new job'd

It's been awhile, I'm aware. So far the only really big update is that I've gotten myself outta the advertising agency world and into the realm of brand positioning and market research. I've been here for about 2 months now and loving every moment of it. Granted, it's still work, but so far it's been quite the great. It may just be the proverbial "honeymoon phase", but I'm okay with riding that out. Since starting out here, I've gotten nothing but encouragement and support. Lots of positive words, constructive advice and genuine appreciation for the work that I do. It's like being on a family sitcom, like Full House or something. All in all, so far so good. :)

Oh! And did I mention that I actually DO leave at 5pm now? Albeit, sometimes I have to work late, but not as late as back at the agency. And those work-late-days are few and far between, which means that I can actually plan stuff outside of work. It's a good feeling to get a bit of balance back in my life.

That being said, as much of a great job as this is, I do recognize that there's tons that I learned back at the agency that have proven to be extremely helpful in my new role. Things that I never would've known coming right out of school, things that are invaluable nuggets of knowledge that I'm sure will stick with me well beyond agency days and my current position. So maybe there is some grain of truth in people saying that you gotta pay your dues in your first ventures after graduating. In addition, I guess I'm starting to see why God led me the agency first before coming to this place in my young career. Guess He knows what He's doing after all. :)

Anyhows, back to work. Got me a sushi lunch to go to at 12:30 to follow up our Kris Kringle gift exchange yesterday. Result of the gift exchange: brand spankin' new pearl white sigg bottle with cherry blossom design. Love me this job. :)

pinky

noun the finger farthest from the thumb (syn the little finger)
{ref: www.dictionary.com}

so last last weekend, i was warming up for our softball game and a grounder bounced up funny and hit my 4th and 5th fingers (ring and little fingers) on my right hand. the 4th finger was fine, but by the time the 1st inning rolled around, my pinky finger was quite the swollen, to the point where i could no longer close it. i continued to play (yes, i've been told by many that i'm nuts to have continued to play), and by the end of the game, it was swollen and bruised. i believe will jung described it as looking over-inflated. :P anyway, needless to say it was extremely painful in the days to follow and i had to tape it up, and basically immobilize it.

i always thought that there wasn't really much use for the pinky. sure, we use it to type, play instruments, hold stuff, but for the most part, you can do a lot of those things without the use of your little finger. little did i know what an impact having a taped up and immobilized pinky would have. here are just a few of the challenges i had to face with my jammed / injured pinky:

- can't type as efficiently or quickly (try typing with your pinky completely straight at all times and unable to withstand even the pressure of pushing a keyboard key down... even worse when you tape your pinky to your 4th finger for further stability... typing is EXTREMELY hard)

- can't really write well as the pinky usually curls under the rest of the hand so as not to be in the way, and eases the flow of writing (again, try writing with your pinky completely straight)

- opening anything that has a cap is a challenge... even something as simple as an iced tea bottle or a bottle of whiteout (normally your pinky would curl as well and aid in providing strength to open the bottle... hard to do when it's taped straight)

- difficult to hold a bag or anything that has handles as the pinky cannot bend around it providing support and stability to the hand that is carrying the item

- really hard to hold a bat and hit as you can't really grip as well with the hand that has the injured pinky... somewhat throws off your balance and control

those are just some of the examples. you can try to do any of the above items with your pinky taped straight, and see just how hard it really is! but i guess the upside is that anything you do seems all the more polite and dainty cuz your pinky's up all the time :P

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anyway, i got to thinking about how such a small, little, seemingly insignificant finger can have such a large impact and can make some of the simplest tasks in life all the more difficult when injured or incapacitated. where am i going with this? well before people think i'm crazy in finding such deep meaning in a jammed pinky... let me just say this... sometimes i feel like a pinky. :/

what does that mean? sometimes i feel insignificant, unimportant, small (in more ways than just my vertically challenged height), and well, invisible. and while the better part of me knows that, like a pinky, i do serve a purpose and have meaning and are important to those around me, it's sometimes very difficult to see that for myself. and as a result, i dig myself into this rut of sorts, where i become a hermit and seclude myself from the rest of the world. what's kinda interesting is that all the years of design school have taught me how to be a hermit inconspicuously. instead of flat out avoiding people and not talking to anyone, i still maintain some sort of social face and talk to people, but often head home when given the first opportunity (often without even giving notice that i'm leaving) rather than going to hang out with others. and for those that know me well, if i leave without saying g'bye, there's usually something majorly wrong, and it usually has something to do with feeling invisible... like a pinky.

i know it's not the best solution or best way to work out these feelings of pinky-ness. heading home and away from community results in my feeling more pinky-like, but home is my safe haven, where i can run from the rest of the world and re-emerge when i'm not feeling so pinky-esque. these senses of invisibility and insignificance happen in waves, some waves more drastic than others and they USUALLY blow over and go away, but sometimes they last a bit longer, and i hide from the world for a little longer than usual (in an inconspicuous manner of course). i'd like to come to some grand conclusion and come across some divine intervention, but i haven't quite gotten there. just figured it was something i'd throw out there.

anyway, my right pinky is still sore, and i'm dreading a doctor's call that will tell me that my x-rays were positive and there's something seriously wrong with my pinky. but in the meantime, i'm really feeling like one. :P

advertising o.O

got some time left over from my lunch break... only took 15 mins to eat then got pulled away to do something >.< but anyhows... for a lot of people who've talked to me about my job and asked the question of whether i like it or not, my answer has always been "meh, it's alright, i guess" or "it's okay, i'm learning a lot, so i guess that's good" or something similar along those lines.

truth is, i was never big on advertising. when i was in school and professors talked about what a design job in the advertising industry is like, i always thought "nope! never want to be in advertising." and lo and behold, God for whatever reason He has, decided to give me my first job... in advertising. funny, isn't it? yet further proof that God MUST have a sense of humour, duckbill platypus aside.

it's been a year now since i've started full-time work as a graphic designer. and i can say with full confidence that my professors were absolutely right; everything they described advertising to be is absolutely true. crazy deadlines, fast / super-fast workpace, high expectations, low pay, etc. and the list goes on. i get that i'm in a junior position and as many of my older friends have told me, i gotta pay my dues before i get to move up the proverbial ladder. others have told me that it's a great experience cuz if i can make it here, then i can make it anywhere.

here are some of the crazy feats i've gone through since beginning my design career, starting in the advertising industry:

1) staying until 10:45pm on multiple nights, some occurring on evenings where it was blizzarding outside and the snow was literally a couple feet high when i stepped out of the office building

2) working every night until 11-11:30pm for a week straight

3) staying overnight in the office, pulling a 9am - 6:15am shift to get a job done

4) working evenings and weekends (in addition to the regular 8 hour day)

5) working from home even on days i had to call in sick

and here's the kicker: no OT pay and no compensation (e.g. lieu days / days off). and no, i don't get paid a whole lot on my regular salary... think i'm under the average pay for a junior by about 5Gs.

anyway, all that aside, i'm still in full belief that God has His reasons and purpose for placing me here... in advertising. i'm yet to come to any realization as to what that may be, but i guess that's a work in progress kinda thing. needless to say, it's a difficult job, extremely challenging, and has caused me to think again about whether i want to do this graphic design gig or not on multiple occasions.

i can elaborate more about why advertising is really not the industry of choice for me, but me thinks i should get back to work. don't want to work OT tonight cuz i spent 15 mins on blogger. :P till later i suppose. :)

here we go...

haven't really been on the blog scene for a while... and from what i gather from the advertising industry and just from observations as a whole, blogging seems to be on the downward trend nowadays. facebook's really where it's at... the current hawt item and where people will post notes (which are eerily similar to blogs) about themselves, their thoughts, etc. anyhows, despite the trend, i'd much rather blog than post notes on FB. :P

so that being said.... life since january 10, 2008 has been nothing less than a whirlwind. work has been, well... work: busy, exhausting, absolutely ridiculous at times, but still something that pays the bills and puts money in the bank. that being said, i'm starting to wonder where it is God's leading in terms of career and career development. ideally i have a ton of things in mind that i'd like to do and yet no idea as to what i want to do first nor what's in line with what God wants for me (i'll blog at another time about how my plans don't always match up with God's... or how God likes to throw me curve balls to test my skills at catching :P ) some of the things on the list include:

- working abroad for a year or at least staying abroad for more than just two weeks
- going to teachers college in hopes of teaching one day
- exploring other areas of design outside of advertising
- working in a place that actually has a creative / art director
- travelling and seeing places in this huge, yet small world
- getting married and having a family one distant day in the future

so those are just some of the things on the list. and thinking of these things and how to possibly achieve these things makes my head spin and could possibly cause it to implode / explode... so i try not to think about it TOO much. :P

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ANYway... on the plate for the next few months also known as summer:

- California trip for cousin's wedding
- softball, softball, and more softball (Penitence for CCSA, and the girls Blitz team in an Ajax league)
- work... of course... oh how i wish i had summer breaks again :(
- getting the legs under Sketchpad ministries (creative arts ministry at ETCBC)

think that's about it... but considering how much time all of those things take up, i'm sure i'll be quite the busy nonetheless. again, i say this at the end of every blog entry, but i WILL try to blog more. perhaps people reading need to poke / bug me about it more often so i'll remember. :D anyway, back to work!

belonging

it's been a long while i know. i'm sure there are a buncha things to reflect on with regards to the events of 2007, but as of late i've been thinking a lot about the whole idea of belonging. as humans we're social beings... we're created to be... God wired us that way... and there's physiological proof of it with parts of our brain specifically created to recognize faces and such. i'm sure there's a bunch more, but i haven't really been pondering the scientific or physiological side of belonging... more the emotional, seeking side.

was thinking the other day how there are so many things about me that cause me to stick out like a sore thumb: being the youngest one amongst a group of people, being older than another group of people, not growing up with yet another set of people, not being cantonese or speaking cantonese, being filipino/chinese (fukien chinese, not canto/mandarin chinese), being the new person, and the list goes on. and these things in contrast to allowing me to feel like i belong cause me to feel quite the opposite, left out. now this blog entry isn't meant to garner sympathy, attention or whatever other negative connotations people can conjure up... it's acting more as an outlet for my thoughts.

i've come to discover as of late that i'm still searching... searching for a place to belong, to feel included, to feel as though i'm a part of something. and while i know that i'm a part of God's family in the grander scheme of things, sometimes it feels like i draw the short straw when it comes to friendships and social groups. there are more times than i can count that i've felt out of the loop, not included, left out, on my own, etc. a friend of mine back in highschool useta say that the reason for that is cuz i'm set apart... and often don't participate in things like going out all the time till late, or when i got older, clubbing till the wee hours of the morning or drinking until i can't even remember my name, and that's why i usually don't get called out to such events. and i remember that it useta bother the heck out of me that i felt like i didn't really have a circle of friends to hang out with regularly... no one to really call out if i felt like doing anything... i mean even Jesus had His twelve! :P anyhow, eventually i got used to the whole independence thing and managing on my own.

and recently i've realized that my environment has changed quite drastically since highschool. i got through university, now working full time, changed churches, now in a new small group for young adults, and again the list goes on. and yet i'm still searching for a place to belong. so perhaps... in this life, here on earth, we'll never really feel like we belong? perhaps it's not until we reach those golden gates that we'll feel included, part of something, accepted and welcomed despite the things that cause us to be and feel different, not left out of the loop, etc.?

anyhow, it's 11:45pm and sadly that means it's my bedtime. sometimes this working full-time thing is really the sux. :( well just some thoughts... will try to blog more... need me some outlets for all the thoughts running amok in my brain. :P