Of Tonsillitis and Projects

At the risk of ostracizing my non-Azeus and non-IT readers, do allow me to write about my work for just a bit. I’m home sick right now with very annoying inflamed tonsils and a slight temperature. I would have wanted to read one of the books in my pending stack but I can’t get off my worries over work just yet.

I’m part of three projects right now. With PONICS, I just do mostly ad hoc stuff. I am just the spectator when Blas bullies Jerome, in jest of course - I hope. CSIS, which I am supposedly coordinating, is just made up of me, Aldwin – our software test engineer, and Marco, our newbie dev. It’s an old project and most of the time, we are in a constant guessing game – trying to figure out what exactly goes on, but we only have each other to rely on. As Aldwin succinctly put it once, “A duling leading a blind leads them to a pit.”

And of course, COMIS, my first project with the company. My teammates and I consider it our “sanity” project. No matter how crazy things become, we always welcome COMIS tasks because it keeps us sane. The camaraderie in our team is widely known, even by the senior management. We still keep in touch with old teammates who have resigned, like Aimee and Patrick. In fact, Patrick once dropped by the office just to catch up with us. Afterwards, he texted us that he’s been feeling down at his job and he only felt better only after seeing us again. (All together now, “Aww…”)

An offshoot of that team is COMIcS, friendships forged through sleepless working nights spent at the office; our energy on coding and testing were fuelled by Starbucks coffee in our bloodstreams. That was the time when we all go home still with yesterday’s clothes on when normal people are on their way to work. Sleep for a few hours at home and then go back to work again. Imagine doing this for a couple months.

Hmm, I’m not sure if I was allowed to divulge what my projects are. I honestly don’t remember the contents of the confidentiality paper I signed almost three years ago. I could always claim that I did not have the mental faculty to recognize what I was doing. On account of my tonsils. And fever. Right.

While our housekeeper heads to town to buy my antibiotics (yeah, that’s how far we are from civilization), my mother pushes two glasses into my face. One with salted lukewarm water and the other malunggay tea. Gargle with one, drink the other.

Gargling the salted water just reminded me of beaches in Surigao where we used to go as kids. And all those times I accidentally ingested seawater whenever we play the game of finding the tossed coin. I terribly, terribly want to go back and visit this year. Beaches just a trike ride away. My amusing nieces and nephews. And the food! Fresh seafood. Sinugba. Chicken barbecue by the pier. *Sigh* Anyone else wants to go to Surigao?

Anyway, the malunggay tea didn’t remind me of anything. It just made me squirm in distaste.