butt and rotten teeth, chubby". I was saying it in Javanese : "elek, genter, gendut, semok, geges, lemu."
I wasn't offended at all or had any hard feelings about it 'cause I know he was just teasing me.
I was called "the Mother of all KingKong". There were other "KingKongs" too but apparently I was the fattest, so I got the honor to be the "mother". Whenever the boys teased me with the other kingkong friends, we'd chase them. Once we got them, we'd punch, slap and pinch them. The louder they screamed from hurting, the happier we were (or maybe it was just me?). *grin*. Don't take this the wrong way, I was and am NOT into sadism or masochism or both. It was just another stupid thrill every child got from any chasing games. The boys that we tortured were actually happy and they seemed to enjoy it too. And they're not into S&M!

Of course there were times I was feeling humiliated. Body weighing at school had always given me nightmares. I secretly hoped that we would be weighed individually and secretly, without no other kids watching how heavy I was.
Everybody laughed at me when I fell down from playing roller blade. There was this one stinky security guard laughed so hard and said ugly things about my bum and I was really annoyed. Fuck him. So I ended up playing roller blade in my own house, leaving scratches on the tile floor but who cares? Okay my mom cared about the scratches but I and my sister did NOT.
My dad would say ugly things about my weight too and I would cry under my pillow. Fell asleep but then forgot about it completely the next day. The worst thing was that my dad kept feeding me with lots of food but then scolded at me at the same time. There. I was trapped in a world of "come-on-let's-eat-this-and-that" and got thrown back into the world of "you're-so-damn-fat-no-boys-like-you-useless-fat-slob" then into the world of "those-sayings-are-just-to-make-you-better". It just kept going full circle.

Well maybe it all make sense when it was for the 12 years old who weighed 66kgs. Yep I was 66 kgs.

Then I started to get obsessed with Backstreet Boys.
I started to watch MTV.
I started to feel envious to the skinny girls shaking their booties on MTV.
I got busy for junior high school things.
I skipped meals.
Then everyone started to say I lost some weight.
I weighed myself and I lost 10 kilos!
There.
It was the point where I got obsessed with my own body weight.
I constantly weighed myself before and after meal. Of course to get depressed after meal.
I didn't remember quite clearly when and why but there were times I really lost the appetite to eat.
I kept losing the weight and some teachers got concerned about it.
I used to be in top 10 in class (in terms of academic, NOT weight!).
But ever since then, I was out.
Apparently not eating food makes people dumber. It's true!
I was dumber.
(Geez, writing this makes me think "was I anorexic at that time? I really didn't have the appetite to eat!")

Then I got sick and hospitalized for a month (not because I was anorexic, but because I was infected with typhus). Everyone in the family protested and forced me to eat. I ate and ate and ate because I was really afraid to die at that time. There was one night where I had this creepy dream that I was dying, surrounded with panic nurses and crying family behind them hoping for me not to die. It was one hell of a dream. So I started to eat normally and got recovered.
I kept struggling with dieting and eating food.


Until now.


I am still obsessed with my own weight. Or maybe worse.
I tried so many kind of diets.
3-day-diet
mayo diet
lemon detox diet
milk shake diet
cabbage soup diet
steamed food diet
grapefruit diet
I even bought the stupid Slimmist which was advertised on Oprah (it's a kind of spray that's believed to have the power to curb your appetite, and an inhaler - each time you feel hungry, just inhale it and the hungry is gone). That didn't work at all!

I thought of smoking cause I heard that smoking makes you look skinner (i know it's muscle but the skinny things intrigued me)
I passed this thought to some friends of mine and I got yelled.
They asked me "Why do you want to smoke?"
I said "Cause I want to look skinny"
Then a friend of mine who also smokes said "Well that's stupid"
I asked him "Why did you start to smoke?"
He replied "Because my friends were smokers and I wanted to socialize"
I was thinking nothing. Blank mind.
Until another friend of mine snapped "You both are stupid".
Thank God for that! We both needed the word "stupid" to shake us out of the "Smoking World"

We were indeed being stupid. Smoking is stoopid.

I know I am not alone in this body weight obsession things. In fact, almost every girl I know has this obsession. The girls who eat and eat but then complain and complain about too much food. I do it all the time too. I shove my mouth with fatty foods one day and jumped on cardio for hours the next day, regretting all the foods I ate the day before. I am really hoping to escape this whole food and dieting things. But how? OKAY I know it's simple. Reduce your calories intake and hit the gym! It's just so hard!
I keep stuffing food to my mouth but I never stop believing that there is a skinny girl inside of me - waiting to come out from the fats.

And I am looking for something to blame it on. Televisions? Advertisings? Internet? Or even my childhood?
...........................................


Or maybe it's just that I am afraid of blaming it on myself.

The Struggle to Be on Time! Everytime!

Punctuality. It's a simple yet one of the hardest things to do. For 10 times I try to be on time, I made it maybe once or twice. Yes I am that bad. In fact, being "punctual" is always on my New Year's Resolution Lists. It has always been there each year.
Well except when I went to work. While I was doing the stocktake, I was late maybe twice in total (out of 158 stocktakes). Yes I did have the record of the stocktakes that I was allocated to. Thanks to my boredom at work, I typed my own name into the company system and counted how many stocktakes I've done from late 2007 til mid 2008. 158 shifts. Two of them I was late : once I was an hour late because I was overslept and it was on Saturday! People deserve to be late on weekends. Saturday is the time for the hangover and sleep. Okay I know those are all wrong.
And the other one I was 10 minutes late because I got a bit lost - stupid Google Maps for writing down North Road as the "N road". How was I supposed to know?? It could be whatever starts with N. Nothing. Nuts. Nonsense. Or even Ninny.
Anyway I was quite impressed with myself for that. But when it is time to meet up with friends, punctuality goes out of the window. Well I always try to be, but it seems like the universe doesn't want me to be.

Like this afternoon for an example. I agreed to meet Eric at 1.30pm - to pick up my Corica. But before that,I was planning to wake up at 10am. Hit the gym at 11am. What happened was : on 12.30pm I was still laying in my bed. Hurried myself for a quick shower, put some clothes on, dried my hair, straighten them, put sunblock and eyeliner on and ran to the door. It was 1.08pm when I was waiting for the lift. I thought I still could make it if I get on the tram once I arrive at the tram stop.

Well you know that in most apartments, you have to push some button to open the security door (the main entrance door). Mine didn't work this afternoon. At first I thought I needed to push the button harder, but it didn't make any difference! Great! I was locked in my own apartment and I couldn't get out. Trams were passing by in front of my eyes. I hated that hopeless feeling. I pushed and pushed the button again and again but still it wouldn't open. It was Sunday, trams are much less frequent than any other days. And I was in a hurry! Crap!
I tried to dial the building manager, no answer. I dialled again. Still no answer. Shit! I ran around back and forth to the button and to the door wishing it would magically open. But no magic was happening. I tried to find a fire emergency door but I couldn't find one. I was angry at the fact that there was no emergency door! What if there is fire on this apartment? Then I realized I was on level one. How stupid I was. If there is fire, of course the people on that level will just have to get out from the main entrance door. Just let's hope the door doesn't get stuck like this on fire situation though.
Then I tried to go one level up to find an emergency exit. But my sister reminded me that there are some chances if I open the door is that I would trigger the fire alarm and it would make a great mess - panic residents running around and get evacuated. I was afraid to do that and I backed down.
So I went out from the car park entrance. It was 1.30pm. I was definitely going to be late!

I was angry at the stupid door. I was angry at the building manager. So much that I brought back the thoughths of all the inconvenience I got from living in that apartment.

First : In my apartment, if we want to move in/out we have to make a lift booking. This is normal. What is not is that we are required to fill some stupid form, put the date of the booking and wait for it to be approved. Well if the date is not available, we have to make some changes and re-send the form again. Once it is approved, we have to make an arrangement to meet with the building manager to deposit $100 and get the lift key. The $100 deposit is for some kind of insurance for them in case if we break the lift or wall or whatever. The moving in/out procedures are a bit complicated, we have to get the removalist park the van/truck in the small stupid lane which is really SMALL and it is really hard to park there. I remember how every morning I went to work I had to wait for some cars going the opposite way first before I can go forward. I don't really know how to explain it but it was really SMALL, especially when you park some BIG truck there, you would definitely block the lane.
And they got these cameras everywhere. So if we do something wrong, they would deduct the $100. What a load of craps!

Second: They always put some announcement in the lift each time there are some residents do something wrong.
"On last Tuesday, there were two gentlemen put some hard rubbish on the B2 Level on 6:33pm. Could the gentlemen contact this 04xxxxxxx number. Otherwise the photos from the security camera will be taken and put on this board".
"On Monday the rubbish chute was blocked due to some residents didn't comply with the rubbish throwing policy - no loose objects, no hard rubbish bla bla bla. Security cameras are now being investigated."
"On 5:47 last Tuesday morning, there were three irresponsible residents who blocked the main entrance door with a bunch of yellow pages. This was such a dangerous and irresponsible thing to do. To avoid any embarrasement, please the residents who did that contact this number before the photos are taken."
Give me a break! I know it is a good thing to try to make every resident happy, safe and sound but I don't think there's any need to threaten the culprits by putting any photos on the board. That is just childish and ludicrous. It made us (me and my sister) afraid to do anything. I do not go to the gym downstairs due to a lot of regulations apply. I am much more willing to pay Fitness First $20 each week !

Third : If we ever accidentally leave our keys inside the unit and we cannot get in, we are required to pay the building manager $100 just to get us inside..... $100! No locksmith needed Just the building manager who's got the spare keys. $100 is bullshit.

I think this is the strictest apartment I have ever known.

Okay I know it's not fair to blame it on the door or even the building manager. I was late because of myself. I was late because of my poor time management. Next time I will try to be on time. No reasons involved if I am late. Late is late. Well I was angry at myself actually. For being late. Late. Late. Late.