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Can we go home now?
In most languages, there’s usually terms or slang used by locals that describe a certain person or scenario. It’s hard to put into words exactly what they mean, and even harder to pull an exact translation. My first language has always been English, which is why most of these were hard to understand, and ended up leading to a lot of conversation between my parents and I about what different terms meant. But much like anything, this came with an exception of a few terms, with one of them being “行街精” (han gai jing).
This is one of the simpler terms used, with its direct translation being “street strolling addict”, but was more commonly used to describe someone who would constantly want to leave the house and go shopping, or activities. Basically, someone who would have a desire to go on outings, And with repetition comes learning, or at the very least memorisation, which is why it’s no surprise that the energetic (and probably at least slightly annoying) kid that was 4 year old Caia was called exactly that over and over again, and similarly to most nicknames, they don’t usually stick forever.
To illustrate this like a story, after a while, all that happened was that time passed and my own perspective began to change. On most days, I spend most of my time working or finishing assignments given throughout the week, or finishing up on projects from extracurriculars and competitions. In year 7-9, I could mainly manage this by working after school only, but by the time I reached year 10, (even after being given warnings from older year levels), the increase in workload was shocking, basically a slap in the face.
Even with attempted work life balance, it wasn’t difficult to see why burnout hit like a truck, and naturally, my grades also took a turn for the worse by our first interim report, but try as I might, nothing I could do would get me to focus properly when I had the opportunity to, nor could I seem to make myself improve faster, which overall lead to what seemed like the easiest option, rushing home and trying to (hypothetically) get everything done.
Although it may be a rotten habit coupled with procrastination, I’ve always found it incredibly difficult to focus on the work I’m doing, without getting distracted or easily bored by whatever I’m doing. Unless a sudden spark of motivation hits (which of course, subsequently leads to not wanting to do anything other than work for the next few hours), sitting at my desk is essentially the equivalent of sitting in front of a wall, not doing anything.
Any story that just shows someone repeating the same cycle over and over, usually means it isn’t at the end of the story yet (or that the writer has begun to lose the plot). So what comes next? According to your average guideline of how stories go (better known as a story mountain), what should follow is the climax, or a resolution, and maybe better yet a satisfying conclusion. But unfortunately, so far it’s been none of those.
So far, I haven’t made much progress in terms of being able to shed this routine of mine, meaning every weekend my parents will still ask me to go shopping with them, and every week I’d disgruntledly pull myself out of my chair and back out of my house. And every time, I still ask the same exact question.
Can we go home now?
To answer it in a blatantly obvious way, probably not. Even if I’ve convinced myself to try, I’ve never found success in the rote repetition of trying to force work onto myself, more or less I simply end up failing to focus, frustrated because I’ve failed, and then somehow become less productive as a result.
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As much as I’d like to say I have made progress, and finished at least the first step of acknowledgement, I can at the very least further elaborate on that to show that I can also acknowledge the long dredge of work ahead, to be able to fully find a way to get work done in a way that doesn’t lead to me somehow being more counterproductive. The second step most definitely being my ability to get more comfortable and adapt to the changes that school will surely throw at me (and my peers, who are also strapped in along for the ride), and still be able to keep a balance.
As much as I’d like to be able to go out more with my parents, stress less about the work that I totally didn’t forget about until the very last second, the changes that I can make will be a slow process, and by the time I can finally get to a resolution and conclusion to my story, hopefully I will have truly improved.
Until then, at least my dog is able to keep my parents company as their placeholder 行街精.
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Can we go home now?
In most languages, there’s usually terms or slang used by locals that describe a certain person or scenario. It’s hard to put into words exactly what they mean, and even harder to pull an exact translation. My first language has always been English, which is why most of these were hard to understand, and ended up leading to a lot of conversation between my parents and I about what different terms meant. But much like anything, this came with an exception of a few terms, with one of them being “行街精” (han gai jing).
This is one of the simpler terms used, with its direct translation being “street strolling addict”, but was more commonly used to describe someone who would constantly want to leave the house and go shopping, or activities. Basically, someone who would have a desire to go on outings, And with repetition comes learning, or at the very least memorisation, which is why it’s no surprise that the energetic (and probably at least slightly annoying) kid that was 4 year old Caia was called exactly that over and over again, and similarly to most nicknames, they don’t usually stick forever.
To illustrate this like a story, after a while, all that happened was that time passed and my own perspective began to change. On most days, I spend most of my time working or finishing assignments given throughout the week, or finishing up on projects from extracurriculars and competitions. In year 7-9, I could mainly manage this by working after school only, but by the time I reached year 10, (even after being given warnings from older year levels), the increase in workload was shocking, basically a slap in the face.
Even with attempted work life balance, it wasn’t difficult to see why burnout hit like a truck, and naturally, my grades also took a turn for the worse by our first interim report, but try as I might, nothing I could do would get me to focus properly when I had the opportunity to, nor could I seem to make myself improve faster, which overall lead to what seemed like the easiest option, rushing home and trying to (hypothetically) get everything done.