Verses- How do you feel

Reading the verses from lips

For the frigid hour of mind

    words from God

    words of God

    words of the torrid past

How they speak today-

    wisdom of yesterday's tribulation

    wisdom of tomorrow's expectation

    wisdom of today's interpretation

Then I should rise,

    to build a relationship - not with oneself - with the greater Him

    ought to call it a relationship, because would I begin to see

an eternal life - then who seeks

Just a half of dozen kissed the leaf

    And sunshine thaws snow. and birds sing.

    Then the night is spangled with stars.

- Christy 2/23/2011

Job is a love affair

These days, loyalty no longer has its meaning.

I like to think of the job as a relationship. There is the trial period to find out if the job is compatible with your interests, goals in life. And much like in a jungle when you eye a prey, you put on your hunter instinct and do everything you can to catch it- let's face it, you are hungry and you need to eat. In a life cycle of a love relationship, you care, compromise, and tolerate, then stability comes in. Suddenly, you grow bored and lose the thrill of challenge and mysteriousness - towards the end of the relationship you even know what color of underwear he likes to wear to a certain occasion. You question yourself: am I ready to commit in this relationship for the rest of my life? What if there are better men out there? What if by plunging into the vow, I am about to give up the entire forest? But before we break it off we stick our head out to look for the next best thing. Sure, there will be hits and misses but that won't stop us from peeking. We weigh our options: does he also play the piano because my current one does? We compare each of them side by side. After all, who wouldn't want to leave for better?

Okay, here's my main point. Perhaps this applies more so to the younger generation (I belong to it so I probably know the best). I am not about to generalize this generation entirely because like it or not there is always going to be exceptions. We plunge into our first job; maybe it's love at the first sight or maybe not, whatever it is we took the job and have stayed in it for a while. We know time is on our side and that a few years in a "ok" job relationship will only pay off in the long run, right? The moment we get into the job we begin to look for better opportunity. Let's say we do have one falling onto our lap, just as so in a love relationship, we can't let go the current one just yet. We begin to do a comparison of available options; we expect a certain quality/benefit in the new relationship as in the old one. We want something more on top of everything we already have now, not a penny less. The average period of time one stays in the company is about less than 5 years now and that is considered a stagnation in a sense. Five years and you are still there? Loyalty is overrated. Even while interviewing for the new position feels like that I am cheating on my current job. I am hiding it until I make up my mind that it's a good time to dump it or... if it fails through, I'd just keep the job until another better one comes along.

At which point do we stop looking around? We can care less about being loyal perhaps. Nowadays the trend is dubbed as "professional growth". But isn't that the same as in a marriage? And since when divorce becomes a common excuse to find something better (at least in a love relationship)? I understand that we didn't take a "vow" when accepting a job but even vows are growing to be meaningless. I am beginning to see the correlation if not the similarity between a job and love relationship. We are merely being selfish and because who would look after us except ourselves?

Where does it begin?

After many posts of mindless rambling of the weather and love, I need to return to write about the ending of my employment situation. It has been almost three months and not a day of actual work. Bottled between email communications and paycheck are many pages of forms that have to be signed, verified, faxed, and mailed. I am really not a big fan of paperwork- not only it kills trees, but it costs more money to operate anyways; Think about the postage, the ink, the envelop, and many people hired just to pass the paper around the country.

I am not saying that all should be done electronically because it creates its own headache too. My orientation, benefit enrollment, I-9 check, all are done online. You would assume information traveled electronically should expedite the process, but in reality it takes me longer to think if I have indeed completed what I was supposed to do. I know there is no one behind that web screen, and the "confirmation" email was just sent by a robot, nothing more than a few lines of code. I know it, I used to write those codes. The cold hard... *Do not Reply to This Email*.... email...

I have time to think about all of these because I had a long vacation as I have been semi-idle for nearly over six months. It sucks that I can't even get unemployment check since I wasn't laid off. It's almost an envy to my old coworkers that I am able to sleep in most of the days. What do they know? Should I be glad to be having a job now, or feeling annoyed that I can't start it before the holidays. My autumn and Thanksgiving holidays went past like any other day... I barely feel the joy of holiday cheers.

In retrospect, the road to employment has been of hassles and waiting- in its true nature, it is a testament of my patience. Just when I thought I could start yesterday, I have no badge. Without badge, I will need an escort around the office,...even to the bathroom? So here we are at another level of security check for the badge purpose. Why didn't my paperwork simply flow to the badge office, and why despite passing many tiers of security check, badge office can still manage to say "please wait for another 5 days"?

I just want to be busy daily. I feel I am wasting my brain cells for not using them effectively to serve any purpose. I have yet to prepare any Christmas gifts... I really don't have the mood for it now

再次看見

走吧 又過了一夜
你越走越遠
孤單旋律
這一夜再次徘徊

痛吧 寧願低著頭
你不看我一面
黯然心碎是代替我贖罪
走了多遠 我再尋找從前

餘音 砸了 慌了 也知道
心跳聽了都閒吵
愛情 冷了 過了 也體會
上天賜我一個愛你的機會

選什麼
緣份兩個字眼
酸的比痛過留下眼淚更可悲

哭什麼
閃爍星夜是淚水編織
冷月黯淡 秋雨棉棉

我什麼都沒有…
我對你的捨得
跟隨腳步 再次看見
走到明天…

-Christy 12/09/10

A closure

After close to two months worth of agony, I finally received a solid confirmation of an offer. This has been a bumpy ride, hitting some problems I have never thought of. I suppose in this tough economy, there are many more factors to consider than simply hiring someone.

Moving onto my next stage of waiting-game, instead of checking my email relentlessly, I need to wait by the mail box to wait for an actual offer letter arrive. It should be here within days. The company's HR processing time turned out to be pretty fast and the people reasonable. As of this morning, I had to do my first counter-offer negotiation (seriously, am I out of my mind?). It wasn't that the original offer wasn't great, it was. But the responsibilities expected of my new position just doesn't warrant such a pay. I didn't want to be greedy, especially considering the high unemployment rate in this country currently. So I wrote back and asked them to reconsider my qualification and expressed my sincere belief that I deserve to get a bit pay bump.

I remember how I regretted about accepting a position too fast back in 2007. It was my first full-time job after all. But after two something years, I learned to screen my position better, and to really wait for the right one that suits my interest and personality. Excitement is great, but once it cools down, I need to really think about the career development. I think this pans out alright,....I am doing alright

The Place Where Snow Falls

From a distance
the rain became a sheer of snow
its gracious rhythm set a tone.

Each drop fit to play a part
I, the lover
On its significance, its formation and disappearance
Drew two souls inside this blanket of whiteness
This, a symmetrical aggression,
silently dipped on the face of Earth.

-Christy

The Terrible Surrender

Sometimes we forget
this world can be lost
Without your smile
the sky then cried for the cloud,
where was the brave soul?

Sometimes I can't remember
the endless snow is here
Might it the forever lonesome be
the words then scramble for feeling,
where is the sacred tear?

-Christy