No more 10:15

That's when we meet as a team every Monday morning for the dreaded meeting when we report to the boss the commissioning work we've been doing for the past week.

I hated those meetings. My boss's office has no windows, which is always a problem with the claustrophobic me. With no table to shield me, I would hug myself and tap my feet nervously. Most of all, what made those meetings dreadful was the fact that I never had very much to say. We would all sit in a row, reporting dutifully, one after another. As I waited for my turn and listened to my colleagues rattle off all that they've done, I couldn't help but feel very inadequate. When it's my turn, I would mumble and sometimes stammer my way through, and falter when pressed by my boss for further details because I forgot or didn't think of it in the first place.

No more of that now. I feel relieved, but also very, very tired.

The last time that I resigned from a job was a traumatic experience because I couldn't bear to leave. I was afraid I would cry when I handed in the resignation letter to my former boss, because she was so very nice to me. I told myself that this time it will be a clean-cut, business decision. No emotions at stake here, not when it's been only 8 months. I even boasted to a friend that quitting just gets easier. That's right, easy-peasy. No danger of crying there.

Maybe I was too eager to leave and didn't want to think too hard about the complications. Maybe quitting will never be easy. But I just wasn't prepared for the fallout.

I hope I'll never make a hasty decision about leaving a place. It actually took me weeks to finally decide on leaving. And now, in retrospection, it still seems like the best option but I know it was informed by frustration and impulsiveness, because something in me "snapped" in late January. And as a senior editor counselled, if only I had the patience to wait things out because it was going to get better (That is debatable, though).

I've certainly learned not to take leaving too easily again. The friendships and the connections that I had to cut short, the books and authors whom I had to "abandon", the copious amount of work I had to hand over during the last few days...they just totally drained me...but at least I have 3 weeks to recover.

The same senior editor told me not to regard my short stint as a failure. I wish things had ended in a good way, but at least I've learned many lessons, sometimes from mistakes, during these past few months. As a song goes, "I'll be better when I'm older".

Tokyo Banana!

The eldest sister from Japan is back in Singapore for 2 weeks and that means lots of feasting and shopping! Not to mention nice stuff from Japan. :) This time she brought over some dainty banana cakes which I couldn't stop raving about. The smooth and thick banana custard encased by the soft, fluffy cake has the texture of melted butter and tastes like the real thing, only better. It's sweet and yummy and oh so good!

No giant grapes this time but she did cart back mini mandarins. They don't taste very sweet, as I've come to expect of fruits grown in Japan. But they still look nice and plump.

If there's a downside to her homecoming, it's that we put on weight because she has so many food cravings each time she comes back. Mee goreng, nasi lemak, wanton noodles etc etc. I think I'll worry about the weight gain later. In the meantime, good food, here I come!

Leave the great indoors

"So go unlock the door
And find out what you're here for
Leave the great indoors
Please leave the great indoors"

--John Mayer


I had a very bad week which, as I told some friends, marked my descent into that black hole called burn-out.

Burn-out and I are no strangers: I've been through it once about 5 years ago, but when it hits, the force of it still leaves me, in a twisted sense, impressed. You'd think familiarity would breed contempt, or at least some assurance that you've beaten it before. But the physical and mental weariness, is something that still knocks my socks off. But the worst part has to be that feeling of being hollowed out of all those good things that have been keeping me strong and sane, and being replaced by emptiness. The great emptiness, when nothing matters.

My first impulse was to stay in my own room, with the curtains drawn and lights out, and just lie there, starfish-style, and do nothing and just, breathe. I'm too tired to face the outside world. But I've realised from past experience that my mind can be the worst prison and just as a prisoner loses freedom, I lose perspective.

I decided to get out, to go to East Coast Park with friends and cycle. The fresh air would do me good, I reckon. We cycled to the end of the jetty and stopped there. We looked at the other people milling around at the jetty, at the many planes that passed by, at the ever-shifting sea. We took in the sea breeze. We chatted about how our jobs suck.

I looked up at the big blue sky and the sea, and felt, for a brief while, that I could breathe freely again. My troubles seem like those isolated debris floating in the sea, irksome to the eye but insignificant. The sea is still beautiful in spite of them. My troubles are not over yet, but even a brief reprieve, I think, makes the going on a bit easier.

Chasing after fireworks

Our new years' eves always seem to go a bit awry, with last-minute changes, culinary misadventures, cars that almost run out of fuel in traffic jams, and this year, a temporary bout of drunkeness.

Despite our frequent gripping about last year's haphazard new year's eve outing, and how we really must try to plan in advance this year, we agreed that it was actually pretty exciting. And anyway, that resolve was conveniently forgotten as the end of the year approached, and we found ourselves once again, without any dinner reservations or concrete plans.

We decided to retreat into the heartlands this time in our search for dinner, and settled on a cafe at sgn gardens. To protect the guilty, we shall call it Cafe C. As a group, we seem to have this natural knack for sussing out all the bad restaurants. This was by far one of our worst (best) finds. The cafe was not prepared for the crowd, and ran out of fish, and get this, cutlery. Food was served at the table next to us but because they didn't have enough forks and spoons, the family was so fed up they paid for the drinks and walked off, leaving the food untouched. But not before the sulky dad gave poor WL's chair a good kick.

Good customers that we are, we sat there obediently, waiting for our food and forks. Frustrated WL was fuming though, and thumped on the table and tried to complain aloud. I don't think the overworked staff cared very much though. One of them kicked aside a chair and shoved a plate of indifferent pasta into our face and barked: "Pan-fried linguine!"

My linguine was quite sad-looking but I was so hungry I ate everything on the plate. But WL, who had reached boiling point (I guess you would too, if your chair gets kicked for no reason by some self-important middle-aged man, and they take 1 hour to grill that freaking chicken!) started sniffing at her cutlery and said they smell of dishwashing detergent and didn't want to eat.

We made our way to Clarke Quay after that, walking around and feeling a bit aimless. Most of the cafes were closed but we managed to get a place at Billy Bombers. Just straight after the bad experience at Cafe C, BB felt like the friendliest, coziest restaurant in the world. The staff actually smiled at us! I felt like giving them a hug. I wouldn't have minded staying there longer, but the staff were starting up their own celebration, and anyway we wanted to catch the fireworks. We stood in front of The Central, along with an expectant crowd sitting on the steps. But we soon realised we were on the wrong side of Clarke Quay--the fireworks were on the other side, and blocked by the giant canopy.

"I can't believe we made the same mistake twice!", the exasperated WL exclaimed, "We missed it again this time!" Last year, we managed to scramble our way into a countdown crowd but didn't get to see the fireworks because we were, well, blocked by buildings.

It was quite disappointing, and the fireworks that we could only hear had died down, so we turned and walked away. But a few minutes later, the faint thunder of fireworks sounded again up ahead, and so we ran to the end of the row and onto the road that spans across the river, and lo and behold, the fireworks that had been so elusive were bursting into a million lights, illuminating the night sky over the waters.

We decided to celebrate the new year by drinking the dessert wine that WL had brought along. But after just 3 sips, my face turned red and I started to get high and giggly. WL, who had much more than me, also started to flush. And everytime I see her flushed face, I felt this irrepressible urge to laugh out loud. Good thing I calmed down after 10 minutes. Passer-bys were starting to stare. Not so for WL though--by the end of the night she was quite knocked out.

So our new year's eve this year was maybe not as thrilling, but still as eventful. Well, at least I enjoyed the company. :) Have a good one!

While the sun shines

This looks set to be the most stressful holiday season yet. One colleague has gone on maternity leave, the other has tendered his resignation and will leave middle of next month, and yet another has gone back to her hometown for the holidays for a week. In the meantime, I'll have 2 interns, 1 new staff, 10 books (and counting), 3 journals, and a colleague's email account on my hands.

I feel like I've truly been inducted into real publishing world. This was what I thought I had wanted to experience when I decided to leave the comfort of the research centre--stress and deadlines and fractious authors--the real stuff that this line is made of. But thinking is just thinking; now that I'm standing right in the middle of it, I feel seriously disconcerted and a bit scared.

I'd be lying if I were to say I've not thought of backing out. It's really quite a pleasant thought, but only as a thought. :) It did take me a lot to leave what I had come to regard as a safe haven and now that I'm finally out, I really should make the most of it. To those who are also struggling in one way or another, as an old saying (courtesy of Queen Rania) goes, "a ship in the harbour is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for". Ahoy, mates! Full speed ahead!

Of lazy dreams and idle days
that life seems so far away
still, I'll take heart in what they say
"while the sun shines, make the hay"