Speed Of Light!

My boss has been kind and understanding.  Over an early evening meeting, he said to us in all sincerity, “I know I should have asked you two to do this back in November.  But can we have a document in two days?”  Can Michelangelo paint the ceiling of Sistine Chapel in two days?  I suppose with modern technology, nothing is impossible.  I am thrilled by the occasional excitement at work, such as this.

This morning I had an early meeting to host.  I honestly cannot relate to someone living in a time zone sixteen hours behind us.  But early morning seems like a time humane enough to all the participants.  I popped out of my bed at seven, as usual.  Showered faster than usual, ironed my shirt faster than usual.  It took a titan’s will to say no to Cynthia when at a quarter to eight, she asked, “Do we have time for breakfast?”  We hit the road before eight, with empty stomachs.  In about a quarter of an hour, we arrived at Cynthia’s drop off point.  Wow.  The traffic was smooth.  Usually it takes us close to three-quarter of an hour to cover the same distance in rush hours.  Imagine the time and the highway toll we could have saved every day by not eating breakfast at home or by getting up earlier.  I know, neither of these is sustainable option for Cynthia and I.

It was a breezily cool morning, a rather unusual sight in our tropical country.  I was early, and was in a good mood.  So I grabbed a gourmet sandwich that cost S$4.20.  And I made myself a cup of Lipton tea in office.  That was my breakfast at work.

My colleague and I did not have two days to write that document.  Working in a bank, you would know that we have BAU stuffs to do (BAU = business as usual).  BAU work activities are stuffs that require someone to work on in perpetually, stuffs that ultimately justify our paychecks.  BAU are work items that when your colleague goes on leave, you have to work double hard.  So, with the BAU stuffs that we have to do, we only have half a day to write that document.  Can Michelangelo paint the ceiling of Sistine Chapel in half a day?  Fortunately, our boss is expecting a sketch, although deep inside, I feel that sketches should never leave the bedroom.  I was determined to delivery more.

So we worked in the speed of light today.  It was an exhilarating experience, as though I was motor racing with my colleague as my teammate.  Words got vomited out of our brains, spatted onto an electronic media, churned and reworked into a 15-pager.  We solidify chaos into order, vomit into a work of art.  At 5pm, we were still seated at a round table with I going all out in punching the keyboard.  She commented, “You must have a passion in writing.”  True, I said.  But I have a stronger passion to go home and have dinner with my family.

Today, I bumped into another colleague of mine.  And I shared with her that my 2-year old niece does not like to swallow her food, likes to store the food in her cheeks so much so that she looks like a hamster for hours.  What should I do?!  She laughed and told me that all babies born after 2008 do not like to eat, as though the new generation is aware of an imminent food storage due to our planet’s population explosion.  At first I thought she was joking.  But she was not.  She said her kid was the same.  So were her kid’s friends.  Time has changed.

What if, just what if, human beings are able to mutate according to the changing world?  What would trigger such mutation?