I am in the office on a bloody sunday

It's Sunday afternoon, it was Alex's birthday - happy birthday Alex ! no, not our kid-in-utero, but the Alex that's married to one of my friends. We tried to get a good photo to give them, but they kind of were running around and entertaining all their guests (and kids) that it was almost no way in hell that we could get a family photo of them without telling them to pose, so we just gave up and talked to other guests and enjoyed our lunch (sorry Jac, if it was going to happen today it would have).

I am trying to finish writing one paper, start on another, prepare a bill, arrange lunch with a client, and prepare a hand-over file all by Monday. I think that's not going to be possible. I will have to re-schedule and stagger everything over the week. It's my last week of work and I think I have just too many things on my plate right now. Over-commitment R us indeed. But the good news is that this is the ONLY time in the one year that I have worked in my law firm that I have had to work on more than 2 consecutive weekends. Yet, not so long ago in Singapore, I think I could count on my fingers (okay and toes) how many weekends I DIDN'T work at all.

At lunch, I was talking to another family who were previously living in Hong Kong (let's call them Mr and Mrs Sachs). They seemed pretty nice, BUT when they asked me "what are you guys doing after lunch?" I said "unfortunately, I have to go the office in a while"; they are the only family who were not utterly and completely shocked. Every other person within earshot expressed abject horror at the idea, and I also got this chorus of "why are you STILL working?!"

I think my life values have evolved over the past few years.

Amongst the people I have loved and left, there are a couple of bankers lurking on the list. Okay okay, in my defence - I was young and impressionable and they looked nice in suits. And at that time I spent all my weekends working anyway, so the only way we could have a relationship was by email, and the only way to demonstrate affection was by spending lots of money on each other. It was very silly, and whilst I do not regret that phase, I am glad it's over!

Fast Forward to 10 years later, and currently, I am dead against Fabien ever becoming a banker/consultant. For myself - I am in no danger as I have absolutely no numerical skills whatsoever. However, I also know deep in my gut that Fab would make an awesome i-banker or consultant if he ever wanted to. I just don't want to lose him to the evil corporate machinery that are large banks and commercial consultancies. Let other people willing to sell their soul go and work for the Mckinseys and Bains. This man comes home filthy from spending 12 hours digging around the insides of a train and he rocks my casbah just the way he is (possibly better after a shower though).