Just Do It !

So I haven't written a blog in like forever. What's my excuse this time? Busy. What else is new?

I'm desperately trying to finish the seemingly endless book #2 - now, I'm at 65K words, and I still can't figure out how I'm going to end this even though I had an outline in the begining; I'm not just feeling it, you know? It's not how I want the book to end anymore, so I'm changing course. My bad, I fell in love with the characters too much, so I have to have the best ending possible for them, otherwise, I just wouldn't be able to live with myself.

Aside from that, I'm also busy crazy at my day job. Guests from overseas are constantly visiting our shores, reports are piling up, new projects are being initiated almost daily now - it's suffice to say things are really GOING ON right now. It's like I can't even catch a breath. And the travelling... Oh, don't even get me started on that. I've been to Singapore, Hong Kong, back to Singapore and will still be going again and while I do appreciate that I'll be able to use the miles for a family vacation (hopefully in December), can I just say that I am getting sick of airplanes? I feel like getting sick every time I board one. (Although, I must admit, I still love airports. And like I said in my tweet recently, the Hong Kong Airport is TO DIE FOR).

To top that off, I have 2 kids who are taking turns getting sick. It's like the viruses just love being passed on from son to daughter, then back to son, and back to daugther. And occassionally, like now, it gets passed on to me. I've been in bed for like 4 days now.

One of my best Twitter buddies @TigressReow said to me the other day "It's not EZ being Mom, Wife, Careergal, Author, Daughter etc when sick or w/sick kids" - and she's totally right. It's not even easy to do when I'm healthy and completely up and running!

But here's my survival trick: just do it. No - this is not an ad for Nike - although I am a big fan (of their products, not of their business practice). Seriously, people ask me all the time, what is my secret? How do I juggle everything I do and not go crazy? Someone even asked me: how many hours do you have in a day? The rest of us only have 24!! And my answer is that I just do it.

See, the way I see it, if you keep on thinking and trying to figure out how you are going to do so many things in a day, you'll never find the answer. Instead, you'd waste time just sitting there, trying to sort things out - things that will never be sorted out perfectly anyway. So what's the point in doing that? Do things as they come, keep your cool and just sail along smoothly.

Of course, there are certain things that happen in life that cause the balance to shift, like me getting sick now, and having to be in bed for 4 days. This is not expected and thus when I get back to my routine, I'll have to work faster to get everything done a little faster so I can get back to the normal pace later on - but from what I've learned, just keep a positive attitude and focus forward. Don't take your eyes off the goal. Give yourself deadlines and mark them in your head so you get the adrenaline rush you need to get yourself moving and constantly pushing forward.

Sure, you'll say "easier said than done". In the beginning, it'll feel that way too, for sure. But my advice is, believe that it can be done. It can. I hope this doesn't come off cocky or anything but seriously, I've done it. It can be done. Maybe not perfectly - because let's face it, we're all human beings so we'll never be perfect - but it can.

Who's with me to try it out? :)

The Price to Pay

These days, nothing in the world is for free. Let's not even talk about products, there's even a price to pay for hearing. So yeah, naturally, these days, I am all about paying the price. Everything has a tag on it.

It all started with the news that my son needed surgery. I walked into the doctor's office with concerns that his speech wasn't as developed compared to other kids his age, and I came out with a "glue ear" diagnose and a piece of white paper that said he was scheduled for surgery on Thursday that same week.

I came out of the doctor's office with a blank stare, completely bewildered. How did it get to this? - I asked myself at the time.

Sure - it was only "minor" surgery. But every mother would concur that nothing is minor when it comes to our kids. The thought of my boy being unconscious and operated on with an IV stuck into his little hand in a scary operating room was just too much for me to bear. And of course, being the overdramatic person that I was, I couldn't hold the tears back at all.

Just before the operation, the nurses rolled his bed into the operating room and my son held on to my hand for dear life. He was so scared that I couldn't see color in his face at all. I'm sure we traumatized the crap out of that poor little kid. But it had to be done, what choice did we have? He woke up from surgery kicking, screaming, demanding that we take out the IV, and he ended up taking it out himself with blood splattered all over the place. (I know, eww right?)

This is what we had to bear: trauma, cost, 2 weeks of being away from home, the expenses of being in a foreign country, exhaustion, and additional costs of changing our tickets (which were promo tickets!).

But when weighed with what we got in return: my son's hearing back and precious time with both my kids while we were stuck in Singapore waiting for my son to recover post surgery. Fourteen priceless days with both my son and daughter, uninterrupted by work or people or television or anything!

Now if that's not well worth it, I don't know what is...

It Takes Shock Therapy to Open Your Eyes...

When my husband came home from work the other day, I dropped everything I was doing to run to the door and greet him with a long lingering hug as soon as he stepped foot out of the car. Call me a drama queen if you’d like, but I actually had tears welling up my eyes and I felt lucky he was alive.

No, he wasn't recently in any car accident nor did he go through any near death experiences of any kind. He just went to work, went to meetings with clients, replied a few dozen emails or so and at the end of the day, drove home – all the normal routine (and perhaps rather mundane) things.

What wasn't normal was the fact that someone called our house telling our poor housekeeper that he had been in a terrible car accident and was in critical condition at the nearest hospital. In tears and completely terrified, our housekeeper called my mother-in-law, who then called and told me.

Sure, I had heard of similar scams happening around our circle of friends. They call, they say our loved one is dying then they make a second call asking for money. So logically I was convinced it was a scam almost immediately. Somehow though, in the back of my head, I kept thinking "What if it's true?" Matters became worse when I kept getting my husband's voicemail at every attempt of calling his cell phone.

Figuring the only way to find out was to see for myself, I left the office, rushed to take a cab to the hospital, and was there in less than ten minutes. I soon found out that my initial instinct was correct - it was just a scam. And no, the con artist did not ask for money - which made the scam seem rather odd and pointless. But anyway...

On my way out of the hospital -where the nurses there told me this sort of thing happened all the time - I finally managed to get through to my husband. Although I knew it was a scam, I still felt unbelievably relieved that he was unharmed, unscathed, and even smirking at me in response to my so-called overreaction. I couldn't stop the inner drama queen in me, I bawled my eyes out as soon as I heard him say "hello".

People generally say that everything happens for a reason. So perhaps this odd incident happened to wake me up and tell me that I haven't been appreciating my husband enough? Was it a cosmic attempt to remind me not to take him for granted? And perhaps for me to subsequently tell others about it so they could learn the same lesson I did?

Whatever the reason, I find myself now strangely thanking the person who tried to scam us. Not deeply thanking him of course, because well, who am I kidding, at the end of the day he still gave me an anxiety attack and I'm not a saint so it’s not that easy for me to entirely forgive and forget. But beyond that, I did learn something out of the whole fiasco.

Sometimes it takes a bit of drama in life to wake you up, and while I used to be more of a "the glass is half empty" kind of person, I can now tell myself that even though it's half empty, but at least it's not entirely empty. There is still half a glass worth drinking.

Easy job? Yeah, right.

(Warning: This message is probably more suitable for high school and college kids. If you're older, you can still read and add comments where you feel necessary. If you're older but are in denial, well, who am I to judge, read on!! Haha)

Last Wednesday, this intern started working at our office.
He came into my office, all shy and seemingly innocent. He wore what was probably his nicest shirt, cotton pants and formal shoes, and shook my hand with a smile. His smile was sincere, I could tell.

After our brief shaking of hands, I led him to the room where three of my staff worked, introduced him as the new intern, and left him in their care. I laughed a bit as I walked away, thinking about that poor kid who had no idea what he was getting into. But if he was anything like me, he would walk away at the end of his internship with his head held high, knowing he was ready to face anything.

I went back and forth to that room to monitor how he was doing, and I couldn't help but feel reminiscent of my own early working days. Geez, that was a heck of a long time ago!

I started working when I was 19, almost 20. I actually celebrated my 20th birthday on the job. Why did I start so early? Easy answer, I dropped out of college. Was it a choice? Definitely not. I just couldn't afford it anymore, and couldn't get student loans. Sad right? Yeah, tell me about it. But before you go all teary eyed and feel sorry that I don't have a Bachelor degree like everyone else (well, maybe not everyone) - don't be. I am happy I started working early. By the time my friends had finished college and just started working, I was already a Manager. So woo-hoo for me! Seriously, no regrets - everything worked out for the best. And this doesn't in any way mean that it's OK to quit college halfway. If you can get your degree, then gosh darn it, go get it! Stay in school!!

Anyway, back to my rambling, I started my first job thinking it would be easy. I thought it would be like the summer jobs I used to have, you know, a temp reception kind of job where I'd answer telephones, get people coffee, copy some stuff, fax some stuff, type some stuff. I mean, with no experience and no degree, I always thought that that would be how I started off. Stress free, happy go lucky, a smile on my face every day.

Nope, that's not how I started. I was assigned to something else entirely: telemarketing sales. Oh God, it was an awful job. No offense to anyone who does it, but I really, really, really hated it. I hated that I had to wear a headset all day long that would automatically dial a new number as soon as I hung up on the previous call (without so much as a single minute's break!), I hated that I could hear myself breath through the mouth piece on the stupid headset, I hated that I was calling people and interrupting them, I hated when they were rude to me on the phone, I hated when they would hang up on me without even letting me speak first, I hated that some guys actually tried to hit on me over the phone, and I certainly hated that even though I made a sale, it didn't make me hate the job any less. Did I mention I hated the job?

At times, I would get so stressed over going to work that I would get heartburn and end up feeling sick and barfing the whole day. No joke!

But you know, after a few weeks, I managed to get a grip and suck it up. Thanks to Mom dearest who kept reminding me that I needed the experience, the network, because I might have good use for all of it one day. She told me that everyone has to start from something crappy, in order to be able to have a deeper appreciation for other things, that other things will seem much more rewarding.

In the end, I stayed at that job for nearly two years, got promoted twice (that means 2x the salary too) and transferred to a much more interest job in the marketing and communications department and that job was basically how I got introduced to the job I have now (which I have had for the last NINE years). Rewarding? Yup, I think so. Was it easy to come by? Not at all.

At the end of the day, this is what I think: every first job will be basically pretty crappy - but if you work hard, pay your dues, and try to learn everything there is about that job, eventually it will equip you to be ready for something bigger and better that's patiently waiting around the corner for you. It's never going to be easy, and don't ever let your young, naive, innocent college brains think it will be. Trust me, it's going to be hard. But it's going to be worth it, more than you could possibly imagine.

Words...

I met a friend of mine a few days ago, someone who I hadn't seen in a while. We exchanged a quick conversation, then went our separate ways, with her saying 'I'll call you! We'll have lunch on Tuesday!' just before she hopped into her fancy black car.

Tuesday passed... she never called.
And while I sat pondering why, I realized that when I saw her in October of last year, she said the same thing, and that led me to remember how we met before that and she also said the same thing! It got me wondering, if she didn't really mean it, why did she keep saying it?

The more I asked around, the more I realized that this happens to everyone! Guys tell girls they'll call after a first date all the time, and never so much as look at the phone afterward - I hear of this the most. My husband said he has a friend who does that to him too, says he'll call but never does, and I just can't help but wonder why? What happened to the good old days when teachers and parents used to remind us to not say something that's not true? Or when our folks used to remind us that a promise is a promise, and we needed to keep them?

Look, it's not as if the world crumbles if they don't call - of course not. We keep it in the back of our mind and life goes on, sure. But I just don't get why people would waste their time and energy just to say something like they'll call when they have no intention of doing so? Is saying something now just a combination of a bunch of words that just happen to form sentences? Have words lost their power and respect from people? Do words mean nothing anymore?

Well, they should. Seriously.
Words should be said and meant. They were created for a reason: to be used and honored - not just to fill in a few minutes of awkward silence and be disregarded. Words have power. They can make someone fall or rise, they can make the world change for the better or for the worse. So why aren't we using our words wisely?