Lalisa has been living her life full of rejections. She was rejected as a child by her own father, rejected by the first girl she had a crush on in school, fooled by the first girl she dated, rejected by her professors in college just because her wo...
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She was cooped up in her office at 3am to finish her latest project before its deadline is 3 days from now. There was no one else left and the whole firm is dark except for the light shining from her double monitors. She was making adjustments on each plans on the other monitor as her 3D sketches automatically adjusts as per her 2D sketches on the other. Her favorite pen is perched between her ear and head and another one which she spins between her fingers after she writes on her notepad. She hasn't slept yet. And she's starting to feel the symptoms of a migraine but she can't take a rest. Not yet. Because this will be her first major and her biggest project and she can't fail this one. Not anymore.
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She leaned back on her swivel chair, lifts her specs up to her head and cracked the knots in her neck as she loosens her hair tie to re-tie her messy half bun up while waiting for her hatch to complete. She then looked at her phone and checked the time. 3:42AM. She still has more or less 2 hours before she can go home, take a shower and change then meet up with her other client for a breakfast meeting to discuss the design of her other project.
"Fuck!" she breathes when she looked back at her computer and it showed her her worst nightmare...
FATAL ERROR.
"Did I save it?" she asked herself. "Fuck it, Lalisa. When will you ever learn?!"
She closed the software and restarted it hoping that it has atleast an autorecovery file. She can feel beads of sweat running on the side of her head down to her neck, her hands getting clammy and her eyes burning for being awake for more than 38 hours now. She doesn't really need her computer to be acting up and for it to smell fear right now.
"Come on, come on..." she says as the software loads and opens. "Yes!" she exclaims when she finally sees that autorecovery file she's been praying for. She immediately opened it and pressed CTRL + SHIFT + S to save it into a new file. "I am one lucky daughter of Satan." she smiles. It's a small win for some but it is big for her.
You see, Lalisa has never really handled any major project in her 5 years as a licensed architect, urban planner and construction manager. She's good... like, top of her class and board exam good and as what her two bestfriends and former clients say to her but she still feels she's not good enough to handle big projects their firms are bagging. Why? Because all her life, Lalisa was always rejected. It even came to the point that she had to change her name because the shaman thought it has to do with her former name. Be it a small or a big thing. School-wise, friendship-wise, relationship-wise (?) and well... Family-wise. She's like the living, breathing proof of rejection. That's why you can't blame her for not having the confidence to handle any project bigger than a three-storey residential building with rooftop. She's had some, yes. Like that low-rise condominium located in Gangnam and that strip mall in Itaewon and the designer boutique in Hongdae. But aside from those, well... she'd rather stay with the houses. Because she feels like handling big commercial, mixed-used and especially institutional projects would again be another failure for her.
