A Meaningless M onologue

Even in this Shithole there are enclaves which make the smoky realms of Gehenna a pleasant destination for tourists. UniShit is a good example. Its scenery is insipid, and the denizens roaming its nightmarish landscape are unsightly, with mental capabilities reminiscent of the environs where they infest. To get to this Hell, I have to endure nearly an hour of standing on an overcrowded bus. By the time I reach the place, I am too tired to concentrate on whatever the lecturer is saying. My stomach will growl from my missing dinner, and my eyes, already tired from staring at the computer screen at work, will suffer blurriness. My reward for enduring two hours of this self-imposed punishment – I am usually an hour late; a torture session is three hours long – is to join the throng at the bus stand and quietly suffer slow suffocation while waiting to board yet another overcrowded bus. By the time I reach a slop house, dinner has become supper, and even given my hunger I am too exhausted to have much of an appetite.

I am losing weight and at this rate I will surely be as emaciated as a World War II prisoner of war. My reflexes are slowing and my resistance to disease and other debilitating effects is deteriorating. What primarily stop me from emulating Robert Enke’s spectacular feat is the prospect of leaving this shithole and starting a life elsewhere. I think of this possibility every waking moment. It is an obsession that can only be cured when I either achieve my objective or meet my demise. I do not hope. Hope is the same as faith. It is irrational, irresponsible, and a weakness. The implied certainty that comes with expectation is, while superior, pales in comparison to the realization of what was previously an expectation. Hope is intrinsically empty. Like faith, it must be eradicated. When all else fail, there is the comfort only extirpation can bring. Embrace it. Fear it not.

* * *

Chicken and I went to the Holy Land nearly a tenday ago. The Chinese merchandise on display had porcelain skin and a brazen attitude commensurate with their high, magnificent breasts. The Thai and Indonesian goods were unworthy of scrutiny. As we strolled, entrepreneurs accosted us. Their goods were inferior and looked distinctly sad-eyed. Clearly their businesses targeted a more unsavory and desperate consumer niche.

The age of globalization has well and truly descended upon this shithole. Gone were the locals; in their place, Vietnamese and Thai men entertained speculators at the cards-and-dice tables. Shitholers are having everything, from their jobs and women, taken by foreigners. Now, they cannot even land a job in the black market and criminal fringes. Too bad XR was not with us. An hour walking around the Holy Land would have been more enriching to him than two decades of insipid schooling ever did. I learned more about entrepreneurship in the Holy Land than at UniShit. Maybe those pedantic, elitist and self-congratulatory prats from Harvard should set up a Business school right in the heart of the Holy Land.

* * *

After our Finance class, my mate and I denounced UniShit on our journey to the train station. I started the ball rolling by cussing our shite university. Inspired by the exquisite truth in my vehemence, he added that UniShit has absolutely no quality control over its intake of students. Any imbecile with money could just sign up and contribute his inferior qualities to an already noxious environment. It was obvious from the start that the whoresons just wanted our dough. When the regime announced it was giving a 40% subsidy to native Shitholers studying for a degree at UniShit, it raised prices for its modules and made us pay for what were previous free refreshments the very next season. He further added that the piece of paper is just for show and we do not really learn anything much.

I quite agree with his assessment. Personally, I feel – and this is a feeling that grows stronger with each passing day – that I would have been better off pursuing a degree in English. Last year thousands of Business graduates could not find employment after they finished their studies. I seem to recall a grossly overpaid minister saying that Business students should not be choosy and take up blue-collar jobs. MENSA should have offered him a free IQ test. A friend of mine said that he had to cap his salary demands to two grand, which was really pathetic for a degree holder. On Sunday, a Filipino working in the tourism and hospitality industry was featured in a local tabloid. He claimed to have a degree in his chosen field and is taking home $1,900 a month. This is really obscene. Foreigners are coming here, elevating our working hours almost to slavery and depressing our wages until we are practically paupers. Despite the lies our regime is telling about restricting the number of immigrants in the next five years and investing more on Shitholers, I think by the time I graduate – assuming I manage this incredible feat – I would be imposing a asking salary cap of $1,800. Furthermore, with so many paper mills offering business degrees, the price that piece of paper fetches will depreciate even more. If I had gone for an English degree, I would be able to ask for higher than two grand. Very few Chinese, Bangladesh, Indians and Shitholers will ever take up a degree in English, so there is less competition. The only thing that can upset the status quo is if they import more Filipinos (a likely scenario), or Shitholers suddenly start to take English properly (when pigs fly). Being a copywriter or editor is definitely easier than killing one another in the acrimonious world of business. True, I may not ever be rich, but the same applies to a business graduate. You do not get rich working for people. If you asked me, I would rather look at sentences than examine rows and rows of ledgers. I prefer criticizing people over their writing (just ask the Old Guy), than sucking up and sniffing some self-important executive’s scrawny butt.

* * *

Speaking of the Old Guy, I have decided to temporarily stop my peer-review of his book. I have two assignments to clear within the next 7 to 13 days and I cannot afford to expend brainpower on non-profitable endeavors. It has been an exasperating experience. I feel he is being overly defensive about his work. There is hardly anything wrong with his diction, but his style is long-winded and he sometimes wrote out of point. Gabby and I offered our honest opinions, but unfortunately the Old Guy mostly just refuses to change. XH promised to help us but ended up giving some really pathetic excuses. There is still much work to be done. Until we told him, the Old Guy did not even know he could get news online for free. (Maybe this explains why he quotes so often from the Shite Times. He claims he wants to target local readers, but he is simply just being daft and/or lazy.)

As a friend I wish him the best for his work. As an atheist I do not want him to screw up big time and disgrace the rest of us. Our kind has always produced quality books and he better not be the first to balls it up. After I am done with my stupid assignments, maybe I will continue to review his book. Depends really.