thisguy

i'm bushed.

it's been several days now surviving on too little sleep and too much activity, scrambling around, dodging cars and city jams and tricky clients and sister's wedding plans and friends and pressing commitments colliding together. to top it off, my ration of coffee, water, proper food and internet has also been intermittent.

today was the clincher though. multiple trips in and out of the city, illegal u-turns and a colleague's punctured tyre really took its toll. god bless 15 minute power naps tho. then at 12.45am, i find out my car's been leaking brake fluid, and there's a rat of some sort living in my airconditioner (in the house, not the car).

yet, while all this is going on, at the back of my head, behind the thousand other things jostling for my attention, there is a worry and dread that overshadows all the other shit that's around now. it feels as if i'm holding my breath underwater, for how long, i don't know...

random asides :-

• i am so shite at finding my way around the city
  
• spending money is hard, especially when time and ability to obtain more money is finite
  
• watching videos of hot chicks projected on a 5x5 foot surface in your bedroom is f*cking awesome
  
• wedding singers/bands are f*cking weird people
  
• how is it that hare krishnas maintain their vegan diet and alcohol abstinence and still manage to seem so happy??

another long day tomorrow. at least i've got dinner and drinks on the company's expense to look forward to.

everytime i'm having a tedious day in the office, or when i'm bored in the middle of a pointless meeting, i find myself teleporting back to better days and better times.

10am, suburban housing area in klang valley, boy scouts' oddjob week : we used to go round the neighbourhoods near our school to do oddjobs for folks on weekends to raise funds for the troop. washing cars, teaching tuition, bathing dogs and cleaning out aquariums for signatures and token amounts of money. the mornings used to last so long, somehow. we'd be sweaty but enthusiastic, and try to avoid doing too much hardlabour. we'd try to pick the houses that had nice cars and possibly a cute teenage girl or two. it taught us a lot about humility and teamwork but was really hard work - i don't know why, but given the choice, i'd gladly do it again.

3pm on a cloudy afternoon in the shade by the poolside. this was during this chinese new year - i had music streaming from my earphones and a good book about strategy on my lap. kid cousins running around and some bikini clad chicks adding to the scenic splendour of the infinity pool. the perfect state of idle.

there's a pool in a newly built condo right outside my project room window at my client's office. tempting me like a motherfucker every afternoon after lunch when i'm sat down working on a dry assessment report.

sigh. at least i've got my earphones on and this music to take me halfway there.

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i've written before about how my outlook on life is influenced by dicken's great expectations. it was one of the first classics i read as a boy. i've just had a quick lunch with an ex-mentor of mine. one of my first bosses, whom i trusted and confided in when i needed some strong advice. he had a hand in helping me get my present job. yet, over our quick catch-up session, i'm not sure if my sentimentality and dicken-esque naivette is a huge liability to myself. let's just say, the lunch was free, but came with all the requisite "hidden charges" attached with the proverbial free lunch.

also, i find the characters i come across, are as unpredictable as those in the book. people i find myself instinctively distrusting, have surprised me with their honest insight and truths. and people i always thought i could trust, have let me down with their strategic indifference and apathy at different points of time.

it's funny how i've gone through life quite confused most of the time.

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covent garden - for whenever i want to revisit