She’s always right anyway, I just have some trouble remembering that little detail when things start getting ugly. I’m stubborn, but thank GOD I’m learning.

Wisdom = 1472138; Abby = 0

I’m gonna brave through this entry in this most inconvenient of times. I have a headache. Actually this headache’s been recurring for the past several days now. But I think this headache is just what I need to keep myself from throwing this post into the pool of drafts I have here.

Despite all the negative connotations that the word “stress” has, I actually appreciate its looming presence in the office. It keeps people on their toes, it keeps us from slacking off (well…) and it actually makes people more efficient. It’s tip-toeing the thin line between being deliberate and panicking. Between knowing you can get through it and just giving up. Maybe between strategy and recklessness.

But like they say, stress can bring out the worst in people. It can cause us to clash, to raise our voices, to stop listening, to close our minds and rationalize our doing so. It shortens our temper. It doesn’t just tire us, it exhausts us. Drains us.

I guess it all boils down to how you handle it. And how soon you realize three things:

It’s not always your fault or responsibility. So don’t try to do and fix everything.

In the larger scale of things, it’s really not that bad. When you walk out of the office, the world is still the same, whether or not you made that impossible deadline.

You can try, but you really can’t please everyone. So don’t worry about who gets upset.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I like the project I’m on very much. In fact I think that’s why I let it get to me. But I won’t let that get in the way. In the end, you just gotta do your job, stop fussing about the excesses, and do your best at what’s left.

Current music: Coheed & Cambria - Neverender

I’m back from Hong Kong! Okay, I know I’ve once again let you down, blog. So now I’m going for this big multiple-event update again hoping that the colorful pictures and sheer length of the post will make up for the fact that I’ve been lazy to update you about things that fit very well into the “something to write home about” category, in effect leaving you and my readers out of the loop, and ultimately defeating the purpose of even having a blog. Ehrm.

Week one, meet the kids.

Nothing really interesting over the weekdays. Work was okay, nothing came by surprise. We had to train and orient some kids (not really, college students) to do part-time work, and for the most part it was easy. We even developed an attachment to some of them at the end haha. It was normal work for me, except that there was more of it crammed into every day.

Space Museum, stormy day.

The first weekend, however, was fun. Ali and I went to the Space Museum at Tsim Sha Tsui, and apparently the show about black holes terrified him (sorry about that) but it was a fun day. Of course it was raining and storm signal no. 3 was up over there (that would be a 1.5 here in the Philippines). That night we still went to Ladies Market and found the best buy EVER — a sturdy umbrella! Haha! We were soaking wet but it was a great day to remember.

Ocean Park, fishies!

My first time at Ocean Park! This was Sunday, still on the first weekend. It was really worth the trip, even if just for the long cable car ride. Well, seeing the fish and other creatures was obviously awesome, but the overall experience was great. Although we didn’t get to see the dolphin show, coz we ran out of seats. Boo. Oh well, at least we saw the cute pandas, and I have 3 additions to my “silly thing” collection! :P

Week two, the shift.

Work hours shifted for all of us because of the nature of the project we were on. And it was just really fortunate that two were completely okay with working graveyard. There were some inconveniences for all of us, but overall we were okay. Things went pretty smoothly for that week.

Two hours in Macau.

We left for Macau during week two, buuuuut we only stayed for 2 hours. Hahaha. We left our hotel at HK past 9am, then got back after the round-trip to Macau at around 5pm that same day. :P Good thing it was a company-paid trip. But even if we didn’t get to stay long, we had a lot of fun even while we were still on the ferry. Heck, even when we were on the bus to the ferry haha. Talk about good company. And we had ice cream on the way back, oy perfect day.

Weeks three to four, shopping and Scrubs.

At this point I was always tired from work, but this is the week were we did our shopping. Well mostly the guys did, I just came with. But I did get to buy 2 very nice hoodies from Esprit! I love sales. Didn’t get any shoes or bags though, boo. Also got some airsoft supplies for Tack, and was contemplating getting myself a nice airsoft pistol, but the possible hassle at customs and the fact that I was saving up for my super-PC held me back.

The later part of week four was spent on insane Scrubs marathons! I know it doesn’t sound all too adventurous and fun, but if you had a nice room all to yourself, comfy sheets, air-conditioning and a belly full of the best fried duck on rice you have and will ever taste in your entire life, you would know that that was heavenly. Hahaha. So I ended up breezing through the later half of season 1 up to the end of season 4 in a few days. Hoohoo!

Dinner, the ancient chicken!

We had dinner at this fancy restaurant with the other key people in the project we were working on. It was authentic Chinese food all the way, some were really good, some were interesting, and some were just hard to adjust to! I’m sorry but the ancient chicken thing was too much for me haha. Anyways, it was a great dinner because we had people from the 4 teams working on the project together for dinner for the first time. It was fun seeing them all out of the office for something like that.

Farewell (again) Hong Kong.

Well, the last day was very very busy still. In fact I was still working 2 minutes before we left the office to head for the airport. I knew, we knew, that it would have been much more efficient and convenient for everyone (including myself) if we’d stayed longer, but we knew we just couldn’t anymore, for important reasons. But this was a very defining month in Hong Kong, I think for all of us, for many different reasons.

It felt really good on the plane back when we could see the Manila lights from way up. We’d been gone for a while, and even though life was good there, I wasn’t really homesick and things were pretty convenient for us, I still couldn’t wait to go home. It’s just that feeling that, you were done, and it was time for you to go home. The work’s gonna be harder in Manila due to comunication issues, I imagine, but I still would rather go home.

And thanks to the guys who helped during the 4 weeks, and for that pat on the back when we were heading home. Really, that meant a lot to me.

(Okay so there weren’t all that many pictures. If you wanna see the rest, check out my Multiply album on Hong Kong III. Haha~)

So we meet again, convenience store breakfast. Oh how I’ve missed you.

It’s day 3 and I’m doing great. I’ve started to be comfortable even with the unexpected at work, and things are going smoothly.

And yes, I have this nice comfy room. I know I’ll be here for longer than I’ve been in the past, but at least there are these things―plus the nice sights―to enjoy and look forward to on a daily basis.

On a related note, I’m gonna start making an actual list of stuff to be thankful for everyday. Literally counting my blessings. It’s a nice feeling I have now, and I wanna hang on to it even when/if things go south. In all things, give thanks. :]

Current music: Norah Jones - Feeling The Same Way

I’ve been procrastinating a lot with cleaning up my room and my laptop. For both of them, I have a tendency to pick a nice, conveniently hidden, yet still accessible spot — on that spot I toss in the things that I don’t want to have to deal with at the moment. So they’d look okay at first glance, but let’s just say I’m not particularly proud of those spots.

For instance, I found several folders here named “Others” and a few named “Stuff”, where I’d put random text files, images, or whatever. Some of them I wondered why I even saved, and some of them were 3-year-old files that are completely useless and irrelevant now.

I did, however, find some old files that I’m glad I found again. Some unsent letters, some unposted blog drafts, some unpublished fragments of literature and some memories that I’d never revisited till now. If there’s anything good at all that came from my procrastinating (Believe me it was tough organizing my clutter), it’s that I got to appreciate those memories. The pace at which my life goes, tragedies in the past that were now comedies, and the amusing way things turn in all our lives.

And it felt good cleaning up. I mean it! Not just because I finally got that overwith, but because there’s this sense of order that comes with it. It’s nice. Like you made sense out of an impossibly complicated situation. It’s really nice.

Now, cleaning up my iPod… that’s another challenge. Haha :]

Current music: The Fray - Over My Head (Cable Car)

Life has demanded a lot from me recently, in practically all aspects — so much, in such a short span of time. I know I’m not handling it the best way possible, but I’m trying. This isn’t one of the happier episodes in The Abby Show. Still, it’s not a bad one either.

You know the feeling, that you wish you could go back and redo some things in your life? If you’d only known that you were turning into someone else because you wanted to be accepted, no matter what you had to endure to get there. If you’d only known that five years later it would matter enough to break you, when you finally wanted to be true to yourself and other people.

And in the end, you realize that it’s nobody’s fault, really. It just sucks to be you right now. Maybe that’s a little too specific, but I’m sure you get the idea.

I’m going back to Hong Kong next Monday. Sadly, Hong Kong isn’t the exciting wonderland it was to me on my first trip. I remember the flight back from my second trip, and what it meant. I remember thinking that the plane landed pretty smoothly, but I guess that was just my imagination. I’d been imagining a lot of things apparently, and I wish I’d known sooner that that landing would change a lot of what I’ve come to know as… comfortable.

It sucks that I’m not given the right to react negatively like a normal person, just because I’ve never done it before. It sucks that I wasn’t even given an explanation before all this, I at least deserved that, if anything. Or maybe I was never really in the position to deserve it. I’d probably imagined that too.

So I’ll tell you what I’ll do — I have in my hand this Big Reset Button, and I’m using it. It won’t change how things were in the past, it won’t undo mistakes and won’t rephrase words already said. It won’t undo anything. But I’ll press it, and I’ll start over. I’ll take things as they are from now on, and I won’t look back.

I don’t even wanna get answers anymore, because in the larger scale of things, that was never what this was about anyway. Because we can’t change how we are. So it’s fine, as long as we can all respect each other, we can all sleep at night, and ultimately agree to disagree.

And move on.

It seems like it’s gonna be okay for everyone.

Current music: Jazz playlist on shuffle

So yeah, didn’t get to update as much as I was hoping to, sorry bout that. :P

Status as of this very moment: Tired, my back and legs hurt, sleepy, hair still wet, thinking about how perfect the music is for the night, a little hungry for some reason, enjoying the solitude, happy.

Actually it’s been an eventful and uneventful week at the same time. I didn’t go to Ocean Park again, despite being told that I should (and I’m pretty sure I’ll love it there), didn’t go to any of the pretty places I went to last time, no crazy video or stunt from us. But at the same time, there have been a lot of realizations, stuff for me to think about, that I don’t think I would’ve come to if not for this trip.

It’s funny thinking that those weird, crazy, perfect, funny circumstances you think only happen in movies have already happened to most (if not all) of us.

As usual, I won’t explain. I’m far too sleepy to come up with a good explanation anyway. Let me just say that I’m really happy. I can’t wait to sleep under these comfy sheets, I can’t wait for tomorrow’s breakfast, I can’t wait to see how things will work out at the office, and I can’t wait to go home. Life is beautiful.

Goodnight world. :]