The contest and the lady

morning in the office was sluggish. right after booting the computer, i immediately plugged two USB HDs to the computer then moved some 2Gigabytes worth of files from one external hard disk to the other. what was i thinking! the computer's processing slowed down to a crawl, it took a several seconds just to shift windows. darn. i should have used another computer for this migration, couldn't do anything else swiftly until this is finished. on the other hand, this is an opportunity for me to stare at nothing without feeling too guilty. so i dawdled.

the afternoon was a different story. our team was drafted for some company contest. participating groups would make a presentation about their work, et. al. the top three presentors will go further to the next level competition. anyway, i was not sure which auditorium it would be, so my manager suggested we go together. that meant he walk, i sprint. even with Japanese standard of walking speed, he really walks fast, as if hounded by something.

in the auditorium, the gathered workaholics were subdued and formal. i expected some buzzing activities common during minutes before a competition. the presentations were all in Japanese, formal-business mode. therefore i could only sift around 5% of what they babbled about. i spent the first few moments oggling the high tech gizmos in the vicinity. at the sight of the familiar signal lamps - green, yellow, red - memories of grade school days' competitions came to mind. i kind of miss it, the excitement and jitters moments before contests begin. the way it made you feel nervous and go to the comfort room but nothing would come out. such reminiscing bought me extra time before droning. after the first presentors were done, the panelists started to ask questions. my attention focused to the only lady in the panel. from the elegant hairdo and make-up, to the tailored suit and power shoes, she exuded confidence. if i sit next to her, i'd look like a kid that needs scrubbing. i wondered what did it take to get her there? did she needed to give up some few important things in her life? is this her calling? does she also have bad hair days? how does she handle pressure? yoga, spa, chocolates?

am i gonna be like her someday? is that what i want?
( i like the suit and the shoes though ^o^ )

oh btw, our guys made it to the top three =)