Memoirs.

Sometimes I wonder if I just lack the passion and motivation that I had before to chase and do things that I would have used to enjoy.

For example, last week I was in office for a training session about how to think about your own career, and how to identify others who could help you improve yourself. The training session consisted of a few partner level individuals talking about their career story and the numerous people who have helped them get where they are today. They also talked about how people love to nurture and support others, and to not be afraid when it comes to asking for help. They finished the talk with a few minutes to self reflect on some questions about yourself and where you want your career to be in 5 years. Then they asked us to try and create some SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, time-sensitive) goals in order to help us achieve that.

I used to love these moments and would often actual reflect using these moments, but in recent times I have found myself inwardly sarcastically snarking over these “reflection” moments. I think “as if any of these things will ever make a difference! successful people will become successful regardless”. Quite a bit cynical, I agree. But as I’ve become more self-aware of my recent bout of cynicism, I decided to force myself to give it a try, as I did not have anything better to do.

So I got started.

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It wouldn’t be fair to say that I intrinsically “looked down” on therapy. I think it is more fair to say that I found it difficult to stomache the idea of therapy.

I mean, you want me to go to someone I’ve never met with person, and talk to them about my insecurities?

The me that doesn’t like to talk about myself much in the first place?

The me that finds it hard to open up to someone within a year?

The me that cannot even describe my insecurities?

The me that refuses to look at the unknown orb of mess within?

How can anyone do that?

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God it’s been a long time since I’ve made an entry.

I skipped all of 2020 without anything, and honestly was planning to skip all of 2021 without anytjing either.

But these days things feel so…. difficult.

I’ve always believe that when things are tough, another bad thing will always follow it. Bad things come in groups, and never come alone.

Maybe there’s some self confirmation bias at play here, where I only recognize times where this happens, but there’s so many times throughout my life where I feel the pressure, and then all the other things around me seem to collapse just for the sake of adding more pressure.

Recently I’m starting to lose my mind over COVID-19 flight restrictions.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think their stupid. K think they’re very reasonable, and evenaube that North America is still taking it too lightly, resulting in almost a year later, cases still continue to grow. Looking at somewhere like China, where the redirections are so severe, their cases plumeeted so fast, and are now insanely low compared to ours (at least on Beijing which I am the most familiar with).

But I digress.

Not being able to visit my girlfriend who lives in LA, for almost a year now, paired with having my December trip cancelled days before due to her aunt and mothers sudden change in opinion is really hurting me. Especially now that they want me to come over for a weekend in February.

It feels like a mini betrayal, as all the time and personal thought I put into finally making the decisions to go over against all the wishes of family and friends, and making the time for it from work and work-from-home arrangements, was in the end thrown out by the very first people to approve the idea.

And that’s only going into one of the large uncertainties. We’re not going into the topic of long-distance.

Personal life situation – frustrating.

Then there’s work.

2021’s busy season is shaping up to be the worst busy season that has ever been and 0robablt ever will be for a while at my firm.

Lots of recent staff leaving (about 10% of accounting staff in the last month, of which half is from my team (15-20% of the team) resulting in more work having to be passed around the remaining people.

Working from home reducing efficiency in a time where OT and efficiency is demanded on a daily basis all the way until mid June for me.

Firm management cutting costs and trying to do their best to not understand or relate to staff. The most negative mood I’ve ever felt at the firm.

No physical office presence so there’s very little casual social interaction and team bonding atmosphere to make you feel like you’re not suffering alone. The fee things that kept people sane throughout the busy seasons.

My increasing awareness of the heavy drama within my team and the growing disdain I have for certain individuals who seemingly lack the ability to empathize with others.

Me feeling trapped because while I want to leave, I’m trapped here due to CPA’s stupidly restrictive experience requirements, $10,000+ of possible fee clawback, and my feeling of loyalty to the remaining friends I have within the firm to not burden them with more work.

Oh and while I’m on the topic of my remaining friends at the firm – the sudden decrease of 60% of the coworlers I genuinely care about in the last 4 months of returning from CFE study leave. It just isn’t the same sense of homeor comfort for me anymore, and I feel lost.

Added with the transition of my personal workload to larger demanding files (which when I’m a good mood I would like), and my suddenly large increase in responsibility and manager scrutiny/expectation due to it, and I’m feeling the pressure.

Work line situation – frustrating.

As the cherry on top, for the first time ever, I’m consistently having trouble falling asleep.

Maybe it’s these thoughts that keep me awake late into the night, but it hurts my health, and hurts my deteriorating hands.

I’m starting to crumble.

And that’s making me need to write, because this is what stopped me from crumbling all those years ago.

I just hope it works again this time.

• 

Wishing for a great 2021.

Just before starting this post, I took a quick look as my post history to see when was the time of the year I most frequently had rant posts about my mother.

Honestly, I was hoping it would be during April, so I could get some support for my sudden theory that busy season is just when my mom has no sense of rationality or compassion.

Turns out the most common time it happens is during the summer. Which I guess I can understand. That is always the time I have the least classes, the least to do, and the period where I spend the most time at home. The most time my mom can see me like… not doing something she wants me to be doing, and the most time she can give me shit about it.

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It’s been 2 months since I’ve started working.

Work has been progressing fine. I might even call it good.

I’m learning a lot. I’ve never felt such a connection to the nonsensical accounting drivel that was spoken about during university. All those assertions, confirmations, PPP cycles, consolidation, spot rates, and risk determinations that I previously unconsciously dismissed as something that wasn’t worth remembering has now come back in waves. I guess I shouldn’t denounce it like that, but the idea remains the same.

I understand this is a personal blog, so I have every right possible to continue discussing the accounting witchcraft I’ve been experiencing, but I’ll show some self restraint and refrain from it. I guess I’m also required to maintain confidentiality on some of this stuff, but it’s probably because I’m too lazy to type all that out.

I’m also interested in learning about people.

I feel like it’s hard for me to get to a stage of closeness where I can learn about them. I think it’s just my overall personality is too… “polite”? And not so much personable. It’s been difficult for me to get to know my coworkers. During work I really only want to work, but after work I don’t feel like I know them well enough to chat. I feel like I estrange myself from them, which is making it hard. Though, it’s gets better over time as I spend more time with them, but it’s just that I’m not a social butterfly who gets on good terms with everyone fast. I feel like when it comes to group conversations, I play the role of like the 4th person in a conversation, whatever that means to you.

Changing my own habits is difficult.

Recently though, I’ve been getting to know someone online. My guild leader in the SAO phone game I play. It’s weird, I feel such a motivation and willingness to learn more about them, yet I don’t feel like this with others. Is there some reason for that?

Skip to the night before CFE results. I’m a little stressed. Stressed from the being deathly sick on the weekend. Stressed from spending my weekend on useless accounting modules. Stressed from DT saying he’ll never ask us for badminton again. Stressed that my assignment is due Friday and I’m not submitting early. Stressed that today I can’t get any work done. Just a little bit stressed.

I’m also tired. Tired of feeling anti-social. Tired of not having fixed the things I want to fix. Tired of finding excuses for them.

So the night leading up to CFE results, I’m probably the least energized I’ve been since starting work. On the night I should be the most energized for all of this.

I remember some years ago, Cindy said that she wanted to go to a nightclub. I forgot what I said, or if I even said it, but I said something like “I’ll go with you”.

Today I went to The Roxy. A nightclub in downtown beside the Vogue, and is a mid-size firm tradition for the night before CFE results.

I’m not a CFE writer this year. I haven’t put the 2 years of work, busy seasons, module exams, late night classwork, and stupid workshops like they have. But they have. And the culmination of allthat ends with the results of a 3 day. It reminds me a lot of IB, but more stressful.

Tonight is a day designed to loosen the writers up, before they get their results the morning afterwards. This is the tipping point for the rest of their accounting career, and for some of them, that has been their life.

So how could I not attend? As someone who has only started about 2 months ago, the writers are literally teachers to me. And as someone who constantly reminded them of the slowly arriving results day, I had to attend. It was required of me.

Sure. It starts out with a CFE lunch. I join the non-pubco (my team) table because I thought all the tables were full. I feel like I’ve wronged my team by ditching them casually. I enjoy myself talking to a few other new starts.

Then the after work Lion’s Pub event starts at 5pm. This is the pre-event to the Roxy nightclub day-ender after 8pm.

Lion’s pub. It’s loud. Loud enough that I need to lean in to hear people talk. I mean, there’s 100 of us squeezed into an area that places tables that sits about 30. It’s a little bit of a pain, and I only know pubco people, but I’m spread far away from them, and I hate these events. The reaction for me is to just try to shrink into the wall. I somehow find sanity in hanging out with some Juniors, and make it through to 7:30pm, where pubco is having a dinner.

After a brief fight with the other Juniors about abandoning them, we go to a restaurant. I don’t talk too much, but I try to stay engaged in the conversations. Normal for me, and that’s what I like. I learn that most of them prefer different things from me, but that’s normal. If they didn’t, they’d just be me.

Then we go to the Roxy. A loud nightclub full of other mid-sized accounting firms trying to get their writers’ minds off of tomorrow.

It’s everything I imagined it being, and nothing as I imagined.

I think the easiest way I can describe my feelings is that was everything that I didn’t like in a social outing. A bunch of people I don’t know. It’s too loud for me to hear anything. Everyone wants to dance. Drinks are piling on. I can’t hear anyone. The music is being drowned out by chatter.

All I want to do is just shrink into the wall. Become one, with the wall. That’s all I want to do. I’m really not about this nightclub life. I prefer singing to dancing, whispering to screaming, and small groups to big groups. My entire rational brain is telling me that this is not my space. That I need to leave. To forget this place and just escape into a corner.

I tried a bit to force myself to do something. That went okay. But I’m not a super social kind of person, j don’t make friends instantly, and I really hate multi-person conversations. What I like is learning about people, and I feel like these events are not conductive to truly learning about people.

Maybe I’m just wrong though. What I like isn’t learning about people, but learning about people that I like. These are the moments where having a relationship sounds tempting. When you’re at a low point, you can link up with someone else to get better. To find comfort in someone else, that’s what I longed for. I feel a little like I left a bit of myself in the Roxy, never to be found again. At least I managed to say bye to 2 out of the 3 CFE writers on my team (that attended). I felt too mentally tired to cross the line to say bye to the 3rd one. There were too many other people, so even my obligation towards them wasn’t enough.

These are the times I truly wish for another person. Someone to just complain to, and then let loose. Someone who I feel is responsible for handling this, or else I feel like I’m unnecessarily burdening someone.

But at least tonight let me know who I need to appreciate at work more.

But back to the idea that I only like learning about people I like. I like my guild leader. She’s a good person. I’ve struggled with this before, but what truly is the difference between getting to know someone you like, and falling for someone. I think that is worded poorly. I used to think that I just start to fall for people that I get to know better. I felt like my crushes were all based on me feeling close to them, so I felt like I loved them. Like “yes, this must be the feeling”. But recently, I’m starting to wonder if it is because I like them, that’s why I’m getting close to them. Thinking that makes me realize there are females in this world that I feel close to, but I never have had these weird feelings for. It also makes me realize, is this like the first step towards starting a relationship? Is this what I had been doing for all those years prior?

That’s a small revelation in itself for me. Giving myself the small chance of not being weird and desperate, and more just… normal. The idea that I’m not some stupid anti-social guy that is falsely attributing closeness and friendliness with attraction. That’s a nice idea. Understanding that makes me a lot more willing to mine pursue something, even if it’s unlikely.

This is an acceptable understanding after a long day. I’m not sure what these new feelings will develop into, but I’m going it’s for the better. I won’t make any future plans, and just let life take it’s course.

I mean, it hasn’t failed me yet has it?

Sometimes life works in strange ways.

The Past

I had almost forgotten about Catherine, a shy girl the same age as me who lived with me for almost 3 weeks back in 2010. And then out of nowhere, she was going to live with me again for 10 days this time. Suddenly, all the memories that I was so close to forgetting came out into prominence. Trying to remember her must have kicked all of them back to me. A quick trip to my previous blog on Google’s blogger showed that my memories were mostly correct. Pulling up old photos from 2010 (before I started to really save my photos!) reinforced them once again.

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For the first 4 months of the new school year starting with September, I felt a sense of freedom that I had never felt before. It was liberating having multiple days per week without class, having maybe 1 assignment per month, having no real attachment to the classes I was taking. These courses didn’t shackle me to live a routine lifestyle like previously, and this new sensation was exhilarating.

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My 2017’s new year goals are here.

I have no words to waste so lets get started.

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Woke up a lot later than usually, so I decided that rushing to make the last 30

 minutes of my morning class wasn’t worth it.

The entire trip to campus, I was thinking about what to do about this iPhone. And how I would contact Bill. I’m not on league most of the time, so how am I gonna contact him? He deleted me off WeChat and probably doesn’t use Facebook at all. I could text him, but does he still have me on his phone? I’ll have to just try to find him on league, and at worst text him. Hopefully it doesn’t look too obvious that I’m trying to reach out to him because he has some family problems. He is supposedly very suspicious of people right now.

I kept thinking about this as I was walking to class. Not so I could go to class, but so I could sit around outside and wait for my Prof to leave before I walk into the same room for my following class. Awkward.

I’m almost at Henry Angus, until I see this person that looks like Megan. I haven’t spent much time thinking what to do if I saw her, and was pretty shocked. You know, in my head she had already graduated. It made sense to me, it’s been 4 years since high school after all.

I reacted slowly because my mind was pre-occupied, and because she was far away, I trailed her. The entire time I felt like such a fucking creep for doing that. In my head I was trying to justify it with “I’m just making sure it’s her.” So when I did end up confirming (as much as I can for someone who hasn’t interacted with the other for like 9 years), I had no clue what to do.

Well, I knew what to do, go up to her and ask her if she’s actually Megan, and if she remembers me. But in practice I couldn’t do it. 

It’s a bit funny, because I remembered thinking “I can force myself to talk to potential employers, talking to someone I actually know should be easy.” It did not go like that.

I did nothing.

I don’t really even know why I was so scared. Like… what? I’m just asking someone a question, the worst that could happen is that she says no and I apologise for taking her time. Like…what’s wrong with me?

Is it because it isn’t something I “have” to do, so I can rationalize it as something I am not required to do? Networking sucks so much more, but I view that as ‘necessary’ so I went ahead and did it. But this was definitely not necessary, and there’s no real way to trick myself into thinking that.

Man, I’m such a fucking coward. I’m overly hesistant to do things because I fear feeling embarrassed or doing something wrong. It should be fine to fuck up, but I can’t accept it. I can accept it for small things like assignments and stuff, where a mistake will lead me to improving later on. Though there has always been that feeling of “I should’ve known better” after noticing my mistake. 

Is it because I’m a perfectionist? I don’t even think that way of myself. I haven’t thought that way for ages. I’ve been shown reality through IB, that I definitely wasn’t. Mistakes happened to me all the time then. Then is it the environment I grew up in? My parents did always stress that I shouldn’t make mistakes. I was always chastised for anything I did wrong. Is that why I grew up thinking like this? I feel like a lot of my innate reactions can be kind of tracked to my childhood environment. This really scares me. It’s had been so long since then, and my parents are a bit different from then. And I personally believe differently as well. Then how come I’m still like this?

Sigh. If I ever have a child, I’m going to have to put some effort in to changing my tendencies so they don’t go through this. 

Next week, I’m probably going to ditch Wednesday’s class again. Just to see if I will be given another chance. Because something tells me that she isn’t there normally at this time.

I should be doing my presentation right now. In fact, I have Word open on my other monitor with some notes written.

I don’t have a script or anything prepared, but I’m okay with that… for now.

This is probably a little bit more important to me right now.

I mean, I can’t really make my presentation will completely distracted can I?

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