Exhale

Konichiwa!!!!! Hajimemashite??!

Japanese is fun! Its a very refined "musical" language - if that makes any logical or grammatical sense at all! Its rolls off your tongue very nicely...once you're actually familiar with the words that is. And right now, unfortunately, I'm not =( In fact during the first Jap lesson, my Spanish vocabularly kept infiltrating! I'd go "Si...oh no wait...Hai". Utterly bizzare! Oh well slow and steady then...plus lots of practice (ie: muttering under my breath) till I get it down pat.

So anyway, I was at work the other day and my extremely Christian Boss happened to be chatting with a patient of his...a free thinking lawyer (gasp horrors of horrors!)

B: So. You are a free thinker? (gasp horrors of horrors!)
Lawyer: Haha yes and I refuse to be converted! (gasp horrors of horrors!) But I have a very devout Christian supervisor at work.
B:Oh! Aha you have a good role model then.
Lawyer: Haha really? Well she's very devout and she lectures me when I don't behave in a very Christian way.
B: She's a lawyer too? That's good...Christians are very logical and reasonable. You should emulate her and your other Christian colleagues!
Lawyer: Mm perhaps, but there are some Christian lawyers I know in the workplace who don't really behave in an upright or admirable way.
B: ...Really?
Lawyer: *seriously* Yes really.
B: *sudden brainwave* Ah but they may be Roman Catholic! You should do your homework and check up their backgrounds!
Lawyer: That's quite insulting!

Haha I apologize for the sarcasm but really. It seems faintly ridiculous and almost hilarious now that I think back on the incident even though I could literally feel the bile rising up my throat at that time. Quite insulting? Por supuesto! But of course! Apart from the tiny fact that it was said in front of, oh, illogical me (gasp! horror of horrors!) even if I am just a lowly secretary-cum-receptionist-cum-odd errands persun...I have, well, something rather trivial called feelings. And of course there was the rather narrow-minded assumption that ALL (insert) are upright/moral/oozing of probity and ALL OTHER (non-insert) are amoral, misguided, poor unenlightened pagan fools or infidels. Horror of horrors! They need guidance! (Good (insert) role models with A levels need only apply!)

I really do apologize for the sarcasm. I'm just in a bit of a loopy mood tonight and I had the most awful, tasteless beef ramen at Sakae Sushi. Of course I have met plenty of nice, good and perfectly pleasant people who are (insert all religions/non-religious), just as I have met those who are also (insert all religions/non-religious) but aren't exactly ms Congeniality material. I think its dangerous to view people in purely black and white terms without considering the huge mesh of grey swimming in the middle. And to think I was the one dying slowly of myopia with all my data entry duties.

And no dear Sir. Spending just four miserable years in Catholic High as you once smugly told me, does not make you an authority on the faith itself. I'm so sorry to disappoint. But you know, maybe a bunch of adolescent boys with raging hormones confined with more adolescent boys with raging hormones, regardless of creed, race, religion or school, aren't exactly the best specimens to observe in order to make your judgment about an organization. My condolences.

And of course the final insult is to assume that those who do not subscribe to a religion or to a (specific religion) automatically have no moral code whatsoever to live by. That they are, literally, wading chin-deep in sin, infamy and blind ignorance of what's right and what's wrong. That they are in need of your conscience which is of course perfectly good and clean and pure vanilla with a cherry on the top.

I do like my boss overall. He's generous and is generally ok to work with. But life does have its curious and humorous ironies. In the end I think I respected the free-thinking lawyer, who cheerfully dispensed career advice and wished me luck for my results, more than I did the holy moley. Who, I might add, after his brazen remarks in my face, had the shameless cheek to grin at me and toss me more work to do for his church. Ah but I ought not to descend into bitterness again. The truly magnaminous thing would be to ignore, smile, forgive. *Que sera que sera whatever will be will be* I really do hope I don't become a holy-moley.

But whatever it is. I'm glad I'm quitting by the end of this month. Off to more secular and professional pastures I hope!

posted by Jeanne @ 10:46 PM