In total shock, my eyes grew at the sight before me.

My mother had a better reaction, though: She stepped out of the car and went to check it out.

I'm talking about my old home, the two-storeyed fortress that is probably half-shattered in rubble by now.

When we stopped the car outside the building, it was easy to see that some damage had been carried out before the diggers arrived. The garden was unrecognisable, littered with shattered glass and pieces of plaster and debris. The windows and doors were gone, and so was half the roof.

While she checked out what was of the backyard, I went upstairs, sidestepping the roof tiles laid out on the carpeted stairway.

I noticed that a lot of light was coming through the stairwell. When I looked up, I saw the gaping skylights.

Wow.

It was the stark realisation that part of my childhood was going to be demolished in a blink, and it had merely just started.

I went to the bedroom, and it was in a bad state. Where my bed used to stand was a pile of dirt, shattered lights, and the frames of the window that I used to look out of if I found time on a weekend to stare at the sky.

I didn't cry. The realisation that this house of sentiment was going did not bother me so much to that state. I was prepared for it, and it helped. All I had was a dropped jaw and muteness for the rest of the short walkaround in the old house, and my last time doing so.

When I got back in the car, my mother was already waiting, and we left as the construction team moved in.

To leave this sullen note, I have been accepted as a temporary staff at a bank, meant to assist in data conversion. I had been prepared for a tough office job, but this one topped my experience. I had never worked with a bank's entire databank before, but I have to do so for this one.

Risky.

But the pay is going to be good, a pay by the hour that's over two digits. (Ah... I forgot to ask them what was my pay. Ah well, the experience of working with a new programme and requirements will help me a lot more than the money would) and I had spent quite a bit over the past few weeks on lunches and a nasty burn by purchasing three CDs, two Enya albums and the Dreamgirls soundtrack.

It's high time for me to don those work glasses and office wear, and get down to some serious business (*cough*) for three weeks, at least five hours a day and including a lunch break.

Go me!

(And I found my office shirts yesterday, if the reader remembers a past post in this blog.)