Sunday, February 9th Christine in Taipei Wow... so nice and quiet around here! It's just after midnight Saturday/Sunday and I'm sitting on Basil's couch, zoning out and typing away at the same time. This is the first time in a long time that I have had the whole evening to myself, and wow is it ever nice. I'm liking this couch too! And I hope Basil never comes back to Taipei! Just kidding... It's been hard trying to get things moving and not letting it totally consume me, but I gotta admit that I haven't been answering my phone or emails unless it's launch-related. I feel both stupid and guilty about it but I only have so many hours in one day. And yet, somehow or another, opportunities keep presenting themselves to go out, and I find myself constantly wrestling with "Should I stay or should I go?", in spite of my concerted attempts to refrain. I would write about my evenings out, here in Taipei, but I just haven't the time. (so pathetic) But back to my pontificating... Sometimes, I seriously wonder if the reason why I am hating life right now is because I just have the wrong attitude about it all, and if so, how I got this way to begin with and when did it start happening, as last year I was consistently upbeat and giddy almost every DAY. Other times, I wonder if this project is in fact truly that difficult, or if it's that I'm making it difficult, or if it's just I don't have the ability to do it well. And still other times, I think back to my days at Citibank Taiwan with the massive back-end, regional conversion project known as Systematics, in which a very LARGE number of O&T staff about killed themselves trying to make that happen, all the while knowing that they were writing themselves out of a job in the end. Anyone following Citibank's restructuring during the late '90s will know what I'm referring to, but what few people outside of the company know is just how pain- ful it was for those who took part in the last year of the 7-year effort, reflected in the tears that were shed by the most senior of staff during the dinner/party that was held to celebrate the success of their conversion. While ORIENTED is peanuts compared with that effort, I think about it often, and I wonder till this day if those employees regretted sticking around to the very end for the sake of loyalty to their managers or to the company or both. But anyway, I digress again... Deep down inside... I think the real reason why I've been feeling so angst about ORIENTED is because I've put my life on a schedule that I can't seem to follow no matter how hard I try, and that perhaps I need to stop doing that, and to just enjoy the moment, and to appreciate my life for what it is worth... today. To that, and with my best Southern drawl, I say, "Now how my gonna do that?!" And of all people, the nature of this entry makes me think about Walter, who used to listen to my woe-is-me speeches and then consistently advise me on what to do with these exact words, as follows: "Why don't you just cut your head off now and get it over with." There's something about Walter... Home   Blog      Guestbook A Year Ago    Last    Next