I went to bed last night hating the world.

Not for any injustice it has ever done to me, but for how very awful it is for people around me.

Overheard Dewi (new help) sobbing her heart out while talking to her pre-school son on the phone yesterday, asking if he's been a good boy. I quietly got my juice and fled the kitchen, but that heartbreak lingered. And suddenly I remembered that look on her face when she showed us the photo of her husband and son back in Indonesia - it was one of pride, joy, but also of longing.

Dewi's been lucky, but how many more out there have left their families, only to be treated like house-elves, like vermin? I don't have to look far. Or to have family tragedies happening and not being able to be there. I still remember Celeste. Or to happily carry their hard-earned salaries back, only to be mugged at the bus station just a path down from home.

And here we all are, thinking we're the unluckiest fools on earth - where sitting in an air-conditioned room with coffee and memorising books is considered pure agony; where women here grouse about the details like Valentine's flowers, "SNAGs" and credit cards; where our everyday stresses are but the most mundane of things.

It's just not good at all. Oh, the things we humans do to one another!