Slummin’ it
by halfaboy
Intense week of late nights every single day and finally finally a night out on Friday.
On work – new-found respect for the boss, not that I did not have any initially, but only because this is the first project I’m fully on and worked together on. The truth is that despite the years I’ve spent on metrics, I have little delusions about its power, practicality and place in the business world. Even just from the interview with Pod, I have liked his no-bullshit calling out on iffy consulting and management stuff. But what I didn’t know, until this project, was his adherence to rigour (as much as possible), his attention to all sources of data and post-modelling checks and also, his passion for the art of piecing the whole model together. In the short span of a week, he taught me quite a bit of stuff, stayed back as late as we all did, and probably had more on his hands than we did. Other than a couple of stressful moments when he let slip a note of impatience in his voice, there has not been a harsh word that was not for our benefit, nor any trace of blame when things look down. Instead, “thank-you”s and “fuck”s were used liberally – the former to his team, and the latter to the screens.
On social life – there’s little activity this week. Especially since vday was spent at the office. What silly thing did occur was that my retarded itchy finger decided to click on F’s facebook link and led me to a picture of some girl with her hand resting on his stomach splashed across my screen. We have not kept in contact, I have unsubscribed from his newsfeeds right after the breakup and am no online stalker. And despite knowing that the girl is just another queer fellow PhD student, it still feels shitty coming to face with the image. So lesson learnt: pinch those itchy fingers and keep my own facebook neutral.
With what little energy I had left, I organized a little dinner date with Mags (my colleague), her boyfriend (a high school school-mate) and R, an ex-classmate of mine. Eventually Boons and S joined us as well. To be honest, I wanted to organize this partly to bring Mags out so that she could meet more people and we could widen our social circles. Now that I’ve lived abroad, I know how difficult it can be to find your own group of friends which most locals, with their old boys’ and old girls’ clubs, take for granted.I hope she had a good time.
On R – we were jc classmates, went out a couple of times back then and have kept in contact intermittently over the years, mostly thanks to Boonie. Everyone knows that he used to have a thing for me and everyone thinks that’s cute. After so many years, I think… that’s sweet too, but also imaginary. I am not the same 17-year-old, and neither is he the same teenager back in school. He has no idea of my opinion on relationships and how they work. I feel how hard he tries and sometimes wish to give his shoulder a squeeze and say “take it easy”. No couple loves evenly and it’s hard for everyone.
It’s nice to feel and be conscious of the changes in myself over the past few years. I’m at a happy place right now and some days, I pray life could be a little less transient.
