Was looking at this article on MSN about the signs of job burnout:
1) Co-workers are nervous about your cranky moods
2) Coming in late and leaving early
3) Apathy instead of enthusiasm
4) No camaraderie with co-workers
5) Physically sick (cannot sleep)
What do you know, I display all of the above signs. I've never scored full marks for such evaluative quizzes before. And add to that blogging and surfing the net during office hours. If the boredom at work can even drive me to Friendster, the problem is more acute than I think.
And just now my colleague and I were taking photos of beach images from my travel magazine (see picture above) and saving them on our hand phones (so that we can look at them whenever we want; the magazine is falling apart from our constant and enthusiastic flipping)--that's how much we wish to take a break, to get away from here.
I can still remember the time when I was a newbie here, when my new sneakers squeaked cheerfully as I walked down the long corridor outside my office (they've been thrown away), when I was dazzled by the array of drinks sold at the cafeteria, and when I actually get excited about working with full professors. What went wrong?
On Friday, a senior management person insulted me right in my face. We were talking about a web publication that was giving us a lot of problems. He said: it's (managed by) women what.Y O Y
Things have gone so awry
I need a cream pie
To bury the MCP's face good and make a mess so fine
That he'll whimper and ask why
To which I'll reply
Because you belong in a pig sty.
I read a new article this morning that troubles me, mainly because I cannot say for sure where I stand in this issue, which is quite unusual for me. I can state right now that I tend towards the liberal camp in politics, but not the far-left kind. I'm a free thinker, "spirtual but not religious".
The article was about the comments made by the Australian treasurer (the man who is suppose to succeed the prime minister) about how, if Muslim migrants cannot accept Australian laws and views, they should leave and go to live in countries that apply Muslim laws.
One thing for sure is that the statements are definitely antagonistic and in-your-face--there's nothing ambiguous about them.
I was somewhat surprised that they came from an Aussie because they're always so laid-back and accomodating. They sound like the sort of things that even Donald Rumsfield and Dick Cheney would not dare to utter in public, because it would be political suicide.
It was reported that the Australian prime minister refused to censure the treasurer because what he said were "fundamentally accurate". Minority ethnic groups were, of course, pissed.
They said that the comments were divisive and would encourage fear and hatred. One said: Isn't Australia supposed to embrace multi-culturalism?
My first, knee-jerk response was to disagree with the treasurer. I never liked hawkish, hardline politics and this sure seems like that kind. But after reading about Australian values and what they entail, I think I may have to agree with the PM that the treasurer is "fundamentally accurate".
This is because Australian values are about "enjoy(ing) equal rights and respect, regardless of race, colour, religion, and gender", among other things. Isn't this all about multi-culturalism? If a citizen cannot accept the civil laws of a country based on the above principles, then can you expect the country to bend the laws to acommodate you? Bear in mind that I'm not talking about Muslim (or other ethnic groups) migrants as a whole, but only those who refuse to adopt the values and to abide by the civil laws.
However, I think it was a mistake of the treasurer to pinpoint the Muslims in his comments; this should apply to all, even white Australians. So I agree with the core message--that you have to agree to be governed by the laws of the country--but not the way it was conveyed, especially in the current tense climate, with the furore over the Danish cartoons and all. Let me say also that I think the press was just plain stupid to publish those cartoons. What were they trying to prove? That the press cannot be trusted with the freedom of speech and expression because when given that, they'll just go all out to prove that they're incapable of exercising those rights reasonably?
My colleague was commenting that I'm eating so many Chinese buns ("bao") that I should probably write a theoretical dissertation on it. So I came up with a topic:The Chronicles of Bao: Tracing the socioeconomic development of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia through the evolution of a culinary staple.Oh yeah, that's a thesis title all right.
This morning, on the way to work, I saw the Sudoku woman again. She was still working on those number puzzles. I first spotted her working on them with a mechanical pencil on the train a few months ago, and I bet she got those puzzles from some clueless colleague's puzzle book, blew them up and photocopied them on A4 paper using the office photocopier machine.I was quite surprised that even after a few months, she's still engrossed in them. I think it's become a hobby for her. I was surprised because I have one of those small Sudoku books myself. It's divded into 3 levels, with about 40 puzzles per level. It's been thrown aside before I've even gone through the 1st level. It's not that I've become a Sudoku expert, but more like, I've gotten a handle on it and thus have lost interest. That's my problem--I lose interest too easily. I can never sustain a hobby or interest long enough for me to become proficient or for it to define me.The things that I do still, like drinking coffee and reading, they're not even my interests and I don't know why I even include them as such in my profile. It's more like, I have to keep doing them, even though I'm no longer into them. It's like an addiction, something that you're tired of but just can't shake off.Every time I see a bookshop, even though I tell myself that it's going to be the same old few books that are not going to interest me (Blink, Shopaholic series, Harry Potter books, Dan Brown stuff), I still feel helplessly drawn to walk up and gawk at them. It's tiresome. I just have to keep doing it. I think at this point, it's no longer an interest but a compulsion. Can someone tell me how to cultivate and sustain interest in things please? What exactly is my problem? Anyway, I'm going to meet up with some friends and discuss the US trip that we plan to take next year. So excited. I think we should list down the things we want to do the most and then try to accomodate as many things on the list as possible. Mine are:
1) Visit the national park, preferably Yosemite
2) White water rafting
3) See mountains and lakes
4) Horse riding
5) Ride trains
6) Watch a movie
7) Shop at Gap
Any suggestions, please? From those who've been there before. Thanks.
I was flipping through an Elle magazine last night and came upon this article about why we are always unhappy despite living safer, longer, and more comfortable lives than our predecessors. The article is typical of women's magazines, but I gave it a percusory read and noticed what an interviewee said. He's a psychologist or counsellor, I think, one of those annoyingly well-adjusted people who have everything in perspective, anyway.He said that to live life to the fullest is to live in the present. That's right, to live here and now. That is something I've got to learn. I'm always thinking about the future, about how everything would be better in the future. I would be a better person, I would learn to correct my faults, given enough time. What propels me forward is the future. It's like tunnel vision-- you're so focused on the future that you defer living. I always forget that to change myself or to start a journey, I should begin now, this day, not this weekend, not the near future.Have you ever had an experience like this: I bought a pair of shoes that was so comfortable but I kept them in the shoebox and did not take wear them, because I thought: this is a good pair of shoes and I want to save it for the future, perhaps when I go travelling. A year later, I still have not worn the shoes. I took them out of the shoe box and they were peeling. The sole came out of one of them. I couldn't wear them anymore.Is it that the saving-the-best-for-last mentality is not always the right one? That we should enjoy the fruits of our labour right now, instead of "work, then play", deferring the good things to the future?
Just saw on TV a programme featuring Japan. In one of the segments, they feature tourists catching fish for their own lunch at Tokyo Bay. The fish are trapped by a huge cage-like net and during low tide, they would go into the cage and net the fish. It was cool! They caught sea bream and tiger prawns and squid.Then the fishermen would prepare the lunch and all of them gather together in the rickety small fishboats and had lunch en mass at some makeshift tables and benches. It was so simple and un-luxurious and so, un-Japanese.In another segment, the host asked to see the wrinkled hands of a chef at a small seaside inn and he asked him how long he has been a fisherman and chef. The chef replied: 60 years, since he came back from the war when he was 20--they're used to hard work.The host said: now those hands make such exquisite food.I guess that scene was supposed to be respectful of the aged chef, but for a non-Japanese like me, that was quite disturbing and uncomfortable. The logical question that should come to the viewer's mind would be: did he ever kill anyone, or perform some atrocities with those pair of hands during the world war? After that, would you still be able to stomach the sashimi that he made, in spite of the fact that they look delicious even to someone like me, who's repulsed by raw food?
Every human is an individual, a universe unto itself: ever-changing and expanding. Why do I always forget that? Why do I hold them in contempt, simply because they're taciturn and thus have less to say about themselves? Why, especially when I'm like that myself, when I know that it is this type of people who yearn more than anything to connect?Even at this age I still have a lot to learn.
I like(d) to write and I was so excited when I got into a communications school and majored in journalism. I was going to be a journalist--a respectable, professional, and more importantly, an intellectually stimulating career.
Now, a few years on, I look back and I wonder and I know I don't feel the same about it anymore. During my second year, we were asked to read readings that debate whether journalist can be considered a "professional". The consensus seems to be that it wasn't. Lawyers, architects, engineers are; journalists aren't. You do not need specialist knowledge; you don't really even need an university degree.
That's not the main point. The whole debate seems lame and self-indulgent. That I won't be considered a professional didn't bother me much--after all, journalists are well respected in my country, and unusually, they are well paid too. (I know, because I've processed the tax returns of a mid-level newsperson once, when I was temping for the tax department) They are seen as brainy people. I want to be seen as being an intellectual.
Journalist wannabes are the wannabes of wannabes, if you ask me, right down there with inspiring actors/singers--they are all just as egotistical.
They all think they have depth; they can write; their prose affect and mobilise people; they can change the world with their scribblings.
After 4 years of journalism school and of scrutinising the local papers, I don't know what to think. I think that journalists do not write the truth; they sensationalise the truth. Editors and lecturers are always exhorting about news values: why would readers want to read or know about this? What would catch their attention? Why is this story worth publishing? What new angles can be purported?
So we, as journalism students, with the commendable aims of trying to outdo each other and to get as good a grade as possible, wrung every drop of juicy bits we could out of the news. We're not lying, but.
I've even committed the ultimate journalism sin of making up a quote because I was not able to get what I wanted from the interview subjects.
In a small, safe country like ours, with so many people chasing after so little news, it's hard. I get sceptical, I can detect when a journalist is trying to make something out of nothing--it's just a waste of the reader's time and the newsprint. It's not respectable anymore, is it? It's not even intellectually stimulating, is it? It's just silly. And some of them, they are not even truthful about what they're trying to say (I'm talking about politics here). They sway readers not with objective facts but with innuendos, connotations, embedding them in the text with carefully chosen words that are not neutral. That's sneaky.
You know what unnerves me alot during travelling? Especially to places that are in a different time zone from the place I live? It's the feeling that I've lost time.I've been to Australia and Japan which are in time zones that are ahead of my country's. When I'm there, I keep thinking to myself: It's already 8 pm over here and the sky is dark. Yet my friends are over there, basking in the soft sunlight of 6 pm. What are they doing? How are they spending their "extra" time? Are they going to have their dinner soon? Would I be missing out on something because of the "lost" time?Weird things to be thinking about, but that's how I am when I'm away in another country -- tightly wound up and worried.
