Maybe it's time I really think about where I am.

I've reached that point where I'm second-guessing myself and my ability to get the job done.

It's not that I'm being ungrateful for the work given to me; on the contrary, I'm glad to have been given a lot of opportunities during my first year in the company. Now, there's more stuff being put on my plate and I'm trying my best to be in "challenge accepted" mode.

After one year, however, I still cry myself to sleep or in the shower for days when work gets too tough and I feel I'm stretched too thin. Therefore, I feel the need to think through some things.

I suppose this is what my manager meant when he said I was in a bit of a "regression mode" during the latter half of the previous fiscal year. Essentially, the quality of my output isn't as good as before. That really pains me, because I feel I'm putting more effort in my work but it's still not good enough. There are so many factors I am tempted to put the blame on (e.g. seemingly unreasonable timelines, being involved in 3 projects simultaneously, etc.), but in the end I still feel that I have no choice but to do my best because that is what is expected of me.

That's what saddens me the most, because that kind of mindset is not the one I want to have. I want to do my best for myself, and the satisfaction that others gain from my work would just be a by-product or something secondary. That mindset seems to deviate from the whole customer-centric ideal, but then again if I don't gain fulfillment from what I'm doing, how sure am I that others would be satisfied with my work?

Stuck

My college alma mater is celebrating its 100th year today. Though I am quite glad that I chose to attend this university, a part of me still can't get into the hype and festive spirit of it all. I may be joining some activities later to accompany my sister who hasn't visited in years. Otherwise, I'd probably treat this day like any other day.

Probably one reason why the excitement's not getting to me is the fact that I have been attending university for just a little more than six years now (3 years and 3 months as an undergraduate student, with the rest of the years spent in graduate studies). Staying in the same setting for that long has made everything quite mundane for me. Add the fact that the area where the university is located is a place that I have spent most of my life in, having studied in another nearby school for both my elementary and high school years.

I think my unconscious is craving for a change of pace, or at the very least a change of place. I always thought that I wouldn't mind being stuck doing the same things in the same place for a long time. But then I realized that I've never taken the initiative to even try doing something new. I don't know if it's because I'm scared of failing, or if I'm scared of how it can potentially change a part of my personality, or if I'm scared of something else entirely.

I have never been one to just jump into something, but maybe I ought to try that. Just to see how it'll go.

Starting Over Yet Again

This is the second online journal I've resurrected. The first was my LiveJournal, a big chunk of which I have converted into fangirl musings. There are still real-life shenanigans, but I never bothered being too deep about those. Chatty, maybe, but not deep.

To those who still remember what this blog used to contain, I actually used to name names and be quite detailed about what's going on in my life. There were those boring, borderline-mundane entries that talked about what I needed to accomplish for the week or what happened on a certain day. But a lot of other entries were about reflection, about raw feelings, about things that actually made me think and made me ask "why" questions.

After neglecting this blog for more than a year, I figured it was high time to try to jot down my thoughts again. Hopefully, there will be a lot less mundane stuff this time around. No names (except for my own and probably a few famous personalities) because I don't want to center on personal events anymore. I want to make myself and my readers (if there will be any) think and reflect on things that might not normally come to our minds, or those things which are thought-provoking but also those we choose to ignore. I'm not sure yet how this will end up, but at least I could tell myself I tried.