Friday 23rd of November 2001
This is one of the very few times I don’t have a lot to do at work! It feels strange….
Just as well, as it’s so difficult to find time to write when I’m at home.
Well, last time I wrote I was going to talk about September the 11th, but ended up venting about R.. This time I’ll leave the complaining for the latter part of the entry.
The day America got attacked I was at work, and rumours started being heard about an airplane hitting the WTC. About 5 minutes later a few of us went to the first floor to watch the news on the telly. It was packed full of people, and the first thing I saw was the second plane hitting the second tower. My gut feeling was this was an anti-capitalism protest gone mad (there had been quite a few protests going on around the world). But I couldn’t be more wrong… And so for the next few weeks till now all we’ve had is this. First of all, the victims of the plane crashes in New York, Washington and the plane that fell in the middle of nowhere were everyone’s main focus. The whole world was catatonic, just watching the scenes being played over and over again on telly, like a broken record. These were the most incredible scenes I had ever seen in my life, and they got imprinted on everyone’s brain, like when JFK was killed, or man landed on the moon.
Next we had a crash course on Osama Bin Laden, Afghnistan (I still can’t spell it), Pakistan. On and on. Minor details like the worst economic crisis to ever hit the Argentinian economy hardly got a mention on the main press. Then the ‘war’ started, and at that point I just lost interest because the whole thing had turned into a joke, as it always does when America is involved. I’m so glad I’m not American… The biggest country in the world, and its little allies (mainly Britain) started bombing the hell out of Afghanistan (now I can spell it, the wonders of the internet). Millions of refugees started running away, starving to death. The aid packets dropped via airplane had the same colour & shape, as the explosives. So, you can guess what happened: either people wouldn’t get any food for fear it might explode, or people would get blown up while getting to what they thought was food. The madness of it all…
In case you don’t know (missed the history lesson at school), Afghanistan is the country Bin Laden has chosen for hiding. Bin Laden is supposed to be this fearsome terrorist (trained by the CIA, funnily enough) who supposedly organised the whole terrorist attack from a cave somewhere in the Afghan mountains, via fax (and probably carrier pigeon, I don’t know…). The point is, someone organised this operation to drive planes into the main symbols of America, an operation which involved at least 50 people a couple of years of planning. The cap fitted Bin Laden, so America must destroy a whole country to get to one man. Granted, the Taliban is one of the most oppressive governments (dictatorship, more like) I’ve ever heard of: no music, or tv allowed, women can’t work or be educated, men can’t shave, and so on. But in the end, it’s always the innocent who pay, isn’t it?
Now the Taliban has ran away from most places, but are holding strong positions in some areas. Some refugees want to go back home, and the televisions are on again, people are dancing on the streets, all very happy. Maybe America/Britain were right in doing what they did?! Time will tell. Still, they haven’t got Bin Laden. Maybe he’s dead already and nobody knows? Maybe he’s hiding in a completely different country. Who knows… I really hope they don’t kill the guy when they catch him. That would be wrong. They don’t even know for sure if he did it (he has been known to deny involvement, although he thought it was a good attack, as America is the scum of the earth to him). If they catch him alive, will he ever have a fair trial? There are so many people out there who absolutely hate America (quite a few enemies within to – I mean, the Anthrax attacks, appear to be a domestic problem), something is got to give…
The world has changed quite a lot since the attacks. For starters there’s a deep recession looming. We are all worried about losing our jobs, everywhere. I want to leave Riversoft as I haven’t had a pay rise for over a year, and no bonuses either. I can ask for a pay rise, but it doesn’t mean I’ll get, nobody else has. The reason I won’t leave is because there are no jobs out there… Better the devil you know in these situations. Most of the people who were made redundant haven’t found a decent job yet… I think I am lucky that I even have a job at this point.
R. hasn’t had a single interview since he left his job, even though he’s applied for a lot of jobs. This would have been unheard of a few months back… So he’s trying to get his own business off the ground, on his own. He’s written a very good business description. I really hope it works out for him, as he’s very good at what he does and he deserves a break. Everything seems to go wrong for R. We’re still not getting on at all, and as soon as I can, I’m going to buy a 1 bedroom flat somewhere. The reason I haven’t moved out yet is that I can’t afford to pay the high rents in London, plus your child care and R. can’t pay a penny for obvious reasons.
Work has been heavy, some very tight deadlines but I came through, although forget about rewards or any type of appreciation. I guess I get paid for my work and that’s all I need… But I can’t even afford to get a mortgage on a 1 bed flat… Bollocks to that. And the shares have gone down to 10p a couple of weeks ago and now stand at 19p. Will I ever get my money back?
I’m smoking 10 cigarettes a day, every bastard day. I guess the stress of arguing with R. and being unhappy is getting to me. To make it worse I’ve got no friends around. They all moved away or deserted me, because I’m such a horrible person – as R. puts it. Pretty lonely. I’m also finding it hard to relate to people and make new friends at work. For starters they are mostly men, and the women don’t seem to like me. There’s obviously something seriously wrong with me, but I can’t put my finger on it. We’ve all got our crosses to bear hey? I hope you can handle reading all this. Just pretend I’m not your mum!
As for you, well you’re growing, obviously. We’re planning a nice party for your 3rd birthday, on the 15th, and we hired a caravan/playgroup type of thing which is near our house. So far there are more adults than kids coming, so it should be a laugh! You’ve been a bit sick lately with a tummy virus (which I’ve got too), but it’s nothing compared with the virus you had about a month ago, when you spent 24 hours vomiting nearly every ½ hour. What a nightmare! We needed a new carpet after that, but we haven’t replaced it yet. Hard times are here, not a lot cash flow going on. You’re getting funnier every day and can recognise quite a few letters: A is for Apple, E is for Emma, L is for tuticia (that ‘s what you call me sometimes). I’m trying to teach you how to swim but so far only managed to get you in the pool once, it’s too cold and busy in there…
Marlene is still looking after you during the week, and I’m still pretty tired when I get home from work. If I didn’t have to drive it would be so much easier. I wish I lived 5 minutes away from work or that I could work from home more often.
As I was saying, you had this tummy bug, which meant a lot of caca coming out of your bum. This had a good point, as you have finally learned to used the potty for your cacas. Prior to that you’d only pee there, and blankly refused to do your number twos anywhere but in your nappy!. You even demand to use the toilet bowl instead of the potty. This just happened this week, so now we should go through fewer nappies. Boy, you just don’t stop growing!!! Stop the time… I’ll soon be 80 at this rate.
I’m going to stop now. I ran out of steam.