Diary of a Workaholic...

Dear diary,

I went to the office today and that made me exhausted. My supervisor still haven't given me anything to do, so I had the liberty to do what I thought was important. I also felt out of place at work. I no longer feel belonging at my current employer. The only thing I thought about the entire day was how many hours left until I can return home.

Things got better when I got home. The dinner was great. I ate curried vegetable, soy, and rice. Afterwards, I managed to finish my job application in less than 30 minutes though I haven't sent it yet. I also worked out until about 9.30pm. It's amazing what can be accomplished if one sets his/her mind to it.

I am also happy because I have a little time to write to you. I've thought a lot about what made me feel discontent and I think it has a lot to do with work and personal life. I have to fix this somehow, by keep applying for better job and to move to my own apartment. The traffic is just so bad to my parents' house, I kept wasting +2 hours daily in a car. But when I thought about moving to my own apartment, suddenly I feel sad that I can no longer be around my parents and my dog every day anymore. The penguin wants to have a cake and eat it too!

Best regards,

Bright (and Tired) Penguin

I'm grateful about: (1) great workout today, (2) delicious dinner, and; (3) time for meditation before sleeping, which I'm going to do now.

Dear diary,

I feel happy today. Last night I watched Twin Peaks and meditated afterwards, so when I woke up this morning I felt really well-rested. Something about meditation just made sleep so much better. Then I experimented with breakfast a little bit today. Typically I would eat bread and peanut butter, but this time I added chocolate spread and sliced banana. It tasted so good I can't wait to have breakfast tomorrow.

I had two practice interviews today and I did well on both of them. On top of that, I did jump rope HIIT before dinner and that made me feel so great now. So diary, today I have nothing to complain about ☺️.

I want to talk about music a little bit. As you know, this past one week, I've been listening to Moving Mountains and Far Caspian. Yesterday I bought their albums and I've been listening to them so frequently today and last night. On an interesting note, I started listening to progressive metal too, especially Periphery's Alpha and Omega. I've owned them since about 8 years ago, but I only began to that album these days. Here is to more good music in the future!

Also, I'm almost finished with the book I'm reading these days -- which is Plato's The Republic. It's definitely an ambitious writing in philosophy; trying to combine all branches of philosophy into a system in one book is never easy. Even reading it is difficult too. Once I finish this last 2 chapters, I will be able to pick up a different book. I'm looking forward to read Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun. In parallel, I found out that I like philosophy too. I read an entry about analytic philosophy in IEP and it made me want to study philosophy more.

Finally, next week I will have a networking call with one of the top dogs from the company I want to work for. Hope it goes well and I will be one step closer to switching job.

Best regards,

Bright (and Happy) Penguin

I'm grateful about: (1) the delicious breakfast today, (2) had some time to bond with my dog when I washed her after lunch, (3) watching Twin Peaks after this and meditation before sleep.

Dear diary,

Tomorrow is an important day. I'm going to have a 15-minutes call with one of the bosses in my dream company. I hope I can make a good impression within that 15-minutes and get a referral. It's hard to feel calm when everything seems to be at stake. But don't worry, dear diary, I've prepared for this. For the past few days, I have created a script to guide me during that call. I've internalized it too, so let's hope things will go well tomorrow.

I feel a little bit uncertain today. Two days ago I found a doc generator library called Sphinx and I've been using it to document scripts I've written for the past one month or so. Initially I felt accomplished for finding it and being able to use it within a day, but then I questioned the importance of my work. In the larger scheme of thing, it's probably not so important. I am going to resign and move to another company anyway. To be honest, I'm not so sure if anyone is going to read my script, let alone its documentation. I know that the knowledge to use Sphinx is very important (and I'm going to use it for my next personal project), but it's just funny how things turn out. I feel undervalued by my employer and boss at this time.

Overall, though, today has been productive for my job-search. (Read: I did not do any work for my current job 😅). It's nice that I've been able to work from home since Monday, but next week I'll have to return to the office. In fact, there was an event at the office today but I didn't feel like coming. I hope it won't reflect poorly on my productivity, especially since I'm trying to hide under the radar at this time and focus on my job-search.

I've also been reading political philosophy in IEP today. Philosophy is so interesting and I hope to be good at this one day. It seems that there are so many interesting books out there, but so little time for them. At the same time, everything seems to depend on my career as well. My current job offers very little in terms of promotion or geographic mobility. If I can be accepted at my dream company, it would be ideal but not a guarantee by all means. However I feel that it's the only way forward since my current environment does not seem conducive for personal growth. Sometimes I wonder if I'm making my life far more difficult than it actually is.

Of course, just to be clear, the fact that I feel out of place has nothing to do with how my parents raised me. I love them and I want to repay what they did to me one day. I mean, these days I often bought good food for them to kind of make them feel happy, but it's barely enough to repay them. However, considering my age and the minimal social life I have, I feel that it's simply time to move out of my parents' home. If I get the new job, I'm going to rent an apartment downtown and possibly start socializing again (and hopefully get good friends like the ones I had in the US). I envision a great career for myself and a possible relocation (or grad school) in the US. Maybe this path will enable me to stay in the US and feel belonging again. Only time will tell.

Best regards,

Bright (and Uneasy) Penguin

Today, I'm grateful for: (1) delicious lunch and dinner, (2) tough core workout, (3) having the chance for tomorrow 15-mins call, regardless of what comes after that.

Dear diary,

It's been almost a week since I last wrote to you. Lots of things have happened this past one week. Let me talk about them one by one.

First, the coffee chat with one of the bosses in my dream company was postponed to Monday this week. I planned every single thing I wanted to say, but things weren't going the way I expected them to. He ended up giving me half an hour instead of the 15-minutes I requested and, at the end, when I asked for referral he asked for my resume instead. Needless to say, I sent a thank you email afterwards with my resume and cover letter attached. Then silent... But then a few hours ago the HR contacted me that I've received his referral. 😊 Tomorrow, I'm going to have a chat with the HR staff. Hopefully things will be OK.

Second, a regular guest to my house turned out to have COVID. We discovered this fact on Monday, the same day as my call with my dream company. (What is it with you, Monday?) Because he often talked to my father, my father decided to quarantine himself until it's sure that he hasn't been infected with COVID. Today, the result got back and my father did not have COVID. So he can come out of his room and have dinner with us again. (Nice one, Wednesday. You resolved everything Monday did not do right.)

Finally, at work, I've been feeling accomplished too. Given that it's a rare feeling nowadays, I find it important to note it here so that I can refer back and feel grateful. Today I've finished the data engineering documentation, but then I realized the format of the document is not suitable. I spent about half-a-day trying to convert the finished-but-wrongly-formatted document into a new format -- during which time I ended up creating inconsistencies in the virtual environment. That was lunch time and I felt so frustrated that I ate my lunch while trying to fix this disaster at the same time. Strangely, I did that in about 10 minutes and I could eat the rest of my lunch away from my desk. The secret? Delete the environment and install a new one. If only I can be this smart every day. 😝

Oh, almost forgot, I finished Plato's The Republic. I think it was a great book. I especially love the story at the end called Myth of Er. Though I doubt such thing actually ever happened, but the moral was great. Yesterday I started reading Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. In fact I read 70 pages in one day. I'm going to read some more today. (What about Twin Peaks, you might ask. Well, I finished watching the second episode. I'm saving Fire Walk With Me and the 2017 season for this weekend.)

Whew, that was a lot to update. I wish I have more time to write to you, but these days have been hectic. Hopefully, even though the quantity of time I spend writing to you has decreased, the quality has increased (since I wrote more and I felt more focused when writing too). I hope I'll write to you again this weekend. Until then.

Best regards,

Bright (and Tired) Penguin

Today I'm grateful for: (1) My father is free from COVID!, (2) Email from the HR staff, (3) Intense jump-rope session today and the fact that I got better at it

Dear diary,

I wrote to you sooner than expected. Lots of things happened today and many of them are not good news.

I had the call with the HR staff and she basically told me that my application cannot be processed further until July. She said that it's because I already sent in my application (for a different role) last year, so there has to be some grace period. Well, at least, I'm not rejected but July seems like a long time, particularly when I have to stick with an unfulfilling job until that time.

Speaking of work, there was an urgent meeting today, to which I was invited abruptly. I was being asked lots and lots of questions which I answered well. However, at the end of the meeting, it was basically established that I will have lots to do today. In fact I got off work at 8.30pm, because a task that cannot be done by a team of 4 in a day must be finished by me in half-a-day. I suspect, this urgency was created by lack of planning by the people around (and above) me. Fortunately, despite the letdown earlier by the HR staff, I was able to keep my mind clear and finish the task today. But it just reminds me why I want to resign as soon as possible and that my application cannot be processed further until July.

As if that's not enough, somebody else in my house is suspected to have Covid too. Her rapid test came up inconclusive and now we're just waiting for her PCR test. Hopefully it will be negative. It's quite sad to think that people who has Covid must quarantine themselves. Social support is a very important part of recovering from a disease (or from disappointment, etc). There's something truly terrible in Covid: it basically forces us to act against our instinct as social animals. GIven the Omicron variant, somehow I felt pessimistic that Covid is going to be solved at all. Perhaps we all have to live with it and wear mask forever.

Speaking of human nature, the disappointment and chaos at work today reminded me of something I read about Buddhism and Stoicism. Life is pain, because of expectation. No expectation, no pain. I love this rule, but find it extremely difficult to live by it. During the quick shower I had after work, I revised this rule slightly to fit my philosophy: "Strive for the best, be content with the worst". This is unfortunately more difficult. This is a quest in philosophy that I intend to take. I want to learn how to do that and apply it to daily lives.

It occurred to me why I'm so unhappy. I expect too much. I suppose I was let down by the HR call because yesterday I've been imagining what it felt like to work at the dream company. I looked up their office, the commute journey and even a new apartment I may rent to shorten my commute. A short conversation obliterated all that in less than 10 minutes. Either I need to weather 5-6 months of additional unpleasant work for the potential to realize my fantasy -- or I need to move on. I can be too much in my head. I often start planning and fantasizing about things that may never happen. But I guess, it what motivated me to work tirelessly too. Then I thought of something profound in the shower: I can use this to my advantage. I don't have to be disappointed by letdown, because I can always fantasize about better things that may happen later on. I'll see if this works.

Just now, I peeked at my Gmail inbox and found that the result of my certification test has been emailed to me. I won't open it until tomorrow. If I don't pass, I think I won't be able to sleep due to the many disappointments today. If I pass, well let's wait until the weekend to celebrate it anyway.

By the way, I notice that I write to you more often when I am upset or less busy. I know I'm supposed to write consistently, since these entries can be reminders to be grateful as well. I hope I will write more often when things are good too.

Best regards,

Bright (and Sad) Penguin

Today I'm grateful for (1) Men I Trust album Oncle Jazz that accompanied me during tough time at work, (2) great lunch and dinner, and (3) some time to write to you, meditate, and read book during down time before sleep.

Dear diary,

This afternoon, I opened my email finding that I did not pass my certification test. I was given an opportunity to retry the exam on May and I've been spending my time thinking about whether ~3 months is enough for preparing this. To be honest, with all the less-than-satisfactory things that happened in the last few days, I felt that my mental bandwidth is completely consumed. I need a break from all this. A reclusive day in a Northern Californian forest, Southern Californian beach, or Nevadan desert would be therapeutic -- but they are all so far away. Oh how I miss the US.

Work has been tolerable at best; at least nothing surprisingly bad happened at work today. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that I could handle the 16/8 intermittent fasting diet this morning. I thought I was going to feel hungry and light-headed, but there was nothing of that sort. I went home a bit late today, but felt OK since tomorrow is Saturday and I can have some me time tonight. I thought a bit more about the Stoic philosophy.

I recall a poem collection I read in college by Kahlil Gibran, called The Prophet. One of the poems mentioned the difficulty of love, but also the joy of it. It stated that joy and suffering are two sides of the same coin, or as Kahlil Gibran put it beautifully:

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?"

So now I'm in a tug of war between two of the greatest minds in human history. Who do I choose? Kahlil Gibran or Marcus Aurelius? The sage-artist of Lebanon or the philosopher-king of Rome? It occurred to me during my workout (funnily enough) that I can combine the two. Perhaps during good times I can enjoy it, but during bad times I can somehow remember that

"Soon [I]'ll be ashes or bones. A mere name at most—and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things [I] want in life are empty, stale, trivial."

It will be interesting if I can reconcile these two, though doubtful that I can ever do it. Sometimes when reality disappoints, I have an intense desire to retreat into the intellectual world where I can get lost in thinking, where time does not exist anymore. I hope my journey into this abstract space will give me a clue as to how to go forward.

Should I retake the certification exam in May or focus on getting a new job first? Time will tell, hopefully soon.

Best regards,

Bright (and Overwhelmed) Penguin

Today I'm grateful for (1) nice dinner prepared by my mother, (2) time to think about life and the meaning of it before sleep, and (3) Sufjan Steven's A Little Lost cover.

Bonus: a passage from Kahlil Gibran's On Love. Why put the poem here? Because it's beautiful, and why not? 😂

"But if in your heart you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love."

Dear diary,

Two more guests in my house seem to have COVID. This morning, they went away to quarantine themselves in another place. I felt bad for them. Now the house felt so empty. This entire day, I helped mother cook for lunch and arrange dinner. There is somber mood hanging in the air in my house. Perhaps it comes from the realization that many of our guests were impacted by COVID.

Also this morning, I found out that my personal laptop screen was broken. It could turn on, but the screen hardware seems to be damaged beyond repair. Sometimes it flickers when there is not too many colors on the screen -- but most of the time the screen is black. I turned on the laptop 3 times today, just to see if the screen would come back, but it didn't. For some reason, I felt grief -- as if a good friend left me forever. After all, I've used this laptop for 6 years, since I was in grad school in the US and, all of a sudden, it stopped working. Just the night before, I played a childhood favorite game (Populous The Beginning) and watched a few videos about Age of Empires gameplay. The next day, it no longer worked. It's not an overstatement to say that I feel grief today. Quite literally, I typed "Thank you!" on the keyboard before setting it aside and basically accepting that I can't use the laptop anymore.

I'm now typing this entry in my work laptop and it felt foreign, to be honest. Despite using incognito tab in Chrome, it feels unnatural writing this very personal stuff using work laptop. But I really want to talk to you, dear diary. Today has been tough. I've been trying to console myself by listening to music and reading book, but nothing worked. Writing you has helped me regulate emotion.

Tomorrow, I'm going to do all the boring stuff of registering for another attempt of certification and replacing my previous laptop. I've been trying to register for May exam, but it kept rejecting my payment -- and I've used two different cards! Let's hope the admin get back soon to me, so that I now what's wrong with my payment. Also, I'm going to remove the hard-drive off the old laptop, purchase a USB enclosure and start looking for a new laptop. Hopefully the data in the old hard-drive can all be transferred to the new laptop. Funny how I have difficulty moving on from a laptop. I guess it's because I've been through so much with it that I felt a sense of companionship.

What happened today kind of made me think about the Japanese concept of "mono no aware". During bad times, a lot of the times I was frustrated with what I did wrong and was anxious to do better next time. However, during good times, often I also think about how things are not going to last forever. I know that today only my laptop is broken, but I also thought about my parents, my sister, my dog and the house I'm currently living in. There will be a time when all of these things are no longer with me and this realization brought sadness so overwhelming that it made my eyes watery. Though I want to move out of my parents' house, I love all that happened to me so far and it'll be difficult to say farewell to it when the time comes.

The somber mood in my house also made me realize that I'm underdeveloped as an adult. I may have a fulfilling education and promising career path, but it seems that my lack of interest in romantic relationship will haunt me in the future. My parents have each other, my sister has her boyfriend, while I've been single since 8 years ago (almost 9 in fact). I just can't seem to find the right girl for myself. Am I being too picky? Maybe, or maybe not. My idealist side tells me that I'm going to commit every part of myself when the right girl comes, but maybe there is no such thing as "right girl". If that's the case, am I content living alone for the rest of my life? My answer for now is a resounding yes. But hopefully, she does exist.

Best regards,

Bright (and Sad) Penguin

It's quite difficult to find things I'm grateful for today, but I'm going to try anyway: (1) the fact that I'm still with my parents, sister, dog, and the house I grew up in, (2) the sweetness of Southern Style Sweet Tea I drank this early evening, and (3) that I'm still able to preserve my youthful idealism at this age.

Dear diary,

There's not much to update today, but there is something slightly important.

I dismantled my laptop just now. For the first time in my life, I looked at the motherboard of a computer with my own eyes. It looks very intriguing and it made me think about assembling my own computer one day. In fact, I found a YouTube video that teaches just that. It will be interesting if I can do that one day and to create my own operating system as in Linux from Scratch.

I also felt a pang of sadness when I dismantled my computer. It has served me well for the past 6 years or so and, when I saw it dismantled, I felt as if I dissected a pet that has died recently. It's true that there is possibly no other way I can use this laptop, other than to take the hard disk drive and use it as an external drive. Hopefully all the data will be accessible in the new computer I'm going to buy this weekend. But in any case, I know I won't be able to work on my old laptop anymore. I am going to miss it.

Work was OK today. My employer finally became quite reasonable. They required 75% of their employees to work from home. I know 25% still works from office, but hey, it's still a progress. What made me upset is that they only did this after around 6 of my colleagues contracted the Omicron variant. I suppose the good news is I can stay at home for the next 2 weeks at least. I also help out my mother with food and housecleaning today. Despite being on-and-off with my work today, I actually felt pretty productive. I was able to structure a creative solution to what I thought was an impossible task. I also took some time browsing laptop specs during the work hour. I think I've found what I want to purchase.

Additionally, one of my interview practice friends got an offer at my dream company. I congratulated him and said I am not surprised at all. It would be foolish not to offer him the job. In return, he told me to let him know if I need interview practice anytime. This is nice, but I'm not going to hold him to this. With the new job, I'm very sure he will has his hands full now. I'm glad for his success. Until I have my own success, I will gladly stay on the sideline and clap for my friends' success!

That's all from me today, dear diary. I no longer feel grief over my laptop today, at least it's not on my mind all the time. In fact, I'm excited to purchase the new laptop I have in mind. I hope I will be able to find it in the store I'm going to visit this Saturday.

Best regards,

Bright Penguin

Things I'm grateful for: (1) the sauteed vegetable I cooked for lunch, so delicious, (2) found new coffee recipe that has a tropical taste to it: coffee, milk, white sugar, brown sugar, and coconut milk, (3) has time to meditate and read before sleep -- which I'm going to do now. ☺️

Dear diary,

I'm feeling a little disappointed today, but not too much 😂. It's Friday night after all. I'm going to tell you about my disappointment first, and then we save the best for later. Does that sound like a plan?

For some strange reason, today I've been getting a lot of new tasks from my colleagues. One of my pipelines also failed this morning and this whole day was absorbed trying to debug it -- but it's not yet finished (not even close). I think the data has gotten too big to be handled by the software currently in place. I'm looking for ways to circumvent this somehow, but without success. As a result, I felt unproductive today. I did not finish any of my existing or the more recent-but-urgent tasks. But hey, there is more to life than work. And I'm planning to resign anyway. 😅

Other than work, things have been pretty good actually. Some of my colleagues seemed to have the no-symptom Omicron variant. (I don't know if this actually exists, but one of my friends told me that he is positive with Omicron but feeling absolutely nothing). So I obtained a PCR test yesterday and the result got back negative last night. Yesterday, I also wired my enrollment fee for a certificate test attempt in August. Hopefully the payment succeeded and there is no problem.

After work, I cooked vegetables for dinner today. Even though I haven't cooked for such a long time, I think the dish was pretty OK. (Last time I cooked was probably in the US, the day before my flight back to Asia, August 19 2019). After dinner, I read Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. To be honest, I feel that the novel is overhyped. The writing is too simplistic and I cannot relate with any of the characters. It took me less than a few days to finish it and I did not enjoy reading it at all. Once I finish it, I'm going to read Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. I've been hearing great reviews about it.

When I finish writing to you, I'm going to continue watching Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me. Tomorrow, I'm going to have a practice interview in the morning and then I will visit a shopping mall to find a new laptop. I felt so happy when the HDD enclosure fits in my old laptop's HDD. I also used my mom's laptop to read it and found out that the memory of the old laptop is intact. Though I will likely never see the laptop's beautiful wallpaper anymore or use it like I did before, I somehow felt relief that a little part of it stays with me.

Speaking of which, I experienced an emotion I haven't felt in a while today. I came across a voice recording in my phone. It was a recording of a girl having a conversation and I used to have a crush on her. Though I no longer have a crush on her, it reminded me of how it feels like to fall in love. For 15 seconds or so, it felt so vivid. It felt as if I was falling in love all over again. I miss that feeling terribly. Caring about someone that much to the point that you can't stop thinking about her, that's heaven and hell simultaneously, but it's a great feeling. It's funny how a voice, song, or smell can evoke memory as vivid as this. Maybe this memory is telling me that I shouldn't work too hard. Being so absorbed in work has somewhat dulled my emotion.

Best regards,

Bright (and Hopeful) Penguin

Things I'm grateful for: (1) After years of not cooking, I cook again today!, (2) Beautiful voice of my ex-crush, (3) finishing Breakfast of Champions soon and continuing with To the Lighthouse.

Hi hi! Hope its okay to drop a message, just wanted to give my best wishes to you for your next certification exam and your job :) <3 . I believe in your hard work and you! I admire your attitude towards things in life so much hopefully I will be able to imbibe some of that in my life as well. (also I am a big fan of viriginia woolf, hope you have fun reading the book)

Take care and have fun <3

Love

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