Today's the birthday of none other than the woman who played an instrumental role in my formation - Mom! Happy Birthday Mom!

Work continues to be busy, which is naturally expected. What made yesterday a bit more interesting was the amount of interaction I had with my Director. He had joined the team for the weekly meeting of the Audit and Compliance Team that I now manage and gave some great feedback on our on-going activities. It was practically a lecture in some ways, although it was primarily disguised as just him giving feedback on the audit report being discussed and I certainly learned a lot and so did the team. I'm still new to all of this and so these educational moments are always rather interesting and they certainly help the day go along better.

But beyond that, I also found myself talking to him later in the day and it was a rather long conversation. What started as him wanting to just think aloud about an on-going training concern. This eventually evolved into this more meaningful discussion of the history of the company, the events that may have shaped the behaviors of some of the more tenured employees still with us today and a glimpse of his overall view of where the company is headed and what his plans are related to that. It's probably the longest I've ever spent talking to him and certainly a conversation that I got a lot out of. We're definitely entering a new phase in our working relationship such that he seems to trust me a lot more or at the very least feels more comfortable about talking to me, and I'm glad for that. It's taken a while for us to reach this point and this level of comfort and ease of conversation can only lead to bigger and better things for our joint efforts.

Now I have to get something into my stomach before dashing off to another work day. I was in a rush so I just fried some well-seasoned pork steaks while Tobie's putting together a salad. I love the fact that we're able to feed ourselves in this manner. While the dishes are simple and nothing fancy, they're always filling since they're made with the sense of self-satisfaction that comes with cooking your own food. That's always a good thing.

Oh, and I really need to learn to sew. I've been researching techniques on the web and I'll probably try my hand at it this weekend. It's just to mend some of my pants whose seams have given way, which isn't much I know. But like how I was when I started cooking, I have to start somewhere and perhaps eventually I'll work my way up to bigger projects. Good luck to me!

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Okay, now even I have to admit this is a really useful presentation, LOL

Over 50,000 words. I actually made it and thus have effectively become a NaNoWriMo winner. Oh. My. GOD! I actually did it! And it was my first time to try for it, ever! I'm still pretty overwhelmed that I actually made it and perhaps am slightly more surprised that in terms of the actual story itself, I'm not quite done. I'll probably need to take the better part of this week to tie things up nicely and really call it a true novel that can stand on its own, but just getting this far is quite the achievement.

I guess was really gets me is the fact that for the past 5-10 years, I haven't really managed to write any significant amounts of fiction since high school (and those were mainly graded compositions). Thus to go from struggling fictionist to theoretically a novelist in the span of 30 days isn't something you can expect anyone to do. I have to admit I didn't really expect that I'd make it either. But I kept at it and Tobie kept on pushing me forward and making sure I spent time everyday writing and thus 30 days later we're here - with over 50,000 words and pretty much a full-fledged novel on my hands. My mind continues to spin with the possibilities.

So yes, I definitely have to give a very big THANK YOU to Tobie for convincing me to try doing this and even better, to just be there for me over the past month and help me achieve this literary goal. Sure, NaNoWriMo doesn't give you any sort of cash prize at the end and in essence the only monetary reward you get is a PDF of a certificate that you can download and print out for yourself. Of course that's not what it's about. It's all about the hard lesson that yes, you CAN write a novel if you really set your mind to it and give yourself a serious deadline. You'll cry out in frustration at times but you just need to keep on writing, keep on pushing and eventually you'll get to the finish line.

Oh yes, and Tobie is a NaNoWriMo winner, too!

Does this mean that I'm going to start writing novels regularly? I wouldn't go that far just yet - NaNoWriMo caused many a fun night at home instead of out with friends and I'm sure my social life could use some mending. Plus all the writing time dedicated to NaNoWriMo has certainly affected the regularity of entries on the Geeky Guide and I know I have some catching up to do over there. But at the very least, I do think I'll be writing more stories from now on and perhaps I'll finally get around to writing that one big novel that's been in my head for so long and yet I can never seem to find the time, the effort or the sheer will to do just that. NaNoWriMo has certainly shocked me in realizing just what I'm still capable of as a writer. It's an empowering thought, but I still feel a lot better for it.

Well, tonight's a local holiday and I've decided to stay in with Tobie. To celebrate NaNoWriMo, I cooked up a large batch of spaghetti, fried some pork steaks and sat down to watch Atonement. That was certainly an awesome movie and one that I'm going to enjoy eventually reviewing on the Geeky Guide.

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In the corporate world, Wally is practically a genius in work avoidance.

First up, a very Happy Birthday to gaming friend (and soon to be psychic prostitute), Sam! A very, Happy Happy Birthday to you! I can't wait for our Trinity game to start! Wheee!

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 41,085 words. With luck, I won't be too busy at work tonight so I can sneak in some more writing. There are only 3 days left until the end of the competition this weekend is going to be do or die for me. Gah! But I remain confident that I can manage this and I'll be able to pull this off. I swear I will! Go, go, NaNoWriMo! =D

Work was a lot busier than expected, but then I suppose that's normal given I didn't go to work last Wednesday. There were long meetings, various consultations, challenging people to perform even better than they are now and thinking about 28 Google Wave invites and who would actually try my little contest.

One more work shift tonight. I can do this.

It's hard being a member of the support teams in a call center. Not just any support team, but one of the teams that have stronger operational ties like Training and Quality Assurance. The challenge with such groups is that holidays become a thing of the past for the most part. Here's what I mean:

When you're in Operations, like when you're an agent, if there are no calls, then you don't have work. This normally means that a lot of local holidays get trampled on while you at least you get to enjoy the holidays of the home country that you support. US-focused call centers get Thanksgiving off while other groups get to honor holidays in the UK or whatever. It's just how things go.

When you're in a more traditional support department like HR or Recruitment, you tend to get the local holidays off in order to honor your nice little daytime schedules and to save on holiday pay. You don't get the US holidays off since it doesn't make sense for how your job is defined.

Support teams like Training aren't so lucky, at least in terms of my working experience. When you're in Training, as long as there's a class, you have to work. Since we are not directly tied to Operations by things like call volume and such, training classes can always continue regardless of whether or not Operations has work. We also can still work despite local holidays since we have hard targets that we have to meet in terms of graduation dates and naturally we must continue to deliver quality agents to Operations. The best that we can manage is to offset holidays by declaring 11 hour work shifts for a 4-day work week or offsetting class schedules to Tuesday - Saturday in order to avoid a Monday holiday or whatever. It's just how things go in our industry.

So it's hard to figure out which holidays you'll get to enjoy, if any at all. More and more we seem to have acquired programs that have work even on major holidays like Christmas and New Year, and thus the expectation of coming to work seems to get even worse. It's a hard life but somehow the higher pay is supposed to help make up for the stress and loss of personal time.

June of next year will mark my seventh year in the call center industry, and I don't think I'll ever get fully used to this consequence of our jobs. Oh well.

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Do NOT mess with gamers while they're gaming under ANY circumstances. =P

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 34,587 words. It's the home stretch my friends, and of course I'm getting nervous as heck about whether or not I'm going to make it all the way to the finish line in time. I'm still behind in terms of the estimate daily quota by at least another 3,000 words and given the work week is already starting, I know that I'm going to have some challenges with squeezing in enough writing time before the month (and thus he "competition") ultimately ends.

Gaming day was good, as always. It also helped that Adrian and Nabs were okay to stay a bit longer this time around so even if we started yesterday's session rather late, we still covered a lot of ground and got a fair amount of gaming done. Plus Mahar had come from a wedding and brought along some fortune cookies and buko pie to help make the game day a lot more...flavorful. Or something - I'm sure there's a better word for it, but it fails to come to me right now.

Today has been largely light. Tobie and I woke up in the afternoon and that gave us time to check on online stuff, prepare some more for the upcoming Trinity game that we'll be starting soon with other gaming group and eventually a nice dinner of munggo while watching George Lucas' THX 1138. It was a pretty impressive movie that had me thinking about similar films like A Clockwork Orange and even Equilibrium but with an entirely different level of mind-fucking. And here's me thinking that Lucas was just a good conventional storyteller who sticks to movies with more mass market appeal. It now almost seems like a disappointment that he doesn't make more movies similar to THX.

On a bit of a side note, I got into an interesting IM conversation last night with a friend of mine about developments with his ex. It's odd to think that I can now more directly relate to such conversations since I've actually been through the transition from one relationship to another. I'll not go into details in terms of what was discussed, but in summary it was more of the usual observations of how people behave after a break-up, especially in a social-networking environment. It's perfectly understandable for the most part but at times it certainly doesn't make things any easier to deal with but that's life and all that. Funny - I've gotten so used to giving relationship advice over things I may not have had direct experience with but at the very least now the post break-up routine is something that I have better insight about.

So there.

Work looms on the horizon and I still want to experiment with this Sew No More fabric glue to see if it's any good. Wish me luck!

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I love the guy with a hat - as far as recurring xkcd characters go, he's a genius!

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 33,328 words. I've made some fairly tremendous progress in the course of the night (despite my lack of sleep) and perhaps more largely because of my sheer stubbornness and determination to get more done. I'm on the fifth "chapter" of the book and I need to start thinking about wrapping up the whole thing soon enough.

So yes, my hectic, tiring, stressful Saturday ended with a night of writing. Well that and cooking a nice big pot of Mexican Relish to make me feel better and to help me re-energize. Archer was amazingly supportive and he massaged my aching legs and feet (multiple times, I must guiltily admit) in order to help work out all the kinks I developed in my multiple train rides. But despite all the commuting, a little rain and an emotionally heavy day, I think things worked out well enough...for now. I think I mentioned this in yesterday's entry that it will still need a lot of work (albeit, in a highly cryptic manner) and I'm sticking by that assessment. I say this with no sense of regret or anything of that nature - just acknowledging what will be needed in the times to come.

So yes, a night of writing and Archer massages really helped me along and made me feel better and eventually more recharged. Eventually my body wasn't willing to work with me anymore given more than 28 hours of being awake and so I relented in slept.

I got up this morning to write some more and eventually Tobie and I had a fun leftovers lunch instead of cooking anything new. We got around to finally watching Doctor Who: Waters of Mars and it was quite the heavy piece. I was surprised at what direction they seemed to be taking for the Doctor, but then again things resolved themselves well enough in the end. Thus there remains the matter of his eventual death, which had been decided on ages ago and how the fans will ultimately react to the new Doctor just around the corner.

Today is gaming day - perhaps the final thing that I need to fully get out of the heaviness of yesterday. As always, the gaming group is gathered and we've just gorged ourselves on pizza, fortune cookies and buko pie. Ah yes, the night is young and I still have A jabberwocky to kill - or five. Argh.

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A little something for all my diabetic friends, hehe.

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 28,890 words. I'm way under my daily quota which states I should have been past the 35,000 mark today but then given the circumstances of the last 48 hours, I think I can get a bit of a reprieve. Tobie and I have committed to making this night a writing night and we're going to really push ourselves to get as far as we can. The home stretch is just around the corner! We don't have much time but we're both so close to our goal!

I'm pretty drained on so many levels, this is not going to be one of my more coherent entries. Let's begin.

Work was tiring yet fulfilling. Pretty heavy meeting with the Compliance girls. The 2nd ever Best Practices Forum in the morning.

I traveled along the path of the asymptote to see how close to infinity I could get this time around. I got pretty darned close - close enough to scare me and shave off a few years of my life, but then the time dilation effect made up for that, I suppose. I know I'll pay for traveling so close to the speed of light light that, but such journeys are always worth it, not matter how scary. The risks are always worth it.

I realized something today. I paid a heavy price to come to this realization, but it was worth it. I feel a lot better, but the process took a lot out of me. My willpower bar is at zero and the only thing I have to look forward to is that I was able to stick to virtue instead of vice, and that means I'll get a full bar in return. I'm still waiting for that to happen. I couldn't done it without you, but then it again it is about you so that ultimately makes sense. Well duh.

LRT 1 to LRT 2 is a lot easier than MRT to LRT 1. Boo you MRT.

The trap has been set. The key log has been placed. Now what? Who knows. I've hit the timer so my turn is over. It's up to the other person now - although it always has been. I just changed the parameters a bit more, upped the ante and now...here we are.

It's not easy playing bait. Quack. Quack. Moo.

Why does self-sacrifice have to be so painful? Wait - don't even bother answering that. I was a rhetorical question of limited practical importance (but perhaps is a matter of consequence). Damnitdamnitdamnit.



Refrigerator.

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As I kept saying, we all have our roles to play, not matter how we feel about them.

First, a very Happy Birthday to the Julia Child of Gaming - Adrian! A very Happy Birthday, "James"! I look forward to the day that we meet again and I get to dismantle your evil domain! Nyahahaha!

I'm feeling pretty beat - this work week has felt somewhat longer than others. I guess one could say that it's been busy and just leave it at that. But perhaps its more about it being rather "heavy" in many aspects and that's what has really taken its toll on me. Then again, that's the working world for you and you just need to keep rolling with the punches as they say. To cap off my weekend, tomorrow morning we'll be hosting this quarter's Best Practices Forum. It's one of the bigger ticket items that's part of my area of responsibility and as much as I know it'll go well, I still get nervous.

I imagine yesterday's post was a bit confusing (and perhaps even unnerving to a limited degree) and I suppose it all is. It's a lot to handle but it's not something I can't deal with, don't worry. It's just fairly big and longer term readers of this blog will know that I've always used my writing as an output. Rather than go nuts with dealing with the gravity of things in my head, I've always found it to be helpful to try and take it out of my head, place it it on a space where I can allow letters and the dictates of language to help better define it and subject it to further thought and consideration. It's like creating a scale model of something for scientific purposes in order to give you something that can be better used for experimentation.

Okay, this is getting nerdier and geekier by the minute. So sue me.

The bottom line is don't worry, I'm okay. Or at least I will be. Besides, I have Archer in my life and as always he is being the amazingly awesome guy that he is and tells me all the right things that I need to hear. I'm serious when I say ALL of them, even the darker ones that hide in the recesses of my mind. That's just the way our life together is, I suppose. That's how things go when you more so completely in sync with another person in so many ways. Ah life.

Now it's time for a quick dinner before work. I cooked the usual buttered mixed veggies and pork chops while Tobie has prepared a rather hearty salad. Yes, yes, I'll be taking photos. =D

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Now that's truly being smart about the, err, shall we say "Narnia Phenomenon"? =D

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 26,952 words. I squeezed in a little writing during my breaks between all my meetings at work, but then given my overall state of tiredness, I really wasn't in the best of writing moods. Ack. Well, the day is young and perhaps after I get some sleep in, I'll be in a better position to catch up in the afternoon or something. I'm starting to feel the crunch with only 11 days left in the month, but I can't let that scare me away.

Work was a major drain given the number of things I had to do and of course the general tiredness that comes from lack of sleep. It's a small miracle that I made it to the end of the shift and was still relatively coherent during my 06:00am meeting. Small joys.

My mind is a bit of a mess right now. Recent revelations of things that have always been in plain sight to ponder have now been made very, very real and I guess it was inevitable. No, no guessing - I knew it was going to be inevitable for it to happen. What does deserve the "I guess" phrase is that I guess I was in a relative state of denial all these years. This whole train of thought reminds me about my often discussing Asymptotes, which isn't something isolated to 2009 LJ entries - it tends to happen for a specific reason I suppose.

And yes, I admit it's still that same reason.

I've definitely grown a lot since then and I'd like to think that I've matured as well. I've come to realize a great many things in the course of this year, especially given my break up and eventually finding Archer to complete my life. Still, last night's revelation gave me pause and a LOT to think about and that probably contributed the circumstances that resulted in me feeling so tired now and not being able to write as much.

What's interesting to note is that finally, I can safely say that my troubled thoughts aren't centered around me or even about other people and how they affect me. No, this time it's not about me, and knowing that is an amazing relief. It's a load lifted from my shoulders that helps to some degree in terms of personal comfort but it doesn't solve the "problem" that remains - or perhaps better stated as the current situation that needs to be...addressed. I'm trying to be the best person that I can possibly be given these circumstances but I'm only human - I do get to react and feel a little off-kilter given this news. Perhaps a LOT off-kilter, but who's to judge, really?

So here I am trying to blog about this almost immediately upon returning to the Sietch - our refuge. Our place of safety in times of danger. Yes, that is what the Sietch is. I do this not to generate gossip or make my life sound more interesting - I just do this to better organize my thoughts. Somehow, getting them onto "paper" or at least out there in a visual format has always helped me consider all angles, think things through and even come to realize new perspectives.

And I certainly need all the powers of logic and emotional reasoning combined. After all, what do you do when the asymptote "breaks"?

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A classic work strategy and definitely a good one at that! Hehehe...