Wednesday, August 18, 2010
I'm enjoying everyday of my work so much that now I don't really like going home early. Hmmm!
"Work and leisure. You can tell you've got a great job if you can't tell these apart."
This is a quote that I read off somewhere, and at the time I read it, I thought that whoever felt that way was either delirious, or had some serious problems with definitions.
I don't think my work is leisurely at all though! In fact it can get downright stressful at times.
For example, last week I had to attend a scholarship ceremony in the morning, where I talked to Abigail Sin and her parents and tried to convince them to reschedule their plans for an international piano festival, before rushing back during lunchtime and rushing out a script in chinese on the NAC and preparing corporate gifts for a meeting with 2 Beijing officials. Moments later, we were at the lobby waiting for the pianist Lim Yan and the officials, and I had to give a stammered speech in my shaky chinese while my boss, 2 high ranking officials and Lim Yan listened attentively. And my boss insisted on speaking english to the chinese officials, so I was doing a blow by blow translation for the 2 officials.
And that was just half a day's work until 1pm in the afternoon.
I really like the stress and the challenges placed before me in my workplace. I think it is manageable, and I do like meeting these musicians and people who take an interest in the arts. We are actually at the frontline working with professionals in getting the scene moving. My department, anyway.
More importantly, I think the people I'm working with are so lovely. It's impossible not to like going to work when the people around you are always encouraging and supportive. I've tried very hard not to make mistakes and I think I've been quite successful in avoiding that around certain explosive individuals.
In any case I think I've been very fortunate to have bosses who trust me and hand me
massive projects to work in. I've been doing one with Beijing and another with Korea so far, and also the Arts Awards Prize Ceremony at the Istana at the end of the year. And lots of competitions end of this year and next year!
And I can't believe it, but I've actually gotten very close to one of my colleagues (aka Sparrow) even though we've not known each other very long, we're now like each other's shadow. We're besties! =D The friendly lunch group that we have is also very heartwarming and helpful. There's no politics among us (since we're all similar level staff in different art forms), so there're no facades to keep up.
I'm just thrilled. It's stressful and I've been dreaming about work a lot (some nightmares, some not.) But the people that I come into contact with daily, and the work that I do make it such a pleasure.
Omnia mutantur
9:49 PM
