Leaving la vida T--a

How does one even begin to say goodbye?

Charing.

I've always associated leaving work with lightness--that feeling of being released finally from the oppressing monotony of a day job and the company of stupid people. This time it's different, maybe because I've been with T--a longer than my longest (and counting) relationship. And I've seen people come and go; go and come back; and come, mess things up, and get fired.

I woke up yesterday to the realization that I actually had seven days--or five days if I want to count out the unpaid weekends--left to work. It's always exciting to have something to look forward to. But as the weekend draws nearer I find that the dread and sadness are catching up fast with the initial excitement.

I don't want to be sad at a time when I should be panicking. Sadness slows you down, makes you lose your momentum, jams your gears and keeps them from turning. I measure time in pages now, such that every hour that I spend away from the book is easily 10 pages lost and unrecoverable.

So tama na ang kahibangang ito.

Maybe early next week when I have closed the gap between Article-where-I'm-at and Article-where-I-should-be, I can grease my gears one last time with the familiar laughter of friends, enough to keep them turning until September ends. 

How to get rid of excess baggage

I have always been the type that finds it difficult to let go--of people, memories, and things, most especially. I bring a lot of baggage along (so BF always says, although always in a slightly different context).

The result: every square inch of the earth's surface that I have ever been on, I have left piled up with things--all sorts of things--at one point or more, or even forever. I want to show you what I mean.

This is a snap shot of one corner of my workstation back when I was still there full-time. (Those who know me know that I've been trying to limit my trips to the office to twice a week--max!) If this were a panoramic shot, you'd see that there is thrice as much mess. "I work better when I'm in the midst of rubbish," is the excuse that I always give. And there's always the "I haven't even had the time to come up for air so you can't expect me to have time to clean up" alibi.

Maybe there's some truth in these excuses. But mostly, I simply find it a lot easier to manage five clients at a time than to make sure the mess doesn't pile up. It takes a lot of effort for me to monitor the piles of paper, much more to keep them to a maximum height of an inch or two. Besides, it's mentally exhausting to sort out the ones that you still need from the ones that you still might need in the future, from those that someone else might need, from those that you can throw away.

Ask my mom, and she would tell you that when she would drop by my former office, she would be compelled to clean up my desk because she just couldn't stand the sight of it and because she thought no human being should be suffered to work in such a dismal environment. 

"And what about the two-day-old fries that we found underneath the papers?" I can almost hear Anne ask.

To that, I'd say: "I haven't even had the time to come up for air so you can't expect me to have time to finish my fries, or remember that I didn't finish them pala!"

Today, I made my momma proud.

Blame it on that 5S chorvah, or blame it on their threat of throwing all my work belongings into the incinerator. On a Tuesday afternoon (despite the fact that ed board was moved to Wed), I had to rush to the office to claim my important stuff, and throw the rest that I think I could live without. In the process, I found that the easiest way to do it is to sort them out into two piles only: 1) those that I want to keep, and 2) those that I don't. At the end of the exercise, I was able to salvage two boxes, one basket, one paperbag and one bag of the things I thought I would miss; and one full pushcart of the things I didn't want. Oh, and I kept the recyclable bond papers and placed them in the pile next to the printer din!

So this is how my workstation now looks...

 

Now I just need to remember to work somewhere else whenever I come by. 

Tell-tale signs that I should get some rest

It's been a crazy day (an understatement). I would have gotten some rest if only my work was done. But it's not. But I'm getting some rest nonetheless because the following signs seem to tell me that my brain is already the consistency of corn soup and I am worthless until tomorrow:

1. Sent the wrong file to Sir and only found out about it when I followed up an hour after the work day technically ended. (On any given day, boss would have lashed at me. But luck was slightly on my side, so all I got was a held-back reprimand. "My brain is dead at this time. I'm not young. I don't have the energy that you have at 7 p.m. I've been thinking the whole day." So went the boss while I did my wet-kitty look.

2. Got home, took out my drained phone and plugged the charger into the outlet. After a few minutes, I was surprised to see that my phone was still as drained as it ever was. Ay, you're supposed to insert the charger jock into the phone slot pala for the phone to charge.

3. Took out the power cord to charge my Presario, and was puzzled why the jock wouldn't fit into the slot. Then I remembered: power cord goes into the laptop, charger goes into the phone.

3. Got the WeRoam from the laptop bag pocket and tried to run the WeRoam application, but I got frustrated when the window said "No Network" no matter how many times I closed and re-ran tha application. Oops, I forgot to insert the WeRoam into the USB slot pala.

4. Numbered the previous item "3" when it should be "4" already. This item should be "5".

It's time to go.