목요일, 12월 18, 2003
well, the ordeal is over, i think. after almost 20 hours of trying to get from durham to singapore, which is approximately halfway around the world, i have made it home -- and in one piece too.

the train service got cancelled halfway on my way to manchester airport, which totally defeated my intention of taking the train at 4pm. if i had not minded the train changes, i would have taken the later train. that aside though, i was re-routed at leeds to another train that went to manchester airport. this was with my 12kg bag. it was so not manageable.

anyway, i spent the night in the airport, then got on the plane at 10am. no thanks to check-in for placing me next to miss bitch-from-hell-i'm-so-goddamn-smart. seriously, after spending the past maybe 10 hours sleeping on hard airport seats, i wasn't prepared to deal with someone whose head was obviously way up their bumcrack! it just so happened that i had received a text from someone, maybe 5 minutes before take-off, and everyone knows that you can't use a phone when the plane is in flight, but someone had obviously forgotten to notice that we had hardly left the ground yet. from her peptobismol pink, uber-pink lips were issued the following 'warning', allegedly for my 'benefit'.

'excuse me, you're not supposed to use your handphone in the aeroplane.'

i mean, like DUH! what do you take me for? a moron? i've probably been on more flights in my life than she has had years of education. to be honest, what really peeved me was the fact that she delivered her statement in such a bloody condescending way. like, who do you think you are? obviously she's some kind of staff, otherwise she wouldn't be acting thus. someone should tell her that just because you're an off-duty stewardess doesn't mean that no one else knows anything to save their arses when it comes to flight regulation. from her vibrant chattiness to the middle-aged japanese businessman on the other side of the aisle, i gathered that she was from penang.

sample piece of conversation:

ditzy non-blonde:oh, new york is just like singapore! so many tall buildings! i didn't really like it! la, chicago and florida were MUCH better!

jap man: oh, i liked new york. it was quite nice i thought.

ditzy non-blonde: oh really! actually, i LIKED new york too! *giggle giggle*

cue: roll eyes.

whoa, silver. how do they ever do it? 12 hours of that was enough to drive me crazy. not to mention that she had the annoying accent that i just cannot stand. so there it was, the jabberwocky (of sorts) that i was made, quite literally, to put up with.

that, and the cruel fact that none of the flight staff actually on duty could understand me (nay, my requests. read: do you have an orange? translates to a plastic cup full of orange juice to my tray table) WHAT?! was i not speaking english? the aisles were awash with snatches of chinese-helicopter style 'conversation', if you could call it that. and to think that the service on sq flights are touted to be one of the best. (star alliance??) from what i see, once they see that you're travelling alone and a) young, b) not rich, c) female, they can't be arsed to deal with you and your nitty-gritty needs which are oh-so-unimportant, but ooooh that gentleman over there NEEDS an extra glass of wine to add to the 15 or so that he's already had in the past 2 hours, so why do you need a glass of milk at all?

the hypocrisy of it all.

that said though, i'm so happy to be back home. honest. back to people who actually care and love me, and who i love as much as i do existence itself. somehow being with them makes life worth living again.