The stewardess came to check on me again. This time she sat next to me and asked if I was all right.
"I'm fine, thanks," I said with a smile. "Just feeling kind of blue."
"I know what you mean," she said. "It happens to me, too, every once in a while."
She stood and gave me a lovely smile. "Well, then, have a nice trip. Auf Wiedersehen."

Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

It was a kind of blue week. Is this the quarter life crisis already, at 7 months of work? No way, right??

I hate feeling like that, but at the same time, I didn't take any steps to make myself feel any better. Everyday was a routine. Sometimes, such blerch feelings feel strangely cathartic. Just look around your Facebook newsfeed, there are some people who seem to be the embodiment of blerch themselves.

But something had to give, I could not go on feeling like that. It's ridiculous, isn't it? If there was something wrong with where I am now, something I am dissatisfied with; I should fix it. If there was absolutely nothing, then why am I allowing myself to feel like this?

Sometimes (all the time), I live my life with so many blind spots, they would qualify as blind areas, heck. Blind radii, even. That's why I always hope I have friends who love me enough to be brutally honest and tell me what they really think about me. Had a WhatsApp chat with Fion at lunchtime, and it helped me iron out the thought process I should adopt when it comes to my career. It's nice having a senior who is patient and cares enough to talk to me about this.

Reading my earlier posts (the previous 3), I realise that nothing in the area of my work has gotten worse. If anything, everything's improved tremendously; I am able to manage my work, I love my colleagues and my clients and I think the people I work with have generally a good impression of my work. So what then, what changed? Me. Fickleness does that to me sometimes.

I'm not going to take myself out of this environment. I'm going to think about how I can excel in this environment even more. Work faster, be more responsive to my clients and deadlines, proactively manage my work.

I am going to be so damn good at what I do that if I ever leave, all of you are going to miss me.

Things are going pretty well now. Each new assignment I get is challenging as they are all different. Some more so, but even those with similarities have subtle differences that are easy to overlook and get careless over. Yet, I look forward to working on them. I think I'm at a very nice stage of my career where the full weight of the usual workload has not been dumped onto our shoulders... yet; I have time to explore, to make mistakes, to ask questions. If anything, I'd like to take on as much challenging work as I can now, when I can still make the excuse of being too fresh if I make mistakes. Better than doing it next time, when I may have to justify the experience that I got; which would instead impede me from moving forward and growing.

Looking back, I'm almost embarrassed at my previous 2 posts, on the verge of deleting them. They make me look bad and whiny. But it's a reminder of how fickle human emotions are. Memories don't last, experiences keep evolving. And above all, a reminder of God's faithfulness. I like my manager a lot, she's really patient and fair in her work. I wonder when I reach her stage if I could be as patient as her. Maybe I'd be a stuck-up jackass who things a world of myself and refuse to look out for those under me. I'm thankful to all my other colleagues too who take the time to answer questions that I feel are silly as soon as they leave my mouth.

If I were to state where would I like to be in X number of years... of course, it would be fashionable to be all high-achieving and say I would like to make manager/director/partner. To be honest, I always expect a lot of myself. In fact, I expect to achieve things that I don't even feel I deserve. Only by God's grace I have achieved what I have today. But moving forward, I decide that that should not underpin my direction. Instead of saying I would like X position in Y number of years, I just want to learn as much as I can; with all the variety of knowledge that the diverse companies can teach me, and to learn how to cope, and excel with the other associated things expected of us as professionals such as managing workflow and finding favour with our clients.

Money, of course is always nice, so is position and being beyond my peers. But at every point, I want to be somewhere where I have grown sufficiently to belong. I don't want to take shortcuts. If I have to wait, I pray for the patience and grace to. If I am to move on, I pray for humility and prudence.

It's the end of the first week and things haven't gone all that well. Work's a lot tougher than I imagined. More than being able to appreciate the tax concepts, I think the biggest challenge will be to manage the portfolio. I'm lucky to just have around a dozen companies but already I feel the management overwhelms my brain; being able to prioritize the cases, meeting all the deadlines when they do come, having a sufficient grasp of the case when I'm questioned about it in future.. It's all a bit much. I certainly underestimated it. To top it all off I'm working on something I feel is next to impossible. Even though I trust I'd get past this, things just seem really big right now. I can't see ahead of me anymore. Time to seek God and His favour as I move forward.

Hajime

Today is my first day of work at EY and it is the beginning of a new season of my life. For the past 10 years or so, I have worked towards my goal of being an accountant and am thankful for all the blessings I received in my life that got here today.

Over the past few months, certain events and experiences have also made me question what I want in my life. Admittedly, for the longest time, the goal of being an accountant was towards a career where I earn a decent income. Although it would be nice to make so much that I have to trouble my head over what to do with it all, I can also get by with much less, and hence I was just looking forward to having the ability to acquire things in my life that I want which I thought would provide me the fulfilment I was looking for.

Evaluating this perspective, I considered that I could be rather mistaken. Academic research and my own experiences have shown me that such satisfaction could only be temporal. It's interesting, and very tragic to see how fast we can get over the feeling of joy and satisfied longing so quickly after obtaining something.

What then, should my goal in life be? Should I chase experiences? I had a wonderful time travelling since my exams ended. Over the past 2 months since my exams ended I have been to Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Cambodia. It's funny how I used to think travelling is little but a real drag. It has really taught me a lot of things; how systems so different from ours here can still be entirely functional; a greater appreciation for cultures other than our own (which was never much to brag about in the first place); the ability to communicate using language etc.

What exactly do I want? I don't know, and I would like to find out. Something more concrete - I enjoyed the first day of training at EY, I'm happy how the firm thinks about how to make things better and come up with new ways of doing things. It makes me think about the position I want to be at next time, and whether I would be able to think of things like that and put it through with action. That's a still long way off and for now I should just focus on being extremely good at my craft.

Gotta keep my head up.

12/03/10

Yesterday's de-kit marked the end of my national service. I couldn't say I liked the job very much. Many a time I found myself in a state of introspection after making decisions and taking action. Was what I did right, was it legally sound, did it uphold the image of my organization? Sometimes these 3 things were at odds with each other and all the grey areas muddled my head. Sometimes the easy thing to do was to just stop thinking about it. One thing for sure is that I really enjoyed the company of my colleagues and even managed to find friends in different departments that we worked closely with. I'd say they're the most unaffected and honest bunch of people I've come across which is rare in a working environment but somehow there was awesome synergy in the team.

Hands down, the best 1.5 years of my life spent with all of you from Delta :)

Wabi-sabi

Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.

I had interesting conversations with 2 people today. Just some small talk, really, since we were going to be stuck with each other for about an hour or so. Well, I thought that's what normal humans do when faced with such situations. Then, like most conversations you have (or at least I have) with people I don't really know, it somehow ends up becoming a session where we start to complain about something (misery sure likes company!). The weather was really really hot (FIRST BLOOD. boring, I know!) and that we work pretty long hours (so that easily drew a reaction, hey! see, I'm pretty good at this social thing).

It struck me, that both of them (actually they were bus drivers that I was assigned to follow) swelled with pride when they were describing their children and their achievements. You know, those drool-ey, pesky, noisy martians that grow up to rat-a-tat on their keyboards while you're trying to get some sleep at midnight typing silly things nobody bothers about, doing stupid dangerous things like cycling on roads, and turning across traffic without checking sufficiently to cause screeching of brakes, burning of rubber and scenes of your life flashing through your mind. I'd think they should talk about more important things! Like how many kms they cycle a week and the fastest downslope around.

Maybe I just have to learn to love more. After all, it says in the bible somewhere that we should love our neighbours. Not just the wonderful neighbours who give lifts to the bus stop, and the ones who give you a treat on your birthday even after moving out a decade ago, but everybody; people who I don't feel like caring about, people whom I'd never see again, people who I don't really have to talk to.

Perhaps the brutally practical side causes me to sometimes be unable to appreciate transience. And if I am unable to do something well, I'd be better off not doing it?

Dear God, please help me see that everything and everyone you've placed in my life is for a reason.

24/02/10

A thousand times I've failed
Still Your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
I'm caught in Your grace

The past week went by with me thinking that if I didn't mess up on each day, it would be considered a good day. It seemed like the waves of bad things wouldn't stop coming. Although I was with people I really enjoyed being with, my mind would be a million miles away. It got to the point that I could have gotten 9 hours of sleep a night and have someone tell me the next day that I looked tired.

Nobody told me that I'd get andropause when I hit 21.

I think while I was sleeping last night, some gnomes came by and plugged my battery into the wall socket. The work day ended with and I think that God must really go out of His way for me. Everything started to fall in place.

Sometimes (usually the better days) it feels to me that the only thing worthwhile doing is to make someone else's day better. To my family that really goes out of their way every time for me, to my friends who still care for me despite my mistakes and even the people I come across at work and would probably never see again. And then there are times that I find myself taking my family for granted, I have no time for friends who make space for me in their calenders, and I become endothermic. Thanks everyone for putting up with me.

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine

Dear God, please be the sunshine when it rains in my heart.

30/01/10

You know you should NOT read cyclists' blogs when you've:
(1) sustained whiplash from sneezing
(2) splattered blood while blowing your nose
and your dustbin looks like one giant-popcorn machine

because it's just going to make you want to ride in spite of your floundering respiratory system

... but it's so much fun =(

Mr Flu consider this your last warning, if you don't die by monday I'm going to OD on fedac and kill you anyway.

19/01/10

Shree once asked me at work "How come I never see you angry?". If memory serves me I said something in reply to the effect of I usually turn the person who's trying to get me mad into something amusing in my mind.

I later read in one of Murakami's novels a character who professed the following: A person may anger or annoy me, but not for long. I can distinguish between myself and another as beings of two different realms. It’s a kind of talent (by which I do not mean to boast: it’s not an easy thing to do, so if you can do it, it is a kind of talent - a special power). When someone gets on my nerves, the first thing I do is transfer the object of my unpleasant feelings to another domain, one having no connection with me. Then I tell myself, Fine, I’m feeling bad, but I’ve put the source of these feelings into another zone, away from here, where I can examine it and deal with it later in my own good time. In other words, I put a freeze on my emotions. Later, when I thaw them out to perform the examination, I do occasionally find my emotions still in a distressed state, but that is rare. The passage of time will usually extract the venom from most things and render them harmless. Then, sooner or later, I forget about them. I realised that I can too identify with this and use it sometimes.

Sometimes it's not easy to be doing what I do. People don't go to NPCs to tell the officers what a wonderful day they had. The lightest hearted people we come across are those changing address (even this is not always the case). We may not be trained to dig shoulder deep trenches or to survive for a week without a bath but this is not a very easy thing to deal with, day in day out. Of course, nary a day goes by when I thank God that I am here and not there

Just happens that the past week or so has worn me quite a fair bit with things happening on off days. It's probably not even such a big deal. I still get ample sleep. Perhaps it was having less time for myself and to sort out the garbage, metaphorically speaking.

Energy levels sunk really low the past 2 shifts and I saw how it drained my patience along with it. It then struck me for the first time, that perhaps one of the reasons I don't get angry so easily, is that it is pretty difficult for me to forgive people. And when I get angry, it REALLY gnaws at me, and like how a salad spinner spins the water out of lettuce, anger spins good sense out my ears. I'm glad I dealt with it the way I did though, choosing not to say anything while I was still angry (MY TONGUE SPITS FIRE, BABY!). I'm also glad I said sorry first. I found out a really good way to deal with anger is to deal with the person one-to-one, when the ego is subdued, and talk things out. Making things right can turn out so much sweeter than being right.

I guess I've just been lucky all this while, being able to run away from anger. But I couldn't run forever, like how it managed to catch up with me. I'm happy I learnt a bit more about myself and how to punch anger in the face the next time I see it.

Of course, in a non-angry way =)

18/01/10

You can shed tears that she is gone,
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her only that she is gone,
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind,
be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what she'd want:
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

10/01/10

It was Adeline and Ron's wedding yesterday. It was really nice to see 2 wonderful people getting married. Wishing the 2 of you God's blessing in your marriage :)

After that managed to spend the last half hour of Brian's birthday at his place. It was really fun and everyone drank too much. Happy 21st bro.

Was pretty stoned at church today. I think it was terrible to turn up at church like that but I'm glad I made it at all.

08/01/10

So that's what it feels like to have the rug pulled from under you. An incisive slice through the heart. I always fancied I had a good head on my shoulders and could be above this all. It took a dream to teach me how far I could fall. That did hurt, a lot.

06/01/10

Had a date with mummy today at Cafe Vic. The food was pretty good and I left room for the enticing cakes too which did not disappoint. Once again (as usual) I overate so that was my only meal for a day and since it was so many calories I...

Had a ride with Justin later that night. It's been about 8 months since we last rode. The floor was pretty wet after the rain so I didn't have a very good feeling about riding. But Justin just went for it and I knew he meant business when he went into an aero tuck and went into the bend leading to Bukit Timah a la Rossi. By the end of Bukit Timah it hit me pretty hard that I haven't been pushing myself at all as I felt my body starting to give but that was only the start. We took turns riding in front but towards Thomson I just hung behind as I was not too sure about the way. There was this incredible slope along Upper Thomson that left me completely winded at the end and I had to stop for a breather and a drink. When I got back on my bike, I felt like I was blacking out and my ears were blocked. But we went on anyway and were repaid with some incredible downslopes. There was this bit where I was going at above 50 and it was really exhilerating. Justin guided me when to ease off and when to really push for it (though the whole ride felt like it was a push, really) and to trust myself a lot more without tapping on the brakes. Some FNWR people passed us and they knew Justin. And then more people also passed by who knew him. And then somewhere leading up to Mandai a rider from a pack at the opposite direction of the road 6 lanes away screamed "JUSTIN!". It felt like I was riding behind Lance Armstrong. The pain in my right elbow came at Woodlands but thankfully it was nearing the end. Took a break at Gombak McDonalds for quite a bit before returning home. All in all it was a very pleasant first Mandai ride :)

01/01/10

Finally got to celebrate Kevin's birthday today! Only it was in the wrong year already, and it was 2 weeks late. :( So even if last night I was doing new year's eve night shift , even as we fulfilled the resolutions of all the crazy people whose wish was to get arrested in 2010 (it takes all kinds), even as the promised Fong Seng nasi lemak supper never came (the tapao-ed spaghetti from Breeks was good though!), we were going to meet.

Some of you may have found sometime in your life that it is next to impossible to give me a treat. Meet Kevin, who somehow managed to squeeze between me and impossible. As fortune favours the brave, success favours the (annoyingly) persistent. Thanks lots for the souvenir from Turkey! Even though we can't decide what is embroidered on it, it's very nice :)

Since I wasn't able to do this properly last night, I'm going to do it now before I pass out from exhaustion. Thanks everyone who has made 2009 beautiful for me, for putting up with me, keeping me company and encouraging me to be better. To my wonderful colleague for teaching me that even when I grow old, I don't have to grow up. And to God for making everything come together and keeping me safe.

Blessed 2010 =)

28/12/09

Yesterday celebrated Val's 21st in the wrong year. Glad we're still in contact after graduating from secondary school so long ago. I'll wish you happy birthday again on your real birthday!

Just had dinner with Pam. Sorry to make you rush off and then get late for your discussion! I wonder how Koreans manage to remain so slim on TV and movies when they have so much to eat. I nearly killed her with my fantastically wrapped pork belly LettUce dumpling. Poor Pam. Udders was as good as I remembered it and I'm glad to see that they ignored the votes to invent the Prata and Yong Tau Foo flavour.

Thanks for the yummy muffins! Beary Christaas =)

23/12/09

Dear Santa,

Could you give me a new back for Christmas? Mine doesn't feel so good today. Sitting at Bedok jetty watching the sun go to sleep behind the clouds gave me a very comforting feeling. The sea breeze made the wonderful invention of air conditioning insignificant. I could have gone on sitting there for a long time but let the darkening sky cajole me into returning.

21/12/09

The other day, we went out from the car and my partner realised we had forgotten to bring the camera along. Returning to the car, I remarked, "When you act, you need the props". The comment didn't mean much then. Perhaps I heard it somewhere before. It seemed to be an appropriate joke then.

I didn't think too much about it. If I revisited every comment that spent less than a half a second percolated in my brain before it came out, I would be kept busy. Watching Noriko's Dinner Table (2005) just brought that incident back into my mind.

Being so immersed in acting that you are able to feel the sensations your character feels and completely forgetting yourself must be acting of the highest level. It was chilling, even, to watch as the characters part of the "family-circles" take on their persona.

After watching it, it dawned on me that what I do isn't all that different. Putting on the uniform each shift I transform into someone else. This character that is part my own construct based on what I think people's expectations of me are, and when they let me know quite overtly what they are. The procedures part is pretty easy - usually watching what my more experienced colleagues do and taking bits here and there and combining it to become my own. Knowing what I have to do aside, the bit that troubles me more is who I am supposed to be. What do I tell the person who has been telling me all the things that are going wrong in their marriage with a mixture of words, tears and snot? I don't know if it's more cruel - to tell the person that if there's nothing more that I am legally and procedurally obliged and empowered to assist I'll take my leave, or stand there with an earnest look plastered on my face while giving careful, calculated replies which I think will make that person feel better when my heart's circuit breaker had been already triggered and feeling disgusted at my hypocrisy.

In situations like that where things aren't A or B (they never are), the basis of my decisions and actions so far has been whether I am able to make that person feel better. Another dilemma presents itself, whether to fulfil this principle, had I told an untruth or led that person to having certain expectations which will eventually be shattered.

That's the circle of life... just like the numbers after 3.14 in pi continue without end, real circles can never be perfect. But if you draw a circle with a compass and a big fat marker, a thick outline will make it seem perfect

14/12/09

I was deployed to partner the most difficult person to work with, did not eat anything after breakfast, had to bring this guy who pissed his pants back to station, felt my throat in flames yelling at people/through doors to evacuate neighbours from a fire, found out that old people are really 10-year-olds with white hair when you try to make them do something they don't want to, had to STAND-by the fire scene for 4 hours, found my car's battery was dead after it was causing a jam, made someone yell at me "turn on your hazard light!", had to attend a call 7 minutes before I was supposed to knock off, had to bring someone back to station and finished work 2 hours later.

But that person was on leave, breakfast was a HUGE packet of nasi lemak, there's always newspapers, nobody got sick from the smoke, in the end they listened to the real kid (in uniform), I didn't have to see another dead body, my colleague brought the car booster to me, I didn't have to yell back, my colleague offered to go for it instead, that person was quite a lot of fun to talk to and taught me how to make beer battered fish and chips.

It isn't that difficult to on normal days to feel like I'm on top of things, have a little fun, but when it hits the fan, I think that's what really defines people - to be able to show fortitude of character when everyone else bolts. It makes a difference when someone you know is going through a tough patch but still takes the effort to smile, laugh at their own jokes and break out into Beyonce's Single Ladies in the car ad lib.

And that's why I'm proud to be from Delta.

Mitsuo Aida

Because it has lived its life intensely,
the parched grass still attracts the gaze of passers-by.
The flowers merely flower,
and they do this as well as they can.
The white lily, blooming unseen in the valley,
does not need to explain itself to anyone;
it lives merely for beauty.
Man, however, cannot accept that ‘merely’.

If tomatoes wanted to be melons,
they would look completely ridiculous.
I am always amazed
that so many people are concerned
with wanting to be what they are not;
what’s the point of making yourself look ridiculous?

You don’t always have to pretend to be strong,
there’s no need to prove all the time that everything is going well,
you shouldn’t be concerned about what other people are thinking,
cry if you need to,
It’s good to cry out all your tears
(because only then will you be able to smile again).

Is it really okay? To let others know that you aren't as strong as they thought? I try my best to be thankful for what I have. To me, what I can do for myself and the people around me, is to not make anyone have to worry for me. In thinking that people should not have to think about me maybe I've forgotten how to think about others as well. Perhaps thinking is the wrong word. Thinking I do pretty well, reducing communication to its constituent elements using my narrow perception, taking what I want and rejecting the rest. I must have hurt many people this way, when they talk to me and and feel like they're talking in an hollow cave because all they hear is their own echoes. It's something I try to wrap my head around a lot, because many of these people are people I truly care about. I don't know if I can give up this bit of selfishness in me, to give up my own emotional amnesia for the ability to truly empathize with people. In a way I've forgotten.

Passion Play

I should not have hid
where my heart can't follow
Cause this grace gets so far
and too hard to swallow
I've been running from Saul,
he's been giving chase
When I look in his eyes,
all I see is my face

Are you still on my back
after all these years?
Chasing my out of hell
and my nice veeners
I don't know how you stand
when you've got no floor
Or how you can breathe
with your hands on boards

I just want to be not what I am today
I just want to be better than my friends might say
I just want a small part in your passion play

Do you hear when I call
in the midst of wrong?
Do you hear these few words
while I sing this song?
Are you caught up in me
like I heard you say?
Or just some big cashier
that I'll have to pay