Stranger

Funny, I didn’t see yesterday’s topic about “Stranger” for the daily prompt until now. Even though it was posted yesterday, I feel like writing about my random encounter with a stranger.

About a year ago, I used to tutor two students from the weekend class at ILBC. Their house is located at Shan Road (Baho Road) and my teaching hours were from 5:30 – 7:30 pm. I often take two or three buses to go to their house in the evenings but I can only take the 167 Hilux bus to get home at night. I don’t like taking 167 buses because they drive very fast but I didn’t have any other choices.

One day, I got on the 167 bus and chose to sit one seat away from the back window of the bus because I didn’t want to sit too close to the natural gas tanks placed between the seats and the back window. But, a poor-looking woman decided to sit beside the gas tank on the opposite side of the bus while holding a small baby in her laps.

After a minute, the bus took off and was going fast as usual. Suddenly, the driver hit the brake at the traffic light. I don’t exactly remember what happened to me at that time but I think I had some minor scratches.

I was silently cursing the driver when I noticed the mother and the baby sitting next to me. I found out that the baby hit his/her head on the gas tanks when the driver stepped on the brake. I look at the baby and he/she wasn’t just staring space-less without even crying.  The mother kept rubbing the baby’s chest, probably to lessen his/her shock. She also looked like she was about to cry.

I also felt like crying as well. I really wished that I had sat next to her on the bus to prevent the baby from getting hurt.

I don’t remember their faces anymore but sometimes I think of them when I’m taking Hilux buses.

Daily Prompt: Earworm | We Used to be Friends

My sister and I have been re-watching Veronica Mars Season 1 since two days ago and the theme song “We Used to be Friends” by The Dandy Warhols have been quite stuck in my head.

A long time ago, we used to be friends
But I haven’t thought of you lately at all
If ever again, a greeting I send to you,
Short and sweet to the soul is all I intend.

The lyric makes me think about friends I haven’t keep in touch with for quite a while now. I usually associate my friends into three categories, online friends, normal friends and online friends who I consider as real friends. What I mean by ‘real friends’ is friends I met outside, from work, school, etc. While I often meet with ‘online friends who I consider as real friends’ once or twice a month, it’s been quite awhile since I met with any of my normal friends.

Next week, I might be meeting with my former classmates from Diploma in English class for our annual reunion. What’s ironic is that most of the classmates who will come to the reunion are those I wasn’t quite close with in the class, but those I was close to will not come to meeting.

Compared to this diploma class, I’m more close to my classmates from MA class. It’s so difficult to meet with them after our university days are over. Maybe I will organize some kind of reunion for us. I just hope most of them will come. Whenever I organize something with me in the past, most of them rarely come.

Dog Bite

On Fridays, I get a half-day off from office so I was just reading a book at home while listening to some music when I suddenly had the urge to eat Rakhine Moat Tee at 12 Lone Tan. The shop is just 7 minutes walk from home and I always enjoy walking up the hill and down the hill. I took my time at the shop and ate the food while browsing Facebook with my phone.

On the way back, I walked back home while carrying an umbrella and a parcel of potato salad for my cousin. When I stopped to let a truck make a u-turn, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in one of my thighs. I can’t remember which side was it. I was surprised to feel the pain so I looked around and saw a dog looking from a short distance. Then, it suddenly run toward me again and bit my other thigh. There was a man watering some plants nearby so he shouted to the dog. The dog just looked at me again from the distance. I looked at thighs and only saw small scratches. I didn’t know whether the dog will attack me again so I just walked as fast as I could.

A lady around my age walked towards me and asked how I was doing. She told me to have rabies vaccination shots and drink some purified. I understand the rabies vaccination part but she got me confused about the water part. She continued and said I must have been pretty shocked and told me to drink not just any water but purified water. Maybe she was telling me to wash the wounds with purified water and got herself confused. I think she was more shocked than I was.

After I got home, I went to the clinic next door to get my shots. After waiting nearly 45 mins, I finally got to see the doctor, but she told me that she will only give me a short for lockjaw vaccination and some medicines. She told me that I can only get rabies vaccination shots at the hospitals. She asked me whether I recognized the dog. All I remember was that it was a brown dog of medium size. She said either I can go and check whether the dog die after 10 days or get the rabies vaccination shots. I don’t like needles but I have no choice but to get the vaccination shots.

So, I went to the hospital and immediately walked into the emergency room. There weren’t any patients in the room and I only saw young female doctors. One of them took the referral note from the doctor and explained to me about the process. There are two types of treatments. The first one takes about a month to complete while the second one was shorter. I chose the second treatment and got two shots on my arms. I will have to return next week to get one shot and the last shot will be given on January 4. That’s fine for the me, except for the price of course.

In the end, I had to pay 23,700 to the hospital and 8,000 kyats to the clinic. And it’s all because I wanted to eat a hot bowl of Rakhine Moat Tee. It’s not really worth it. Plus, I still have two more shots left so I will probably have to spend 25,000 to 30,000 kyats more

Thadingyut Weekend Part II

We went to Yankin Center and chatted a bit at Seasons but I was keeping quiet most of the times as my mouth hurts whenever I tried to talk due to the blisters insdie my mouth. Since I swore to myself that I will never order coffee for that place again, I ordered chocolate milkshake. When we go out, she drove us to the library. I wasn’t thinking of borrowing another book again but I ended borrowing another Grisham novel. Then we went to Latha and she bought a blouse in a shop. Just as I had suspected in the first place, she wanted to introduce me to a guy and I had to go to Moon Bakery to meet him. She introduced us and started talking but I wasn’t interested in their conversation. The place was too noisy for me and I was feeling frustrated but when I cheered up after watching Sunflower music video by Antibiotic, He commented that I am just a quiet person like my sister so I just smiled at him in reply. But in my head, I was saying to myself, “That’s what you think.”. I was really just staying quiet ‘cuz no. 1, my mouth hurts when I talk, no. 2 I don’t like talking to strangers and no. 3 I hate it when I am expected to become friends with him just because my friend wants me to.

The meeting didn’t take long and we left the place around 4pm. My friend wanted to wait for the air-con bus so I waited for the bus with her for 30 mins. My feet were already tired and a lot of buses which reached directly to my home had already passed by so many times. When the air-con bus arrived, we got on but we couldn’t sit next to each other till Thein Phyu bus stop. The aircon wasn’t that cool at all and worst of all, the bus was playing I.C Acoustic album. I don’t hate I.C band but I dislike having to listen to them on the bus. Whenever I happened to ride that air-con bus, I always have to listen to I.C singers album. That air-con bus didn’t reach my home directly so I got off with her and went home. I was hoping to eat Shwe Yin Aye but it got spoiled as I arrived home around 5pm. It was really a lousy day for me and I really wasted my times going out. The only thing I’m happy about is that the new book I borrowed from the library.. After I’m through with this book, I will ask my friend to return it for me but I won’t go with her anymore. I will made a new member next month so I can go there on Sundays whenever I want. Plus, since I usually go there twice a month, I can check out the latest kdrama DVD arrivals in Latha DVD shops. She has no patient with me to go to the shop with me ‘cuz I usually take a long time analyzing the available dramas and picking out which I want to buy.

 

I wasn’t in the sulky mood for long as I started to continue reading Coffee Price and I finished it around 11:30 pm. I have to say this was the best Korean novel I have ever read. I have read some fanfics before including Temptation of Wolf but since this one is an actual novel and the translator did a wonderful job. Not sure if these words are really mentioned in English in the original novels but I just love these words the translator used, :”EnChanting”, “Hankyulistic” and “HanKyulious”. Although I love the novel, I am really glad that the plot isn’t quite the same. If you love the drama, I recommend you all to check out the novel also but if you just want to know the difference, you can either read the whole novel or read summaries written by javabeans.

 

Sunday was the usual, not much activities as I stayed home all day. I watched Time of Wolf & Dog dvd and Over the Rainbow movie aired on MWD. I would have prefer to watch the movie with English subs but I couldn’t find it anywhere. So I just had to be satisfied with watching Lee Jung Jae on TV. I was continuing watching the drama after the movie when my cousin and her family came over to bow to my parents. My parents have received a lot of food already from relatives and neighbors who also came to bow to them and pay respect. I still haven’t go to see my relatives yet ‘cuz I’m waiting for my father to get some free times. Most of the times, we just visit my grandmother and aunt & uncle from my father’s side and my uncle and aunt from my mother side. I always enjoy going over to my uncle’s place ever since I was a kid ‘cuz they always give out a lot of foods in return. My friend told me that she got a lot of pocket money from her relatives but I rarely get pocket money from my relatives but at least my uncles gives out our favorite cakes and cookies .

 

After dinner, my family watched Time of Wolf & Dog while I buried myself in Grisham novel. I was pissed off at them for talking about the drama plot while watching the drama. Next time, I will hide the new drama dvds till I have finished watching them. I really hate spoilers but they couldn’t keep their mouth shut. At sometimes I actually have to put hands over my ears (yeah…I’m over reacting but…) ‘cuz their voices even reached downstairs and they were at the last episode.