Our kitten was trying to tell me not to leave by refusing to move from the top of my suitcase. It seems someone else out there (*gestures to the cosmos*) didn’t want me to go either because my passport went missing and instead of being most of my way through a flight to Jakarta, I’m still here in London. FML.
So now for a fortnight of mad chasing of a new passport (£97…ouccccch), another flight (£££…) and my insurance company. Yaaay. When I could be halfway across the world with the cutest kids eating nice food. There are some perks to still being at home, but I’m feeling pretty sad.
I’ve got an interview on Tuesday for a translating job that will last about 2 days. The task is for a documentary translating interviews in Indonesian into English subtitles. The guy interviewing me didn’t believe that my mother is Indonesian because I have an Irish surname. Hmm. If I say my mother is Indonesian and don’t say that my parents are Indonesian, what does that imply? That my father (from whom I inherit my surname) isn’t Indonesian also, perhaps? Such foolishness. I had to tell him my full name (with Indonesian middle names) to “prove myself”, as it were.
I came across yet more foolishness during the week from someone at work. He didn’t realise that neither of my parents are English because my accent is ’so posh’. You know, because all second-generation kids have to talk in a thick south London accent. He’s been quite indifferent to me all year because he wrote me off as a spoilt rich kid, purely on the basis of the way I speak. I could prove myself and tell him that I got into private school for free because my mum taught me at home, that I worked throughout my degree to fund myself, that I grew up in Croydon and not even in one of the rich areas and that I have worked damn hard for everything I have and have yet more hard work ahead of me. What would I be proving? That I too judge books by their covers? That I make assumptions about people on the basis of the way they look and speak? That I’m an exception to the rule? That would show only that the rule exists. The man is a lecturer at work and is an immigrant himself. You would think he might know a thing or two about jumping to conclusions.
I’m just making a start on The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done About It by Paul Collier. I read Collier last year for a development course, so I’ll be interested to get stuck into this book. Be prepared for an inevitable rant in the forseeable future!
