Gaano kahaba ang iyong …?

Pasensya.

Today, I have 5 months, 4 days left to stay in Singapore. I give myself a warm pat on the back for making it this far (PBB contestant, isdatyu??). Patience is a quality I’m not really known for having much. If you know my stories and rants, living in Singapore has been a constant struggle. Moving here 19 months ago, I least expected this from an industrialized country. I’ve tried to get out of this mess a long time ago, but well, I’m still right here.
 
When I said I don’t have much patience, I guess it all really depends on the context. I’m probably the most pathetic self-taught pianist to boldly try a Tiersen’s music. I spend 2 hours in one-sitting on my semi-weighted keyboard just to finish 3 or 4 bars of music, which is perhaps just 10 seconds long. And I haven’t even perfected it. But in the end of my practice, with my sored and strained fingers, I’m happy.
 
I tried surfing once in Desaru (Malaysia, not a Japanese village despite sounding like one), and I braved its mighty waters, it smashes right against me, waves hit my board fiercely, it went literally flying tagging along my leg. But I never gave in. I’m the kind who doesn’t give up easily if I’m into it.
 
Could you imagine that at my very mature age of 27 I’m still hoping (onlyy tinnny bit) for a career change? (Rhetorical question, don’t answer.) Last week, I started doing an audio-visual production for my sister’s wedding coming by the end of the month, which is next week actually. On my first day with the project, at 2 o’clock in the morning, I checked my time. I spent close to 4 hours playing around a convoluted Adobe software only to finish the day with a 10-second animation. That’s an average working time of 24 minutes PER second of edited video. Great. 180 more seconds to go as my planned AV is 3 minutes and 10 secs long. If I will be working on the same pace, I still have 4,320 more minutes to work on, which is equal to 72 hours of constant work. No sleep, no eat, no toilet break, no nothing but the computer and me.
 
But still, I think the 10-second animation I’ve started doesn’t look that bad. Not the spectacularly-breathtaking-eyegasmic-sick kind, but it’s neat. That’s probably the safest adjective for it. Neat. (I’ll reserve that spectacularly-breathtaking-eyegasmic-sick kind for later on).

What I’m trying to say is that I persist in all things, even when I don’t like it. But sometimes, you just ask yourself, what is all about these sacrifices? What is the point of staying? You give your best shot but did they appreciate it? No.

My boss just came back from his glorious overseas vacation (of course, leave with pay whereas I don’t get a single hour of paid leave in my entire 2-year contract. I’M NOT LYING.). He has been relentlessly asking me for another year contract extension. I guess this is the 4th time he asked me about it and the rumor spread like fire. Sooner, all the other people around me were asking about it. I always keep my cool and say I’ll have to think about it because 5 months is still a long time.
 
See? I’m not that bad and I even gave him hope. Knowing inside me that the likelihood I’ll stay is if and only if they give me at least 250,000 PH pesos per month. Tax-free. Fine, even if it’s gross. I would even fix them coffee everyday.
 
Saying this answers my question earlier about making sacrifices. The obvious answer for me is because of money. To buy me security; pleasurable tangible things; investments, etc., but how much would you really be contented? How much is enough? More than any mathematical challenge, it’s harder to set the margin when to say that sacrifices are worth it. That is relative.

What is my own margin? I looked around me. I see my things. Although I don’t have a fancy iPhone 4 (I’m using an obscure Siemens phone, displaying the least possible colors on its LCD without being greyscale, and decent enough to have a poor 1.3MP camera), I have a relatively new laptop, a good dSLR and several lenses, photo printer and other photography and videography gears, my M-Audio 88-keys of course, and other minor gadgets and things. I don’t skip meals or starve myself, and I even have spare for savings and help at home. This is how I made the conclusion that I’m not the most unfortunate person in the world, financially speaking.

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I’ll end this post with a simile. My patience is like food. Not because it’s edible or delicious, but for the similar reason that it has an expiration.