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Chez Emmydocumenting the quarter-life crisis of a 20-something woman To romance or not to romance?Now that I am on vacation (
I remember a little over a year ago, just before I moved to Sugarland to begin working, one of my old school friends advised me not to get involved with my male co-workers. I rolled my eyes at her advice and responded somewhat sarcastically, “You think I’m relocating to Sugarland to take this job just to date co-workers? Please, give me more credit than that!” “These things happen,” she said. Hmmm…words of wisdom come from all sorts of places, don’t they?
As usual, the advice column by the so-called expert was vague, at best. Although the author started by announcing she was going to caution readers about the issue, that is, engaging in an office romance, she ended up sounding something like an advocate. She did however mention an important problem that could arise in this situation, that is, the awkwardness that results in a post-break-up scenario. Ahhh…now she’s being real.
This is my advice on office romance to young professional women out there, steer clear of your male colleagues. You will be complicating your life and you will derail your career if you allow yourself to be distracted on the job. Do you really have the discipline to remain discreet for as long as is necessary? And don't even mention the supervisor-subordinate-type scenarios. Career suicide. It is unprofessional and distasteful, at best. Besides, how much sense does it really make to have the exact same stresses and pressures as this individual at the end of the day? When it comes time to go home, unwind and vent, you'll have to sit down and listen to the same horribly tedious stories you just related to that person. Yikes! Stranded in "Sugarland"I made up my mind when I first moved to “Sugarland” that I would not buy a vehicle. For one thing, it didn’t seem like a necessity to me. With my close proximity to my workplace, the supermarket and a bank, it really would have been a luxury. True, I live in an area with no access to public transportation. And true, that means difficulty in getting to town to conduct business. But where there is a will there is a way. Thank goodness for the registry at my organization where I can pay all my bills. And thank goodness for the organisation’s bus which shuttles workers to town after work. So, with some careful planning, I can take that bus to town on its first run, conduct my business there and then catch it on its return trip. Brilliant! Despite my careful planning, there are times when one just needs to get out of the neighbourhood and see something other than the empty lots, abandoned cane fields, the company, the supermarket and the bank which are really the only things to behold in the area. There are times when frustration sets in from having to stare at my 4 bare white walls for another weekend. Unlike others I prefer not to be a nuisance by begging for a ride from my more mobile friends and colleagues. At such a point I am sorely tempted to buy a car. That’s when I stop and weigh my options. Being the Economist that I am, I do some cold hard calculations for a cost-benefit analysis. If I had a car, how much would I use it? Probably not much. “Sugarland” is a pretty small place. If I really wanted to go somewhere I could easily call a taxi on that rare occasion. How much would the car cost me in gas, insurance, maintenance, monthly payments…cha-ching $$$. Finally, and most importantly, what non-monetary sacrifice would I be making to own the vehicle? Exercise and, more importantly, people. I rely on the church bus to transport me to every church-related activity. Never has taking the bus being such a unique experience in and of itself. The mix of passengers is always different, their moods are different, the conversations are different and my experience of “Sugarland” society and culture is enriched. True that half the time the subject of the conversation goes totally above my head because I can’t understand the accent and the raw dialect at all. Still, I relish it because it balances out the annoying experiences I have with the nationals when they provide poor/inefficient service at the supermarket and other places. I am usually the first person to be picked up and the last to be dropped off so I also get to see all sorts of nooks and crannies where some of the church members live. Every ride turns out to be a mini adventure. I have had some wonderful conversations with the drivers, learned about their families, their joys and sometimes their stresses. You can’t help but get involved in their stories. I can be short on patience sometimes and I can honestly say that having to wait for the bus at the end of service or some other church activity teaches me patience. To make my waiting time more bearable, I might fall into conversation with someone, thereby strengthening ties. There are some upsides to being stranded after all. The Snob and the WallflowerI am reminded of a scene from my beloved “Pride and Prejudice” (and no, I’m not referring to that sorry big screen adaptation starring a certain Miss K.K!). The scene I’m reflecting on is the one where Mr Darcy admits to Lizzie that he is “ ill-qualified to recommend [himself] to strangers”. To this, Elizabeth responds, “why should a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, be ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?” Of course by this point Elizabeth had long since branded Darcy a snob. And of course at this point it is way too early for her to realize she was being unfair to Darcy in her assessment of his character. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, you need to hit your nearest bookstore or library. Seriously. In a way, I’m a lot like Darcy. Funny…the Austen character I’ve always wished I could be is Elizabeth so that I could have my own Darcy to spar with. Anyway…so poor, shy Mr Darcy always felt awkward at the social gatherings and was only comfortable with people with whom he was already well-acquainted. Mr Darcy’s shyness or unease about socializing with strangers was misconstrued as cold reserve, even snobbery. And so it was that the wallflower was mistakenly diagnosed as a snob. Now, why am I bringing up “P&P” again? One would think that 10 years on after being introduced to the world of Jane Austen, the hype would have died down for me and I would have moved on. Well, my own sad social experiences jogged that memory of poor misunderstood Mr Darcy. After many years of shying away from social encounters of all types, I finally decided it was time to break that attitude. So, I’d try to get excited about meeting new people. I’d even go as far as imagining/planning how I’d mingle and make conversation when the time came. I’m all psyched, right? Then put me in the midst of all those people and I clam up. The environment causes a kind of sensory overload and my eyes will be darting all over the room, frantically looking for a quiet corner in which to perch myself for the duration of the event. Last Thursday night, since the venue for the session I was attending was outdoors, my perch was in the canopy of a large tree. Yeah, I had looked forward to that gathering for days but when it finally came around, all I could think was, “I don’t belong here, I have got to get out of her ASAP”. But of course I couldn’t just run off. This was a church social, after all and I had invited 2 friends along. It would have been poor taste to take off and leave them there alone, even for me! So, I had to stick it out for at least a couple of hours. Thank God it’s common knowledge that I’m an early sleeper so as my bedtime drew near, I promptly used that as my excuse to hightail it out of there. So, for the night, the only new living thing that I got acquainted with was that big tree I can just picture it now, me standing under the tree (hiding behind the low branches), arms folded in my usual militant stance with my (in)famous distant glazed frowning stare. Boy, I must have cut quite a figure. “That unfriendly girl – yeah, you know, the snob.” I can just hear it now. One of my guests later told me how disappointed she was with my lack of effort in socialising that night. For those who are natural-born social butterflies, the wallflowers will always be an enigma. Let it Go2007. Hmmm…I’ve been told that 7 is the number of perfection. May we all find perfection in Christ this year. Happy New Year! they came out from us that it might be made manifest that they were not for us. For had they been of us, no doubt they would have continued with us. [1 John 2:19]
Let’s Get Physical
"So Helen, are you keeping fit or having one?" For years I’d been telling myself that I’d start a gym/workout regimen someday soon. I remember when I was about to go away to university; I was excited to read about all the workout facilities on the campus and promised myself that in September, I’d start going to the gym on a regular basis. As the year drew to a close I realized that I’d never kept that promise to myself. I decided to renew it and said, “Yeah, next year, for sure, I’d start going to the gym.” The next year came and the vicious cycle began all over again. So, about 6 years went by and I never once stepped foot inside a gym. I suppose part of the reason for my lack of motivation was because of my small size. But, as is well known, a thin frame doesn’t mean one is fit or healthy. My organization has a gym on the compound and I’d been in there a couple of times in the first couple of weeks to poke around but never with the intention of actually using the space. One of my male colleagues works out there and he’s been encouraging me to come work out there, even going as far as attempting to entice me with the promise of being my very own personal trainer. Uh huh... I kept making excuses about not having shorts or any gym gear but I kept promising to go shopping for some but never did. I finally got some stuff last weekend and so I had no more serious excuses really. Well, I finally ended up in the gym for an actual workout but quite by accident. I had finally agreed to go walking with a female colleague but unfortunately, on my very first walk, we got rained out. She decided to go to the gym instead and I tagged along. It was such a great feeling. There are only a couple of things about my new gym interest that bother me a little. The first is that I'm afraid I look like a total dork (see "Helen" above) when I'm working out - with my gangly arms (and legs) flailing wildly all over the place and all Pet PeeveEver noticed how some people are just so darn inconsiderate of other people’s time? I once heard an elderly gentleman say, “If you come early you waste your own time. If you come late you waste everybody else’s time”. The Caribbean region is famous for a lot of things…sun, sea and sand are probably the top three. The Caribbean is also known for being laid-back and I guess that’s an attractive feature for a vacation spot to have. What we shouldn’t be proud of, though, is the fact that we are known to never be on time for anything. We have our own “island time”. This lax attitude is reflected in almost every aspect of life here. This is so much the case that our most popular regional carrier LIAT (which stands for “Leeward Island Air Transport”) has been dubbed “Leave Island Any Time” for its terrible time-keeping record. Back in my secondary school days there was a student who was always late and one day our strict principal , sick of the lack of punctuality, said that the student would probably be late for her own funeral. I know in other parts of the world, when it comes to more social events like parties, people like to be “fashionably late”. But in the Caribbean people are consistently late, holding back everybody and everything and I’m not talking 15-20 minutes late! Another thing about people here is that when they KNOW they are going to be late (which is most times, anyway), they won’t bother to call you to let you know or when you do call them they’ll tell you, “I’m coming just now” yet they’d show up 30-45 minutes later when you know they live only about 5 minutes away. You are kept waiting all that time. I’m really starting to hate the statement, “I’m coming just now.” When did it become cool to be so disrespectful of people’s time? This is without a doubt one of my biggest pet peeves – it is the surest way for anyone to ruin my mood. And to think people joke about it here – “Oh, so and so won’t be here until THREE hours after the party has started”! It is extremely vexing to the soul. My time in Japan showed me just how much other cultures value time and how well it serves them. I’m not saying we need to go to that extreme. I understand that we can’t plan life down to the second and that it is unpredictable and we must be flexible enough to go with the flow but it’s a problem when people make no effort whatsoever to keep to time. You’d think with all the technology we have to help us check the time (everyone I know has a watch, cell phone, computer, tv guide channel…) it’d be easier to keep track of time. I’m not even thinking of the economic benefits of being punctual, it’s the courtesy and respect aspects of it that I care about the most. The Aspiring ArtistFor years I went around telling everybody I had no talent. I can’t sing, I don’t play a musical instrument, I don’t play sports and I don’t have an artistic bone in my body. But, maybe my ‘talentlessness’ is all my fault – I haven’t dabbled in things to see how well I could perform. Well, I’ve finally decided to do something about that. I bought some art supplies on Saturday. I entered a bookstore and when a shop assistant approached me I told her I was looking for a paint set. She asked if it was for a child and I said, “No, it’s for me but I’ll be doing kid stuff with it”. Lol, baby steps – don’t want to go blow tons of money on fancy professional equipment with my amateur skills. Maybe when I’ve become half as good as the young artist (7-year old daughter of a colleague) who drew the portrait of my friend Z below (and no, my head was not tilted to the side when I took the picture), only then would I consider upgrading to the high level gear and maybe invest in an easel and all. Yeah, if I could be as creative as the youngster I mentioned I should be very happy indeed. Another reason I’m taking up this new hobby is just to find something to keep myself busy that is relaxing and non-work in nature. I’m realizing that staying at home all weekend, snacking and staring at the 4 walls of my apartment may not be the best thing for my mental health. And the alternative of begging for a ride from co-workers to go do stuff that usually turn out to be not-so-fun for me doesn’t really sit well with me. I really hope this painting thing pans out well. I live on a Caribbean island so I should find plenty of inspiration to stir my creative juices. The good thing is that because I’m so talentless, even if the painting thing doesn't work out (but I'm sure it will) there’s a whole world of other hobbies I could take up to continue my journey to discover what I’m good at. I might take up swimming afterwards – yes, I live on an island yet I can’t swim You Learn Something New EverydayThis afternoon I was trying to figure out how to do something on the computer and when I couldn’t do it, I called my colleague to come over and show me. It turned out he didn’t know how either but we decided to put our heads together and try to figure it out. Within a short space of time we’d figured it out and felt such a rush of excitement to know that we had learned one more thing that we could apply in our future work.
After going through about 20 years of schooling, I came out with the naïve notion that school would have taught me almost everything I need to get through life. After merely 5 months on a real world job, I’ve learned just how much I don’t know. And that’s just in one aspect of my life. I’ve learned so much of what I need to survive as I go along. I’ve also learned that a human being’s absorptive capacity for knowledge is enormous. You know what else I’ve learned?: learning is so much more fun when it’s outside of the rigid confines of a classroom and you can actually see the practical use for it. Things are so abstract in the formal classroom setting so what do we do? We cram to pass exams and afterwards, it’s all out the window. As a newbie at my organization, I’ve had to be taught how to use the specific systems and software etc used there. I have learned a lot of new tricks that can be done with some old software that I’d been using for ages. This whole experience is making me believe we are going about this whole education business all wrong. I was at a Kiwanis meeting (for those of you who don’t know, it’s an international service organization like Rotary or Lions but with a specific emphasis on serving the children of the world) the other day when one of our members, who’s a teacher, was talking about how we can approach teaching children. Her story was about some kids who were being taught some song and they were mindlessly singing the lyrics and sounding very flat and their choir mistress/teacher was getting very exasperated. Then the choir mistress ordered the children to stop singing and to pay attention to the words, she emphasized the words and helped the children to understand what they were saying, what they meant, to envision the beautiful images that those words could conjure up and what a difference it made in their singing. The children sounded so lively afterwards. Why can’t we approach all learning exercises the same way?
The Par$imoniou$ E¢onomi$tI am an economist by training. You learn a lot of things in economics – most of which isn’t very practical, I admit; I’ve never come across a more abstract discipline (well, maybe except for psychology). One thing I can say about my economics background is that it has taught me how to economize. Big surprise there. Several years ago I developed the worthwhile habit (despite what Mr. B and Mr. S in my office say) of watching my $s and ¢s. I just believe in living within one’s means and figured that life is really a series of unforeseen circumstances and the age-old adage that you should put aside something for a rainy day carries a great deal of wisdom. The life of a quarter-lifer is difficult enough without compounding it with an unsustainable debt burden – like I said I’m an economist. Happy 23rd anniversary of independence, Sugarland!
~19 September - Independence Day~ Ok, the flag should be a dead give-away as to where I am, in case you weren’t quick enough to figure it out from my list of ‘places I’ve been”. |
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Nah, man, you gotta mix it up a little. 
. The second is the reaction I’ve gotten when I’ve told people about going to the gym.
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