The Human Spirit

One wonders why the number of sports spectators keep on increasing every year. Every big championship in any major sporting events keep on trying to break audience records. What is it about sports that is so appealing to watch, so emotionally involving and so addictive?

At yesterday's Australian Open Men's Singles Final, I was reminded once again as my eyes glued to the telly watching Fernando Gonzales ran across court fighting for every points against Roger Federer. Let me tell you what I see. I see fighting spirit, dedication, courage, physical discipline, agility, passion and other types of emotions I can not find words to describe. Watching the two men hitting those strokes I was breathless with anticipation as if I ran where the ball went. When Gonzales threw his racket due to both frustration and failure to hit, I felt for him too.

This probably won't make me watch more sporting events on telly. It was beautiful to see the best qualities of the human spirit to be displayed, though,... once in a while...

P.S. To Whom It May Concern: NO - I'm not watching football every week. Thank You.

Spotting-Train

I have always had a certain affinity with Trainspotting characters - not because their accents make them hard to understand, but because there are traits of youth that resonates loud across cultures. On my friend's page, she posted this -- and I thought it's fun to check out!


Which Trainspotting Character Are You?

One hot Jakarta Afternoon

Cynth Gone Corporate

It seems like my life lately has been about change. In the places that I go to, the people I hang around with, the workplace where I'm employed -- all of them are undergoing fundamental changes. In the lives of the people I just met, some kind of change was also happening in their lives and in a way, meeting me was part of that new-ness.

It is the new year 2007. My professional life is going through a major change; not just me personally, but also regionally and globally. These created such unease amongst the staff. Communication breaks down, people feel insecure about their jobs, morale is low -- all provides fertile ground of possible conflict.

I was fuming with rage and frustration last night and I had no one to blow off my top to. I wrote an email to my overseas counterparts with a nasty tone -- and then I remembered that I couldn't be emotional about work; no matter how crap things were. I had to keep a professional tone, an impartial view of how things should be. I toned down my email and finally sent it after re-reading it about 3 times. I thought it was pretty good; it was cool with a clear professional disagreement. Or, so I thought ... this morning, I'm still dealing with this problem.

Is it really that hard for people to understand that work conflicts are just work? Most of the times they are fruits of an inefficient system, lack of procedure and sometimes human incompetence. And even incompetence can be improved, provided both parties are willing to address the situation. Although it is good for people to be passionate about what they do (I will only work for a company that I believe in and do jobs that I like.. or think that I will like), it is still important to be able to be objective when it comes to work matters.

As a person who operates largely on instinct, I am struggling to live by these principles. I have been fortunate to have had good supports around me; with simple professional wisdom such as: leave a negative email in your draft box for a few hours before you send it, chances are you have calmed down and you can rewrite the mail to offend less people or, learn to live without your phone when you're meeting people...

They're all common sense. It's 2007 now - welcome to cynth's new journey into the corporate world.

MERRY NEW YEAR 2007