A change of perspective

Yesterday, a difficult task came before me at work. The task itself wasn't too difficult but it required me to conduct the conversation entirely in mandarin and that scared the hell out of me. Turning to my boss, I expressed my lack of confidence in completing the work. He looked a little shock, recovered and then said if I need help, I can rope in one of my colleagues.

Heading home, I thought about that little exchange I had with my boss. What happened to that driven guy who showed up at the interview, proclaiming he could do this and that and how hard he would work if given the chance. I honestly felt a little ashamed with myself. Why couldn't I see this as an opportunity to shine instead of running away scared.

Like what Fabregas' agent told him when he first went for trials at Arsenal, "Keep asking for the ball".

This morning, I went back into the office with some renewed vigour and tackled the task head on. It wasn't easy. I stammered a lot and at some stage, the person on the other end of the conversation had to ask me to slow down as he couldn't quite catch what I was saying. In the end, I thought I did alright. I wasn't brilliant, conversant, eloquent etc but I did alright and apart from having to let my boss review the work tomorrow, I reckon the task is pretty much completed.

In fact, I now kinda wish I get more of these opportunities to practice my business mandarin and gain a little more confidence. Hmm.. I might just do a blog post in mandarin one of these days just for the heck of it. Gonna keep asking for the ball!

3.24am. The guys left about 1 1/2 hours ago after an Xbox session involving Fifa12 and some Kinect. Embracing our boyish nerdishness, this honestly wasn't too bad a way to spend a Friday night. Laughing, having fun, etc.. Probably would have been better if I had my own place and wasn't constantly worried about waking up my mum or having the downstairs neighbours make a complain about the constant stomping.

Last night's blog post was a tad bit addictive. I realised I made only 4 posts in 2011. Blogging's always easier when you're single or having exams, the combination of which resulted in 39 blog post in 2010!

So this is my first confirmed resolution for 2012. To blog more. Well, by Father Bosco definition at New Year's Eve mass, "to blog more" would only count as an aim. A resolution requires much more. So okay, to match the same number of post as 2010. The magic number being 39 (+ 1).

Let's see if this materialises...

*proceeds to disappear for 3 weeks*

Talk about the future...

It's a funny feeling quoting a Katy Perry song but this Boyce Avenue cover is really good. As is many of their covers.

Stripping away all the pop-bubblegum stuff allows others to truly listen to the lyrics. I chuckled to myself at work today when I heard the words

"Talk about the future, like we had a clue..."

How true. I don't mean this in a bitter sorta way but I think back to my past relationships, particularly with CL and CP and the conversations we had and like silly teens in love, we talk like whatever we had was going to last forever.

I suppose if I took a step back now, even with V and I, we too are guilty about talking about our future as if we had a clue. Buying this or that property, finding this or that job, 10 year career projections.

Who knows what God has planned for us eh?