|
| The past month, I'll have to say, seriously flew by. haha pun.
While I absolutely loved travelling, flying cross country twice a week, and being on the move, I absolutely did not love feeling inadequate, stupid, and useless. I felt so awesome wearing my suit every day, but a whole lot less awesome when I realized that even if I dress nicely it doesn't mean that the contribution I make is commensurate...
Anyways I could rant and rave for forever, but I will spare you all. Needless to say, I think my life is just one giant career crisis. Everything's just so messed up- clock's a-ticking, I need to get my act together for grad school, but I like travelling way too much... and people say that when you travel for work you don't get to see the place anyways, but that doesn't matter for me. All I need is to be surrounded by it. It's like osmosis.
***
The weather is a lot warmer in NY now, and when I stepped out of work tonight there was a kind of warm breeze... somehow when the weather is warm it reminds me of Taiwan. I've only ever been there in the summer. I get this flood of nostalgia and happy memories every time... but when I think back, I can't remember anymore why I liked it so much. I just can't pinpoint what was so great about it. Strange, isn't it? | | |
| I'd like to believe in karma. I'd like to think that people who are unfair or unkind will eventually have it returned to them.
I think that, as long as I can believe that, I'll feel better. Otherwise one of these days I'll just snap. My face will turn a permanent shade of angry purple.
I think this past year has made me loonier and loonier. I now have this constant inner monologue that keeps on going (people who talk to me a lot on gchat get a little piece of that... but that's really tip of the iceberg, dears. You have no idea.) It sounds like the beginnings of some sort of psychological disease. I often wonder what would happen if I just said to these people all the things I wanted to say.
Anyways, soon I will finally be consulting for reals. Life and lifestyle are going to change real fast... a year ago I would have loved the consulting lifestyle, now I'm a little wary- I think I've grown too fat and happy in my 9-6 job. Either way, though, I think it will be nice to be in a place where respect is (at least theoretically and on occasion) granted based on what I do; where I and my position are defined by the quality of my work, and not the converse. ie where I don't have to either pass my work off as somebody else's or else just see it ignored or openly tossed aside, just because nothing I produce could ever be worthwhile or good on account of my position.
That doesn't quite sum up all the gripes I have. It also doesn't do justice to the good things I see going on there, because to be fair, there are good things about the place too. Put the bad and the good together and altogether I can say I learned a lot. Was it worth the price? I don't know, but why bother asking. It's not like I wanted this to happen anyways, but it did.
| | |
| I always thought it'd be so much fun to be in NY during wintertime. Festive lights in the frosty air, snow whirling through the city streets, people bundled up, holiday fairs and ice skating followed by hot cider, stores all lit up...
...in fact, it is very festive and fun. But you know what? I'm COLD. Too cold to enjoy any of it. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't care about holiday fairs or ice skating at this point, after work I just want to go HOME as quickly as possible, preferably in a heated bus. And stay home and never leave again.
(How did I ever survive 4 and a half east coast winters???)
| | |
| I am, in general, a pretty negative person.
Or rather, I love ranting, so my xanga persona is very negative. My xanga is me and not me- an interesting dichotomy.
I think I'll always be a little angry at what the Company did to us. A lot of the time when I run into snafoos I just blame it on the fact that I'm not supposed to be here in the first place, anyways. But recently I was thinking- well I guess it's not so bad, I can use this situation to make all those dumb mistakes that everyone makes (or so I tell myself) when they first enter the professional world and have to deal with people on a professional level. Then come January, I'll leave behind the mess of angry people and ruined relationships. Like starting over without getting fired. And having been so traumatized by some of these blunders, I know (or seriously hope) I'll do better next time.
With that in mind, I started making this list of things I learned this year. For your edification, I will now share some:
...keep emails short and concise, and not too many. Have a lot to say? Too bad, don't say it.
...don't talk over people, even if they're blabbing about irrelevant things. Be patient.
...don't be a know-it-all. Nobody wants to be taught something by a young whippersnapper. Even when you can help someone, sometimes it's better not to, or be really careful how you phrase it.
...don't be a know-it-all, part 2. Be careful how you correct people. Don't be didactical.
...present a united front. No blaming the boss. Defend the boss. Defend what the boss says, even if you disagree.
...behave during meetings. No need to assert yourself- people do not appreciate your pointless comments if you have nothing real to say. And be careful about shutting people down... before you gleefully point out the holes in their idea, think about how you'd feel if somebody gleefully pointed out the holes in yours.
...if you mess up, most people (note: MOST) respond well to apologies.
I know you're all sitting there now trying to convince yourself that you already knew all these things, and haven't unknowingly made any of the blunders I've made. haha. (at least that's what I'd be doing). Looking at these, I guess I'm pretty arrogant, eh?
Must squash ego... must squash it like the squishy frog it is!
| | |
| My mom's visiting me for Labor Day, but she's proven quite difficult to entertain- she seems to express no preferences at all and is lukewarm about all the tourist spots I try to take her to. By the end of yesterday I just didn't know what to do with her anymore.
But she HAS been talking about how this friend of hers used to go to Chinatown every morning to get bread and $1 coffee. So I decided to take her to Chinatown for bread and $1 coffee breakfast, and do my grocery shopping while I'm at it (I love the Chinese veggies I can only get in Chinatown, plus the fruit is cheap and great... but Chinatown's so far away I usually just bite the bullet and go to Whole Foods).
So first I dumped her off at Taipan bakery where she bought her bread and coffee... plus about 3 other breads and about 9 蛋塔 s (to be fair, 6 were for my brother). Then we went grocery shopping and I asked her to pick out my veggies since she knows more about Chinese veggies.
Next thing I knew it, she had 3 big bags full of greens and mushrooms and tubers and was busily ordering meat (many many lbs of many many kinds) from the butcher and grabbing packages of tofu and other perishables from the fridge. I have *never* bought meat from Chinatown, heck I'm so antisocial that I've never even ordered meat from the counter at Whole Foods. But apparently my mom thinks I'm meat deficient, which may have explained the... large quantities of meat she decided to buy for me.
Anyways, so mom got really excited and bought so much stuff, I think even the butcher was laughing at us. And I was just standing there with this -___- expression that would have made an anime artist proud. Then she dumped all her meat and other groceries in my bag and made me carry it. (To be fair, yes she had a heavy bag too... there was a lot of food.)
So we're trudging back and she went off in search of a pot to make soup for me, while I *finally* got to buy my fruit. yay fruit =) So I went and bought the biggest bag of grapes I could find (trust me I can eat about a lb a day) and I got some little oranges too and some pluots. Then meetup with mom, who's still buying stuff for her soup.
I'll have to say, by this point, I was pretty grumpy. I was trying to shove my way through all the tourists carrying many many lbs of meat and veggies and fruit. And wondering how we were going to fit this all in my fridge (even if I take over my roommate's space while she's gone in HK for these 2 weeks) and what I was going to do with... well... so much damn meat!! Honestly I'd never bought this much food before, and I buy a hell of a lot of groceries every week.
Well, long story short, we took the subway and transferred to bus and made it home, finally, tired and grumpy (my mom was like, oh sorry when I bought all this stuff I forgot I didn't have a car). Ate some leftovers from my cooking for lunch- yes, the very same leftovers that convinced my mom I was meat deficient!
And then... after lunch... I happily reached into the fridge for my grapes....
...and they were GONE!! No grapes!!
*insert shocked anime expression*
*insert -____- anime expression*
I scoured the fridge. So did my mom. No grapes. I scoured my bags. No grapes. I don't remember putting grapes in my fridge anyways. I do remember that on the way home my number of bags was somehow less than expected.
Anyways so that's the story of how I lost my grapes. I told my mom that I hoped some homeless person was enjoying them. She said most likely it was some happy old lady in Chinatown, but we wouldn't even be able to guess because I have no idea when in the transit process I lost them.
| | |
|
