A day in a life

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I am blogging this to remember. To remember how my life was. As you could tell that over the last couple of months life hasnt been great. It is said that in a man’s life, he undergoes a sort of a rite of passage, transitioning from boyhood to adulthood.  This is the time he is put to the test to see what he is made of. In all culture, both modern an aboriginal, such rituals exist. I like to think that my last 10-11 months have been my ritual. I didnt anticipate this to be a ritual, but looking back, perhaps it was. I really don’t think I am done with the ritual to be honest. There’s still a final step. To reflect what you have learnt before you close the chapter in your life. I guess this entry is part of my reflections on this closing chapter bit.  As Plato once said, ” The unexamined life is not worth living”. And so, let me attempt to make my life worthwhile. 

My day begins sometime between 5.30 am to 5.45 am. The day starts with darkness. I need to wake up this early so that Drew can be walked. Some days the early morning walks are nice. A breathe of fresh air to inspire me, the cool wind to comfort and soothe my body, or otherwise a stale dry day…where everything feels hot, sterile and lifeless.  In any case, just like with everything else with life, I still wake up and start my day. There are days I cuss, regretting my new life. There are days I feel nonchalant, indifferent towards everything in life. And there are days I feel positive, ready to take on life’s challenges. However, most of the time, its always the former – the whole waking up early bit.

In any case, by 6.45 am I am out of the house. Yes, sometimes its still dark at this time, but at times depending on the equinox season, it can be somewhat bright. My route starts with driving out of my housing estate, which can sometimes be a pain. Leaving at 6.45 is borderline painful. Cars streaming in from everywhere traversing only on a single path which leads to the “outside world”. My commute can be broken into 2 categories (Rail and Drive) and within the driving realm, its further broken down into 4 paths

The first I have already mentioned above. The second is the highway journey which starts from my toll plaza and culminates at the other end of the toll plaza. The jam starts from my home to the first toll plaza – that’s JAM #1 and then you have JAM # 2 which is the stretch from toll to toll. This sometimes is not so bad. The 3rd one is JAM # 3 which is from the end of the toll to the place where I park my car. This can be quite unforgiving and probably the worse among the 3 jam legs.

Then after parking, I take the train. Sometimes I stop to have a quick breakfast, sometimes I reward myself with a McD breakfast if I am particularly early at work. Once I reach work, there is another jam to deal with – the human jam in which people queue/rush to take the elevators. The sucky part is that on days where there is a massive crowd outside the lifts, you know that one of the lifts probably is broken down and hence the crowd. Anyway by the time I reach my workstation, its time to start my work. Work starts in 2 ways – either you continue what needs to be done or you prepare for the coming event of the day. Occasionally in the past, there will be moments where we would need to fire fight and do an emergency response to critical situation. These are days that I am most busy and so preoccupied.

One thing I do notice is that afternoon does come really fast. There have been many times that before I knew it, it was already noon. Noon, in the last couple of weeks starts with me having lunch alone, yes alone. But I often try to use this time to spend time with God. Taking a walk to church and just spending a couple of minutes with God helps to calm the mind down. Then after that its lunch and then back to the office for the afternoon leg.

The afternoon leg doesn’t go as fast at the morning leg, most probably because afternoons then to drag on to the evening and by about 5 pm you can see the office is slowly winding down. For me, though its a different story depending on what’s happening the next day. If something major is coming up then I would probably continue working until 7 pm with my 2 analysts and having my boss review the outcome of the deliverable before she leaves for the day.

By the time I leave work, its already close to 7pm. There are days (especially after my resignation) where I leave at 6.30 as well. The return journey now begins with packed commuters on the training, with everyone heading home as well.  This is where I would use the time to catch up with the fiance and see how her day went by. By the time I reach my car and head home, it would have already be 8.30 pm. Then, just like in the morning, I wrap things up by walking Drew and heading home to bathe and rest. I do try to study from time to time, but too often than not, its tough. I feel extremely tired and all I want to do is just sleep.

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