Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Coffee and Automobiles

So I can't sleep tonight, surely a side-effect of downing liters upon liters of coffee. But the coffee seems moot now, now that I find myself filling in a blog post rather than my original intention of catching up with tons upon tons of work that's piled up the past few weeks. But that's life, I guess.

The truth? I love my job, I love the new challenges and all the crap that finds their way on top of the growing pile on my desk. Seriously, this job presents several opportunities that are way over what most people would expect out of me during my extended stay in college.

So why am I not burying my nose in work-related stuff? Because I'm distracted. I took to the weighing scale this morning and found myself a tad over my ideal weight. By "tad", I mean several pounds, several SEVERAL pounds. So here I am about to launch into another fit of self-pity and wallow in the shame of not being able to close that annoying little top button on my shirt.

I suspect that the excess weight has something to do with the amount of food that I've been eating lately. Somehow, I've rediscovered carbohydrates and chocolates and sugar, those bad little molecules that have no other purpose than to make shrinks and personal trainers filthy rich. And the total lack of physical exercise isn't helping either. I tried to jog this afternoon, all I could manage was a bouncy stroll around the neighborhood. It's depressing when you're "jogging" and an old man walking a dog overtakes you on the sidewalk.

What the heck am I doing with my life?

*****

I kinda promised myself that I would get myself a new car by the middle of next year. It's one of those goals that you randomly get after some random guy on the street hands you a flyer. So I got around to actually choosing what kind of car I should get myself, with the help of some equally chain-smoking officemates who didn't really have any other non-work topic to discuss.

Personally, I didn't care what car I would get. After clunking around in the ancient barrel of bolts that I use to get around, anything with actual shock absorbers would be an upgrade. But apparently, this was the sort of matter-of-life-and-death decision that you had to make way in advance. My whole person would be dictated by this materialistic choice.

For example, I mulled getting a compact Toyota... something that wasn't flashy but ever-reliable. But apparently this was a horrible choice. I had to get something that stuck out from the crowd... sort of like the hipster equivalent in the automotive industry. According to these industry experts, getting something that millions of other people trusted with their lives was not good.

For the sake of being agreeable, I pretend-decided to get the nifty new Ford. Never mind that spare parts would cost me an arm and a leg, or that it would guzzle away paycheck after paycheck in gas and maintenance. This car was something that would set me apart from the crowd and put me above every Tom, Dick and Harry. I was agreeing to this just because my ultimate decision was 7 months away, assuming that I've be able to scrape enough savings from my teeny-tiny salary.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to drive (pun, hah!) is that sometimes, a lot of people's decisions have nothing to do with what they needed but what they wanted to become. And this came with a hefty price tag, I might add. I do not want to be marginalized by this twisted logic, and in a few months I would still seriously contemplate "settling" for that Toyota. But  how much of an impact would this have on my social standing, I wonder?