Monthly Archive: October 2007

Not a martyr

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Thu. October 25, 2007

Despite my illness I’ve been working really hard. It’s really bad timing to have gotten sick at such a time. Like I mentioned, we have a code launch and everyone’s been working hard to fix bugs and tackle and issues. I think part of me feels really guilty to have to stay at home, so I’ve forced myself to put in as much effort as I can muster. I have my laptop set up on the table by the window in my room. It’s been my workstation for the past few days. Maybe I should actually open that window and let in some sunlight, eh? I hardly leave my room except for the occasional bio-breaks. Lunch is more of an afterthought than anything. I’m not complaining about being hungry or in the dark. It’s just…everything has started to take a toll on me today.

From the moment I sat down to work, I started juggling around several tasks because I felt capable. Overall, I was. Maybe I got too eager though with taking on work. Anyway, at the end of the “normal” workday, a request came up to work on something that was estimated to take 4-6 hours of work. Because it was related to something I was already focusing on, I ended up with the request. I guess that would be a side-effect from taking on a large amount of things. I didn’t really give much thought to the fact that I was taking on a somewhat big task; someone had to do it. After I started work on it, fatigue set it pretty quickly. Online, I saw that a couple of my coworkers were sticking around. I started putting more pressure on myself because I didn’t want people to have to stick around on my account. At one point, the client started messaging me for a status update. I wanted to scream out loud that it’ll be done when it’s done. I gave a somewhat indifferent answer, but the client pushed for something a bit more definite. The client offered a number and I just agreed with it. Soon after, my manager asked me for a status update. God, I felt like I was being hounded from all directions. I gave him the same answer I gave the client. At that point, I really started to breakdown.

I told my manager how frustrated I was. I’d been meaning to go to the doctor since Tuesday, but I just didn’t have the time to do so. I’ve been putting my health on the backburner and it was making me angry. I told him I was mad, but as I was typing it wasn’t anger that was strongest. I started to tear up and just broke down at how messed up this all was. I was trying really hard to get things done, but I almost felt like it was becoming too much. Coughing too much? I drank hot tea. Dizzy spells? It was tolerable because my chair was sorta comfy. Over the past few days, all of this was just to not focus on the fact that I felt like shit. For a few minutes, I just sat and let the frustrations out. I then composed myself and got back to it. I kept at it until just before 8pm. At that point my manager just told me to continue tomorrow–the launch would have to wait. He told me to see the doctor first thing in the morning. I’m going to do so. I really do need to take care of myself better or I’m just going to end up running myself into the ground. I know tomorrow’s going to be another long day. If I don’t do something for myself, I may just crack and tell everyone to seriously fuck off while I curl up into a ball in bed. My God, I’m not a martyr. Heck no. I just need help recognizing my limits and knowing where to draw the line.

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Lured by the Hourglass

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Wed. October 24, 2007

When I purchased my DS last month, I knew that I’d succumb to urges to buy games somewhat frequently. Well hey, I can afford it so why not, right? Anyway, Brain Age 2 is fun, but sometimes I find that the short nature of the daily training leaves my kind of unsatisfied, right? What if I want a longer fix in terms of playing something for longer than 15 minutes? So, after looking around I decided to get Picross DS. I headed over to Best Buy this past weekend after my unsuccessful shoe buying attempt. I found the game pretty easily, and that would have been that. However, as I was leaving the area, I caught a glimpse of the new Zelda game: Phantom Hourglass.

Oops.

I haven’t really been waiting for this release in particular, but I knew that it would make a great addition once it came out. I couldn’t hold back, so I ended up getting them both. Damn, how bad is that, eh? I’ve been alternating between the two depending on whether I’m in a light or heavy thinking mood. Either way, it keeps my mind off the fact that my bank account is a little bit lighter than necessary.

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Because I can

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Tue. October 23, 2007

Che. I’m still sounding like the Godfather when I speak. I should head to the doctor’s tomorrow to get re-diagnosed now that the cough has changed into something altogether different from the last time I saw him.

I worked from home today as planned. It felt so strange to just roll out of bed and plunk down in front of my laptop to be productive. I guess it’s normal to feel totally unprepared in that type of situation, eh? I sort of wanted to be able to write in this blog that I had programmed in my underwear. Why? Just because I can. Thing is, I just didn’t feel right interacting with my colleagues–even over MSN–in a state of undress. Yeah…doesn’t sound good at all.

I expected to be a less-than-productive because of all the possible distractions at home. Thing is, I wasn’t distracted at all. I was actually really more focused than usual, probably because I felt guilty not being in the office. We have a launch this week and everyone’s working hard to squash bugs. I think I made a good dent in the pile. Still, I think I need someone shouting in my head: “if you’re sick, you’re sick!”

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Just another nerdy moment

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Mon. October 22, 2007

I’m a little bit proud of myself today–just slightly. Please pardon the following nerdy moment.

I suddenly came across a situation where I had to traverse a tree of nodes in a breadth-first fashion. There was already code there, but it was going through the tree depth-first which wasn’t right. I was in a little bit of a panic because it’s been a really long time since I’ve had to do something like that. After I’d settled down from my panic, I wrote down on paper exactly what I wanted to do and it all came back to me. It was actually dead easy to convert that code. So yeah. I was pleased about that one.

Apart from that, work was rough. I woke up this morning feeling somewhat alright, but en route it became obvious that my cough wasn’t settled at all. I met one of my coworkers on the way in, and when I started coughing like mad he jokingly (?) started running away. My voice was shot, and when I tried to make conversation all I got were squeaks. I wanted to keep my sickness contained, but I kept coughing despite my efforts. By the end of the day, I told my manager that I plan on working from home tomorrow. He agreed that that was best.

Whoo. Beautiful rest.

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Pushing myself too hard

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Sun. October 21, 2007

Ugh. I think I’ve pushed myself too hard today. It was supposed to be a recovery day for me, but I didn’t attempt to rest until late afternoon. It’s now late evening and I’m in all sorts of pain. My head feels like it’s in a vice with some sort of weird torture mechanism that somehow manages to stab your eyeballs from behind. I went downstairs to greet my parents who were out for most of the day. The smell of food almost made me want to puke. I think I have a fever. Any harsh stimulus like bright light makes my head hurt. Overall, I think I’m in worse shape than I was yesterday. I feel as if my body is sort of in a red-alert status right now.

So, this morning, because I missed the runs on Wednesday and Thursday, I wanted to push myself out there. Just like last week I used the “no excuses!” reasoning on myself. The 6K route we took today wasn’t so bad in the past, so I was sort of expecting to fight through it all and do OK. Hoo boy. Nope. I tried to keep up with the group but fell behind by the end of the first 10 minutes. I just couldn’t get enough air intake into my body because of my clogged up system. I was coughing, hacking, sweating, and cursing. I wanted to just turn around and head back to store. The instructor slowed down and ran with me the rest of the way. He used the time to educate me on my pacing, and running tips in general. I told him about how I forced myself to get out there. He told me: “don’t feel guilty; if you’re sick, you’re sick.” Even though it’s obvious, I wish someone told me before. When I ran at a slower pace like he suggested (and I mean slow) I managed to run without gasping for to much air. The rest of the run was tolerable, but really I shouldn’t have been out there at all.

When we got back, he spoke to the manager and insisted that my shoes weren’t right. Heheh. Apparently that saga just won’t end, eh? Only this time, I think we’ve come to a point of realization, but I’ll save that for another day because seriously my head feels like it’s going to explode.

After the run, I really had no time to rest. I was out the door and off to church on my own after getting cleaned up. Throughout mass I was feeling exhausted. I found myself spending a lot of energy just trying to suppress my cough. Out of responsibility to the other parishioners I didn’t want to be hacking all over and making everyone in a radius around me sick.

When I got home, it was half an hour before I was back out again. I finally made arrangements to met with the person I was supposed to meet two weeks ago. We were supposed to eat at a Japanese buffet place, but the place I wanted was finished serving lunch by the time we got there so instead I suggested the Korean BBQ place across the street. It was great seeing him again after so long. However, inducing a meat headache might not have been the best thing for me. By the end of the meal, I felt sort of incapacitated. Usually, that post-KBBQ feeling is manageable, but today was just horrible. We walked around for a bit to help get the digestion moving, but I didn’t last long. I was already feeling tired, and like I was going to collapse in the middle of the sidewalk.

When I got home, I just collapsed onto my bed and fell asleep. I only woke up when I found that I couldn’t sleep anymore, and that the bright light of lamp beside my bed was making me angry for no good reason.

I think I can already tell that I want to stay home from work tomorrow and just sleep the day away. I shouldn’t go in if I have a fever, right? I might try to work from home because I feel like I can’t really abandon them at this time. Still, for once I should at least attempt to put my health first. :sad:

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Another pair…or not

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Sat. October 20, 2007

Back on Thursday of last week, my new running instructor took a look at my running gait during the run without my knowledge. After the run, in the store he spoke to me and told me that my shoes weren’t right. He told me that I tended to over-supinate in the shoes. I told him about my flat feet and orthotics to which he said that my shoes were definitely wrong. My shoes are kind of up there on the level of correction. The gist of what he said was that since my orthotics are already corrective in nature, having a highly corrective shoe is just overkill. I was kind of annoyed. I mean, I only purchased the shoe at the beginning of September. It hasn’t even been two months, and now someone is telling me that I might have to buy another pair? I wasn’t too happy. I mean, I certainly can’t justify getting another pair.

I’ve been finding my shoes to be a bit stiff. The comfort level for the shoes isn’t consistent. Some days are sort of alright, while others feel just brutal. I told myself though that I can’t just get rid of shoes like that without a good reason, so I’ve been putting up with the occasional discomfort. Well, having the instructor tell me that they weren’t right was the push that I was looking for. After some consideration, I figured that I might be able to put my current pair on eBay or something to recover some costs if I got new shoes. So, today, I headed to the Running Room with a coupon in my pocket: I was looking to spend.

When I got there, I told the clerk about my situation. The manager was there, and when she heard me complaining about my shoes (yet again), she laughed “this is about your shoes again?” Heh. Good to know she’s paying attention. Well, the clerk had me take a run in my shoes and looked at the positioning of my legs. He had me do it a few times before he told me that I was just fine. He asked if I had any pain in the knees or legs. I said “no.” See, it’s not pain that I’m experiencing, but rather occasional discomfort, especially in the medial part of my foot. He said that I shouldn’t need to change my shoes. I was kind of relieved, but felt kind of embarrassed to have been looking to buy even though I didn’t seem to have a good reason to do so, know what I mean? It’s as if I had cash burning a hole in my pocket. Eh…whatever.

Well, I’m going to give the shoes another good go tomorrow morning. Let this shoe thing be over once and for all.

At least, let it be over until these shoes give up and I’ll have to go through this damn process all over again.

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This is how you play the game

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Fri. October 19, 2007

Over at a forum that I visit frequently, I came across a post from someone currently going through first year university woes. She spoke about not doing so well in some of her courses, which was a big difference from her days in high school where everything seemed to come naturally for her. When I read that, I completely understood where she was coming from and how she was feeling because I felt the same way. It almost seemed like the words she wrote down could have come from my hands.

It’s so crazy to think about it: my undergrad career began 7 years ago. Right from the beginning, it was tough to juggle it all because I had a bad work ethic. In high school, I really didn’t have to work hard, so university was definitely a shock. Looking back, I can’t believe how lazy I was. It’s almost embarrassing now. Well, due to all that, I didn’t do so well early on. I felt like I’d suddenly been beaten with the stupid stick. I felt inadequate. There were several times that I wanted to give up and just run away from it all. I didn’t though; for better or for worse, I stuck with the programme. It wasn’t really until later on that I clued in to the fact that I had to change the way I worked.

You know, I’d never get the stellar marks that I did in high school, but at some point I became at peace with that. I found the equilibrium point where the effort I put in would give the best returns. There was a line that I found where any more effort than that wouldn’t have made much difference, so I cut off those diminishing returns in lieu of having more time for myself. Me and my like-minded friends had it down to an art. Interestingly enough, once this balance was all figured out, my marks naturally went up. My intelligence level didn’t really go up or down during this time. It all just clicked: this is how you play the game.

Anyway, because I felt so familiar with what this person on the forum was going through, I sent her a private message telling her about my experience. I wanted to encourage her and tell ensure her that it’s not a matter of intelligence but of fortitude. University can easily make you feel stupid, but it doesn’t mean that you’ve suddenly become less intelligent from the moment you stepped onto campus grounds. I hope she got the message.

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Priority 0

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Thu. October 18, 2007

At work, all our tasks are generally given a priority value ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 is the highest priority. Today, it seems the client found out they could assign a value of 0 to make it appear at the top of my queue in the system. What the heck is that all about? Seriously. Will that suddenly make me work any faster to get things done? What happens when something is more important than level 0? Will they assign it a -1?

The rules are there for a reason. What’s the point in ranking if you’re not going to follow the range?

Ugh.

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