My Yellow Ribbon Project

It’s December already. Just one more month before 2007 takes over.

I always look forward to December, not just because of the festive season or holidays. There’s always something exciting about the “end” of the year. There’s always something you regret doing. There’s always something you wish you had time to accomplish.

I’d taken a huge risk in 2006 by switching jobs. 2 weeks ago, I’d met up with the timster for dinner and of course we ventured into the infohell territory. I remember one of the topics that cropped up was if I had any regrets in leaving my previous company. It’s been almost 6 months and frankly, I still miss my comrades especially my right hand, left hand, chief strategist-cum-adviser as they’d literally been through with me to hell and back. At the polytechnic, there are over 100 lecturers in the biz school and I’m surrounded by many nice folk, but few of similar quirkiness, angst and temperament – so I count myself fortunate to have BigD, pooh, GR, miss ene as my colleagues.

The pros outweigh the cons though – I no longer have to sit through meaningless meetings which stretch for arduous hours and test my crisis management skills on a daily basis. But, as timster has pointed out: the camel syndrome is still hardwired into my system. Although I’m desperately trying to adopt a “teach-n-go” attitude and leave punctually at 6 o’clock, the workaholic in me is struggling to break free. For example, I’d taken child care leave last Wednesday to take Wen for her Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) inoculation. After my 3 hour expedition at the paediatrician’s, I couldn’t resist the urge and dragged the girls to the office (which was about a 10 minute walk away) so that I could pick up some scripts back home to mark. I really wanted to meet the marking deadline which was 2 days away...

*aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Will this beast of burden EVER be free? It’s like a prisoner who’s been unshackled and released back into society but in his mind he’s still locked up in a cell and behaves likewise. Admittedly I’ve been too conditioned to the ways of infohell. The timster had given me a yellow ribbon before I left (with reference to the yellow ribbon project about ex-convicts given a second chance), and in the last few days leading to my departure, my theme song was Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.

It was wicked. Totally. Heh Heh Heh...

Maybe in 2007 I'll learn to relax a little more when it comes to work. In the meantime, I still have about 30 days left to ponder over what I've achieved over the past year and what I haven't.