Diary of a Workaholic...

(Part 1)

Dear Diary,

Two significant events occurred since the last time I wrote you -- and both seem to affect me positively. But to keep the climax at the end, let me talk about last week. Last week was ***! From Monday through Wednesday, I left the office at 11pm or later. On Monday, my mentor JS was helping me finish my task though, in the end, it still took me until 11pm. Tuesday was even worse. Though I woke up early to give finishing touches for the previous night work, that work was suddenly deprioritized by my manager JH. Halfway through the day, my manager JH was also upset with me because I sat in the phone booth. He kept pressuring me to sit in the team room with him and the rest of the team. He didn't seem to understand that introverts work best when alone. In any case, I left the office at 1.30am that day.  When looking for a cab, there was a cat which walked near my feet. I crouched and pet the cat before finally entering the cab.

Dear diary,

I found it really upsetting that 7 Cups hasn't solved the bug that disabled me from posting my long diary entry. But I also don't want to keep waiting. So I'm going to post a brief summary of what happened for the past month or so, then update you on what happened today.

For the past month, to keep this short, I managed to (a) finish my h*ll*shly-difficult first project, (b) evade getting staffed by the same manager, (c) get staffed on a short but nice project, (d) complete that nice project in one week, and (e) get staffed on a third project since I was hired. Lots of things happened, but I can't put them all here for fear of triggering a bug at 7 Cups which prevents me from posting.

So I'll continue instead with my current project. Last week was the opposite of this week. Last week, I was finishing off with my second project and was able to take a nap after lunch. I worked from home -- since most of the team members were abroad anyway -- and worked long hours, but my introvert-self was happy.

My current project, on the other hand, requires full presence at the client site. To add to the fire, my manager was also very hands-off -- causing a lot of chaos and confusion. In that respect, today was no different from the previous days; the chaos and confusion was still there. But today was also bizarre in another way.

It started normally -- namely, with drudge work and chaos and confusion -- but halfway through the day one of my colleagues in the project told the manager that his father passed away. As a result of this, he flew back to his own country accompanied by another colleague. Then another colleague of mine -- who will be taking two weeks off starting next week -- suddenly invited me to important meetings with the client after lunch. I quickly grabbed lunch at a nearby mall. The meeting was OK, though I was quite confused most of the time. After all, it's my first week in the project and I was expected to take over another person's job after eight weeks. Tomorrow I'm going to have a Zoom call with him so that he can have a proper handover to me. But enough with work. I also tried to be present and grateful throughout the day. At around 5pm, I managed to sneak out of the team room and walked around in the nearby mall. Blame my loneliness for this, but I passed by a woman I find attractive. For some reason, we kept passing by. I walked around the three floors of the shopping mall and we kept crossing each other. The last time we met before I returned to the office was when I sat near the cinema. When I turned around, she was walking towards the concession stand. Then I returned to the office. I worked for a few more hours, separately from the team. When I returned to the team room, my manager and all my colleagues weren't there. I was the last to go home. I returned to the shopping mall to have ramen for dinner. Unexpectedly, I met the woman again. She was carrying a shopping bag and we passed by for one last time. For some reason, it felt heart-wrenching. I probably won't ever meet her again. During the few moments that I had to myself -- in between the stress and the chaos of work -- she was there. In that moment, I imagine what it would be like if I was less ambitious and more content with every day lives. Perhaps I would already be in a good relationship, feeling contented with my regular life. Instead, I always had to aim for an ambitious job which ended up stressing me out.

Best regards,

Bright (and Melancholic) Penguin

Grateful for: (a) nice ramen for dinner, (b) coca cola I will be drinking before sleep, and (c) Monster anime series.

Dear diary,

It's December 2023 already. I feel like I'm not ready to say goodbye to 2023, which was generally a good year for me. I've made so many precious memories this year. Aside from that, due to the bug at 7 Cups, I've actually moved my diary to Notion. The benefit of doing that is I could journal every day and customize the format of the diary. (I created checklist of daily habit in the Notion page as well, to remind me of the good habits I'm trying to build). The drawback is that I would have to modify my diary entry significantly to publish it here. My diary entries in Notion were generally more meandering, lengthy, and frequent, whereas I always try to proofread what I publish here. In any case, I'll try to still publish here what transpired since the last time I wrote you, dear diary.

You know about my stressful project. I reached one of the peaks of work stress today. In the morning, my manager scolded me. I then had a nice lunch, which was interrupted by a phone call from colleague, requesting me to finish lunch quickly and join the client on one of their meetings. Joining the meeting, I realized I didn't have the right expertise to fully advise them on a few things and that made me feel stupid.

On the other hand, the client's meeting was in a hotel lounge I visited last Friday. Last Friday was fun, I attended a conference for people pursuing the same certificate that I am pursuing. (In fact, I attended the same conference last year as well. It was one of the highlights of 2022!). To give myself time to be nostalgic, I left separately. The client left first, then I took a taxi. Arriving at the office, I briefed the client's project manager on what happened on the business partner meeting, sent out an email summary of the discussion, and left the office.

I managed to have dinner by myself at a katsu restaurant. I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner. Then I went to the food court to buy smoothie. I brought it to the top floor of the shopping mall nearby the client's office -- where there is cinema -- and sat near the window. I looked at the dark night sky while reflecting on what happened today. As I sipped my peanut butter smoothie, I also gave myself some time to recover. During shower, I had an epiphany. I had similar crises in the past which I couldn’t solve: failing to write OCR program on time in graduate school, losing a business opportunity for data exchange deal at my previous job, etc. Looking back, though they seemed significant at the moment, I now understand that they are not as significant as I thought. Almost trivial even. If I look forward, maybe in a year or a few months, my current predicament would also look trivial. But it would make me a stronger person. That’s it for now, I’m off to watch Monster and read Cloud Atlas.

Best regards,

Bright Penguin

Things I'm grateful for today: (a) dinner, smoothie, and time alone, (b) precious memories I made in 2023 and last year which allowed me to indulge in the bittersweet pain of nostalgia, and (c) the presence of my family in my life which literally kept me going during hard times like this.

Dear diary,

The past two days have been great for me. It was a welcome respite from the chaos and stress of my current project. As I may have told you, I didn't really click with the manager from my current project. He kept scolding me for small mistakes and, at this point, I felt indifferent. No matter what I do, he was never happy with me -- so I might as well not think about him at all. In fact, yesterday, he messaged me on WhatsApp calling me unprofessional for leaving the project for time off. Despite the fact that I've told him about my vacation plan in early December and that I've also sent a detailed handover task to the team before my day off, he still decided to harass me with work email on my vacation time. I responded firmly and concisely on email, stating that I've communicated my plan to him earlier. He didn't respond. Thus began my year-end time off.

Yesterday was fun. For some reason, the dinners I was supposed to have yesterday night and tonight were both cancelled. Well, more "me time" is always welcomed. So, after having my apartment cleaned yesterday, I went to a shopping mall and loitered around for half a day. I visited a grill restaurant for lunch and ordered a mushroom skewer, which was delicious. Then I had a massage which, though not as pleasant as I thought, was one of the highlights of my day. After that massage, I sat at Starbucks for an hour or two to take an online course I've just bought earlier on yesterday morning. Then I hailed a taxi to my old office building. I walked around the building, indulging myself in nostalgia by seeing all the places I've used to spend significant time at. As luck would have it, I met my ex-colleagues and they seemed glad to see me. Then I had dinner at a ramen shop I used to visit to reward myself for achieving important milestones in my previous job. I ordered too much but it was a fun experience. After returning to my apartment, I opened a bottle of white wine and drank a glass of it while playing video game.

Skip forward to today, I was planning to have breakfast at a hotel near my apartment, but I woke up too late and thought that my time could be spent preparing for my return home. So, after waking up, I packed my bag, washed the dishes, etc. It was much faster than I thought. By 10.30am, I was ready to go home. I made a final round to the bathroom, my work desk, the balcony, and felt sad about leaving my apartment. The next time I’ll see the apartment will likely be next year. I arrived home at around 11.30am and my family dog welcomed me. When I was waiting for the door to be opened, I could see my dog looking at me from the front window. It was really cute. When I entered my house, it jumped around and rolled over for a belly rub. I then had a simple lunch of fish nuggets, omelet, and tempeh. After lunch, I took a long nap but was woken up multiple times by the barking of my dog and an event going on in the neighboring house. Soon after waking up, my mother arrived home and I helped her with some administrative task until around 6pm. I managed to take a break to eat chocolate bar and bread. Without realizing it, dinner time came. My sister arrived home from work. My mother, my sister, and I had dinner together. My father already had his dinner. I ate a lot for dinner, finishing almost an entire plate of tofu, vegetable, and two boiled eggs. It felt so good to be back home and to have dinner at home with my family. It’s probably been months since I last had dinner with them at home. After dinner, I played video game a bit, then took a shower and continued taking an online course I purchased yesterday. Now that I finished writing you, I am going to watch Netflix and read Cloud Atlas.

Best regards,

Bright (and Contented) Penguin

Grateful for: (1) the start of holiday season, (2) being able to have dinner with my family today, and (3) Roosevelt's song Swirl.

Dear diary,

The past one week has been heaven for me -- and that's an understatement. Last weekend has been extremely close to ideal for me. On Saturday, my mother and my sister watched The Boy and the Heron in theater and ate nice dinner afterwards. Too bad my father didn't join us. On Sunday, I drove my parents and my sister to the Christmas Eve service. After the evening service, we went to have dinner together in a nearby traditional restaurant, just like I often fantasized doing on Sunday evening. Most Sundays, I will have to drive back to my apartment so that I don't have to experience the Monday morning traffic. But last Sunday, I went home to my parent's house and we slept under the same roof.

Monday was the beginning of our five-days trip to another city. My sister didn't join due to her employer not giving her PTO yet, but we still managed to have a great vacation. The train trip lasted around 6 hours during which I observed the greenery through the train window. Due to lack of sleep, I also nodded off and fell asleep multiple times. During the five-days trip, we managed to visit so many places: traditional clothing stores, local restaurants, historical buildings, shows, and wonderful views of nature. On Tuesday, for example, we went on a museum located near the peak of a volcano. It documented the devastation that the eruption caused to the victims around the vicinity. I took a picture with owls, the peak of the volcano in the background. For the rest of the trip, we also visited a monastery on a hill with otherworldly stone architecture, drank coconut water on a beach, ate dinner while watching the sunset, and saw a show retelling a local folktale using traditional dances.

Usually, after our trip for the day was over and we reached the comfort of our hotel room, my father would take a shower. My mother, waiting for her turn to use the bathroom, would sit on the sofa and wait. I would go out of the hotel room and walk around the surrounding areas. This gave me time to think and reflect on what happened during the day. On the second day of my trip, after an exhausting jeep ride to the volcano, I walked around the main street of the city. I found a donut shop my family had visited when I was small. I no longer remember details from that time, but the feeling remained with me. There was also this mini-market I ended up visiting a lot of during the trip. I've purchased a deck of cards from the store as memento for the trip, which is now next to the laptop I'm typing this diary at.

As is usual, good times must come to an end, causing devastation in its wake -- just like the volcano I visited on the trip. I ended up experiencing post-vacation blues starting yesterday which was still part of the trip, but the last day of it. After the breakfast, I had a ninety-minutes massage at the hotel then we checked out of the hotel but left our luggage to be reclaimed later on. During our long wait for the train ride, we visited a shopping mall and ate at the food court. It's difficult for me to say how to say it right -- and in the end I might still embarrass myself for saying this -- but I found one of the waitresses attractive. I kept looking at her during my meal, breaking of my eye contact only when she caught mine. I observed her doing her work: taking orders from customers, folding takeaway boxes, etc., and I couldn’t help but feel that I want to have a significant other. I want to love a woman and care for her; to provide her with a good life as one of the priorities in my life. Soon enough, I finished my meal and left. As we went down the escalator, I kept trying to see her for one last time but I couldn’t. We returned to the hotel and it was time for us to reclaim our luggage and went to the station. I felt heavy and I walked around the hotel common area while waiting for us to be picked up by the driver. As I walked the garden of the hotel and crossed the bridge overlooking the fish pond, I bade farewell to the hotel.

The train reached my hometown last night at 3am. After a drive back home, unpacking my bag, and a shower, I ended up sleeping at 5.30am and waking up at 10am. Today has been melancholic for me. I kept thinking of the recent trip and the few people I met there. There were many joyful moments over the past few days. However, if one lesson is to stay with me, I hope it is the realization that I want to be in a romantic relationship. It is only when I was removed from my usual environment and when my mind was allowed to drift to things outside of work that I realized how empty my life would probably be without someone to share it with. Dear diary, will I ever meet a woman to share my life with? If so, what will she be like?

Best regards,

Bright Penguin

Grateful for: (1) great trip with my parents over the last 5 days, (2) time for introspection away from work, and (3) song that remind me of this period of my life Ariana Grande's positions and Crystal Skies' Good Enough

Dear diary,

The past two weeks has been full of surprise. I started the year of 2024 with mild fever and severe headache. Fortunately, the fever and headache were soon replaced with mild cough and cold on the second day of 2024. I was able to go to the office, so I did. It was the end of my third project and I was merely counting days until next Monday, which would be the day I rolled off the project. On Friday, right before the weekend preceding that Monday, I went to a hospital after work. I found it suspicious that I had not yet recover from common cold and cough, so I got myself tested for coronavirus. The result came back positive.

Naturally, I did not return to my parent's house that week. That started my week-long self-imposed isolation in my apartment, which I turned out to enjoy. The doctor prescribed me four medication and one vitamin, all of which can only be consumed after a meal. So I began to have breakfast again. As if to bring me back to college time, I started having breakfast of milk-soaked instant oatmeal with yogurt, banana, and breakfast cereal topping. It was delicious. I spent my entire week within the confines of my apartment, getting out only to pick up my food delivery. I studied my online course, took naps, had amazing meal while sitting in front of my apartment balcony, and indulged myself in fiction -- induced by reading a novel or watching gameplay of God of War in YouTube. I also managed to secure another project for myself, to start tomorrow. That also marks the end of my self-imposed quarantine. This Friday, I returned to my parents' home. My new project was also located near my parents' home, which gave me little reason to live in my apartment for the next six/seven weeks. My grief started to set in.

If the past two days has been quite idle for me, my emotional state was actually quite chaotic. I actually felt sad leaving my apartment, especially after an extended period of time living there -- during which one week was spent there almost 100%. It summoned the same emotion that I felt when I returned from the US back to my home country. Yes, I now get to spend more time with my family and my dog -- but something else seems to be taken away from me. I understand that my six/seven weeks relocation back to my parents' home was temporary, but still it triggered an emotion I do not often feel. Perhaps I already miss my colleagues from my previous project, despite the hellishly-difficult problems the client wanted us to solve. Perhaps I miss the interior of my apartment and the view of the city skyline from the balcony. Or maybe, it is the sense of autonomy that living in my apartment brings. In any case, today I felt quite empty. It felt as if I had just finished a great film or completed a video game with terrific story that, now, my life felt bland. One thing is clear. I do hope that one day I get the chance to live reclusively. I get the sense that I'm going to like it a lot. But, perhaps, once I go there, there will be no coming back. It felt heavy to return to "civilization" after only one week of my self-imposed isolation. I couldn't imagine how much heavier that burden would be if I would be returning from a one year of living as a recluse.

I hope my new project will be good. It seems that my teammates are friendly.

Best regards,

Bright Penguin

Grateful for: (1) time alone for more than a week at my apartment, (2) time to spent with my family, (3) a seemingly-good project which I will be a part of for the next six/seven weeks.

Dear Diary,

The past two weeks has been a roller coaster for me. The project director kicked me out of his project only after two weeks. Monday was my last day in the project and I had some time to talk with my colleagues. My colleagues kept reassuring me that it was not my fault. The project was extremely challenging and required a more seasoned employee. I also had a talk with the project director on Tuesday. He believed I needed to catch up on some skill sets, but that I had a good attitude about work. The thought that I didn't do well made me feel terrible for the past three days. After spending 14-16 hours a day for two weeks, was my work still sub-par?

But I also had reason to be grateful. Yesterday I got to spend quality time with my mother and my sister. My mother and I went to a shopping mall near to my sister's office. We went to a hair salon: my mother to have her hair dyed and I was to have my scalp massaged. Then my sister joined us and we had dinner in an Italian restaurant. We bought burrata, risotto, dough balls, pizza, tiramisu and panna cotta. It was such a great time, I actually felt sad when it was over. If only time can be frozen.

What a difference a day made. If yesterday I was afraid of not being able to get into a new project, today I was afraid of getting into the wrong project. My morning started slowly, with a breakfast of overnight oatmeal. Then I started reaching out to people who have worked with the manager who seemed interested to staff me. The result was mixed. Some people thought he was a supportive manager, but others believed he was too harsh. I wanted to hedge my chance, so I started reaching out to another manager. By lunchtime, I’ve done everything I thought I could do. Then I had lunch with my mother; we bought from a nearby salad bar. After lunch, I received a few replies that didn’t significantly alter my situation. I decided to take a long nap.

Once I woke up, I had a spark of inspiration. I could reach out to even more managers. I’ve reached out to them in December, but perhaps they still need to staff people. I turned on my laptop to find out that it no longer mattered. My staffing arrangement had been finalized. I am to work with the tough-but-supportive manager, which means I will be working outside my hometown. Officially, I will be starting next week, but it seems that I have to start ramping up tomorrow. I felt empty again. I did not know what to feel, but for some reason something felt wrong. Then I had dinner with my mother and sister again. We ate tempeh and tom yum (an unorthodox choice of meal, I know). I had a quick shower, then spent some time alone after dinner. I’m now writing you a diary and will likely publish something to 7Cups really soon. I’m going to miss all the quality time with my mother and sister that I’ve been having for the past 2 days. I’ll also miss spending alone time at night.

Best regards,

Bright (and Afraid) Penguin

Grateful for: (1) my family, I love them so much!, (2) Skyrim, which provided me with much-needed escape from my daily life, and (3) opportunity to practice Stoicism and mental toughness.

Dear diary,

Sometimes good things come without warning. Without planning for it, today has been reminiscent of the past I thought I would never relive. Even though I am to begin officially working in the project next week, today was the soft-start of the project for me. I had a quiet morning. I woke up a bit earlier because I had a one-on-one session with my manager at 8.30am today. But I still managed to have a good breakfast and some time to think.

The one-on-one session went better than expected. Despite his track record as a blunt and harsh manager, he seemed kind to me. He assigned me some light tasks to do throughout the day, planning to check up on me at 2pm. I worked from my room until around 9am, at which time I went downstairs and worked from the storage room—a place I used to jump rope in. My mother called air conditioner technician to maintain the AC in our house. That was why I had to migrate downstairs. I actually enjoyed working from the storage room. My dog initially barked frequently because she detected a stranger (e.g., the AC technician) entering the house but she calmed down soon after.

Lunch was great—fish, roasted sesame dressing, and tofu soup with mushrooms—and the only thing lacking was my mother. She went out to check up on her friend who is still recovering from eye surgery. Thus, my lunch was relatively quick. I soon went up and took a nap. Before the supposed call with my manager at 2pm, I managed to do another significant portion of my work. I felt prepared to meet my manager at 2pm, but he rescheduled the call to 3.30pm. Another 1.5 hour means another opportunity to overdeliver. I pushed to accomplish more tasks. Near to 3.30pm, my manager rescheduled the call to tomorrow morning due to a client meeting dragging longer than expected. I offered to update him about what I did during the day in writing. He joyfully agreed. I wrote the update and scheduled it to be sent at 5.30pm.

Then one of the best parts of the days began: I went downstairs to get some snack and brew a cup of coffee. It was so reminiscent of the distant past, after I handed in my resignation letter but before my last day working for my previous employer. As I brought my snack to my balcony-stationed work-desk, I felt a gentle pang of wistfulness. It was a vague but definite feeling. I sat at the balcony eating cakes my mother made for me yesterday. I also managed to meditate for 15 minutes earlier during the day. Then I continued working while sipping my coffee. As time went on, the nostalgic past got more and more distant.

Before this job, I finished my coffee at 5.30pm and began my weightlifting routine soon after. But, because I wanted to show my manager that I could overdeliver, I skipped workout and continued working until 7pm. I saw very little reason to workout these days since it’s difficult to be consistent. Perhaps it was the wrong mindset. Maybe a little something is still better than nothing, though imperceptible as it might be. Aside from the minor deviation, the rest of my day was actually quite similar to the days of long ago.

At around 7pm, I had dinner with my mother. Then began my evening routine of taking a long shower, brushing my teeth, and quiet time before sleep. The time is now half-past ten and, upon finishing this diary, I’m going to play Skyrim. Notwithstanding my love of independence and new life in my apartment, I’ve grown to miss living in my parents’ house. It carried a relaxing air and the feeling of belonging. There is a sense of peace and eternity to it, as if time was frozen and things were going to be OK. I wonder why I used to feel discontent and anxiety at that time. The past always looked better in retrospect.

Best regards,

Bright (, Relieved, and Grateful) Penguin

Things I'm grateful for: (a) quiet yet productive time today, (b) unexpectedly nostalgic day, and (c) great melancholic EDM songs which accompanied my work today: Jay Ocean's "Hold On to Me", Hoang's "Hart Part's Over", and Wrathe's "Firelight". (Of course, needless to say, I'm also grateful for my family, my dog, and my home).

Dear diary,

The past two weeks has been wild. Last Tuesday (6 Feb), I flew to the client site at a remote mining site on another island. I lived there for a little more than a week. The place was simple and quite boring, to be honest--but my team worked really hard there. After nearly a week of sleeping only 3-4 hours a day, we finally managed to show our work to the client on Monday (12 Feb). The meeting was successful and we returned home. Due to our flight being badly delayed, we cancelled the flight, booked another flight from another city, and rented a car to take us there on time. We finished packing at 9pm, then we traveled 243 kilometers in a matter of hours. I managed to spend a few hours sleeping at a hotel. The hotel room was of the normal quality, but because of the past one week living amongst coal miners in a remote city, I found it so impressive. I found pleasure in the hot shower and warm bed. Before sleep and when I woke up, I opened the curtain and marveled in the view of from my hotel room. The soft yellow lighting from the desk light, mixed with the blue of early morning, made the atmosphere feel transient and ephemeral. It was as if those early hours were taken from another world and plucked into my life. Then at 6am, I went to the airport and flew back to my hometown.

Back at home, I felt even more gratitude for my life. Life at the mining site was tough. There were electricity blackouts, the food wasn't the cleanest, and so on. I am now so much more capable of being grateful to my family, my house, and just the quality of my life in general. But happiness is a fleeting moment. When I arrived at home, my mother told me that our dog has a lump on her body. I quickly checked and I did find a lump. It was irregularly-shaped and quite large. We took her to the vets this morning, who told us that indeed it was skin tumor. The vet gave us two options: to operate on her or to leave the tumor as it is. He recommended that we leave the tumor as it is since operating on an old dog is quite risky. There’s a possibility that the dog won’t wake up due to the anesthesia. As my mother paid for the visit, I walked around with my dog at the garden in front of the vet office, feeling sad and heartbroken about her condition.

At 4pm, my mother and I washed our dog. As I soaped her, I can’t help but think that one of these days could be one of the last time I washed her. As my mother and I washed her, we also tried to console ourselves. We told ourselves that our dog was quite lucky and probably happy with her life also. She was a stray dog that ended up having a loving life in my family. After dinner, I brushed my dog’s belly. It has been a very long time since I brushed her belly ever since I started my time-consuming new job and moved to my apartment. But she still remembers. She walked closer to me and laid on her back, then I brushed her belly and she expressed her pleasure by grunting. This became more sad because my dog didn’t seem to know about her own illness.

Best regards,

Bright (and Heartbroken) Penguin

Things I'm grateful for: (a) precious time I had with my dog 😢, (b) time to watch couples' vlog video on YouTube which warmed my heart, and (c) quality time with my family as well as (d) alone time to play Skyrim.

Dear diary,

(It's been a long time since I posted my diary here, since I already moved my diary-writing exercise to Notion. But I want to post my diary here today. My dog died this afternoon and I want to commemorate her life here with you. Pardon the copy-pasted diary below which I've written in Notion.)

My dog made it through the night. As soon as I woke up, I thought about her, went downstairs, and checked up on my dog. She was still lethargic but seemed more energetic than last night. For a moment, there was hope that perhaps she will make it through. My dog slept on her bed, covered with a blanket my mother put on her earlier. She was vomiting less than yesterday and, in fact, she wanted to drink some water also. We were afraid she’ll be drinking too much that her body ejected it back outside, but she didn’t vomit as much as yesterday.

Feeling reassured, I had a breakfast of bread we bought yesterday from the shopping mall: a chocolate nut bread, matcha mochi, and chocolate cheese bread. My parents and I managed to talk briefly over breakfast. It turns out that today we weren’t planning to go to the church. My mother was too tired from last night’s caring for my dog. I told my mother to sleep upstairs while I waited on our dog. Since my dog was sleeping just outside the bedroom on the first floor, I decided to sleep in the first floor bedroom keeping the door open. Before sleep, I read a few articles from Big Think, The Atlantic, and the New Yorker as well as 1Q84 novel of Haruki Murakami. I soon felt drowsy and fell asleep.

When I woke up at around 11am, I went outside to find my dog still sleeping on her bed. I sat down on a nearby sofa to continue reading. Despite the little energy left in her small body, my dog got up, walked to the sofa, and slept near my feet. By that time, my dog’s body seemed to shiver incessantly with snots coming out of her partially-closed nostrils. I turned off the fan so that she won’t shiver, but she kept shivering. I had a sense that she wasn’t shivering due to outside temperature, but due to her internal body functions starting to shut down. I carried her to her bed, then my family had lunch. I ate tofu, tempeh, and vegetable soup. It was a brief but healthy lunch. Then came the time to medicate our dog.

I’ve ordered a more potent medication to cure her stomach’s tendency to keep rejecting food. My mother half-carried half-hugged my dog while one of the helpers filled a syringe to feed the dog with medication. We stopped feeding the medication while one-half of the syringe has been injected into the dog’s mouth. We realized that the dog didn’t swallow the medicine at all; she just stored it inside her mouth. I contacted my vet to ask for what to do while sitting on the sofa near my mother. All of a sudden, my mother wailed and cried. For a while I didn’t realize what was happening, but soon I got up and went to my mother.

It turned out that my dog has just looked into my mother’s eyes and breathed one of her last breaths. My father and my sister soon went downstairs and the helpers also surrounded my mother. My dog shivered and seemed to try inhaling a large amount of oxygen for a brief few seconds then it was all over. The warm dark eyes that greeted me when I arrived home from work were then half-closed and empty. The furry head that I so often caressed then hung unnaturally from the dead body that was still in my mother’s hug. I asked my mother to take my turn to also hug my dog. I half-carried half-hugged my dog and confirmed that the heart that used to beat so vigorously was no longer beating.

My dog has died peacefully in the hugs of my mother, surrounded by the people who love her. Her body was no longer shivering, she no longer had difficulty breathing, and I placed her body on her bed. Her mouth was open, showing long and sharp fangs that her gentle soul never bothered to use. On Sunday afternoon, my mother and I usually bathed our dog and dried her in front of the front door; today, we wiped her body with wet tissues for the very last time. We took one of her towels and covered her cooling body with it. We then wrapped it again with my father’s blanket. I don’t believe in God or an afterlife, but I hope heaven exists for my dog. I hope she’s now running around, playing with other dogs beyond the pearly gates; her white fur, dark warm eyes, and youthful vigor restored to its peak.

I then took a shower during which I cried a little bit, but less than I had expected. It seems that I haven’t completely processed what happened. After shower, we buried her in our front garden. There was now a mound of rocks and a tombstone made of leftover ceramics with white flowers scattered on top of it. I went through the belongings of my dog—the bed, the blanket, the doormat she liked sleeping on, the towel, the pillows—scooped through a few of them and smelled my dog’s scent for the very last time. I used to hate the scent of the dog, but then it felt like a scent I was unwilling to part with.

I then went upstairs to continue reading on the balcony. I read for almost 5 hours today. I had no energy to pack my luggage. I felt empty. I tried to console my mother by brewing her a hot chocolate a few hours before dinner. I also ate oreos and drank lychee tea while continuing to read 1Q84. Soon it was time for dinner and I ate salad with tofu. After dinner, I walked out the front door and lingered for a while outside. I looked at my dog’s burial mound and couldn’t help but resist wishing a good sleep for my dog. As I surveyed my front porch, I remembered the time I carried her outside to pee and poo. I didn’t know that last Thursday’s hurried late-night visit to the vet would be the very last time my dog would be in a car with me. I couldn’t help but conjure up an image from a few weeks ago when my dog slept on my lap and looked at my eyes with warmth. I hope she knew that she was loved and that she will be missed.

I watched YouTube after dinner to console myself but it didn’t work. I then took a shower, aiming to pack afterwards but I couldn’t summon the energy to do so. Hope I’ll be able to do it tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening to my story, dear diary. I’m grateful for (1) band milk.’s songs which consoled me as I wrote you, (2) time of togetherness with my family today, and needless to say (3) the companionship of my dog for the past 5 years. I can’t express how much I love her in words and I haven’t felt this much grief over the loss of pet. I wish I have done more for my dog, but I hope she still lived a happy life with me. Be well, my friend, wherever you are now. Logging off now to try watching Aftersun and read 1Q84.

Best regards,

Bright (and Grieving) Penguin