Fancy a Houseman?

For the short time that I’ve been here, I learnt more things about the Malaysian community than my main purpose of academia.. But ain’t that typical?? Talk about losing focus at such an early stage.

Anyway.. what is it that I’ve learnt?

Most of those who are actually pursuing their graduate studies are the female ones of the household. Which means, the men are the ones who resign from their posts back home and willingly follow their spouses. To make ends meet or to simply earn supplementary income, most of them work as cleaners, factory workers, in restaurants, anywhere. I have heard about this occurrence, long before coming here, but I just didn’t realize its extent. Of course, there are also quite a number of women who ditched everything and accompanied their husbands. So what do they do in their free time? Organize and attend cooking classes, flower-arranging classes, ketupat anyam classes.. Basically perfecting their skills of being the model housewife, minus the killings and other dodgy elements of the Desperate Housewives.

I have high admiration for these people -those who selflessly let go of everything for the name of love or for the sake of the family, whichever you look at it, as I’m not one to do it myself. I have several reasons for this (putting my research writing skills to extreme use here i.e. giving justifications for everything, minus the reference though). Firstly, we know that it’s not easy to work professionally in a foreign country unless you’re: 1. a true expert in your field, 2. extremely lucky, or 3. at the right place at the right time with the right qualifications -then again, doesn’t this fall under ‘lucky’? But I’m digressing.. Personally, I know of only five people who are working in the UK, and not as cleaners. Two are doctors, one an accountant, one an auditor about to finish his last ACCA paper and the other is also an auditor who is lucky to initially have a PR status (*more about this guy later).

Many of these other househusbands do try to gain jobs according to their qualifications but to no avail. It’s not that they didn’t try. I asked several of them and the answers I get are similar -it can get discriminatory when applying jobs here. The Mat Sallehs didn’t want an Asian or Muslim engineer. This situation reminds me of the asterisk guy * above. He too resigned his post as an auditor back home and followed his wife (who is my good friend) to further her Masters. He tried and tried to get a decent job. Attended numerous interviews but left empty-handed. He was so frustrated, to the point of depression.. And he’s got a PR status as he was born in the UK. But nine months later, unexpectedly, he got a job. You can call it rezeki baby, ‘cos he got the job immediately after my friend gave birth to their first-born son. You can guess that after her Masters, my friend continued for her PhD -despite her university commanding her back to service- as good jobs are not easy to acquire.

Apart from working less than qualifying jobs, there’s also the pressure of finding a sense of belonging. I mean, while their spouses do have other responsibilities as students and need to go to campus, what do they have? No family around.. no jobs to go to.. I guess that’s why the Malaysian community is close-knit here. Only they know what the other is going through.

And not forgetting, what happens when they come back? Assuming that these female doctorates aren’t like my friend who is fleeing her university and the country, let’s say they do come back. What happens to their husbands? With 4-5 years of lost experience, even engineers need to start over. Their shelf lives become, well, unmarketable. Many ex-househusbands in the end join the business sector. Not too bad an arrangement, I suppose.. But not everybody has the knack for business.

So there are many risky aspects.

As mentioned, I for one, do not have that same ‘courage’, if you’d call it that. It’s not that my hubby doesn’t love me.. it’s not that I’m a cruel mother to have abandoned her 18-month old baby back home while she suka-suka datang UK jadik student.. it’s just that I can’t bear to see my husband, the main breadwinner of my family, release his job to accompany me. The job he worked so hard for to earn (out of over 300 candidates, he was among the 4 chosen, with two levels of interviews and written exam, no less), the same job that got him closer to me (we were weekend husband-and-wife before that).. and the same job that pays a lot of our bills. Though I love my career, I certainly love my husband and his career more. Bottom line is, I don’t want him to quit to support me. I need him to stay in order to reassure me. I need to know that I’m not the only one working my butt off (literally speaking) for our family. And that to me, is the best support ever.

So that was why I opted for this programme. It’s a new scheme under the 9MP and only those academicians who aren’t ignorant will know of this. I do apologize if I sound a tad bitter, it’s just that many do not understand my current situation and the minute they hear about the structure of my course, they look at me incredulously with either these statements:

“Abih baby camne? U tinggal ngan sapa?” <– ngan hantu, tak tau ke??
“Oh dear, I can’t function without my kids.. I don’t know how you could” <– I suppose you’re dead at the office ‘cos I don’t see your kids around
“Tak penat ke ulang-alik UK cam tu? Baik buat terus full-time”

Mind you, this is a full-time course, not those twinning degree programs where you spend only the last year abroad. I have two Supervisors here and a local one as my Co-Supervisor. That comes to show how serious I am to make this work. Oh well, I’m just gonna do my thang and hopefully He’ll be with me throughout my entire journey. To do the best research I can and get it done on time. Amin.

P.S Btw Zura, your second guess was right. As much as I’d like to think that I’m bright, Cambridge is way out of my league!

Cloudy London

Went on a day trip to London today. It was a last minute thingie. The International Office emailed us ‘International’ students (duh) just 2 days ago about the trip. Thinking that I didn’t have anything planned for the weekend, why not waste my time (and money) in London. So off we were on a chartered bus this morning at 8am. The drive went pretty quickly, mainly ‘cos I was sleeping 3/4 of the time. We were dropped off at our ‘pit stop’ called Bressenden Place, somewhere near Victoria Station.

I didn’t have any itinerary lined up on what to do as I was there about five months ago with my family on a holiday. Of course at that time, most of my expenses were ’sponsored’ by my hubby. Then there was my mentality as a tourist. So my visit today was slightly different. For one, I had to pay for everything and two, I am a student, which means expenditures are often on a budget… But even on a budget, I managed to get myself a seemingly cool canvas sling bag, a couple of Man Utd and England jerseys and a belt. There goes my allotment till next weekend.

London, as always, looks gloomy like it’s about to rain any minute. The clouds were so thick that by 5.45pm, it was close to darkness. Our bus was scheduled to leave by then, so off we were like participants of The Amazing Race, rushing about. But instead of camping bags, we had with us our shopping bags to the pit stop so that we won’t be left behind.

Overall it was a nice day spent and somehow, it made me felt closer to my family. I guess our trip several months ago still had its mark on London. Naked to the public eye, but I truly felt it.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Here’s a little description of our abode for the next six months.

It’s a two-storey, two-bedroom house, complete with basic furniture and a fireplace. Not those traditional ones where you burn logs though, it’s more of us flicking the lighter and the gas will preserve the heat according to the temperature we set -but hey, there’s fire no less! The house agent was kind enough to provide us with a new washing machine (the old one had its door broken) and a microwave, so thing’s aren’t too bad. Unfortunately, our individual heaters don’t seem to be working all that well. The past few days have been so cold I cursed the darn thing nightly. Few had advised me to get one of those portable heat blower at Argos. Maybe I will, when I get to the city. Even the water has a mind of its own. It only gets hot in the afternoons, but the times when I need it to be hot the most (mainly at night), it’s all cold. Only the shower has constant hot water supply.

Since there are three of us sharing this place, we converted the living room into a bedroom. So one of my friend occupies this space but sleeps in my room at night. Not a bad arrangement, at least for me. I felt bad for her initially but since she has the fireplace all to herself whilst the rest of us nearly freezing to death at night, I guess the arrangement wasn’t all that bad for her either.

My room overlooks the backyard.. I catch a glimpse of the fat tabby cat of our neighbour’s everyday. The area we stay in is very quiet. Hardly any vehicle passes along our street. That’s nice, I guess, since we’re all serious grad students. Hehe.

There are times when I miss my family very much. Try to keep myself preoccupied with readings (not academic, unfortunately) but it’s hard not to miss home. I text my hubby daily and he keeps me updated with our little girl’s progress. She said ‘mommy’ the other day for the first time and I missed it! She’s a bright, cheeky girl.. So cheeky that she can repeat almost anything we say except mommy. Hmph. And she would sengih when she sees how frustrated I get. Rindu nyerr kat dia!!!

Oh well, life’s about making sacrifices at times and at this point, this is mine. Home is where the heart is, and for me, it’s definitely way back in Malaysia no matter where I am in the world right now.

Settling In

I’m finally here -all cold and shivering. Will settle in our own space today. A recap of the happenings over the last few days:

• Arrived in the UK on Thursday (March 15th) at 7.30am, endured the long queue at the Immigration after which my friends and I were gushed to the Health Control Inspection office. According to them, we had to be tested since we were gonna be staying here for more than 6 months. I cursed inwards as the whole thing made me feel like a lab mice (just not as cute) but the guy was only doing his job. Fortunately for me, they didn’t require me to do an X-ray examination. My friend wasn’t that lucky. She had to do the x-ray, where in fact, she’s the one who brought her X-ray all the way from home stuffed nicely in her luggage. I consider myself lucky indeed.
• After collecting our luggage -it was around 9.20am- we rushed to the Central Bus Station to buy the ticket to our main destination. Unfortunately, the 10 o’clock bus was full and the next one will only arrive at half past noon, which means we had three hours of waiting. And I absolutely abhor waiting! I was like, in and out of the drugstore 400 times not knowing whether to get the salt & vinegar chips or Snickers, the most difficult decision in the world. In the end I got both only to realize at my 300th visit that there was a Sudoku mini book for sale, complete with pencil. Didn’t get that though as my head was already pounding due to the long wait.
• The bus ride was ok, but if I have to endure anymore of this plane/bus rides, I will screamm!!! Enough already. My neck was stiff as it is after that 14-hour flight (direct, I might add)
• Bumped in our transit home -belonged to three undergraduate students. They treated us real well. Even cooked decent meals for us -God bless them! We stayed with these dears for just 2 days as we’d been very lucky to find ourselves a cozy house to rent just two doors down! Coincidence or what? More description of our home later.

Visa -Check

My visa application was a success. I collected my passport and visa yesterday, meaning that the process only took two days. Not bad. Yet, I often hear complaints from peers that their applications either got prolonged or worse, rejected. I’m counting my lucky stars and the fact that I’m so much like my dad. Ever-so meticulous at gathering documents, photostating them and putting them in folders that we drive others mad.

Now the only thing left to do is, by far, my favourite -SHOPPING!!