Gulp. Am I really doing this? Writing down what I accomplished (or more precisely: did NOT accomplish) is scary. Sometime ago I wrote a half-year recap, which was very hard to do, and now I'm bracing myself for - yes - a full year recap.
I wouldn't say 2008 has been a bad year, but still of course, it could have been better. This year marked the 2nd and 3rd semesters of my study, and I have so far had 3 articles published in international conferences. This is perhaps the achievement I'm most happy about. Had I been published in an international journal..my life would have been perfect. Doh.
This year I finally sent an essay of mine to a magazine (inspired by none other than Chicfuschia ;)) and the editor said she liked it. I hope I can get to see it in print sometime in this lifetime, heh.
This is the year I got engaged, and I finally gathered the courage to get married. It was in 2006 when R asked me whether I was a "marrying type" and I remembered how the word "No" was already on the tip of my tongue. That was when I fully realized that I was in fact NOT a marrying type, because right then and there, when he was holding me in his arms, when I fully fathomed the fact that I loved him and wanted to be with him all my life, the first thing that came to my mind when he asked me that was "No...I am not a marrying type." It was so hard for me to fight back the urge to say No. Yet very strangely, as my brain screamed no, my emotional side took over so I told him yes.
It has been proven so far that while I'm very happy to be with him, I have trouble dealing with his whole family, and with the demands that come with a marriage. I do not have the longing for a kid, all I want to do was excel at my work. The thing is, I've known all along that R wants a kid more than anything else in this world. Everyday I am faced with the realization that I am far too selfish to be in a marriage, and sometimes it hurts me to see how much R has to sacrifice so that I can be comfortable in this marriage.
Being a dominant person, I couldn't help dominating every conversation, I showed him how hard I had to work (I have been managing two jobs since March this year) and I really rubbed in his face the fact that I always had to pay much more than he ever did to take care of the house legal papers, and to tackle the neverending everyday bills. I told him harshly that being pregnant, delivering and nursing a kid is beyond my capability and I angrily told him that I was already depressed as it was, trying so hard to make ends meet. Deep in my heart sometimes I wish he would take a second job like I do, but I know that to him, our financial situation right now is just okay. So sometimes I think that I'm just complicating things out of proportion, that I'm just irrationally demanding too much from him, that I'm just a fussy and unbearable person to be with, and these thoughts depress me more. So I just shut my mouth up and try my best to put forth a positive mental attitude. Ain't easy, I'm telling you, ain't easy for somebody like me.
In this last month of the year I began to look at him very closely. For every single time I have to sweep and mop the floor, for every single time I have to cook and do the dishes, he has done his share of cleaning the house and taking care of the garden. He has done his share of cooking too. (How could I ever forget the fact that he was the only one who did the cooking for the first two months of our living together? How could I take for granted the fact that he typically starts the day by asking whether I'd like him to make me a cup of coffee?)
And, KABOOMM!!!!! With a surprise I learned that I have actually started contemplating having a child.
So. The year has not been bad. Here's hoping that next year I'll be on the right track of developing a superbly positive mental attitude, that I'll be able to have one (maybe two?) articles published in an international journal, that I'll have a contribution to the utter happiness of the man I love: by being a mother of his child.
Here's wishing my constant readers a new year of lasting health and wealth and wisdom and happiness.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Monday, December 01, 2008
IF YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY....
just be happy.
I am thinking about that line all morning, because I feel some negativity inside me that needs to be alleviated once and for all. Gyah. I am done feeling down!
Anyway, one of the things that pisses me off today is the fact that J*S, after pressuring me to do some translation for them, even after I rejected them so many times, failed to pay me until today. I still remember how the director called and literally begged me to "please help" them. I rejected saying I was busy, but she persisted by saying she'd cut down the amount of the translation materials by 50% and raise my fee. After about 10 minutes of arguing I finally gave in, thinking getting some extra money would be nice anyway. (Although it would also mean I'd be off schoolwork for a good fortnight). So I said yes. And the director promised she'd send me 75 pages, instead of 150 pages she initially asked me to translate. It was a Thursday morning, and I didn't hear anything from them, no e-mails no calls until Saturday morning. That morning her secretary texted me, saying she had sent me 120 pages to translate! That, I guess, was very sneaky, very unfair, but I didn't have the energy to argue back and forth.
And I tried to look at it from a positive point of view! (I know, so unlike me). I thought, probably God wanted to give me even more extra money. Oh well.
Turned out that after 10 days of laboring, of translating day and night (and weekends too!) all while juggling a proposal draft and a presentation at Dikti (which turned out to be so dreadful I wrote a special post about it), they didn't say a word about it. They pressed me to finish it in 10 days (mind you, at first they said they only wanted me to finish 75 pages in 10 days, but then they gave me 120 pages instead), and when I had finished them, tah dah, no words about it. No money. No nothing.
But I still have so many reasons to be happy! (I'd like to think that I will need no reason to be happy, that I can be happy no matter what happens, but I guess I'd have a long way until I can be that wise).
One of those reasons is: my 2nd paper is accepted at a conference in Korea! This is kinda big. Because they had 700 papers coming in, and gee, I really don't think my paper is that good.
So happy I am!
Yay me!
I am thinking about that line all morning, because I feel some negativity inside me that needs to be alleviated once and for all. Gyah. I am done feeling down!
Anyway, one of the things that pisses me off today is the fact that J*S, after pressuring me to do some translation for them, even after I rejected them so many times, failed to pay me until today. I still remember how the director called and literally begged me to "please help" them. I rejected saying I was busy, but she persisted by saying she'd cut down the amount of the translation materials by 50% and raise my fee. After about 10 minutes of arguing I finally gave in, thinking getting some extra money would be nice anyway. (Although it would also mean I'd be off schoolwork for a good fortnight). So I said yes. And the director promised she'd send me 75 pages, instead of 150 pages she initially asked me to translate. It was a Thursday morning, and I didn't hear anything from them, no e-mails no calls until Saturday morning. That morning her secretary texted me, saying she had sent me 120 pages to translate! That, I guess, was very sneaky, very unfair, but I didn't have the energy to argue back and forth.
And I tried to look at it from a positive point of view! (I know, so unlike me). I thought, probably God wanted to give me even more extra money. Oh well.
Turned out that after 10 days of laboring, of translating day and night (and weekends too!) all while juggling a proposal draft and a presentation at Dikti (which turned out to be so dreadful I wrote a special post about it), they didn't say a word about it. They pressed me to finish it in 10 days (mind you, at first they said they only wanted me to finish 75 pages in 10 days, but then they gave me 120 pages instead), and when I had finished them, tah dah, no words about it. No money. No nothing.
But I still have so many reasons to be happy! (I'd like to think that I will need no reason to be happy, that I can be happy no matter what happens, but I guess I'd have a long way until I can be that wise).
One of those reasons is: my 2nd paper is accepted at a conference in Korea! This is kinda big. Because they had 700 papers coming in, and gee, I really don't think my paper is that good.
So happy I am!
Yay me!
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