alive and kicking… feebly

hmm, i’ve skipped one month’s update. sorry about that.

right now i’m at a low point of my job because i got in trouble for a bad day’s work, which triggered a ridiculously overblown domino effect in my department. my mistake was mine, i claim responsibility for it, but the way the management has chosen to handle the situation was pretty appalling, to say the least. at one point, i was harassed. while some of the measures taken by the management did not directly affect some of the colleagues, nonetheless they were upset enough by the turn of events that they made rather drastic proclaimations and decisions.

if they go through with what rumours said they said, there could be an exodus. as it is, i’ve approached the idea of a transfer with the management. at this point, i don’t intend to leave the department for good, but i do want a change of scene. not so much because of the ugly stuff that’s going on at the office but because it’s the only time i’ll ever get myself to make a change. i’m a big follower of the ‘if it ain’t broke, why fix it’ mentality. and as it stands right now, the department feels quite broken and demoralised.

that’s the ongoing drama i hope will have a happy ending for me soon. in between the ensuing drama, i went on a vacation to one of malaysia’s best islands with some colleagues. i really enjoyed myself, though the 5-hour car trip each way was quite terrible. still, it was worth sitting on my butt for that long to feel sand in between my toes at the many beaches we visited around the island. it was also worth it when i walked up several hundred steps for a dip in a river. okay, maybe not that worth it when my legs ached for the next three days and the fact that the place did not have any decent changing rooms – i guess that’s all part of the experience of holidaying.

i want to write more but i’m getting sleepy. it’s almost 3am and i’m still at the office. i really should get my own laptop. today’s update is just about me trying to get past the bad episodes at the office. lots of people screwed up, including me, and i wish we could all start on a clean slate right now. but first, i have to complete the sentence given by the management. a pointless and unfair one, if you ask me, but nope, my opinion really doesn’t matter in the department. i’m just a desktop labourer, churning out the work given, so i don’t have much of a say in anything. so gotta complete the undesirable task before i can move on.

i’m tired but alive and kicking, if rather feebly. (but then again, the days of lively activity on this blog have long been gone so really it’s been quite feeble here for a while, hasn’t it?)

a change is gonna come

from three or four blog posts a week to once a month. i’m really not sulz anymore, am i? lol.

something happened recently that i felt like i ought to write it down here. something life-changing…

i disconnected my internet connection at home.

did anyone gasp? never mind, i shall do the honours.

gasp!

yes, you might be asking – why?

my ten-year-old computer finally broke down. to be exact, the monitor conked out – everything else still works fine. well, everything that’s necessary to connect me to the net anyway. i’ve stopped saving files long ago since the d drive crashed. but i figured it’s time to get a nifty laptop rather than replace the monitor.

however, i decided not to get a laptop just yet because i want to take my time to shop around for a good deal. besides, i can do almost everything i want to do online at the office. i can go to facebook, do online shopping, chat, visit most sites… except play facebook games and surf porn. 😦 kidding about the latter!

so, with that, i decided to quit the facebook games i play cold turkey. it’s a pretty big step for me ‘cos i play them about an hour at least every day without fail. but i think it’s time to move on from this phase.

since i can get my internet fix from the office and i am subscribing to mobile internet, i figured i don’t really need broadband at home right now. i find myself quite restless these days as i suffer from withdrawal symptoms but i’ve been keeping myself occupied with dvds and books and friends.

also, i’m most likely getting a new car by the end of the year, hopefully. yes, another big change!

my current car – which some faithful readers and personal friends might have seen – was good when it was working fine. these days, it’s pretty much on its last breath. the radiator is shot so i can’t leave the car idle for too long, otherwise it will overheat. which means i cannot afford to get stuck in traffic jams! and traffic congestion is pretty much expected in any city in the world so it’s getting quite ridiculous, the way i drive like a maniac sometimes to make sure i reach the office before the car overheats. i’m guilty of using the emergency lanes to cut the slow-moving traffic because of this problem.

i haven’t actually done anything to make my laptop and car purchases yet but i will get the ball rolling soon… as soon as i return from my vacation. yeap, i’m going on vacation next weekend and i’m looking forward to it.

when i come back, i might just tell you more about it. 😉

Fighting my demons

An office colleague has lent me her Buffy the Vampire Slayer dvds and i’ve been watching it daily like some teen horror soap opera. Which it is, in a way.

Anyway, as with all protagonists who fight evil, buffy finds it hard to conceal her secret identity. In the show, the friends who know have come to accept it and become part of her scooby gang.

I don’t have any superpowers, but i can relate to Buffy when it comes to fighting demons. Except that my demons are personal. Well, she has her personal ones too, but the ones that really requires her commitment are more of the threat to Sunnydale and ultimately mankind sort of demons.

As i was saying, my personal demons. We all have them and for the most part, we hide it. Sometimes, i really want them hidden, repressed. Other times, i wish i were brave enough to open up and reveal these demons. But almost always, i don’t. Fear of being rejected, not being understood always kept that desire in check.

A few weeks ago, i had a fight with a friend. In the course of the fight, some of my inner demons were revealed. My friend did not understand them. And i was crushed.

I just want to be accepted in spite of my inner demons. But i guess it’s not fair to ask for acceptance from someone who doesn’t understand them, nor wants to.

Buffy may have to save the world over and over again, but she has friends to help her fight those demons, universal and personal. If i were Buffy, i think it’s worth having to go through shit like that with friends like that.

Because not having to go through the bad stuff in life all by yourself, it’s a weight off your shoulders. You know they’ve got your back and you have theirs. I think life is more comforting when you get to share everything with people you care about… And care about you too.

Meanwhile, i fight most of my inner demons myself. Until i can find someone who understands them.

Sent from my Nokia 6760 slide

tearing down the wall

i find it ironic that i put up tweets of a rather personal nature, which are read by essentially people i do not truly know except in mind, while the people i have met and vetted through facebook, i could never divulge anything i feel is personal. so in facebook, i put up witty statuses, the kind i feel is safe for everyone in my list to read (safe meaning it does not put me in a vulnerable position, or what i feel is one). i try not to put anything vague, unlikely anything negative, and virtually nothing related to work. on the other hand, i practically bare my soul on twitter (and here on this blog too, but not much these days).

i guess my point is that i have no problems opening up to people i am almost sure i would never meet (and if i do they will be a one-off meeting) but i am absolutely unable to do the same with people i see in my everyday life.

is it that i can only trust people from a distance? maybe. i do not care if you, the reader, knows that i am an emotional mess, because i don’t know you are reading this and if you are reading this and you know me in person as well, you are not likely to tell me, "hey, i read the other day about how you are an emotional mess. tell me more!" but i do care that i do not reveal such information to a person in front of me, or in my facebook because i might see that person some other time, because i don’t want to know that you know.

there are times when i want to express the negativity i am feeling. before, this place used to be my outlet. i hardly feel like doing so here now, though. i don’t feel the urge to log into my blog – the only reason you are reading this is because this platform has a email-to-blog feature which makes it seem less like blogging (at least, in the eyes of my colleagues at work).

so twitter it is (thanks to mobile internet). and yet, i don’t find it satisfying.

the truth is, i long to be able to open up to someone, face-to-face, without feeling like the biggest idiot in the world for feeling the way i do.

a personal review every four years

am blogging this via e-mail from work. nothing much to report on that end – i am still struggling but i shan’t bore you with such drivel. after all i did sign up for this… torture.

it’s the world cup now but i did not catch the fever, unlike when i was 17 and 21. i remember at 17, during the world cup period i wondered when the next world cup happens again, where would i be in life? when i turned 21, i thought back to the time when i was 17 and thinking that and thought, i bet my 17-year-old self would be happy to know that at 21, i was studying in a prestigious local university and leading a pretty okay life. and at 21 i thought the same thing too – where would i be when i turn 25?

now i am here. working in one of the biggest media organisations in the country – am just a small fry here but i am here nonetheless – with an okay life.

where would i be at the next world cup, when i turn 29? will life be as good as i hope it would be?

only time will tell.

(sorry, i wish i had more that i want to write about!)

that double-edged fire.

recently i lost my temper a few times. one incident happened on my penultimate day at my previous job. another happened yesterday.

i was angry about a financial situation that i tried to work my way around but couldn’t. it was frustrating for me because i’ve been waiting for my paycheck since i quit my job. because of the financial situation i am only able to withdraw my salary on the day i’m due to begin my new job. i much rather solve my money issues before then as i am planning to make an expensive purchase.

when things don’t go my way, i get upset. i guess we all do, the only difference being the way we react to the situation. i get angry when the chain of events do not make sense to me. i get angry when i feel unfairly treated. you could say i get worked up easily.

i know i have a bad temper and that it could be a downfall, a flaw in my character. when you get mad quickly, you get stressed easily and you may react irrationally due to the anger. i am aware of that and i do try to the best of my ability to control my temper in situations where i realise losing it will not help the situation.

i guess being angry doesn’t help much. for instance, if i’m stuck in a traffic jam, i might get worked up. but what’s the point? my anger does not make the traffic go away. yet, i find that as pointless as it may seem to be angry about a situation i may not be able to change at the moment in time, expressing that anger helps me in a therapeutic sense.

it’s like crying. i try not to cry, but if i can’t help it i just have to let the tears fall. i cry until i can’t anymore and then i try to move on. so like the tears, i release my anger so that i can get over my rage and move on.

people with well-meaning intentions have advised me to stay cool and try not to lose my temper. maybe i lose it more often than the average, even-tempered person. to me, i feel like anger is passion viewed negatively. anger is mostly not a nice emotion. but without anger, i don’t believe there is passion. that’s not to say people who do not get angry are not passionate people. i believe that if you have passion, you have anger too.

anger and passion, they are like two sides of a coin. they are both fueled by a motivation, except that anger has a negative motivation and passion a positive motivation.

so, even though it’s not good that i get angry over things that seem trivial after the anger is gone, i appreciate that i could feel and express anger. because if i could do that, i could feel and express its alter ego – passion.

maybe i should not just express my anger but also learn how to channel it positively. then my anger will be a good thing to possess!