Write Affair » Work

Sleepless At Home

WishBoNe — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:58:22 +0000

One would think that one is more comfortable at home and will be able to sleep well at home than at other places. Unfortunately for Nancy, she could never fall asleep no matter what. She tried to block out the noises to no avail. For months, her new neighbour had been blasting the TV set loud enough for her to hear.

Calling the police twice brought no relief. Her neighbour continued the practice from 10pm to 3am everyday. When Nancy was finally up at 7am despite sleeping for just 4 hours, the neighbour was already blasting the TV set at 7am.

Working at home had become a pain and Nancy resorted to using the public library’s resources. Her work suffered a little and she wanted the source of the noise removed. Being sleepless meant that she wouldn’t perform well for her freelancing gigs and she didn’t want to lose any of her clients during this recession.

Being surrounded by 3 units next to her bedroom, she was unable to deduce the source since the noise seemed be loud enough just for her ears alone. Knocking on doors on the pretense of borrowing sugar brought her no closer to the culprit.

Each time she heard the noises from the neighbour’s TV set, she cursed. She cursed that the culprit will be deaf soon, TV set to be spoilt every time a certain volume was reached, no electronic product will last long in the hands of such inconsiderate person and may the person go blind.

Until now, her curses didn’t seem to work and the noise continued throughout every night. Sometimes, she wanted to smash the source of the noise into little pieces. At other times, her lost of sleep made her irritated and short tempered more easily.

Unable to take the torture any more, Nancy took out her trusty Nikon with 20x optical zoom and went across her building to the one opposite hers. Once there, she set up the tripod, adjusted the aperture and shutter speed.

Zooming towards her apartment, she scanned the windows near hers and found only one with the lights on. Zooming in, she found her source. The girl was in her teens and munching on her potato chips watching some idol drama.

Nancy took a few shots with incriminating evidence before packing for home. Sleepless at home was the worst thing since she had always loved being at home doing her stuff. With the evidence in hand, Nancy printed a few black and white copies.

She wanted to ask the girl to lower down the volume however, the girl sneered at her before slamming the door in her face. Fuming, Nancy pasted the photo of her with the words, “She keeps you awake at 3am daily.” in front of the lifts.

It was evil but it solved the noise problem as she saw the girl moving out a few days later.

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A Cold Day

WishBoNe — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:37:50 +0000

The day started out as warm and humid. She perspired profusely and when the wind blew, she smiled. The day was turning out to be good after all. Sleepy, she took a nap and woke up when she heard thunder. The sky had turned grey too.

Stuck, she turned to concentrate on her jewellery making since going out in the heavy rain would induce coldness to her body; something that she didn’t care for. After completing 3 pairs of earrings and 2 necklaces, the rain wasn’t letting up.

Since her inspirations were used for the jewellery, she went on to check if there was anything online that was interesting enough. Noticing that a granny was fit enough to give chase to her snatch thieves, she was amused. the granny was a former cross-country champion and was still swimming and jogging regularly.

Checking the weather site, she realised that the rain was going to stay for the rest of the day. Sighing, her bills would have to wait for another day. However, she was glad that she completed writing 2 stories and her jewellery for sale on such a wet day.

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Calista Teo

WishBoNe — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 02:30:28 +0000

[Author's Note: Character for National Novel Writing Month.]

A pretty lady with a successful career. She is often sought after by men for her grace and beauty while women hate her for her looks. Once mistaken for a mistress of a rich businessman, the wife sent her a threatening letter to stay away from her husband.

This led to a period of depression as Calista was facing pressure from work for a promotion that she wanted to get desperately. She went through it with help from her close friends. She has since become stronger and is known to be cold towards men whom she doesn’t know very well.

Despite her cool exterior towards men, she yearns for someone who can let her cry on his shoulders and just be with her when she needs someone to lean on. She hopes to find him one day.

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Kylynn Wu

WishBoNe — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:30:58 +0000

[Author's Note: This is a character for the National Novel Writing Month.]

Kylynn is a woman who has been searching for what she wanted to do all her life. She is often changing companies while keeping to the same job scope. The routine has been carrying on for 5 years when she realised that she doesn’t want the same thing.

She just wants to do something that she has been wanting to do in life. However, her parents are unable to understand why she would give up the high pay and do nothing at home. They try various means such as telling her to try the MLM that they believe in due to its length in business while she resists against the idea as she doesn’t feel comfortable talking to some stranger about the benefits of any products.

She feels that MLM is about sales and quotas that she hates to the core. She just wants to try something out by herself and has a her little business startup online while doing a few other things at the same time. Her experience with the Internet has helped her in setting up a few websites that she likes to focus on. Those websites have been done before she left her job.

Feeling that she is unable to make her parents understand, she tries to endure the constant nagging about finding a job while the economy isn’t stable. Her failures in 12 interviews have led her to despair that nobody wants to hire a woman who is reaching her 30s. They either feel she is too young for a supervisory role due to her lack of experience or she is too old for the same job level.

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Edna Yong

WishBoNe — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:42:01 +0000

[Author's Note: This is a character for an upcoming novel for the National Novel Writing Month.]

Edna Yong, a woman who had never had any intimate relationships with anyone. She loves to party and had a few meetings with potential men without further progress except just for drinks. She isn’t one to worry about whether she would settle down eventually.

Her parents are worried for her and have tried to match-make her with friends’ sons without success either. Edna loves life and finds the men too nerdy for her tastes. She would often entertain her parents by attending the sessions but the conversations never progress further than ‘hi’ and ‘bye’.

She hates her working life as it is too routine and often dreams of traveling to Europe and America just to get away from it. She wishes that life is more interesting than just working hard to pay the bills and rising fares. She wishes that there is something more than just working hard to travel and live.

As she approaches the 3rd decade of her life, she feels miserable that there isn’t more to life.

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