It's very easy:

Sleep enough and I can wake up.
Solitude and silence and I can think and write and communicate.
There is nothing wrong with taking public buses, cramped spaces or not having books.

burnt out

I have not been writing here lately, and I am sorry.


My mind has been so full of shit, that I haven't been thinking much, or immersing myself in prayerful introspection, or even admiring written words in the printed form of books (partly because I overspent on books already).


I simply, I haven't have been, anything. I have been perhaps, just preventing myself from being burnt out. But I reckon, I haven't recovered from being burnt out to begin with.


Nevertheless, I space out by living meagrely, hardly reading much save for magazines and trivia, not writing at all, just nursing the cold I perpetually have, the strange < 50 beats a minute my heart sometimes slows down to, trying my very best to take it easy and probably trying too hard to take it easy, or taking it too easy. Whichever it is, I have become the living dead, I don't even think to write. I just live in a cocoon, the kind kids probably have since they are egocentric the moment they are born.


I don't know if taking it easy is the way to go. I am a seething workaholic by nature, no matter how lazy I am sometimes, no matter how often I fall sick. I love to work. I believe my calling largely lays fulfilled through my career, not through what some others do like volunteer work or motherhood. I get annoyed if people don't understand that work is more important than many other things. But lately I take every chance I can to rest at home, to leave work on time or early, to sleep in, to sleep. I try not to worry about what others think of me. I try not to be perfect. I try to do less, say less. Not sure if it helps.


I have become numb from passion. I don't feel anything. Getting in touch with my thoughts and desires will leave me sad and I haven't been sad in a while, let us keep it that way. I rather take things easy. I just hope I don't disappoint too many people while I do that. And that I get better. I really want to not be sick all the time.


At the risk of sounding self-centred I want to list down the affirmations I have heard from folks in my new job:

"You are like the poster girl for charity."

"We feel you are an asset to the company. You are like a breath of fresh air."

"I am more than convinced you are the right person for the job."


If I can garner praise while taking it easy and being sickly, I can't wait till I start to normalise and become well enough for daily work.


But what is normal? I don't like taking it easy. I like working hard. But working hard breaks me down. What is normal? I feel like I am simply making excuses.

the last twenty days...

I am sorry I haven't written.

I think I am not too sad now. I think my moods are stabilising. Even if I do skip a dose of anti-depressants here and there, I can still be normal, just a bit irritable or mildly unhappy, but not in such a debilitating manner. I can still cope. I will stick on them and refill my prescriptions for the next few months. I think I am a nicer person when on them.

My anxiety is however not getting all that completely better. I managed to get over my constant panic attacks through talking to my resident psychologist friend Mona (superb counsel, free-of-charge!) But now instead of living with panic attacks, I live with a perpetual chest tightness and heart palpitations. When I wake, when I walk, when I am about to sleep. As such, I sleep poorly. I just carry my tightness with me all day long.

I cannot sleep at night, even if I sleep little the day before, or wake early. Or drink herbal tea, take Valerian root, read, or listen to jazz in soft lighting.

I told my parents. They worried about me, but supported me, celebrated my birthday for me, and gave me huge ang-pow for it too. Thinking about my tiramisu cake, and the money my mom gave me, make me so touched I tear up. My twenty-eighth birthday is probably the best twenties birthday I have had in my life.

And I got a job. It is a long story which I have been repeating, as such I will tell the story of that another time. But I am blessed. I start in December.

I have been shopping a lot, on my card. Mammoth cartloads of books, and new suits and clothes for work. C paid for a pair of shoes for me, and I think I will drag him to Coach for a new tote I need, as my birthday gift.

I hope I get better. My life has become as dusty as my house. Everything lies in wait for me.

sadness

The world is one big sadness, and I am a molecule in this sadness. There are no happy things, only things that alleviate this sadness, or means to express this sadness beautifully. My passion is in alleviating sadness in other people's lives. My passion is not a happy thing, it only helps me to alleviate sadness. I ask myself to think of happy things to make myself feel better, and to be honest, I come up with nothing. Love is about alleviating the sadness in my life, preventing it. Any happiness from it neutralises the sadness and makes it better. I have the most blessed relationships in my life right now; they all make the sadness better. But there are no such things as happy things.

Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation

Cue Charlie sitting at the typewriter, blank sheet rolled in. He freezes up, thinks about coffee, thinks about his writing, thinks about coffee, thinks about his writing. Eventually, he makes a start, which I feel, is brilliant. But he is completely stressed out over his screenplay project.

(Am still halfway through the movie).

I am exactly like that. Except the brilliant part hasn't yet materialised...

my earliest childhood memories

Please note that I am not here to belittle the sacrifices my parents made to have me as their daughter. They are the best parents I can have. I am doing this to help me understand my depression and anxiety so that I can save money on therapy and get myself off Xanax, (which I find myself getting resistant to, which signifies the beginning of addiction.) Earliest childhood memories probably explain a lot of things that are, now. It was used in James Frey's A Million Little Pieces regarding his inexplicable anger. It seems telling in Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin. So I will do the same here. Tell me if you have any advice.


I remember sadness. But I thought it was either normal or I was just being troublesome and attention seeking. I remember missing my parents so badly because they were at work and I was at home without them. I remember missing them so much that I took out photo albums and cried over my parents' pictures. My parents finally come home at say, eight in the evening, and I run to my mom crying and hugging her but she felt I was being childish. I was never allowed to cry because crying was wrong. The first time I cried guilt-free in front of my parents was when I was seventeen years old.

I remember simply not feeling like playing with my neighbours one day; I locked them out of my house and refused to answer while they kept calling me to let them in as was our usual afternoon playtime tradition. My maid asked me why and I just told her not to let them in. I shut my room windows so they wouldn't see me.

I remember once in kindergarten I was really happy that my mom stayed home from work because I was ill. It was one of the best afternoons of my life then.

I remember not being able to sleep. I faked sleep. I forced sleep. I stared into darkness for the longest time, imagining I was climbing my cupboard or flying in space. I stared, awake. It felt like an hour like this, every night.

I remember my dad and mom locking me in the bathroom once because I was disobedient. That was my most horrific punishment as a child. Worse than the time they threw me out of the house when I was ten.

These are my earliest memories. Sadness is normal. Happiness is an anomaly. Joy is a blessing. Laughter is a relief. Sadness is my norm.

my behaviour lately

I talk to myself. Out loud. Conversations like, "Don't eat it all if you don't want to," "Oh I forgot what I wanted to do," "Things will be okay soon," "Don't be silly!" And sometimes I smile or laugh to myself.

I get panic attacks every other day.

I am extremely irritable. I wish I live in a no-human zone where around me are not flats full of people who make human noises, just quiet quiet quiet please! preferably if its just greenery and lots of space.


But overall I think things are on the upswing. At least I am not sad over things in life. I am just sad. Life is pretty good.

advice

"Life is hard, Kid, you gotta be harder."

Leonard from A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

That helps.

Despite the controversy surrounding his book and despite the fact I am reading this book only now even though it hit the shelves four years earlier. Despite the fact that James was a druggie-alcoholic and I am a depressive the differences are only substance-based. Despite the fact I probably shouldn't be reading sad stuff like this and Prozac Nation and The Bell Jar. (I do alternate these books with Marie Claire et al and chick-lit and the Bible by the way).

Despite the fact that advice and other words, only help me in recovering slowly, not fast enough, alongside the Lexapro and Lorazepam I now take on a daily basis because I don't dare not to.

Things that stress me out nowadays:

When I cannot find any more books to read in the house. Thanks to God when I suddenly unearth re-readable or uncompleted books from my troves.

When I can't find enough new books to buy at the bookstore. A situation to put an obvious frown on my face. Very stressful.

When the cat doesn't want to come home the entire night. Which is actually normal since she is an outdoor cat. But I fret more now.

When small things don't go according to plan. Like when the snack shop is inside the cinema area where you need tickets to get into, and C has the tickets downstairs because he is buying cookies. Fretful, that I have to stand outside waiting alone.


Yes, I am still nervy.

thank God for medicinenet.com

I found a name for what I commonly feel.

"Panic attacks." The chest tightness, clenching of muscles unaware, a sense of worry and needing to rest, finding it hard to breathe yet not having asthmatic symptoms.

I also found out that the sleeping pills that my doctor gave me in August, actually help. Lorazepam, which falls in the same category as Xanax. I shall start on them right away. I really want my heart to slow down so I can finally sleep.

pollock, the movie

I just watched Pollock, the movie directed and starring Ed Harris in 2000, about the life of Jackson Pollock.

The saddest moment in the movie was to me, the part when he was so broke and so depressed and he needed to drink so badly, he gave one of his paintings away to the grocer for a crate of beer. Only to fall from his bicycle on his way home from the shop, breaking all the bottles and spilling all the beer on the road. Somehow I strangely feel like I know completely how he felt. To have one desperate, poor material thing left in your life for solace, and yet to have it taken away from you and not be able to blame anyone for that. This scene broke my heart a little.

I felt sad when I saw the first scene of Pollock crying manically, I just felt so wronged, that talent often finds no rightful place in the world, that unique rich individuals that are such genius, often feel so frail and challenged by their finiteness. If only I was also a genius, then I could claim that as my reason for feeling the same way.

Another scene that broke my heart was when he saw an injured dog on the street at night while he was driving. He stopped the car to pick up the dog, and drove it over to the vet, saying desperately, "You gotta save him, he is such a beautiful dog, he is such a beautiful dog." And somehow, I know completely how he felt too.

It is a sad film, but very inspiring. I even watched the special features' section in the DVD.

do I look like a fund-raiser

pack bag, breakfast, and then I cab there.

unnerved

Every early morning there are heavy delivery lorries that arrive in my block's car park, killing the silence of the night by their making of all kinds of noises. Hoisting, reversing, making tight turns, blaring radio music while unloading, creaky wooden crates and styrofoam boxes being moved, verbal instructions from one delivery mate to another. The noise bothers me in a way where I perpetually wish that each next second would be the one where they stop and leave the car park. Eventually they do, and it is sunrise. I fall asleep by this time on most mornings.


I need something to calm me down. I don't know how to calm down without alcohol; not drinking is great for my health I suppose but it leaves my nerves on a loose end. Alcohol is an unrealistic solution because I can't possibly swig from a bottle when I am in a crowded MRT train which is precisely one of the scenarios that really unnerve me desperately. The best way to go about it at the moment is to take a cab wherever I go. In the dead of the early morning like it is now at the time of writing, where I stress over my morning's affairs, I can only stay awake and read or write to feel better; alternatives include forcing sleep through medicine, which I don't want to do either for fear of a medicinal hangover.


I hope to be normal (again?), they say it is mind over matter. Meanwhile I make conscious choices not to order my books through Amazon so no one will knock my house door unexpectedly to deliver them, stressing me out in the process. I also spend a lot of time sedentary, doing nothing. I wish my heart will beat less hard and fast so I can deal with things better.

Unravel. Tighten. Unravel. Tighten. Breathe. Hold your breath. Sleep. Stay awake. Unravel. Tighten. Unravel. Tighten. Tense up. Rationalise.

ho-hum

Tomorrow I am going for a job meeting, for the only response I have gotten this week out of the three places I applied. I don't feel wildly ecstatic, but I am going through it nonetheless, braced by my revived sense of adult-responsibility, fuelled by my being on the mend via medication and resolve.

I guess I am dampened by the horrible work year I have had thus far; I no longer expect much out of a job, and I see myself as a blue-collared factory worker literally in a blue uniform - dehumanised. My girlfriends once declared that our self worth is not determined by our jobs. I find that hard to realistically be lived out, because my work is so important to me, everything has to be right, problems have to be soluble. And so I try to lower my drive and expectations and lose my ecstasy.

And so, on I go, rationalising along the way and hopefully shake off my sloth even without the adrenaline rush of exciting work.

panacea

(wrote this sometime back on my mobile phone:)


wide-eyed, struggle
to find a panacea
in a world where
none exists.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.
The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw

all these help

Waiting to collapse,
held together up
like Moses' exhausted arms,
resembling sanity
through miracles
of dinner and laundry.

Unbeautiful:
like unartistic scrawls
on the doors of lifts,
beer stains in stairwells,
words on a screen,
with little reprieve.

Thank you God, for
You and for my guitar
for your words and mine
for tea and books
rock n' roll and the cat
the wretched 'net and Lexapro;
all these help.

slinky's pet faves and peeves

Faves:

Bicycles. She likes sniffing bicycle pedals, and saunters to one whenever one approaches. I believe this is because the neighbourhood cat lady does her rounds on bicycle. Slinky knows her as much as she knows me because that's how she gets fed when I am not around or whenever she doesn't want to come inside. As a result she like bicycles. There is a bicycle parking area nearby and she sometimes hangs out there with Spotty-cat who looks like her but is white with black patches.

My storeroom. She has scratched the storeroom door badly (notti-cat!) and whenever we open the storeroom door she scurries inside. We have since stopped her because it is impossible to extricate her when she hides inside - too many things within. Also, the first time she went inside we didn't realise and C shut the door on her. We went out for lunch and we couldn't trace the cat when we left (in the house or out?). We came home, wondering, calling 'Slinky!' and paused when we heard a small mew coming vaguely from somewhere in the house. So I stop her now. She gets the meaning of a loud 'no' and we have not lost our cat in the storeroom again since. Although still looks longingly whenever we open the storeroom door...

Whatever I am eating, especially chicken or fish. I enjoy feeding her tiny bits of my food if I know she will like it (minus the fats and gravy as much as possible). She once licked the cover of my ice cream tub though, and I think while it was interesting, coffee-chocolate flavoured ice-cream probably didn't really quite cut it for her. But yet she looks at me happily whenever I am helping myself to some food.

Nose rubs! I think this is a rather universal cat thing.

Boxes and paper bags. Her toys, in which she can pounce on or hide in.

C's laptop bag which she used to use as a bed, but has since moved on after C took it for a business trip and returned it in a less than ideal position for her.

Her other fave sleeping spots - the sofa, on the other end from me, the bed when no one else is on it, my chair when I am not sitting on it, the plastic boxes under the table, the corner behind the tv, and the bathroom mat.



I think she likes me and C although she often does the lashing out that cats do (quick reflexes and plasters help). She often sleeps on C's clothes lying on the bed, sits at our feet or anywhere near us, wags her tail when we call out her name. She also sometimes likes to sniff our legs and feet. When I see the doctor downstairs she will follow me. Into the clinic. And wait outside the doctor's room door in the clinic. I try to get her outside (sick people and furry cat together??) but she wants to be around and the other patients don't really seem to mind, they merely simply watch her. the cute one.



Peeves:

Crowds, like me! She kinda avoids people and physical contact with them unless she is wants to which is quite rare. She avoids going up the stairs to our flat when people are coming down it, she would rather not go out from the flat if she hears people on the stairs, that sort of thing. So to help her through the human traffic, I carry her. If I call her when she is downstairs to follow me home, she will mew at me to indicate she will follow, while stealthily avoiding human traffic along the way very carefully.

She rather hates being hugged and carried, and submits to it only rarely. Otherwise she mews and struggles her way out of my arms.

Catnip snacks and milk: strangely she does not take to these at all.

Other cats, except Gray Cat last time (who disappeared) and Spotty-cat. She is otherwise at loggerheads with all other cats.

free burma

No more false facts
No more journalistic purging
No more military oppression
No more false reverence

God,
Set everyone free in Myanmar.
Heal the monks that are hurt.
Release the prisoners.
Free your people.
Be exalted in this country once again.

If I cannot do anything, I can write, and make each writing a prayer, a message, a balm, a signpost.

For Nagai-san and many unnamed others who have died in the line of truth.

Wake up.
Feel like shit.
Same as before.

%@$?*&

ARGH
get me out of here please...
ARGH!!!
I need something that will take this chest-heavy feeling away I need to stop feeling hot cold not neither
ARGH
I feel desperate and anxious without any proper reason to, it is 3am surely I should be calm and wait for morning, but no....

shit and feeling terrible

I feel terrible. Tonight's terrible comes with the same tiredness but instead of tears to make my eyes even puffier than they already are, it is more like a dreaded weightiness in my chest. I feel cold and weighty. I don't even feel like gaming or reading that much, I just feel numb and lost and I need some reprieve or I would hyperventilate.


I need money but I am too exhausted to work right now. I know that sounds lame but I really feel this way, everything is tiring. Small talk har, har, har is tiring. MRT trains stress me out I nearly scream. Trying to sleep resigns and tires me out. I want my old self back. The one that works like mad and never says die. My physical stamina may be weak but my inner drive is supposed to be strong. I love to work and I want that better job but I am too tired to or simply not qualified or else I am over-qualified for those jobs I don't want. I am moving each day on my inner witness and intuition and painfully removing all that is unnecessary from my life. But while I know my paths will be faithfully laid straight before me as I acknowledge God in everything, I have no energy to walk in them now, no light to see them clearly and too impatient as a result. Workaholics have no time for depression, they are mutually exclusive.


A phoenix needs to die to rise from the ashes.

A seed needs to fall and die to grow and bear fruit.

A murky lake needs to be drained out to find that treasure at the bottom of it.


I ain't giving up yet but I am feeling like shit in the process of it.

I feel like there is no place for me in this world right now. All I have are wretched tears for people in third world nations but with no qualifications to help them. I feel fucking terrible. My talents are useless. I lay them out for the taking for the reaping but nobody wants them. I am the fucking in-between, like the furry monster in Sesame Street who sings the song of the same title while caught in between two monsters unlike himself. The half-full glass. I just want to do something worthwhile and gain something from it, is it too much to ask?! Life is terrible enough and I think that what I am asking for is not unreasonable.

done deal

I am now officially jobless. I have no money but debts owed to me and debts owed.

Dinner was nice, tomyam soup, spring onion and ginger chicken, rice, teh-C.

no words and a crash

When I was still in my old room at home, I discovered that the hardest part of each day, as is the case with most depressives, was simply getting out of bed in the morning. if I could do that much I had a fighting chance. To get through the day, that is. I decided to try to do some writing, hoping it might afford me the same sense of release that it once had, so many years efore. But as soon as I sat down at my typewriter, I froze before the keyboard. I couldn't think of a damn thing to say. No poems, no prose, no words.

Jesus, I wondered, what do you do with pain so bad it has no redeeming value? It cannot even be alchemized into art, into words, into something you can chalk up to an interesting experience because the pain itself, its intensity, is so great that it has woven itself into your system so deeply that there is no way to objectify it or push it outside or find its beauty within. That is the pain I'm feeling now. It's so bad, it's useless. The only lesson I will ever derive from this pain is how bad pain can be.

Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel

I removed the things in my life that were not what I wanted or needed to do at this point. I made the career change, I resigned from the less-than-ideal job, I left the church that contained people whom I cannot be friends with because we are too different. Why then, am I still sad? I do not know how to get to the There which I need to go, but at least I know what I do not want or need. Surely it is supposed to help. But all that happens is that I crash again and I can only hope that C will not leave me because I am so depressed because he is all I have left that understands what I am going through. I am going to go back on my anti-depressants, and ask my doc for more. I am going to force my sleep when it should be, through Valerian root and not leave it to happen till morning when become thoroughly exhausted and awake.

I...

became so lost for words, or rather the words in my mind stayed there and my hands froze in type.

So I wrote in my notebook instead. My truth, uncensored by cordialities and the need to protect others, but it is not glamorous and instead, extremely scary, like discovering a lump in your breast, or similar.

What typing won't give you: pen marks on your tummy, a shroud of secrecy through illegible handwriting.

stuck in a pudding

I am stuck in a pudding.
Inert because it is comforting around my skin.
Unable because it is too hard to wade through.
And even if I get out of the pudding bowl,
I have nowhere else to go.

all the more the truth must be told

For Kenji Nagai

For bringing the truth to your people from places no one dared to go.

For showing the world on behalf the Burmese people that they have been oppressed far too long. That truth in their country has been distorted and untold by their devillish overlords.

For being unrelenting even in the face of danger.

For using the medium of film to plainly tell truth.

For telling us we cannot sit by and do nothing for this world any more.

If you didn't die in the line of fire for this truth, journalism in and about Myanmar might never be revived in its honesty, like it is today.

Democracy might remain hidden and imprisoned for them.

You may be but one person, but you changed the world for moments such as this.

Thank you, Nagai-san.

what makes me cry nowadays

Bruce Springsteen's songs
When the UN envoy gets to meet Aung San Suu Kyi
Reading about the John Lennon assassination in 1980
And thinking about when Leslie Chung killed himself in 2003
The Vietnam bridge collapse
The monsoon rain-floods in India
The Japanese journalist who died in Yangon
The fact that I can't have solitude when I want it

showhand, and I feel better.

Dear Y

I promised you I will return to you with an answer in two weeks since we last met, as to whether or not I will return to work as per normal after this two-month unpaid rest. Here is my reply.

I have decided that I would like to resign.

As promised also, I will return in two weeks’ time at the end of my sabbatical, to serve out my notice.

You have asked me to share with you any reasons why I have been sick, stressed out and unhappy with my work situation. Because I respect you and the organisation I will explain the reasons why I feel this job is no longer suitable for me.

1. Decline in job satisfaction

I enjoy and excel in being a part of the conceptualisation and start up of new projects, for example, V-. I am aware that there are new plans ahead for me to implement as well. However I feel that much time and effort of mine are taken away from actually conceptualising and starting up, but are instead being overly channelled towards clerical administrative tasks such as collecting work assignments, processing payments, preparing and printing slides and notes etc. While I am capable of doing these tasks, I find that I have become unable to do what is really important, and also, feel injustice for the organisation that pays a senior executive to carry out menial tasks that a dedicated temp will be able to do just as well. I am also tired out by such unsatisfying tasks and thus, after weeks of overwork yet unable to do what is really important, I have fallen very ill from stress and lack of rest.

I also feel left out of the process of strategising and conceptualising new projects, as I would very much like to input ideas and create collaborative partnerships. I am excited by being part of collaborations such as with R- or W-, or in spearheading other new initiatives which I think of, such as starting a c- section in our department, or simply initiatives that make our current flagship projects even better. I am quite sure that I am adept at such tasks but I do not foresee that much opportunity will arise for me in such areas while I am in this position because it is not in my mandate to do so and I have no time to any of these even if I were to put in weekends and week nights.

2. Lack of professional growth and development

For the past seven months I feel that I have stagnated in my skills development. Because my job is not challenging enough, as a result I do not need to learn anything new or difficult in order to carry this out. I feel that if I stay in this position I will decline in my value as a professional. Thus, for my career survival it is essential that I find a job that plays to my strengths (this is related to point 1 above) as well as allow me to continuously learn. The ability to have to keep growing is fundamental to my job satisfaction as well, and because it is not necessary for me to learn anything new or to improve my strengths to do my job well, I am honestly dissatisfied with my job.

I also do not find anyone in the organisation suitable for me to learn from as a professional mentor or role model as I feel that the organisation has a subconscious tendency to keep mediocre staff while preventing talented people from joining, growing and staying in the organisation. This is a human resource management deficit and not a flaw in the characters of those serving in Y-. I am sure that all staff, present company included, desire very much to grow and achieve more in their career in servanthood but the developmental platforms to learn have to be ever-present, which is not the case in Y- in my opinion.

My career goal is to be involved in international humanitarian work, with impact in countries where the poorest and neediest populations are. I strongly believe in Y- as it has both a local and overseas impact. However, I feel that I have very little industry knowledge to gain in Y-that will benefit me in my professional growth in this area. Our IP department is currently more focused on school style trips, but I hope to learn more about developmental issues in the region, solving acute problems facing developing countries, contributing where the basic survival and spiritual needs are great. I do not foresee being able to impact communities meaningfully while being in my present capacity, or learning very much about these abovementioned issues while being in Y-. Having said all this, I still very much am supportive of Y-’s work as an NGO and as a social enterprise, and this direction is very much what I believe in strongly in the times to come. But I feel that there is much more to learn, and perhaps not while I am in this organisation.

3. Job-fit

I have come to understand even more strongly now that I need to be in a capacity where I can lead, as this is part of my strengths. I have an ability to empathise with people, understand their strengths and weaknesses, establishing relationships, and motivating others towards challenging goals to make the organisation excel. Be it in leading youth, having an impact in a team, mentoring people, this aspect of being able to lead through serving others, is fundamental to my job satisfaction and performance. I may not make the best leader yet, but being able to perform and grow in this strength would help me get there, which is not present in my current job. I enjoy making others succeed. I do not have much opportunity to carry out any of these in my present position and hence feel that this job is not suitable for me. I recall that you and D asked me in my interview if I minded being in an executive role despite coming from a management role. I do not mind the job title or lower pay or the absence of credit to my name – this is not an ego or pride issue - but I do have a basic need of being able to work in a position which plays to my strengths.

4. Poorly-designed organisational structure

Because of my analytical nature, my management training, and my relationships with and observations of people in the organisation, I have come to conclude that the organisation’s structure is flawed in many ways, in my own opinion. This weightily impacts job design, mine and others, and this is a source of de-motivation to me.

For example, I feel that we ought to have a fundraising department, one that takes care of fundraising, charity and community events, strategic corporate partnerships, donor relationships. At this moment, these chores are seconded to staff volunteers around the organisation, or confined only to management to perform. As a result, many are overworked and there are no dedicated personnel to make our fundraising efforts go one notch up towards excellence. I also feel that our organisation needs to have a membership focus department, and not at present being controlled in various locations such as CA , IH and LP. As another example, our CS division can also be better organised, but at its present state with headcount deficits, it is causing organisational performance gaps, leading Y- to perform at a subsistence level instead of excelling as it should. I desire to belong to an organisation that excels and hopefully even be a part of making it cutting edge, and not belong to one that subsists at the mediocre level, which is why I feel professionally frustrated - this organisation can do better just in the way the structure is built, but I am not in a position to make any change in this aspect. The performance gaps caused by a flawed structure are being met by other people beyond their own job scopes and daily SOPs, perhaps even by those who do not wish to or do not excel in these areas, which is not an ideal situation. Such organisational deficits demotivate me and I recall leaving my first sales job in a printing firm because of this very reason. That company I left is still functioning at the mediocre and does not appear on the map of its industry any longer even though the economy has recovered since then.

5. Organisational culture

When I first joined the organisation, I have felt extremely satisfied and motivated by the organisational culture, where there is consensual decision making (as in almost all NPOs for accountability purposes), genuine work relationships, shared values, and respect for one another. However, of late these things have changed. I find that decision making is now more top-down than ever; work is done based more on mandate than through relationships; values such as the value of people, empathy, selflessness and servanthood , are no longer same across the board; and mutual respect for one another in the Y- team has now been eroded. These aspects are what make Y- a truly unique and memorable place to work and excel in, what makes Y- Christian on the inside, and if I could, this work culture is what I would like to protect. But I am not in the position to be able to do anything about it, except to fight its erosion to myself. And those who are able to effect change may or may not realise this or maybe, situations limiting, are unable to do so, which I completely understand. While an organisation cannot be perfect, a good environment is always a motivating factor for any staff.

I hope this explanation suffices. Thank you for everything, for the value you have placed on me. I am sorry to have let you down, but it is my self-preservation, and my desire to be fair to the organisation, that has led me to this decision.

Regards,

E

new bookshelf of sorts

Not sure if you can see this picture clearly but I have found new space for the books that cannot find space on my already-full book shelf. I think they give my lounge area a quaint, book-cafe style look! I am hip and happening!

1. Stress undoes me. I really cannot do stress now, even in the form of making decisions fast, or having a lovers' quarrel. My cognition is slow even with chocolate or coffee or with having slept sixteen hours.
2. I will do housework, starting with my admin. I will. I will...
3. Badly need new books. Really do. Am suffering actual withdrawal symptoms from having nothing in my house that I would like to read.
   
4. Please don't ask me how I am. I know I am not a good friend right now but the idea of having to explain myself stresses me out.

via Daphne

1. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
2. Tag seven people to do the same.
3. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag whoever wants to do it.

1. I buy flowery-printed toilet paper for my flat.
2. I have about 7 pillows on my bed.
3. Now that I am on leave I play WoW everyday. This is me.
4. I stayed off alcohol for about 6-7 weeks till I had a glass of single malt 2 nights ago. Before that I was a beer a night.
   
5. I hate crowds, slightly agoraphobic, and moderately claustrophobic. Crowded trains make my heart beat hard and fast and I panic for no reason.
   
6. I hardly eat lunch nowadays.
7. I have been on a chocolate binge since C's mother brought home Galaxy chocs from London. Cannot do without Chocolate.

trepidation

I wake from an afternoon nap feeling my chest pound in trepidation. I often dream strange dreams, that have disconnected storylines, not altogether scary in content all the time. But even then I still wake up in a panic. "I am not ready to go back to work." But the dream had nothing to do with work.

My chest is still tightening. My mind is quiet, not even reeling in whatever dream-story I just went through while asleep. I am not sad. I am not angry. I am not regretful.

I sit here and think nothing, breathing normally, telling myself it is all right.

I wish my heart will stop beating in such a trying manner.

"I will be all right."

knots

I feel terrible. Not that I want to scare you.

There is this wretched feeling in my chest that wants to tie me up in varying degrees. Sometimes it is like an 'oh, shit' feeling, stirred by, say, a memory of me accidentally knocking a cherry off someone's birthday cake and messing it up. That sorta event knocks the perfectionist in me off, and I wrench into a couple of knots. Then sometimes bigger things are suddenly recalled, like shitty accents in people I do not fondly remember, asking me to do stupid things - I remember them and internally kvetch and have bad dreams. And then I think about deeper things like friendship and loss, or read messages about people missing me, and I feel sad. But most times I just knot up, like I do now.

I can hardly sleep properly. I can't sleep till late, and even then, I am ridden over by the knottiness of my memories and thoughts. I wake too early, five hours later, tired, but unable to slink back into bed, till afternoon, where I doze off involuntarily. Lunch is an almost non-affair.

I need more books. They help me sleep and they help.

C asks if I am getting better. He asks me to go out shopping. He tells me not to worry about money. When I made my decision to screw off work he said, "There were times when I felt like doing exactly the same thing, but didn't have the guts to go ahead and do it. In that sense you're a much braver person than I." He says I need to be inspired, to do things I believe in. I think C is really getting the hang of E.

I can hardly bring myself out. First thing I will want to do is to clean my house and redecorate it. When I am able to find energy to do that, I will go out. But now, I am as always a homebody.

My thoughts are so floaty and unconnected. Which is why I write a blog, not author a book.

And all these floaty knotty thoughts keep me awake.

ghost

In the middle of the night, I float around the quiet house like a ghost, stuck between wanting to fulfill my death wishes, and wanting to be alive. It is a floaty feeling of nothingness and eternity all mixed into one.

I cry over broken things. Things that break, then break the next other thing, and then another, forming one whole broken thing. It was meant to be broken entirely. I cannot revive something that has already gone off, like rotten food in the refrigerator. All the same, it makes me very sad, and no one will ever realise the loss together with me. No one.

I am going to continue floating.

While I do that, I might as well enjoy myself, while I await for nothing and eternity all mixed into one.

Are you invisible like me?

I am often stuck in these ghostlike situations. Maybe I don't know it, but those feelings of death I recently felt, were real, they really happened. I really died.

So many other breaking, broken things too, not just the one, two, things I described. I am no longer forlorn, but ethereal. A mosaic of broken mirrors and junk-like items, while I try to author and fashion them into beauty, and fail yet again and again. Ethereal, because I see everything in these mirrors and junk, nothing and eternity all the same. I am no longer forlorn, because I have art. Art of life, a mixed media sculpture of broken things.

Can you tell I am not really making sense? Not really being here, does this to me.

I am going to enjoy my quiet, now.

Read more. Write more. There is nothing else I can do better, probably. I am so effused with mediocrity.

I am such an expert at re-inventing myself my diary is full of evidence of the crime. At which I do not succeed. I am sorry to sound self-deprecatory but I am entitled to, I am depressed. I have to keep trying again and again. God, what in the world do you want me to do?!

post # 500

I couldn't sleep last night. After gaming, reading, showering, tossing, I gave up. Made some seaweed noodles and watched Jerry Mcguire, ashamedly, for the first time. Stayed up till 5am. Didn't finish the noodles.

I just re-read Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married. I am like Lucy: I always "don't want to talk about it". I know repression feeds my depression but I am really too tired to explain my problem(s). They are a cock-shit waste of time.

Instead I should be like Jerry Mcguire and write down the solution.

I have also been reading Now, Discover Your Strengths to aid me in finding out what the hell I have been doing wrong, and what I have not been doing right. I am already beginning to suspect, rightly, I hope.

My life has been a series of failures. Maybe they are meant to be there to help me get to the right place. Maybe I am just continually getting it wrong. What makes me the authority to declare I am going to get it right this time? Maybe I never will, in this lifetime. And then I will find out, ho ho ho, it was all just part of the freaking journey of blasted self-fulfillment, in which the goal is not important, hence you will never get it.

I'm sorry I haven't written.


I have been cocooning at home the whole week, and enjoying it.


I'm sorry I am hardly explaining anything, as usual.


Books, WoW, C's company, my God, are my solace. And Lexapro too.

I am not feeling well at all.

I feel like I am in a warm space
devoid of time or human touch
where hope is silent
in the face of deaths of dreams -
I am not qualified to say this.

Entering the twilight,
where darkness comes
inevitably;
I rush to turn on the lights
so I can make sense of everything.

Before then, I am
cradled in whispering hope,
making do with some reality -
as much as I can take -
without shattering it all in me.

I feel terrible.

I FEEL MONSTER-ISH.

8 random facts about me (that you don't already know)

via my topography, even though I wasn't tagged!

1. My primary daily mode of transport is by cab. I only take the bus when I am early, or not tired, or when I leave work early. Hardly ever the case.
2. I like to keep things to myself. Though it is not healthy, it is often that I am busy or they are.
3. My main musical pleasures lately are Stellar, music from anime, and the song from Be With You.
4. My favourite anime is officially Naruto! It is the only anime that can make me laugh and cry and make me think about the importance of the values of community, leadership and friendship.
   
5. I haven't cleaned my house in a long time. Because I have no time. The floor is sandy and the toilet is dirty.
6. Uniforms, or beachwear, do it for some ladies. I like my men in suits and corporate attire. Give me men in tailored suits, silk ties, french-collared, embroidered shirts with cufflinks any day.
   
7. I shop like a boy sometimes - in, pick, try, buy, out - especially since I have very little time to shop, and I don't like being in town on weekends.
   
8. I need a calculator to do simple math likes 24+7, 4X17 etc.

Okay, now you.

statements of the week

Listening to anime music teleports my consciousness into a dreamy world of goodness.

On Sundays, time seems to stop for a moment.

Any job that does not require weekend-burning and daily evening beers is not worth doing.

Feedback, while appreciated and necessary, will not always be accepted.

Let's call it a day.

I wish I could keep on writing. The night is always too short, the days too long. I want to indulge in the romance of words and beer and the night. An escape from life, by dipping into life alternative. I don't want to wake up. Time should stop right here, with unending supply of books, words and beer in the fridge. I don't want to wake up.

evolution

Evolution, and deviation. Do we evolve for the better, or deviate from our divine purposes?

Something has been bothering me. It is nothing overly philosophical, just plain. I am thinking about how people, organisations, human relationships, turn away from their intended raison d'etres. Like children being born and dying, like Christians backsliding, like the unworthy truimph of evil over good, like breaking promises, like walking out on a best friend, like becoming material instead of holy, like the long winter in Narnia; all one and the same.

- It really breaks my heart

Such is as good as death of dreams. I am just too jaded to cry.
Is this just reality causing us to evolve from our purposes for the better,
or just deviation because we got lost since the initial dream?

Twenty Questions: How Do I Know If I'm A Workaholic?

---

Via Tym.

1. Do you get more excited about your work than about family or anything else?
2. Are there times when you can charge through your work and other times when you can't?
3. Do you take work with you to bed? On weekends? On vacation?
4. Is work the activity you like to do best and talk about most?
5. Do you work more than 40 hours a week?
6. Do you turn your hobbies into money-making ventures?
7. Do you take complete responsibility for the outcome of your work efforts?
8. Have your family or friends given up expecting you on time?
9. Do you take on extra work because you are concerned that it won't otherwise get done?
10. Do you underestimate how long a project will take and then rush to complete it?
11. Do you believe that it is okay to work long hours if you love what you are doing?
12. Do you get impatient with people who have other priorities besides work?
13. Are you afraid that if you don't work hard you will lose your job or be a failure?
14. Is the future a constant worry for you even when things are going very well?
15. Do you do things energetically and competitively including play?
16. Do you get irritated when people ask you to stop doing your work in order to do something else?
17. Have your long hours hurt your family or other relationships?
18. Do you think about your work while driving, falling asleep or when others are talking?
19. Do you work or read during meals?
20. Do you believe that more money will solve the other problems in your life?

If you answer "yes" to three or more of these questions you may be a workaholic. Relax. You are not alone.

Many have found recovery through the tools of this fellowship.

Update:

Here are my answers:

1. Do you get more excited about your work than about family or anything else? No. I don't have very much else.
2. Are there times when you can charge through your work and other times when you can't? Yes. It is called exhaustion.
3. Do you take work with you to bed? On weekends? On vacation? Yes.
4. Is work the activity you like to do best and talk about most? No. I don't really like to talk that much nowadays.
5. Do you work more than 40 hours a week? Yes. (Who doesn't?! Stupid question).
6. Do you turn your hobbies into money-making ventures? No. I don't have very many hobbies.
7. Do you take complete responsibility for the outcome of your work efforts? Yes.
8. Have your family or friends given up expecting you on time? No. I don't meet them very much.
9. Do you take on extra work because you are concerned that it won't otherwise get done? Yes.
10. Do you underestimate how long a project will take and then rush to complete it? No.
11. Do you believe that it is okay to work long hours if you love what you are doing? Yes. Absolutely.
12. Do you get impatient with people who have other priorities besides work? Yes.
13. Are you afraid that if you don't work hard you will lose your job or be a failure? Yes.
14. Is the future a constant worry for you even when things are going very well? No.
15. Do you do things energetically and competitively including play? No.
16. Do you get irritated when people ask you to stop doing your work in order to do something else? No.
17. Have your long hours hurt your family or other relationships? No. Erm, not really.
18. Do you think about your work while driving, falling asleep or when others are talking? Yes.
19. Do you work or read during meals? Yes.
20. Do you believe that more money will solve the other problems in your life? Yes.

Score: 11/20

invisible propositions

"I would like to, but by doing so we would ruin the lives of many who are close to us." He never did ask, but I know that the prospect crossed both our minds many times before tonight. I let him return home alone, and myself to mine, but voiced that reply in my mind to my imagination. Within the rifts of my mind, reels of reality and foregone conclusions set the tone amidst the surreal. It is a strange attraction, inexplicable, and completely temporal - he would say the same.

For now, sleep evades me. I think about the common things we share: memories of lonely moments, of agreed romantic melancholy.

Isn't life like a trap sometimes? But we want to do the right thing, and I'll let wonder linger till it becomes no more. Like dream petals summoned for a spell, and disappeared into the ground after. Charm is transient bullshit, good for a moment, good for nothing.

It doesn't feel anything more than charm and shared shreds of affiliation in life. I am too mellow to feel anything more about anything, anyone, not even the loves of my life. Ecstasy has become lukewarmth, fuzzy feelings have turned into mere quiet smiles, the sex of my life has become a boat ride. Yet the invisible propositions surface in my mind, surfacing just on charm and affiliation.

I have a book addiction, if you haven't already realised:


I spend enough on books to rival blink-of-an-eye Nine West shoes and Clinique skincare purchases.

My house is messy with books lying almost everywhere.

I think a lot about what I read.

latest Murakami

I have never really liked short stories. Most people who love reading as much as I do, don't like short stories - they are too, short!

But really, I had felt all along that short stories were more of an effort to show off literarily, rather than to expound on life and philosophy through beautiful language. It feels like a shortcut to actual writing; much like blogging. The easy answer out. Great for speedy English improvement if you have an English examination coming up. O' Henry's shorties did it for me nearing my O level exams.

My opinion about short stories changes with the introduction to Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.

Murakami opines in his introduction to the book, that he enjoys writing short stories. (Thanks for the book, Kel)! A short story begins with, what I call a 'traffic-light moment', what he calls 'the smallest details'. His short stories paved the way for the novels he has written. Perhaps without the short stories, there would never be any Norwegian Wood, no Murakami as he is today.

Which makes me wonder if After Dark was originally meant to be a short story, a little bit mistakenly expanded into the length of a novel.

Now I think I will pick up the shorties in his collection to read, that I haven't already.

And in fact, re-think the traffic light moments in my life, and think about the beauty of the short story in every one of them. Blogging and the like really isn't that lowly a writing activity after all.

Be With You

I just finished watching Be With You on DVD, otherwise known as Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu. A very nice film, if you like Japanese literature ala Haruki Murakami and such about metaphysical and romance.

Here is a song from the soundtrack with clips of the movie within its MTV:

Orange Range- Hana from isaku86 and Vimeo.

moving, tired

I am too old and tired especially by nineish, ten, at nights. I go through days and nights like a zombie, struggling to keep alive-awake.

My usual anaesthesia does not alleviate: Books, despite being yummy, are momentary. Beer is out of the question because I am sick. Hey, that's right. I am sick, hence I should be resting. But life goes on, and (too much) medical leave makes me feel useless. And life goes on.

- It is like being in a crowd, feeling claustrophobic, yet not wanting to be alone without being shrouded by other people. And the crowd moves on, with you in it.

investing in friendships

Someone once disagreed with me on that term: to invest in something meant that you hoped to get a return on your investment. How could one use the term 'investment' on friendships?


A debatable issue, but not my point of contention at the moment. Whichever way, it means putting in heart, time, money and effort.


- Effort is my biggest stumbling block.


I am so tired and lacklustre, and I am a homebody. Plus I have a bit of a one-track mind like a guy. Read: I hardly like to go out, people tire me out; I would rather be at home relaxing. And when I work I hardly think of much else.


And some are not really worth being called E's friends anymore.


I might have really high standards for my friends, I probably scare people away, and maybe intentionally too. Actually all I ask for, is for people to understand me and love me the same, to need me and respect my point of view. Which the people who are my friends, fiercely do. These are really base things - who wants friends who do not understand them, loves them only during good times, moves on without them, and thrashes their viewpoints aside? Makes perfect sense, ain't it.


Recently my boss made a statement. She finds herself closer to the people at work than she does to those in her cell group at church. Since I work in a Christian organisation, both cultures are Christian, hence, it is not a religious issue we are comparing about.


I completely agreed with her on that point, because I feel the same way too. We tell the people at work, that to us, work is our ministry, our job is a calling. And these people, our colleagues, supposed mere work-mates, will completely understand, because they feel the same way. People who don't understand are simply caught up with other things. To them, ministry is in church, work is just 'working to please God'. When I mention a career change to these church-mates, it is just that - a career change. But it is not. It is a breaking process. I only share that much, and the people I work with in the same office, will agree - one will call it 'surrendering', the other will use my own words and agree with me on them.


Actually my church-mates' lack of understanding was something I thought was my fault, for a long time. Being an anti-social who hardly trusts anyone enough to confide, I felt it was me who had to change, in order for me to belong to the group once again. So I tried, and failed by my standards, walking away extremely hurt even by the smallest of gestures, to the point it seemed almost unbelievable. It isn't their fault either, so it was mine, I thought.


Then one night a long time back, I shared this stumbling block with my colleague, and she said, "Don't you think there is something wrong with this picture? Your church is supposed to be your support network." Et cetera. All true. Church is like a spiritual family. Just like friends, guilds, etc, are your social networks. "But, it is me who has to change, to open up, right? Why is it when I try, I get hurt so badly, even though they do nothing wrong?"


But when I give her more background information, like, how I prayed for God to send me for two church mission trips last year, and I ended up only going for one, she says to me, that, combined with everything else I said, is a sign that this is no longer a place for me. It is not my fault. It is just His way of showing me the next part of the journey. I don't think she has any malicious intent when she says so.


I refused to see things her way completely, at first. It may not seem so to some, but I am the faithful and committed sort. I don't make big decisions flippantly. But, though this has taken me long enough, I have decided to adopt her point of view. It agrees with me, and makes sense now. Time to re-invest.


As for me, what can I change, and still be me? A disastrous question to ask. I don't think I should blame myself anymore for being the way I am. I will however, take more effort to appreciate the people I have around me, new and old alike.

work

It is a skill to surgically examine the reasons why one does not look forward to work the following day. On the surface it could be a variety of seemingly normal reasons: laziness, boredom, a search for something greater, not enough rest, whatever.

For me, all those reasons masqueraded as the truth for a while. A few distractory slaps on myself later, the feeling of being sian about work remains. One might think this feeling happens to all, yes, that is true. But for me, who believes that work is pleasure and fulfilling and a ministry to people, a declaration of love, a sian feeling slams me down harder. It makes me question why I feel terrible, even if in the slightest. I should not be feeling this way about something I love.

Usually I will think it is my fault. I am too soft, too easily distracted, too un-focused. I would almost believe that it is me, my fault, my weakness. Probably partly true. And those who like to heartily chastise me will heartily agree. I am an unromantic philanderer at heart.

But I have searched and realised that one reason why I feel this way is the entrance of a new party, a head, a driver. And I fear he will drive my boss down or away. Or become another lid on my career. Or both. While his character takes time to be fully revealed to us, while we need time for everyone to become inclined to being taught and led by him, so far many things have already been rubbed the wrong way, even if these things didn't involve me but the people I love around me in my team.

This somehow bodes a clamp down on my sense of freedom. And lack of freedom impedes me. Creates noise such that I cannot think, and function.

It is not only the new him, but also the one I cursed to die lately - unfortunately still alive - that adds to my feeling of impediment to freedom.

Sure, I can drown out the noise, and escape from it, by working in early mornings and late nights, when no one will bother you much. But I have no energy to. Every late night, be it work or leisure, is slowly killing me.

I quote Banana Yoshimoto's protatgonist in N.P.:

"It was early evening, the time to switch on the lamps and chase away the dark blue light that creeps into the house. Nowadays I didn't really have a clear head until very late afternoon, rather like an alcoholic. I'd watch the streetlights float up in the growing darkness on the hilly residential streets. I'd have a beer, and then realize it was a new day, and that I have been going about my daily business just like everyone else. Only then did I wake up."

That is how I feel. I am too tired, and mornings are the worst. I have figured that the best time for me to sleep every night, to wake without a feeling of about-to-die the next day, is at 9 or 10 in the evening. That is impossible, because of work and a relationship. Hence, I feel terrible every morning, till afternoon.

I write this because I want to solve the problem, however small it may seem to you. I need to recreate the meadowy feel that my work - my playground - has to bring to me for me to function. I need to function in the mornings, or get around my daytimes' unclear head.

we went to pulau rawa

Which is off the coast of Mersing, near Tioman, only less commercialised and more unknown. Which suits us sedentary types.





Le Club Rawa, the quaint beach-side hideout.







E and C happily suntanning.







Here I am looking at C...







Here is C half-asleep from the sun.







Before an afternoon rainstorm....






Same place, the next morning...






At the jetty, which overlooks the corals...







Shady beach!






Lovely water over the rocks.







Lovely rocks over the sand...






View from the top of Rawa







Obviously getting there wasn't that easy on E's fat thighs...






At the Le Club Rawa cafe.







Last evening of suntanning at Rawa.

holiday no enough

I'm feeling post-holiday depressed.


It was lovely at my parents' place - them, their food, the super-clean house.


Coming home to my own dirty and messy house, with only me to do the housework, and no free days except exhausting Sundays to do it - I cannot cope.


After eating all that lovely food from my parents, I feel fat again. Furthermore, they tarbaoed the petai and sambal ikan bilis for us to bring home. Eating the food, I think of them, and miss them again. I feel fat also but then the damage is already done.


Everyday will be busy, weekends included. Why can't we work 3- or 4-day weeks?


Cat is grouchy as usual.


I will be sleepy again everyday, unless I sleep at 10pm the nights before. Which means I cannot do the laundry and wash the toilet tonight. But I don't think I have a choice. Looks like I will be sleepy tomorrow after all.


I want to be sedentary again like we were, sleeping, suntanning, reading, watching anime. I wouldn't be bored living like that for, say, 6 months in the least.


Will post on the exact holiday locale and possibly some pics, soon.


I am not ready to end this holiday yet.

I need more time to do housework.

sunday night

It is a lonely Sunday night, reminding me of my teenage years when loneliness was the core of my being, and the following morning meant the beginning of a week to school and back instead of being safe at home.

Here I am alone again in my flat, my very messy and dirty flat. Habitable but possibly a flat without clean clothes for me by Tuesday.

Beer will not help because I am feeling fat.

God's presence comforts but masks not the fact that I am still physically alone and C-less, hides not the fact that tomorrow is a work day that begins yet another long work week.

I miss living with Mom and Dad, at least I will have a clean house, and knowing they are in another room living and breathing somehow comforts. I really should go visit them soon.

I wish tomorrow we didn't have to all go to work.

(Heck the fat, beer later when it is chilled enough.)

why

I just read again what I wrote and cried.



I do not understand why I still feel emotionally raw about this part of my life. But almost nobody understands. Even I don't understand why a simple job-change hurts me so much, even if it is the supposed right decision.


What am I crying over? A lost friendship? A loss of pride? A dream that died? Loss of glamour? I don't know!


If all these decisions are really part of fulfilling my calling then why am I being hurt through this? Why does time not heal the pain? Why is there pain?


Sharlene calls it surrendering. It probably is, no matter how I cannot comprehend it.


Despite the birthing pains, anger, two-way abuse, and water under the river that existed, despite these and the overworkaholism, I really miss Splashwurks from the bottom of my heart. And this hurts me like hell. God took something really close to me, away, to guide me to something bigger, something else that was also a part of the big picture. Though my mind fathoms it, my heart is broken by it, this I cannot deny.


Nobody will understand this.

curse

Today I wished that someone might die.


I prayed this three times repetitively: "God, please let him die."


Not because I am sympathetic or pro-euthanasia - no, the person in question is not terminally ill on a life-support machine. He is just fecking condescending, anally-retentive (imagine accountant sorts but worse), short egotistic bastard who snakishly behaves otherwise. Best part is that he claims to be open and that the decision is up to _ (insert name of party being talked-down to). No wonder they call him That Piece of Shit.


If he dies soon of a heart attack, I shall claim credit for it.

blue

Words flow over me into me like a river; I hardly have the time-capacity to write them down. I lose them forever.


C asks why I am always so sad. He exaggerates, because every time I shed an tear unknowingly, he concludes that he makes me sad, even though it is not the case.


These are just times of blues and low-mos, and now is such a time. I cannot explain why, it is not situation-dependent. And C is here as my band-aid, proof to me of God's love again and again, because without C I would be even sadder.


Nothing else will help very much. Not even my new Nine West shoes. I will wear them with a smile anyway. :)

talking

I do not think I am much of a talker. There are times, like now, where I hardly feel like saying anything: no desire to update, vent, relate, just like a man in his Martian cave does.

In some ways I am a loner because I have my ultimate defences up, and like someone swimming underwater, I only release words like my breath in slow interrupted streams of bubbles. I make it to the end of the lap without coming above water.

In times like this I might still have energy to write as I do now. It requires less energy, it gives me more privacy, and I do not need to bulldoze my way across. No one will say I am shouting or being rude, and there will be no cutting in by any party of a conversation.

I like conversation. But I miss my old conversation partner and one of my best friends. Steps change, but dreams do not have to. It is one thing to share dreams to inspire someone, it is another share them and be understood.

alone home

So, I am sedentary by nature. I often stone into mid air at night, and I feel sleepy all the time. C hates me for all that when we aren't actually supposed to be sedentary.

Today I wanted to get home and be alone.

I feel that way often, wanting to be home as soon as possible to be alone, at home, truly by myself.

Coming home and if C is here it feels almost alone. The bed is warmer, I have someone to talk gibberish to, and someone with the potential to wash the dishes. But we don't really engage in much interactive activity like heavy talk or lovey-doveyness; pretty much just being next to each other in silence or trivia that only is understandable between him and I. Hence almost-alone. It feels good too.

I like this.

c at my house

C usually comes over to my place to spend the weekend, and Tuesday nights too. I seldom spend time at his place because:

His room is too messy and dusty and I often fall sick there.
His bed is too small, only a super single.
Logistically I will need to bring more things out to spend the night at his place, as compared to him.
If I spend the weekend there, it will mean I cannot do any laundry that week.
I like to be alone and sometimes he too will rather it be just us two.

So, it means he comes over more often than I go over.

Of late he is beginning to get less whiney about not spending enough time at his own home. He quotes the need to spend time with his family and such sometimes, but less lately. So, I am glad. Although we have no money to get married at least we have some semblance of togetherness. I like to stay at (my own) home and I like being with just him and so this really makes me very loved and happy.

writing and reading nowadays...

I haven't been writing much, nor reading really.


I think to myself, what would anyone want to read that was written by me. And I stop there, because I hardly want to read anything I have written, why would anyone else. I don't even read completely what friends write, I merely speed-read. I try to think of something to write that I would be inspired by: nothing. Contemplative traffic-light moments seem mundane.


I am not inspired because I hardly read much now; if I do, I do slowly, inching forward in a few pages a week, or I glance through. My eyes are too tired, or the material is not provoking. A world of partial attention span, and too much light from the computers.


We could write about a lot of things: passion, love, hate or sadness, pleasure perhaps. But everything I feel now is very innate, very intrinsic, hardly spilling over into rapturous anything.


But I will try, which I did here, Elaine is still here nonetheless.

april

It is a hard month. I have been ill with a 'flu bug, and twice too. Energy sapped, highly medicated, and no alcohol. Combine the low energy with deadlines - mine and others' - culminating at the same time, and you have one rather low E. This April, please do not look for me, I have no space for a social life, and housework.

Reality is also hitting me in the form of dumbasses.

And hints of possible regret.

But I get with it, through a newly fixed computer, and hence I can play WoW again. Fantasy cures many things.

Copy.
Paste.
Answer.
Questions.
In.
One.
Word.

1. Where is your cell phone? here
2. Describe your boyfriend/girlfriend? boy
3. Your hair? wet
4. Your mother? best
5. Your father? Daddy
6. Your favourite item? nothing
7. Your dream last night? late
8. Your favourite drink? alcoholic
9. Your dream car? beng
10. The room you are in? pink
11. Your ex? nice
12. Your fear? misdirection
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? accomplished
14. Who did you hang out with last night? slinky
15. What you're not? boy
19. The last thing you did? shower
20. What are you wearing? nothing
22. Your favourite book? many
23. The last thing you ate? cake
24. Your life? changing
25. Your mood? moo
26. Your friends? many.
27. What are you thinking about right now? scar
28. Your car? none
29. What are you doing at the moment? this
30. Your summer? wet
31. Your relationship status? steady
32. What is on your TV? nothing
33. When is the last time you laughed? unsure
34. Last time you cried? tonight
35. School? none

I've said it before, and I will say it again, through someone else's words:

"Charity is a band-aid solution."

I do not need to explain myself any further.

slinky pics

And finally, the cat in my life:

drucker and the 4 learning styles

One important, though seemingly simple, lesson that I got from reading Drucker was that people learn, and work, differently: primarily through reading, writing, talking or listening.

It may seem a simple lesson, but knowing how you work as a person is important to solving many work related issues. Knowing how your associates work too, is critical, because then you can work with them better.

Some people are reading types. They like daily reports, emails "keep me in the CC loop", they like looking at KPIs and have stacks of paper on their desks, printed off the computer, to read. Subordinates who do not like writing reports, or email "it is easier to call ain't it", or hate clearing paper, will find a boss who likes to read a possibly difficult one to work with, especially if the "reports" seem useless to that subordinate. But to the reader, that report makes things crystal clear, instantaneously, rather than having to ask you a million times verbally, why not write it down and hand it over?

But the talker - who likes to walk around the office talking to others, who likes to use the phone to say hello to many people, who likes to have long discussions or coffees - is a different person altogether. He bounces ideas off people, but sometimes these ideas remain ideas instead of becoming commitments. Some people find that a turn off because they didn't realise that person was merely working through thinking aloud.

The listener, likes coffees too, but more so to hear your day, to analyse your problems and perhaps come up with a quiet solution. These listeners hardly exist though, they are probably harder to recognise.

The writer, cannot get things done without scribbling, typing lists, making notes, drawing flow charts. He likes to write reports and KPIs for others, because this makes things clear.

Knowing how your associates are, helps you understand their needs for communication.

Recognise the walk-and-talker, and be his sounding board for his ideas - you become a springboard for his success, and yours too, after all, successful people are only surrounded by other successful people. Don't take everything he says as if it were a commitment; realise that creative people who like to talk, need a comrade, and a confidence, and you could be that person. If your boss likes to talk but perhaps not act very much, then be the actor for his ideas, and make him, and eventually yourself, successful in making those ideas happen.

Recognise the reader, and realise that the more he gets to read from you, the more he knows your effort and your achievements. Verbal discussions will not be useful without a written paper alongside them, so don't lead a meeting without such printouts unless you want to walk away from the boardroom without accomplishing your agenda.

Recognise the writer - who seems to make tons of lists and produces loads of papers, walking around with a notebook everywhere. That person will produce lots of things for you to read. Gain his respect by writing down what he says, and reading what he writes, otherwise don't go for a meeting with him, you will only frustrate him.

The listener, probably arranges to talk to you on the phone, or calls you when you have emailed instead. Don't force him to work through email, but get things done faster with him by going over to talk to him about your ideas or requests.

I am a writer-reader. I talk a lot in real life, but I hardly ever make rash verbal commitments or think aloud; if I say something, I have already thought about it before. I feel slighted when people come for meetings without reading what I have prepared. I need to print stuff out to read and file away (so obviously I am also not a tree-hugger, sorry). I stayed stoned for afternoons on end, thinking about how to come up with organisational solutions (in the past), but when I realised I worked through writing, and started scribbling away, I got the ideas down in a day.

H is a talker. He likes to tell you things over the phone, he likes to think aloud, sometimes seemingly randomly. He hardly works through email, or sms, he always calls.

My current boss Y is a reader-writer. She likes to be cc-ed everything, she has mounds of paper on her desk, she writes her thoughts down when she talks to you, something she probably learnt from her boss.

I work with one particular lecturer who is a listener. He is much easier to communicate with over the phone in an instant, compared to a week of emailing-waiting.

So you see, you need to know them, otherwise, you end up getting frustrated over: non-committal ideas and plans, having to CC everything, looking at colleagues' deskfuls of paper, waiting for email replies. Recognise their traits, and communicate with them effectively, and make them successful, and thus yourself.

I admire the way these volunteers work with these lives; lives that are so dependent on adults, lives that cannot think beyond their childhood years long past.

I thought I was here to mobilise people to serve others, that I can serve as an enabler, encourager: inspiring others.

But the truth is, these volunteers are the very ones who inspire me, who lead me to realise that my own capacity for service and missions is really still so small. That I am the one who needs to be inspired. That passion, no matter how great, will always remain subdued by the greatness of love.

I just watched "Music and Lyrics".

And can I just say...

Hugh Grant is sooo sexy.

Oh my gosh.

chill

Tonight was a yuppie night because I had a weekday dinner at an Italian restaurant in town, and a pot of tea in an English-type tea room thereafter.


But nothing beats coming home; it is here that I can chill like no place else.


I read and probe the internet, shower, chat on the phone. Have a beer, think, write, and probably read some more. Nothing beats this. Especially even more so when the flat is still clean like it is now.


I think the whole concept of 'chilling out' is a yuppie idea. Kids 'hang out', young working adults 'chill out'. It is a wonderful feeling, being an urban adult.


The only yuppie thing I am not doing is going out for drinks or a party on a weekday night. It is all rather staid and homely for me. My nightly beer does not count. I like it this way, but then again I also like opportunity.


Opportunity is a vital factor in sexual attraction. Some like the idea of a challenge - someone obviously unavailable or who plays hard to get, that kind of thing. A challenge is an opportunity to be earned against the impossibilities. Others like the idea that someone is single and looking for someone.Or the fact that he or she likes you, the possibility of things, that makes for compounded attraction. Either way, the idea of an opportunity makes attraction even more compelling.


Not that I will die without a party and drinks on a weekday night. I feel pretty chill now anyway. Years ago when I was still at the bank, I remember the post-work drinks I had. I was always dead tired when I went (in time for happy hour or ladies' night), and even tireder when I left for the night. The best thing about these dos is the alcohol: lovely champagne at Centro, lovely Hoegaarden at Bala, that sort of thing. The company was sadly besides the point, and the music, forgettable. And I felt sad often. Those weren't exactly good days really, save the alcohol.


The cynicism and entertaining of different people, desirable or otherwise, in my flat. All that too.


I rather the way it is now. Happy, and chilling out in lovely company, that including myself.

what I did this weekend

On Friday, I hogged the photocopier for two hours after work and ended up leaving the office at nine plus in the evening.

I missed going to cell group.

Then I went home, and got ready for the Stellar party at Phuture. C came to pick me up and we went, getting Daffy and Kenny along the way too.

We had loads to drink. I had at least two Sex-on-the-beach-es, and some other shooter-types of drinks like 'Illusions' and 'Slippery Nipples'. Also had a Chivas, and a beer.

Then I got home and slept in my makeup! I am a monster. I woke up looking nice and smelling terrible.

I woke and munched on some oatmeal squares, and promptly went and slept through most of the day, save to get up to eat my lunch at three. I also arranged for Elvis to come service my aircon on Monday.

At dinner time we ordered Macs and watched anime. C then went on to play WoW, while I went and cleaned the house. I cleaned all the rooms except the disused study room, and the toilets. I also did laundry, ironing, and changed the sheets.

Then we slept at three a.m. That was when I finished my housework, showered, and lay down to read 'The world according to Garp', and when C finished his in-game instance, showered too, and lay down to read 'Newton's Wake'.

I woke at noon the next day, and we finally made it out of the house (not until I also did another batch of laundry and some more ironing) to eat Hoe Nam prawn mee. Subsequently we went to town to walk a bit, have coffee together and to watch 300, after I needily bought another new skirt and book.

We went to meet C's family for dinner.

I came home, went to buy some groceries, ate some fruit, did more ironing, washed the toilet in my room - my hands are now very raw - and showered. I also did some prep for work tomorrow. (I am conducting some workshops next week. Finally I have an excuse to dress in my suits properly).

Superb weekend. I am going to get ready for bed now. Yummy.

I love reading. Every night I come home and read online, or my books. Lately because I meet a lot of new people, they ask me what I like to do in my free time, and I say I like reading. Probably sounds anti-social, but I am.


Been falling asleep earlier and feeling sleepy constantly. But no matter. Work where I am is very relaxed; I am feeling rather under-utilised at the moment. A confidence-boost, because everything I need to do daily, I have done before, and more of at that. It feels funny not being a workaholic now, might I stagnate? It is inherent in my personality that I constantly and easily feel restless, as they have said.


This Friday night after ten we are going for the Stellar party at Phuture! Mainstream music like house and trance but extremely good djs so it will be well worth it. Come along with me if you dare.

lovely weekend

Of which, one of the highlights is a new phone. C wanted to buy me a phone for V-day, seeing that he celebrates the occasion. My old phone has been functional, albeit the buttons are hardly working any more and there are no fancy-shmancy mp3 functions, heck, it didn't even have a data cable for uploading pictures. But I hardly had the urgency nor time to shop for a phone till today. So, it is probably more like a Chinese Valentine's Day gift for me. I love this phone: it looks great - nice and glossy and pink and sleek, very yummy to me.

We went to get this phone today; had to wait for about an hour at the Singtel shop in Citylink Mall (good service but you must wait). I bought a new top from m)phosis for work, and some herbal supplements to aid sleep from GNC, and for C I got got him some Echinacea with vitamin B and C as well as zinc, something I just bought for myself lately too.

After the phone shopping we also went to get C some new running shoes. The gal in the Nike shop at Suntec was uber helpful, and completely amazed by C's extreme flat-footedness, and his lack of discomfort wearing shoes not meant for flat-footers.

For dinner we went to the Blue Lobster at Frankel Avenue - we absolutely loved the foie gras we had the last time we went there for C's cousin's birthday dinner, it was the best we have had in Singapore so far, really. But they were out of foie gras! Nonetheless, we still ate there, lovely food as before.

Am now doing laundry, but probably not anymore housework than that and ironing. Will really have to soon, though.

absence

I'm sorry I haven't been writing much.


Sedated.

cny (pig)

1.
Spent most of the five days past horizontal - reading, watching enough teevee for a year, sleeping.

2.
Because of so much sleep I had a dream I was passed over for a project because I was too fat.

3.
Had another dream I suddenly ended up with two children, and no diapers for change, and I was renting a room somewhere with some family. Talk about subliminal anxiety regarding the future. I start work tomorrow.

4.
My parents cook the nicest food. Relationship does not sour even though stayed with them for five days. The key is privacy. I stay in my room, Mom lounges in the porch, we talk when we want to, no intrusions necessary.

Lauren Willig and George Orwell

I finished this book by Lauren Willig sometime back and I have to say it is well-written and a stroke of genius. My regret is that, because this book seems to be a part in a continuing saga of fictitious spies in Napoleon's era, I have no idea whether to read ahead or backwards. I think I am going to let it remain as a stand-alone novel for me for the time being.


It has elements of mystery, comedy, romance in a chick-lit fashion, and English wittiness. Given that I seldom read mystery or crime unless masked in something else, like Ryu Murakami's In The Miso Soup for example, this serves to meet my need for non-romantic thrill in a book, without being a hard-core mystery thriller sort.


My George Orwell's Why I Write, collection of essays by the man himself, is an inspiring read. It makes you think about things, and you find a friend in him if you like writing. Unfortunately, the cat tore some pages of it, and I have yet to come around to fixing them together with scotch-tape, so, reading it came to an abrupt halt. I still find him to serious to be a novelist, though maybe I can hardly stomach very many serious writers, so it could be just me.