Week 10 2026

I'm a little grouchy right now from shitty sleep.

I both love and hate daylight savings. On one hand, daylight savings to me is a pivot point in the year where the spring and summer months are approaching where we can expect great weather and longer days of sunlight. It's kind of a sentimental thing to feel like a kid again where summer break is approaching once we jump that hour forward. Last night however, I was stuck tossing and turning in bed all night from a bout of insomnia. I didn't get to fall asleep until around 4:30 in the morning which is 2-3 hours after my normal bed time of 1 or 2 am. I started getting anxious about not being asleep around before 2am by which all clocks instantly jumped forward to 3am.

Around this time last March I was in Japan with Kathleen. That vacation was taken out of a rushed decision based on the possibility of Kathleen being pregnant sometime during the year in 2025. Sadly we never got pregnant but it granted me the privilege of affording another two international trips later down the year. I'm reminiscing of that time right now because what that vacation helped me do was avoid the chaos of work during March.

The first week of March just passed and I've been incredibly busy at work. Just for context, March for whatever reason, is the busiest month in my laboratory, period. It's like suddenly all the health care patients decided, 'oh boy it's been three months since I've started my new years resolution to lead a healthier lifestyle, I ought to get all my labs tested to see how well I've done!' So what manifests now is that I'm running tests at a quantity 4x the amount of work that I do in March vs December. It's a consistent pattern year after year and as much as I know to expect it, I've never gotten over the anxiety of it. My quality of work and attention to detail suffer greatly during this month due to the fear of missing turnaround-times, failing to stay on top of needed tasks, all the while expected to finishing 2-4 times the amount of work as I normally would in other 'slower' months.

I know I probably shouldn't focus on thinking about work so much but it does take up the majority of my conscious life. On top the stressors that I have as an individual contributor, I'm having struggles with managing my team. I have two lab assistants. One lab assistant is great; she's got a great attitude, she's grateful, hardworking, doesn't complain much, and pretty reliable. The other lab assistant, like a work of fiction, is a complete foil to her counterpart partner - she constantly accuses people of being problematic when she's the problem, complains all the time, terrible attitude, avoidant of work, incredibly sensitive, offended by everything, considerate of nothing. The problem I'm having this month is, well, like clockwork, every March, good lab assistant goes back to her home country for 6 weeks to take care of her dementia-ailing father. The bad lab assistant, also like clockwork, finds a way to invoke her previous/on-going "injury", during the same time as the good lab assistant to avoid being at work for nearly the same amount of time. So during the busiest time of the year, my shift will not have any help from any of my assigned lab assistants for the entirety of this March lab-madness.

My good lab assistant has consistent negative patterns throughout her career. She tends to take an extra sick day off BEFORE a PTO or AFTER a PTO, like pretty consistently. If she KNOWS she's going to do this, why the fuck she just extend her fucking PTO instead of edging and leading me on that she's going to come in to work? This fucking week, she had made plans to leave the country this Friday...but she told me (to my face) that she would only be working for 6 hours maximum on Thursday. I paused where I stood as I was walking with her and I looked at her with the most serious tone and expression, "Tell me honestly right now if you are really going to be here on Thursday. I would rather you tell me to my face that you wont be here tomorrow than to tell me you'll be here for 6 hours only to call out 2 hours before your scheduled time to work. I'm serious." She paused and hesitated for a couple of seconds before saying "I really have a lot of things to do and pack, I won't be here tomorrow." I silently but heavily sighed a breath of utter disappointment underneath my face masked. "Okay, thanks for being honest with me." Walking back towards the department, she would explain her situation to me but I really didn't want to hear more of it. I was just utterly fucking insulted that she still tried to lie to me instead of just being honest. Perhaps she's avoiding conflict in person when she decides to lie...she can go home, call out sick the next day without feeling guilty from seeing the look of anger and disappointment in her colleagues' faces.

The other lab assistant is a constant pain in my ass, I don't even want to think about her right now without constantly recognizing the fact that she's conniving, spiteful, useless, and hypocritical. I don't really care that she's not helpful because her presence around is simply toxic and there's always tension in the air when shes working. Walking on eggshells around her is the best way I can describe her presence at work. Working with her is so difficult that she has become a revolving discussion in most of my therapy sessions (AND THAT'S FUCKING WEEKLY). It's a crime that she occupies this much of my mental space. Fuckin bitch, can't wait for both you and some others to fuckin retire from this place.

On top of work grievances, I haven't had really good sleep in weeks. To be fair, I've never had great sleep hygiene. Sleeping at 2 am is quite routine to me but the latency of actually falling into sleep seems to be increasing. It could be my new adderall plus coffee routine that's fucking me up. Double shot espresso flat white followed by a 10 mg dose of adderall right before work has been the ritual. Funnily enough, my psych-pharmacist is telling me to heed caution with this but sadly I think my body is developing a tolerance now. A couple months back I was adderall usage daily for a month straight...I felt my life improving; diet was on track, keeping to schedule, practicing gratitude, being mindful, I was really improving on so many aspects. Flash forward now, adderall still helps with suppressing my appetite but when it wears off, I easily go back to binge eating. Adderall-induced focus is still pretty good even at 10mg but I'm not sure if its efficacy period is as long as it was before. I really need to jump back into focus again or else I'll slip back into old destructive habits again. ~sigh.

Some highlights this week

I listened to an audiobook for the first time in a very long time. I also have to mention it was my first time listening to a FICTION novel on audiobook. I emphasize fiction because I've been living under this mentality that reading fiction was a waste of time and that ~most forms of readable material should be used to improve oneself or for technical knowledge of a subject...Anything else of readable material is only reserved for relevant niche interests. I also grew up with a distaste of reading due to my inability to sit still and concentrate on anything I perceived as mundane. The book I read was Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Without getting into some literary book review, I can honestly say I did not expect that I would enjoy listening to this audiobook as much as I had originally anticipated. I was so invested into this book that I completely skipped out on discovering new music this week. I had put in a total 10 hours of audiobook just this week and ran out of listening hours offered by Spotify. I got down to the last chapter before I received the notification that I will have to upgrade my account for more listening hours. Fuck you Spotify, I pay you enough for a family plan and now you wanna extort me for MORE money? Fuck you again. I'm gonna go back to discovering new music until my billing cycle refreshes again, and then I'll find another book to latch on to. I figure that if I wanna write better, I ought to read more.

Oh! I went to the movie theater for the first time in over a year. I think the last time I went to the theater was when I had an evening available after a union meeting so I treated myself to watching the Spy Family movie. Anyways I watched Hoppers with Kathleen this past Saturday afternoon. The movie itself was hilarious but I was really bothered by my increased estrogen levels...I found myself being randomly emotional and teary-eyed during some random parts of the movie – This..this just didn't make any sense to me, I know I'm a softy but fuck this was just like a kids movie and I was fightin so hard. Must be the ski ramps.

Had a pleasant Sunday evening at Darren's house for a family bbq. Dad just got back from a class reunion in Southern California. Vincent on the grill as usual; flippin smash burgers, veggie kebabs, and grilled rib eyes. Vivian cooked up some fresh Korean Army Stew. Gigi made some bomb ass cocktail of green tea, dragonfruit, and yakult. Apparently my dad almost got jumped over a rental deposit dispute. One of my aunts is showing symptoms of brain damage from years of uncontrolled diabetes. Just played some simple catch up tonight, grateful for no arguments and no yelling. Seriously. That is a good evening.

I need to get some better sleep. Thanks for reading, grateful to be here.