Take A Deep Breath, And...

Here we go.
Get ready for the jump of a lifetime.
I don't know what I'm going to face, but that's common I guess when you go into new territory.

Wish me luck.

Navigating Rockets

On most spacecraft, whether it be real or fictitious, usually the ones with more practical or current (not imaginative) propulsion systems, like thermo-combustion rockets and the like, have small rockets around the spacecraft's body. These are for controlling the craft's movements, like pitch and yaw, doing slight turns, and so on, other than the usually uni-directional larger engine. Whereas airplanes can use fins and aerofoils to control movement, the dead of space has no air, thus any minute movements required by the spacecraft is done my these rockets. I'd call them navigating rockets.
How they work, basically, is releasing short bursts of energy to push the spacecraft into the desired position or direction.

And here's something totally unrelated.

The job so far has been great, with a great potential to grow. Business is good, although I need to do more backflips and somersaults to make next year's plan... I have someone I can depend on also now. And now... there is a job offer on the table. The offer is not mind-boggling, but it is significant enough. And Krayola's album is set to release by August; as we will be signing the contract shortly.

The last time this much potential change happened to me was when I started this blog.... a new day at a new job, fresh from shutting down my old office, and painfully fresh of the memory of break-up.

So, does change come in short bursts of energy, you think? Is life, when always pushed by a uni-directional thrust engine, guided by navigating rockets activated when needed?

The Best Birthday Present EVER!

No, not the pizza from Mom, brought early in the morning by my Mom and Dad; although it means a lot and tastes good too!
Not the blueberry cheesecake from Alfa, although it is a testament of our long-standing friendship...
Not even the birthday wishes from friends, although they mean a lot also...

hm... and not even the CD case you gave me! Although I love it! It's just that the color doesn't go well with my other stuff.

just you.

Thank You

Thank you.

(hope you're reading this.)

Talking with you helps. A lot. And not just about work.

Confusion Is A Lonely Moment

Unexpectedly, although according to schedule, I came home "early" today. At precisely 6.38 PM I was home, and even got to sleep a bit before delving into the book I have been reading (a moderate science-fiction book I bought second-hand). Yet through the minutes between asleep and awake, the full force of my confusion comes into light.

Before me lies a choice. A better oppotunity, so to speak; currently not really quantifiable, but definitely good. On the other hand, there is the current situation, which is not so bad. Good also, actually, and a loosely-related item at work has certainly got me excited a bit (although still disbelieving). Both choices ostensibly will change my life, as most of my major decisions do, but with differing directions, and not entirely differing, either.

The sacrifices that come with the choices are significant, also, so are the risks. All elements that apparently I endure and enjoy, as I always unconsciously pick the harder roads to take (of course, the ones that bring the most benefits and lessons).

It's a good problem, a problem that a lot of people would only dream of; yet it remains a problem that I can't seem to solve on my own. I am somehow not comfortable relying on my heart, instinct and experience to choose an outcome; as I often do, I usually consult my trusted friends and colleagues for honest opinions.

But somehow, I can't. So, today, confusion is a lonely moment... and I lament the fact that I am sad because of good tidings.

Soho Again

I am sitting at Soho yet again, with Vira, where we are typing away on our laptops after a moderately arduous session at the gym (more for Vira, I think). The excersize, although probably still not optimal, was refreshing after many days of overworking and less sleep afterwards. I am still feeling stressed out, but I'll just see on how I can handle the stress bit by bit, day by day, by not taking too much depth into it (while not avoiding it entirely).
The issues of work and personal life are actually manageable, but every time I hear a stupid motorcycle horn or unnecessary car horn go off, a spark goes off in me that gets me in the wrong mood all the time. I am trying to manage that, but of course, the usual set of expletives need to be produced before tension release is possible.

I am finding that the band is slowly becoming into something serious, at least for me, and it's a bit difficult to pool the band together into a consensus on what needs to be done. At least we have a general direction on where to go, and the August gig would be something to work towards. There is still a lot of homework to do, but well, as they say, handle big problems step by step.

I'm just glad that I have something more to smile about, lately :).

Should I Stop For A While?

Even the damn motorcycle horns and the stupid doorbell that rings inseccantly all day get to me now. In the Kemang and Mampang area, a lot of those sate sellers traded in their voices or wooden bells for a battery-powered buzzer of sorts. Traditionally, they would just yell their commodity while pushing their wheelbarrow around (where they store everything they need to cook), but now, it's either not loud enough, or they just simply became lazy about yelling all the time. So now, they attract attention (and wrath) by pressing that buzzer every so often, guaranteeing attention from a 200 m radius. And it drives me crazy.

Since the receptionist at the office left, they installed an additional thumbprint lock on the outer door, which had a doorbell function, and there would be an alarm if the door was left open for more than 1 or 2 minutes. Now, the doorbell sound itself is very annoying, not to mention the fact that it's either me or Okta (in the cubicle next to my office room) who opens the door for whoever comes. I really hate it. The doorbell sound has a sort of forced attention-getter property to it, and I simply cannot ignore it. I have to go to the source and make it shut up somehow. Now get this - the doorbell can hardly be heard from outside the outer door, making a lot of the stupider guests press the doorbell more often without any sort of politeness. This gets me on my nerves even more.
Then, if some idiot leaves the door open on the spring-hinge, the alarm will go off. Now when the doorbell, as annoying as it is, is still a two-note lower frequency sound... the alarm is a high-pitched repetitive sound! And to add to that, the lock mechanism for the door is a bit faulty, so at times the lock just simply doesn't work and the door alarm goes off on and on and on until somebody comes and tries to fix it. Here's the punchline: as my office is nearest to the door, the speakers for this unhuman contraption are right next to me (well... about 2 metres from my door). I swear the speakers are mounted in my direction or something, because it certainly feels that way. Now imagine trying to have a conversation on telephone or typing some document that needs concentration while the stupid alarm goes at least once every 10 minutes!

When I am able to escape the office, I have to face those loud motorcycle horns, those car alarms, those purposely loud mufflers (notice the contradiction in terms), thus I can never escape the sounds that make my brain so unsynchronized.

And I bet the dear readers of this blog have read how crazy work has been the past few weeks... thus... I must be going out of my mind as we speak. Well, almost, and I need to do something about it quick. Work is neverending, so I'll have to just drop everything and try to alleviate this stress somehow. It's either a holiday, or I need to invest some disciplined time to curing the stress step by step. No, not dining out anymore. Yoga, perhaps? Midnight bike rides would be nice... if I didn't have to worry about the random drivers that roam the roads of Jakarta... playing music? It's a job now! Well, almost...

Gym helps, and the basketball sessions help.. but there needs to be something more. Maybe more blog writing? More purposeful, scheduled blog writing? I think that's the main difference between now and a few months before...

So here I am again :).

Finally, On The Curb Again

Phew! What a ride.

I have been running on the highway, dodging cars, buses and motorcycles, trying to outrun or outmanouver vehicles larger than me, sometimes running in line, sometimes cutting their path, and more often getting out of the way. I'm not what you call unscathed; I'm a bit bruised here and there, my mind is still racing at one moment, sitting still at the next; but now I've reached a temporary destination for a breather. I'm at the bus stop, on the curb. Phew...

The past week has been really crazy, I was practically out of the office for 4 days out of 5, thus automatically putting any email or electronic-based work on the backburner. Also, I have a boss who often sends out instructions and orders without really thinking, and I have to push back for a more rational timeline. Even so, some of my work is spilling over to the weekend, and I'm sure when my boss is back from HK on Monday, he'll be sending out another salvo of instructions. I mean, it's totally ok, it's part of the job, but because some of the orders and deadlines are quite impossible, it takes up wasted time and energy to shoot the orders down or manage them into more comprehensible products. And... it's always like this.

I can't afford to slack one second, I know. The sales targets for this year and next year are crazy; but it doesn't mean I have to do all of this by myself, either. It's not the job or the objective, it's the task management and time scheduling. The work has reached a point where it's getting slow because I really don't have the time to take care of everything.

I reached my requested targets, and I need to move to a higher level to reach my remaining targets. So...

Anyone interested in a job?