dilettare

I've been looking at comments I made on other people's blog and my own writing. I came to the conclusion that my writing skill has dwindled over the years. I was reading a comment I made on "just bento" years back and I was like "is that me??". Holy cow I used to be more articulate and since I started working- back in Mauritius- I have become dumber. My brain needs exercise and where has my love of words gone? Everyday is work, eat and die. I have not made any new year resolutions because I don't believe in them. I miss talking to interesting people about all and nothing. I guess it's a signal that I need to move my butt and do some socializing? I feel hesitant to talk about other things @ work because most of the convos I hear are limited to work related-what i did this week-end and lots of "me" stuffs. I want to talk about ideas, about current happenings.

At each stage of my life, I had someone-a guy most of the time as women are too catty to handle- to discuss life issues-ideas. At uni it was W and C, at work back in Mauritius I had A and J, in my daily JGZ. As weird as it seems we rarely spoke about our life as it is, sure life bits and pieces will mingle with the ideas but it was mainly sharing ideas, music and what do you think about this and that? Last week I was reading rimbaud when H came it and she told me how she did a BA in spanish art and lit. We started talking about french poetry. For some reason, I started telling her about rimbaud and the awesomeness of his poem "Aube" until someone came in and the conversation moved to ...work...and family... Ok I guess I am the boring one here....

I am not a convo snob..I'm a very quiet person to the point it makes people uncomfortable but once I know I can trust someone, I get loud. I just love talking to people who can go beyond the boring daily blabla..even C she tells me everything and anything and I love assimilating new ideas and new ways of looking at things from others perspective.

Still working in a Canadian environment is interesting..the difference from back home is startling..Most of the time, the way I look at my manager is "eh!??!" because I am not used to their coaching style. She came to me to say that my limit has been increased because I was doing something well. I was like "ehhh??????..thank you..." You can feel the difference between the Western and Asian way of doing things. From my own experience, we chinese, are pressurized since young age to do well, it's expected, it's taken for granted and if you fail, bonjour the nasty words. My mother never told me I had to lose weight for health issues, it was snarky remarks "your thigh is like a pig", "you eat like.."..even last time on skype she was like "why are you not losing weight?"..thanks mom..it took me 4 yrs in uni to lose 30 pounds and do you expect me to lose any in winter and with a sedentary job? a B in my grades earned me a disappointed silence from my dad or a quiet remark like "my friend's daughter got an A"

Here it's more about coaching and moving at your pace. Still it does not make me feel any better if I am not making any progress as I do my own monitoring whether you believe it or not. It feels weird. I don't expect compliments about the way I work because it is expected that as an employee you have to do your job well. What I wait for usually is remarks abt how I did things wrong and hopefully to be able to correct them fast. I never had any compliment when I did something well as a child, the only words my parents uttered were when they were disappointed or not approving. That's the chinese way, at least in my family.

JGZ says I am into sm because I am hard on myself, I torture myself for nothing..as if I like being in this kind of stressful, "the worse will happen" environment. It's not that I love it, I grew up expecting the worse because nothing was ever good enough, grew up wanting control and be perfect so I guess this sm forms part of me, some unconscious self punishment because whatever I do is never at the level I believe it should be. Need to save money to get therapy. On the worse days, I replay actions and words in my head over and over again and could talk about that for hours..One person even told me I think too much.

At least being older I have learned to accept myself a little bit more than when I was a teenager. Being away from home helps as well.

Next week I am turning 30 and I still wonder what have I accomplished.. :/