opulence...

I got myself something fairly luxurious today

woot!

it comes with 2 cloth bags... ermmm... one for each side?

of course, I'd only buy something like this if its on sale. Still cost me $365 though. There was another pair that I wanted too, but both the city stores didn't have it in my size. That one was cheaper as well, only $275.

I wouldn't mind working/owning a luxury goods store. You don't get the mad shopper dash during sales period. Even if there is a horde of people eager to break down your doors to pick up luxury items at bargain prices, you can just lock them out. People in the store can still shop at a leisurely pace, and the sales staff aren't running ragged. So easy...

Merry Christmas!

You can leave it up to me to get sick on a holiday weekend. Ugh. Indulging in too much pizza and mango splice ice cream. Ended up with a sore throat since yesterday. Its not terribly terrible, but just making me feel out of whack. Especially since I still wake up with my body aching all over. I really should start eating proper (i.e. healthy) food. Oh wells... new years resolution perhaps.

I need to go down city to get some food today. Nothing left to eat at home. I've pillaged some of Tho's frozen crap, so I need to replace that as well. Hope Coles is open today... but I think maybe they close for Christmas. See how it goes.

season's greetings

Merry christmas and a have a happy new 2007 to all.

2007...the year has really sped by this time. especially since I spent half of it technically unemployed. 2006 can be split into 3 parts for me. In the first portion, I was still working at the crane company. That was actually pretty good. I had a car, and was paid pretty well. I was also involved in implementing an accounting system for them. So career-wise, it was actually a decent time.

Then I finished up the work as well as the contract, so its been a jobless black hole after that. I really don't remember much about my job hunt period, except that it was pretty annoying. Only good part is that I got a lot of reading done, mostly in investment material. Oh, I'm also happy to say that I reached my investment targets for the year. Exceeded them rather, but its been boom times for the market, so its nothing to shout about.

After 6 months of job-hunting, I finally scored a consultancy role. Must say thats the highlight of the year. I'm not being paid a whole lot now, but I'm definitely learning a lot of new stuff. The project at my current client is being handed over to me now, so its sink or swim. The company seems to be doing fairly well too, taking in moer graduates and training them up. Theres even plans to expand overseas, which I would definitely take a shot at. So all in all, I'm ending the year in a good note career-wise.

getting hungry now...to be continued

only tuesday

its only a tuesday today, but it kinda felt like end of the week. feel like just slacking off at work... but i've got hell to do now. the project at the client i'm currently with is being handed over to me. its suppose to be early january, but then my boss just went off for holidays already... so its technically handed over to me already anyway. Oh well, at least I can't say my job isn't challenging anymore.

incidently...all the company directors are off on holiday as well. I think most of the consultants are away during this period as well. Unfortunately...banks still operate over the x'mas/ny period, so I still have to go to work. No difference anyway, since if I'm not working, I'll be at the office studying. I can actually have the whole office to myself too, since no1 will be in, and I've got the keys. Hmmm... maybe should go in to watch some movies with the projector :) Need a laptop for that though...

Cheap eats

Very orange...

gotta love it when you can get good food at better prices. Andy introduced this little japanese joint. Its not Tengoku fantastic, but bloody good for the prices. The above bento for just $9.80! If you can't make it out, its salmon, smoked salmon (I think...) and flying fish roe on a bed of rice. Almost exactly like sushi, but without the extra labour in packing it. The bento is equivalent to at least 10 pieces of sushi! 12 pieces, if you compare with Sushi Train crap...

Might go back later this week to try their katsu curry. Feel like having that now...

a fast december

shite... december seems to be passing by real quick. I've schedule my next exam for my Business Objects certification on the 3rd on Jan. Less than 3 weeks to study. Don't know if I can make it in time...especially since I didn't do anything last week. Should be able to get some stuff done over the Xmas/NY period though.

I've already been working at the client side for the past few weeks, if I haven't mentioned it already. No more sitting in the office studying and msn-ing. Ahh... it was so nice being slack. Things are still interesting now. Lots of stuff to learn and do. Most challenging part is documenting the damn project... aihs. My boss is one of those old school developers who doesn't like documentation... soooo difficult to document the project in the middle of it. Doubt I'll be able to finish the documentation before I'm left stranded at the client. I'll be left by myself next month I think. My boss will be moving on to another client and probably train up another graduate if we take in more juniors next year.

This past weekend was quite eventful in a way. My company x'mas party was on Friday... and that was good. Heard a lot of interesting stories about the company and the directors. The previous X'mas party was at the Versace Hotel up at the Gold Coast! How sweet was that! And they had a ski trip last year too. I'll definitely go next year...and hopefully come back unscathed for once.

Saturday was dinner at this Thai place called Pron Promph? Pron Prom? something like that... Pretty good food. I think its comparable with Doy Tao, with cheaper prices too. Its been a while since I ate at Doy Tao, so can't quite remember. Watched Casino Royale after that. Its pretty good.

As for Sunday...I just went down to the city and did some shopping. I bought 2 new shirts and a tie! Shirts nothing much to shout about... quite difficult to find a size 40 shirt. There was 3 different shirts that I wanted... but didn't have my size. Ugh... I think I'll go somewhere else to shop on boxing day. Maybe I can pick up another suit..and a couple more ties.

Bond... James Bond

I saw James Bond today! Not the movie... but whathisname, the aussie Bond.

whatsisname?

not that I'm a fan. Just took a couple of pictures when I passed by. The premiere of Casino Royale was just next to where I'm working at the moment. I finished work, came out of the building and there was a hugeass crowd waiting already. It seems like they were running late. I asked the guard when all the bigshots were arriving, and he said sometime between 6-6.30. The main star arrived at around 7 something. Good thing I didn't bother waiting around. I went to the gym, and he arrived just as I was walking back to the bus. Lucky!

He looks kinda old..

nothing much to say update

haven't really had a chance to blog. I've either been playing FF XII, or catching up on anime. Don't feel like doing both at the moment, so i'm just gonna do a short post.

I'm enjoying my new routine nowadays. I'll have breakfast in the city before heading off to work, or just buy something and eat in the office. Study/work for the rest of the day, and then head off the the gym. The new Fitness First gym is excellent... on the 1st two times I went. This week its just been ok. Starting to get more packed. They are doing too good a job at promoting it... aihs. A lot of people from the other FF gyms are starting to come to this gym. Nooooooooo........ It still ok I guess, there is still enough room and equipment, unlike the FF that I went to in the past 2 weeks. Have to q to go in...and then q again to use the equipment as well. Annoying.

Only other bit of news is that I did my 1st exam as part of my certification today. Completed a 80 minute test in less than 20 minutes. I actually finished in about 10 minutes, but just redid the exam as a check. Got 80% for it ^_^ A good result I guess... but I wanted at least 90% ^_^ Next exam!!

Very unusual speed control method

hell yeah!

I spent part of the morning doing some much needed spring cleaning. Don't have to grind WoW anymore since both me and Thos just reached our target PVP rank earlier this week. We have soooo much free time now. Well. Not really, since I just got Final Fantasy XII and already spent almost 20 hours playing it since Friday o_o

Decided to take a break from it this morning, so got around to vacumming my room and also cleaning the bathroom. Squeaky clean now... the picture of the basin would have been blinding if it weren't for the poor lighting. ^_^


Just an extra... this is what Thos looks like after his weekend training:

Doesn't even bother going to his bed...just crash on the living room floor...

after a comment by a friend, i just realised that the picture of the pretzel looks very much like a well-placed string of poop o_O wet too...

eewww... now i can't get that picture out of my head when I eat the pretzel.

I've started making use of my fitness first membership already. I went for a workout on Sunday, and today too. I actually went yesterday as well, but I forgot to bring a change of pants o_O

I didn't do much both times though. I just wanted a short workout on Sunday, so just hit the cycles for a bit. As for today... it was just damn packed. Can't wait for the newew gym to open up. Should have more equipment.... and hopefully the people who already use the Town Hall gym stays there :p At the very least its closer to work... so I can get there faster after work :)

Actually maybe not. I'm suppose to start my assignment at one of BG's clients this week. One of the big banks in Australia, so that would be cool :) At least I've been told I should be starting this week if all goes well. If not... I just continue camping in the office, study the material, and eat the pringles and biscuits in the pantry. Which reminds me of pics I took of my lunch:

Baked, not fried

A Cin City pretzel... yummy! although the pic doesn't look too good.

The Aussie fridge

Cinnamon coated goodness

Today was a fairly good day. Melbourne Cup, so no work got done in the afternoon as usual. Got a free meal at work too. One of the owners actually went through the trouble of setting up a wok in the office to cook stuff. Quite a lot of stuff. There was some kind of pastry puff, sausage rolls (with real sausages...not the mince sausage crap), satay sticks, meatballs and several different type of spring rolls. And its all home made as well. Quite impressive. Oh... and you can't forget the beer too.

I don't know anything about horse racing and the odds, but I won the office sweepstakes! Its only $50 though...pity it wasn't back at my old office. The pot would have been much bigger. Oh wells.

I also signed up for...

Fitness First!!

The monthly fees were pretty cheap. Only $36.95 for a passport (all gyms, all over the world) membership. Theres also the one off $70 admin fee. Only bad thing is that its a 12-month contract, but you can freeze the membership for a couple of months. And also transfer the membership as well, so shouldn't be a problem. Now that I'm paying for a gym, despite having the facilities at my apartment or just jogging in the park for free... I don't have an excuse for procrastinating. Must get value for my money ^_^

best thing about working in the city? the food! got a lot more stuff to eat now compared to when I was working in Liverpool or at the data entry place. so shioks. Although I've still been eating roughly the same stuff lately.

I've been having either a sausage/egg or bacon/egg sandwich every morning for breakfast. Its pretty good cuz the bread is fresh... very fluffy too. and buttered to the max :) Either that or I get a pretzel. Which is pretty good as well. The ones with glaze on it looks damn ons as well. I'll take a picture of it the next time I have one. Its almost like Krispy Kreme.

Lunchtime, I usually hit the foodcourt at Sydney Central (which is the same place I get the sandwich and pretzels anyway). Usually just have some mixed rice dish. Theres a Thai place that has caramelised fatty pork. Bloody good! And they have cheap takeaway too. $4 for a pack which consists of 1 dish & rice/noodles. Tasty and cheap. I've been having a lot of that lately.

Theres also the Laksa House in QVB that has ok Malaysian food. Not as good as the on at Hunter though... but getting to Hunter from where I work is a pain. Roughly 10 minutes to walk there. Not really worth it when there is plenty of stuff around my area to eat.

Oh. And theres going to be a new Fitness First opening soon near my office. Just about 2 blocks down the street. I might just join that one, since it might be cheaper. Some sort of opening promotion. Gonna pop by the Sales office tomorrow or something. Not sure if I should though, since I won't be working in the office later on. Oh wells. See how it goes.

yay! managed to finish off my work...sort of. Maybe like 85% done. But I think I figured out the problem on the way back home today, so should be finish by tomorrow morning if all goes well.

I also got paid for 7 days worth of work! I think I got overpaid though... not that I'm going to complain anytime soon. When I got my payslip it, I asked how it was calculated. I'm just paid at a daily rate at the moment, and they don't really bother with timesheets and stuff, which is cool. But based on what I got for 7 days, I seem to be getting paid a $48K base which way off the mark. Well... I'll find out the deal on my next payslip

BG had their "techie brekkie" today. Its a monthly meeting where all the consultants get together and have a meeting over breakfast in the office. The topics would usually be recent challenges during the course of work, and how it was resolved. And someone usually does a presentation on same aspect of the product as well. It does seem like a good practice to adopt... although I would probably get annoyed with it eventually if it wasn't for the free food :)

Had to wake up 1/2 hour earlier for this meeting, so I'm feeling pretty tired now. Gonna hit the sack early.

I got my first piece of actual work today. And also started on some online training courses, which doesn't look too useful at first since I've already read the material over the past week.

I'm supposed to write a report for one of BG's clients (I'll start referring to the company as BG). Sounds pretty simple, considering that the request is a 2 liner email with 4 criterias that don't total more than 29 words I think. Unfortunately that not the case. The short email just means theres less information to work with... and its going to take time to elicit the requirements from the client.

Worse still is that I have to understand the structure of their universe (the Business Object term for the structure of the data), which seems to be horribly designed and unnecessarily complicated. And in order to do the report... its a must to do be able to make sense of the universe. And I gotta give an estimate on the time I'll need to finish this and BG will quote that to the client o_O I really dislike having to estimate the time it takes to do something, especially since I barely know shit about the product in the first place.

Ah well...at least its something worthwhile doing. Maybe I'll just quote something like 10 working days and see if I can get away with that :)

theres actually a recent news article that talks about the space I work in now (i.e. Business Intelligence).

probably gives a better picture of what I will be doing future than my previous post. k, back to WoW.

*edit*

oh yeah. was supposed to post up some pics of my office. so here:

the front desk. Meeting rooms are to the left, and the offices are...

... to the right...

... and just behind the partition is my current desk

Not much else actually. The view we get is pretty standard I suppose. We'r next to the QVB, but can't really see much else cuz we'r only on the 10th floor.

what I do

some people have been asking, so I guess I should clarify what exactly my new job is. My title is a Junior Consultant, as the picture I took of my contract says. I work for a small & young (~ 1 1/2 years) company that specialises in Business Objects. Its a relatively new company, but doing very well as evident from the recent employment of 3 new staff (me included).

Business Objects is both a company and a product. Business Objects, the company, creates and markets business intelligence software (i.e. Business Objects, the product). That gist of business intelligence software is that it gathers, processes and analyzes data to enable businesses make better decisions.

My role would be to eventually be to implement and/or support Business Objects solutions. Right now, I'm basically just in the office reading up the documentation, reference books, course notes and getting familiar with the application. I'm pretty much left to my own, since most of the consultants are with the clients. I think I would have some real work to do next week though. I sat in on a client briefing yesterday, and I might do doing some of their reports.

I think thats pretty much it. Next post...pictures of my office!

shopping

I actually did some shopping over the weekend in preparation for my new job. I got myself 2 new suits, 2 shirts, 2 ties and a pair of cufflinks. About $850 in total. Ouch. I'm not a 100% happy with the purchases too. The suits are alright for a start, they have a nice tailored fit without any adjustments needed. And if I get fatter, the pants can be adjusted to have some extra slack :) I'm not sure about the sleeves though. It seems like a good length when my arms are on my sides, but feels kinda short if I extend my arms. Not sure how it should be though.

The shirts that I bought had french cuffs too! Very snazzy looking.

The one of the left is a french cuff, and I think the other one is an angle cut barrel cuff. Didn't know how to put them on at first because the cuffs were poking out of my coat when I tried on my suit as well. So I thought I might be wearing them incorrectly. Turns out I was right in the first place. Its just that the 1st shirt I tried it on with was a 'full cut', meaning wider body and cuffs, so its a little larger. I just had to put on the jacket carefully so that the cuffs stay inside the sleeves. No biggie, although that took me like over an hour to figure out o_O

first day

today was the first day on my new job. have to say its not very exciting. Not a lot I can do at this stage apart from reading and tinkering around with Business Objects, and read some more. Most of the work today was actually just setting up 2 computers with the company's default installation. Pretty simple affair apart from a few licensing issues. Almost everything automated... I really should learn how to set that up. Just click one icon and bam! All the applications that you would need to use is installed and configured.

I think my initial week or so would be pretty much what I've done today. Read, do some practice, read, ask questions and read some more. Quite a lot of stuff to cover, but at a first glance through the material, it doesn't appear that that I'll have a problem with it.

Its a pretty casual environment I suppose. I won't need to wear a suit and tie to work, which is a bit of a pity. Well, not at this stage anyway, since I'm still just doing training in the office. What I'm doing probably not as exciting as the other graduate, since I'm just stuck in the office while she is already working onsite with one of our clients. But it won't be long till I'm doing that too, so no worries!

new job title



After more than 6 months without an official permanent job, I finally get the role that I have been after. Now I just have to get through the 3 months probation, and after that the company will be stuck with me. Bwahahahaha! My life as a consultant starts Monday 23rd October 2006. Woohoo!

employed again!

Just a quick update. I got offered the other position I mentioned as well, well.. half of it anyway. Its a consultancy role as well, but the original plan is that I will be placed with Citibank for about a year. The other candidate got the Citibank role, but it seems like I made such a good impression that the consultancy is offering me a job anyway. I don't have a placement yet, so its likely I'll be in the office doing some training and whatnot.

If everything goes well, I'll be receiving the contract on Monday. I already knocked back the other job, so they'd better not backstab me. I feel quite relaxed now that I finally got the job I wanted. Can finally breathe easy...although the hard part might be actually keeping the position. They seem to have pretty high expectations from me. Not too sure if thats a good thing.

Apart from that, nothing much else to report. I've sort of finished up my work at my previous company as well. Completed the things that I could but theres still some work thats leftover. I had a few games of Texas Hold 'em at my manager's place on Friday. Lost $37 even though I did damn well in the early stages of the game. I got all the big chips in the beginning... but lost them all in the end. Aihs.

buzzy feeling

getting a job offer after so freaking long is really giving me a buzzy feeling inside. feeling quite excited and hyper now. especially since I might have 2 jobs offers on the table! Well... technically 3 if I consider my previous company. And the jobs are straight into consultancy to boot! No mucking around in support or programming to work myself up. Bah to that!

Anyways, the offer I received is for my 2nd choice. I got the 2nd/final interview on Thursday morning, and hopefully I'll be able to make a decision on Friday.... oooo. I don't even feel nervous for the interview. Hahhah. Overconfidence shalt be my downfall. But before that...its back to researching the company, and thinking up of more stuff to talk about during the interview.

my persistence is finally paying off. stocks are good. job is looking good. WoW is good (or bad...depending on your perspective). Next I can finally start on working out! I actually tried starting last week... but then my stomach actually started cramping up halfway o_O Shows how bloody unfit I am now...

gonna sleep soon, but just wanted to make a quick update. My interviews last week went pretty well. I'm on to the 2nd round of interviews for one of the roles, although its the not my preferred choice. The interview will be tomorrow, and I have no idea what it is going to be like. I actually covered a lot of ground during my 1st interview, and don't really have the time to prepare decent questions now. Just have to wing it I guess. Should have schedule for an interview in the afternoon. But then again, I need to go to work in the afternoon.

I'm back at my old company for a bit as well. Need to implement the EFT functions for accounting system that I put in for them, among other things. Haven't even discussed my rates yet. Sheesh. Guess that comes from knowing the bosses too well. Well.. they'r gonna be my work referees, so gotta play nice :) I'm hoping I hear from my other job interview as well. It'll be good to have something to compare against... and also just in case tomorrow's doesn't work out. Its just me and one other candidate... so I've got a good chance depending on my interview performance.

Ermm, theres more stuff I can blog about, but I think I'll just do a quick google for interview questions. Doesn't hurt to be more prepared.

'tis a good day

not too shabby. I did well on my interview and I'll be placed on the shortlist for the next stage. Now it just depends on whether the project manager thinks my resume is up to scratch. Its an interesting role, doesn't pay $60K p.a. but I'll get there eventually. Its a graduate/entry level role and I'll receive up to 12 months of real on-the-job training. Fingers crossed.

Next, I also have another interview for another entry level role lined up tomorrow. Consultancy as well, don't know much about it yet, but it looks pretty good as well.

Third, I have another role on the books and they just asked for my academic transcript. Thats a junior programming role, so I'm not as keen as the first two I just mentioned.

4th, I was actually offered a role back at my previous company. The other IT guy left, and they want me to take over his role. So I would be doing their IT stuff, as well as materials control/tendering. No more purchasing, which can only be a good thing. I've got 2 weeks to get back to the manager. I'm not that keen on going back especially since it will be my 3rd time, but at least its a backup plan if I want to continue staying in Australia and I don't get the roles I want.

5th, I got myself a WoW account!! Which ermm.. might not turn out to be such a good thing after all. I also pre-ordered the expansion pack, and just had my character transferred over from tho's account. Unfortunately it'll take a few days for that to complete.

And lastly, my shares scored bigtime today :) Its always nice when that happens, even if I don't have plans to realise the gains yet.

I scored another interview for Thursday. As a Business Objects Consultant. Its an entry level role but 6 months worth of training provided. I have a decent shot at this... since its definitely not a senior role. It'll just depend on how well I do on the interview, and how the other candidates did.

Its a bitch preparing for the interview though. Don't know what to research. I've got a bunch of stuff that I probably need to study as well. Aihs. Technical interviews are more bitchy than behavioural interviews. Can't really bullshit.

I'm still waiting for the "Why are manhole covers round?" question from an interviewer.

woohoo! I finally restocked my food supplies at home. Now I can save on ordering pizzas and takeaway for about 2 weeks maybe. I think I have at least that much food. I'm gonna make japanese curry and nikujaga! But still need a couple more ingredients. I just threw out my soy sauces. I'm really not sure if they expire or not, but it smells kinda dubious. So I'll need to restock that. I'll just get the smaller bottles this time. Since I probably wouldn't end up using them much. I think I'll pick some up tomorrow. Planning to go down city to get a hair cut. Maybe I'll buy a box of instant noodles as well.

Maybe I'll get some proper noodles and some bebola stuff. But the fridge is kinda full for once. Especially the freezer. Frozen food is a must in this household. Hmmm.. I think I better go freeze some of the meat I bought. Wouldn't want it to spoil

Hmmm... I'm forced to take a lunch break at work now. Apparently its illegal to not have a lunch break o_O Sheesh.... what a pain. Now I lose 2 1/2 hours off my weekly pay. Although I could work until 5:30 to make up for that...but can't really be stuffed. Ugh... so annoying

The only good news for today is that my share portfolio is actually displaying a profit! I'm still holding on to almost 1K worth of paper loss from the 1st 2 shares I bought, but everything else I bought after that is well enough to wipe that loss off. Its not a spectacular gain, but a decent result if I consider that the shares I bought using my investment framework are all profitable (for the moment at least, the market is a fickle bitch...)

Same goes for my ASX game portfolio. Not a spectacular result, but its been on the positive since day 1. The leader in the game already made $64K from $50K capital, and I'm far from even making it into the top 100, which is at least $58K. Fatty's theory of having to daytrade like a fuc*wit to achieve those results are way off. The previous newsletter displayed the trading history of the game leaders, and the top guy (or gal) has only made 35 trades over a 2 month period. Thats a fair bit of trading, but not at the level Fatty hints at. The next leader only has 5 trades. So yeah... you don't have to daytrade to win. Ah well... good thing I don't take his advice when it comes to the market. Not that I take any of his advice seriously nowadays...

N.B My 1st 2 trades were done before I determined my trading rules, which is why I said the shares I bought using my framework are all profitable

The problem with applying for work is that more often than not, you can't get an immediate reply. I don't know about other lines of work, but its quite pissy if I'm gunning for higher level IT work. Higher level meaning a role that doesn't involve being a 'PC lou' or 1st Level Tech Support(still a 'PC lou', but chained to phone instead).

Theres been a number of openings for junior IT consultancy work. Apparently, the IT talent in Australia is drying up. There are more companies willing to train graduates up. Both good and bad news to me. Its great there more opportunities for me to get into consultancy. The downside is I'm no spring chicken considering I'm not exactly a graduate anymore. Bah. Just do whatever I can I suppose...

My fingers still feel a bit cacat. Having to do data entry during the day, and coming home to work on the computer isn't exactly contributing to the health of my digits. And blogging about it doesn't help either. What a vicious circle. I think I'll stop now.

Feverish...

I think I caught something from when I went to the doctor yesterday. Woke in the middle of the night shivering, even though its not that cold out. Whole body feels weak and sore as well. Definitely the onset of a fever. Bah...

I took off from work earlier today. Partly cuz I was feeling like crap, and also because I have an interview later at 3.30. Semi-interview...for a semi-job. Going to speak with another recruiter in regards to a part time position as a Helpdesk Analyst. I might not get the job, because the recruiter already mentioned that I probably don't have enough experience, but still worth a shot.

I can't even play WoW in the meantime because servers are down. Arrgghhh! And I can't just go to sleep because of the interview. What a crap day...

something wrong with the picture

I finally got off my ass and went to see the doctor regarding my knee today. Primarily because I've been feeling and looking pretty fat lately. What with my zero exercise for the past 6 months, and my staple diet of a continental breakfast in the morning and pizza at night.

So yeah, I went to see the doc after work, telling him that I want to do kickboxing and stuff again because I want to get some exercise. And after that, I walked into KFC to buy a 2-piece+chips & a pack of wicked wings for dinner. Hmmmmmm.....

Anyway, doc says really can't tell if theres anything else wrong with my knee. I check on fine on the surface, but it will take a MRI to really tell if theres more damage inside. Basically a wait and see approach. He told me I can basically sports and stuff, and if it hurts then he will send me to an orthopedist to get an assessment. Apparently an MRI isn't really covered under Medicare. So I'm going to start swimming again! Soon...

Another blog

I just made another blog for all my geeky stuff. For all my development and random technology stuff. I've really been slack since I haven't done real programming stuff for so long, and each time I restart, theres a learning curve I have to go through. So I figured instead of googling each time I need to find out how to reinstall and configure my apache server, PHP and what not, I can just check my own blog. Who knows, it might even be more popular than this one.

I called the blog Embrace Your Geek. Rather cliche, and not totally accurate either, since it should be embrace your inner geek. That would make the url too long, so stuff that. And its still empty for the moment. Not sure when I'll start writing.

But anyway, what I'll do there is probably put some tutorials and tips on how to set up a web development environment and maybe short reviews on tools and stuff. Maybe even a PHP/mySQL programming article. Theres plenty of that already on the internet, but doing something myself would probably help me learn more. I'm also planning to start writing a share portfolio manager. Start small at first, and maybe I can build it up later on. Theres a couple of those already but it'll be good practice as well.

Lets see if I'll follow through with this, might be too much nonsense to do.

Superpowers: what would you do?

If I had a choice between seeing the future, or being able to travel back in time, time travelling would win hands down. Why? Simply because you just rewind when things don't turn out the way you want. And you can technically 'see' the future as well. Want to win the Lotto? Just find out what the winning numbers are, and then rewind your back in time to buy the ticket. How sweet is that!?

If I could go back in time, maybe I might decide to pay more attention in during university. Or do more related work so that I'm not in so much shit career-wise now. But then again, I could just go back a few years with what I know about the share prices now and become a billionaire trading stocks. Although the easiest way to become filthy rich is just to win the lottery.

Kinda like the movie Groundhog Day, which I think I may blogged about previously. Its still one of my favourite movies in terms on concept. Of course, reliving the same day might get pretty dull after the while. But if its a span of 1-2 years, probably wouldn't be so bad. You can do a lot within that time, and if things don't work out, you just kill yourself and start over. Just like in a game. Sweet.

Ermm.. better get back to work.

as expected, I didn't get the job. Good feedback from interview but not enough industry experience for the job. I already had a feeling about that when I did the interview, but was hoping I could still make it. Aihs, back to the drawing board. I think its already been 6 months since I became semi-unemployed, I don't consider data entry real work, even though I've been doing that for about 2 months. I think its time to reassess my options again. Zzzz... damn annoying

I know what I want, and roughly where I want to end up career-wise. The 2 choices would be a business analyst, or a ERP consultant. Actually get into those fields? Well...6 months and counting should suffice as an answer. I've been thinking that I wouldn't mind getting run over by a car and just dying then and there. Obviously, dying after getting hit by the car is the important. Not becoming a vegetable, semi or otherwise. Incidently, that almost occured a few days back. Almost got run down by some dumb shit when I was using the zebra crossing. I already looked both ways before crossing, and he had more than enough distance to stop. Instead of slowing down, he just sped past when I was halfway across the street. Tiu.

Beary Funny series

A series of CG clips made by a korean mob called RG Studios. Youtube rocks! Not going to bother label them cuz I'm at work right now.

the stats for my blog are back up. numbers still looking as sad as ever. the chart looks like the prices of my shares, not going anywhere. sadness. oh well. i'm doing this for my own benefit anyway. just upgraded it to blogger beta, not that theres much of a difference. the templates are still the same, but I switched to another one anyway. felt like a different look. Also got rid of the tag board with all the stupid ringtone stuff spamming it, so if anyone wants to leave a message, just put a comment on the post.

I had my interview on thursday, so its just a waiting game for now. The position wasn't as high level as I initially thought, at the core, I'll still be a support monkey, except that it will be more specialised. It will still be good if I get it, the pay and conditions are fairly decent, and its a proper start to a career in IT. Other than that, I'm still doing the data entry job. I think I've been there for 2 months, or more . wow, 2006 is zipping me buy. I've technically spent more than 1/2 a year not doing anything.

I went in to the dojo this morning to speak with shihan about the website I was suppose to knock up for him. Haven't been able to work on it lately, busy with prepping for the interview as well as grinding in Disgaea 2. Hopefully I can come up with something decent. Might as Kelynn or my cousin to help. I'm quite total loss when it comes to the graphic design parts. Which is the main reason I abandon most of my web projects. I do most of the backend stuff: database design, general layout, functions and what not. But I get stuck when I have to make it 'pretty'.

Anyhoo. Nacho Libre is the program for tonight! Been looking forward to it. Lucha!!

I didn't mentioned that I scored an interview for an very good position. The role is an IT Support Analyst. Its an actual analyst position, not those helpdesk or lvl 1 tech support crap ppl call analysts nowadays... I would be working with actual systems design and the like. Or at least thats what the job descriptions says. Its a permanent role, but I'll be working on a particular project thats under development. So I think I'll be doing a little of everything involved in a software project. Requirements analysis, design and maybe even some coding & testing. Sounds perfect.

I think I match the qualifications and experience they require, but I have an inkling they are looking for a person that is more senior. The recruit did mention that they are looking for a recent graduate with about 1-2 years work experience, and its a role where they want to train someone up to be a technical BA. I was asked to bring in my academic transcript (oh no!!) so I guess thats true.

Hopefully I can overcome that during the interview. I've been doing research on everything that I could possibly need, and even went through some of my uni material. Just do my best at the interview and hopefully everything will fall in place. Interview will be on Thursday, so I have a fair bit of time to prepare. Oh, and the position pays $60K+ too :)

its such gawd-awful slow day. must be the weather. i think there was a thunderstorm early in the morning. very gloomy outside right now. The perfect weather for sleeping in, except that I'm at work right now. Sigh...

They (the company) just installed a phone on my desk, which means I might have to take orders over the phone soon. Ugh. They aren't paying me enough to bother with that. I'm suppose to do data entry, not customer service. Cis.

Theres this old dude working here that kinda annoys me. Probably about 40+. Just started out in customer service. Nothing against old people, but just observing him gets on my nerves. Slow, and in my opinion, probably stupid as well. An example would be photocopying a few hundred pages of a document that was supposed to be faxed out, and then going "Now, how did that happen? I'm prety sure blah blah blah..." Ugh. Even though its the copier and fax are the same machine, the interface is totally different. He only made that mistake because either A) He is dumb or B) He wasn't paying attention. I'd go for a combination of both, since he has already done it twice, and probably the 3rd time as well even though he said it wasn't him. Ordinarily I wouldn't pay much attention, but the problem is that he talks to himself and always complaints about why this doesn't work, what this customer wants, blah blah blah.

Aihs. Thats enough for a rant of the day. Back to work now.

It feels like I've been sorta busy the past few days. Updated my resume, and started to actively apply for jobs again. Its been really slow for me since I've been temping. On one hand, I have some income to supplement my living expenses. But on the other hand, it feels like a waste of time when I can stay at home and follow up on my job applications, stocks and readings.

But its been 4 months (or more?) since I've left a permanent job. Having more time doesn't necessarily mean I can find a job quicker. Aihs. I've been considering doing some of the SAP courses. I kinda know which stream I want to do, but not sure if its viable. All up, its going to be about RM50K to complete 2 streams (roughly 2 months I think). And even after investing that money, might not even get a job. So stupid... but I really need to do something to improve my job prospects, even if its just on paper.

At any rate, January next year is probably my limit. If I can't find proper work by then, I'll head back home to do the courses and get some work experience. Considering the recent issues in my family, it would be good to spend more time with my mom, and maybe even work with my dad. Thos has the right idea as well... spend as much time as possible with them while they are still well and healthy. Although in my case, its probably spend as much time as I can take. I'm not exactly a family person.

Thats it for today... time to sleep.

2.30am but I'm still not sleeping yet. I'm taking the day off from work. Just felt like taking a break from it so that I can get some other work done. I was supposed to work on the website for shihan over the weekend, but spent it going out and watching anime.

spent the whole of last night watching Honey & Clover as well, although I did manage to get a little work done. I actually want to sleep, but allergies stopping me. I seem to have something that antihistamines don't help with. My feet are damn itchy now. Seems pretty red and swollen too. The veins on my feet seems to have popped up as well. Looks quite gross and interesting at the same time. Quite fun to press down on the veins and have it pop back up.

I'm gonna watch another episode of anime before trying to go back to sleep la. Feel really tired.

the thought of marriage rarely ever crosses my mind, but I just know that when I do, I want a website ^_^

It's confirmed that I'll always be a geek...

I think I'm feeling a little depressed today. Not having any real work to do is kinda getting to me I suppose. Both having nothing much to do during the day, as well as feeling the effects of a decreasing bank balance.

No mood to blog anymore. I just dug up some old anime to watch. Can't be stuffed thinking about real life anymore. Although going through some of my CDs made me a little upset. I seem to be missing a some stuff. Can't find the anime I wanted to watch despite digging through everything. Aihs. Not my day.

Plus I think I'm going to be getting my allergies pretty soon. I can feel my hands getting prickly already. Ughh....

Its a bank holiday today, not that it concerns me since I'm not working anyway. But at least it makes me feel less guilty that I don't have work today. I got a call from one of my temp agency earlier. Asked if I'm interested in a position up in St. Leonards. Its some publishing & development company. Seems to deal in 3G. I think my job is to liase between the IT and another department. A semi business analyst role. Wonder if I'm actually up to it... since I don't know jack about 3G technology. Actually, I don't think its that difficult of a role, since its only paying $25/hour. Just have to talk to people and write up reports. I asked her to send in my CV anyway, theres a 1/4 chance of me getting the role since she only has 3 candidates at the moment. Its only for a month, so it should be okay I guess.

As for the other role I'm waiting on, no significant news yet. The client was away for the past week, which was why the process was taking so long. I might get some news this week. I just hope they don't mind waiting. Well... if I get this temp job, I wouldn't mind if the whole recruitment processs takes a little longer. At least then I can finish up the temp position, if I get it. Don't really like the idea of leaving halfway through an assignment.

Well...anime for the rest of the day. ^_^

saturday. nothing much to do as usual. the weather is pretty gloomy as well, so just feel like sleeping. just gonna wait for my laundry to be done and then i'll just nap. had lunch with sweefong today. shes gone back home to kl already. aihs. another year has passed by seemingly fast. i'm already 25, but i still kinda feel like I belong in uni. I suppose the work, or lack of it, that I've been doing doesn't make me feel like I've matured much.

I haven't heard regarding that role I've been hankering after yet. Supposed to get some news on Thursday, but nada. Hopefully there'll be some news next week. Good or bad, at the very least I can just move on. Oh, I've also quit the temp job I was doing. I could have probably stayed on another week or so, but I decided that I had enough. I really can't stand brainless work for too long... So I better hear something from the recruiter soon, or start in another contracting position.

Apart from that, the manager from FFC called me up on Friday. Asked what I was up to and if I was interested in going back...for the 3rd time :) Seems like he has another project lined up and wants me to work on it or something. No details yet, but I'll talk to him after I get news from the consultancy role that I want. Ah well, I'd rather not go back if I don't have to. Its not a bad place to work, just far and well... I really should move on. Maybe I can demand more pay again. Hahahah. Although this time around, there won't be a car for me, since they've already sold off their unnecessary vehicles.

Time will tell.

i wanna get to sleep, but my rash is keeping me up. don't even know if i can call it a rash. i guess it falls under that definition. my hands and wrist are reddish, and have bumps on them. Looks kinda like a whole bunch of mosquito bites converging on one area. i still have no idea what causes it. it only seems to happen at night, and i don't think its food that causes it, if not i should be experiencing it during the day as well *touch wood* Plus, its not like I have any special diet. I eat the same crap most of the time.

Usually i take my antihists, and it goes away in about 1/2 an hour... but it doesn't seem to be working tonight. Arrrgh. Add to the fact that my fingers are sore from the data entry work I did today. My finger, to be more accurate. I can type properly i.e. make use of all my fingers, & without looking at the keyboard as well. But thats kind of useless when you are keying in stuff off faxes & order forms with text that you have to bloody squint to look at. Add in a crappy GUI to the order program, and you get a sore finger because its simply easier and a lot faster to type with one hand/finger.

The other thing that annoys me is that some people can be soooooooo damn slow in keying in stuff. I get to see almost everyone in the customer service team (where I'm working) cuz I'm sitting where the previous boss used to sit ^_^ I have my own corner, and noone can see my screen while I MSN, read the news, look at my stocks, etc etc. But even with all my bludging, I still work hell lot faster than the other temps there. Gawd... can't believe it man. I can finish keying 2-3 orders, while chatting on MSN, and surfing the net in between orders, and the other temp still haven't finished with their first one. And I know this because I can watch them work at the same time.

Initially I didn't surf the net at all... but then I'd run out of stuff to do by midday since I chew through my work pretty fast. The stuff is piss easy for me to do... so its not saying much. With all the in between bludging I do, theres enough work for me to do till about 4ish 5.

Orites... all that complaining seems to have gotten rid of my rash. Gonna go to sleep now. Oh, and I still haven't heard back in regards to that job. Aihs...

here wishing that I get that job. After a behavioural assessment, and an aptitude test which took me about 6 hours plus to mull over. I'd better get something. It'd would be my ideal job too. More on it if I get it... no point blogging too much about it if its gonna become spilt milk.

dead bored now. don't feel like playing games, and don't have any anime to watch. When I have nothing to do... my life really feels dreary. I don't like the weekends as much anymore. Especially since theres no sharemarket pricing to watch over the weekend. Aihs..

been a week since my last post. i actually want to get on with playing Titan Quest (a Diablo-esqu game), so its just a short updated. I'm still temping at the same place. Its a pharmaceuticals company btw. They extended me till end of the week. Still doing the same things though. Processing credits & orders, and lots of filing. Their filing system is absolutely horrendous, or more accurately, the lack of it. And I was thinking that things couldn't be much worse than my previous company. They were actually pretty organised compared to this mob.

Today's work was slightly different. I was put in the marketing dept to help out for a while. Mostly sending stuff out to reps & clients. I was packing football memorabilia as well! They had a World Cup promotion going on previously, and winners get the $150 Addidas Teamgeist ball, a Socceroos jersey, and a soccer magazine. Pretty neat. Felt like taking one of the balls home ^_^

I've got an interview lined up tomorrow as well, for a proper job this time. Wish me luck. More on that in a later post.

its a nice change having actual work to do. Data entry is pretty damn simple for me :) I cleared out the entire credit backlog in one day. Am I efficient or what? Well... being IT-savvy enough to think of creating macros to automate half the work helps ^_^ I did the work in half the time... although I did twice the amount of work, so doesn't make much of a difference in the end.

2nd day... nothing for me to do but filing docs in the morning. And booking couriers for credit returns. Mind numbing job... can't imagine having to do this everyday. But I really love the fact that the place is so damn near. Its only 2 streets away! Takes about 10 mins walk to reach there! Never worked so close to home before. Bloody convenient. I can come back home and have lunch! That is...if I had any food at home. Almost totally out of food at home. I think I only have a can of tuna left, and a 1/4 pack of spaghetti.

I've actually been having trouble sleeping lately. I've been getting pretty vivid nightmares the past week or so, and I woke up in the middle of the night paralyzed as well. Couldn't move or make a noise. I tried to force myself to scream, but nothing came. Managed to croak after a couple of seconds. Bloody freaked me out, especially since Thos told me about his 'experiences' a couple days ago. Aihs.

Anyway, theres nothing supernatural about the episode. Supposedly a case of stress or sleep depravation. Your body enters a state of paralysis when you enter REM sleep i.e. when you dream. Sleep paralysis occurs when your brain is awakened, but your body is still in the paralysis state. Wiki knows it all! :)

Time to sleep! Tomorrow is another exciting day...

interview this morning, start work tomorrow morning. its nice when things are so simple. Finally got a temp job, although its only for a week. Pay is pretty standard. About $18 or so for data entry work. But best thing about is that its about 10-15 minutes down the street. Get to save on transport fare. Sweet!

The bad thing? I still have to continue searching for jobs and sending in applications. A bloody pain. I just put in 5 applications. I don't know if its actually a lack of jobs or what. Some ppl seem to be saying that IT has lots of jobs now, but really doesn't seem that way to me. Maybe on the upper echolon of the spectrum... but kinda hard to find something for a person who isn't a total noobcake, nor an expert, namely me.

Oh well. At least, this data entry role is good enough for the moment. Its short enough so I can still keep a lookout on proper jobs. And gives me a little money towards paying bills. My shares are getting killed by the recent downturn in the market. And the only share that I own that isn't in the red can't be sold (i.e. no buyers). E*trade has a nifty feature that lets you see the current bids in the market. If I'm not wrong, it shows you the current buyers/sellers for up to 10 price points. Its only for orders that are sitting in the system (not sure if its just E*trades, or the actual market). But its an indicator of the prices you can use to get in or out of the market.

I don't mind the downturn that much since it'll turn up eventually. But it seems like each time I make a purchase... the entire market turns down o_O Same thing happened the last time. I'm still sitting on a $600 paper loss on that one. Aihs... my bad though. It went past my stop, which would have limited it to less than $300 but I couldn't bear selling. Now twice that amount is gone. Sigh... expensive mistake. I can have like 80 plates of siu yuk fan with that money... :'(

no real reason to post except to put up a pic taken with my phone. its not too bad, kinda what I expected.

my bookshelf

the full sized image is quite grainy, but that might be cuz of the lack of light in the shot. Other than that, it looks like a typical phone camera image. Incidently the graininess (real word :p) of the image is kinda similar to what I see out my left eye. Lazy eye and all to those who don't know.

I recently reorganised my books as well, which is why the shelf is particularly neat. I've got my computer related books on the top shelf. The bottom shelf has 3 types of books. Leftmost is fiction books, which is only the translated copies of Romance of the 3 Kingdoms & Da Vinci Code (the staple of every modern bookshelf!). Middle portion has motivational/personal improvement books like Awaken the Giant Within (which is actually Thos'), and rightmost are my investment & business related books.

The shelf usually has stacks of coins and other assorted junk as well. But I've been doing some spring cleaning since I'm so free during the day. I sorted out the coins and bagged them. Plan to deposit in the bank when I remember to do it. I currently have $40 in 10 & 5c coins. I think I had about $120 when I initially started sorting them, but I've cleared them out cuz I've been using them to buy lunch & when I order pizza.

I kinda wish I have more books. A shelf looks nice if its filled with books :) I've still got 2 more books that I haven't read. The ones lying flat on the bottom shelf. I'm thinking of ordering another book online directly from the author. Save about 60% off the RRP which is a pretty good deal. Even the air freight is heaps cheaper than Amazon.

Oooo..Thos rented DVD. Off to watch it now.

been sleeping in the past couple of days. i think i'm getting more than 10 hours sleep on average now. not that I really want to, but i feel really crap in the mornings. Not having anything real to do is one of the factors, but lately its been more my hayfever. I've been getting a runny nose & sore eyes in the morning. I'm taking Telfast for that, but its not that effective nowadays. Maybe I need to rotate among the different types of antihistamines on a daily basis.

I have 24 job applications on my list, 3/4 of that probably no good already. I really don't like cold calling recruiters in regards to a job. I don't know what to say. Its worse if they are the non-responsive kind of people too. Sigh. I guess I still need more practice. I don't mind actual interviews so much, its a lot easier to talk about yourself rather than ask questions about a job. I mean, there really isn't too much I need to know about a position. Most of the time, the job ad already answers any enquiries I have. I'm not a damn moron and I know how to read, but somehow I feel that u'r still expected to have questions. Aihs.

I want to get a job and not go through this crap ever again.

been up since 5am this morning. its almost 8 now, wondering if i should go back to sleep. having a bout of hayfever now and the antihistamines doesn't seem to be kicking in. damn annoying. i just ate my breakfast as well. leftover pork chop & rice from last night :) kinda heavy for breakkie, but theres nothing else left. Gonna have to go do some groceries today.

I still don't have anyone calling me up for a job interview. Sigh. I applied for another 7 positions yesterday. Theres one that looks really good. Sounds like the kind of work that I want, but can't find any information about it. Theres no name or contact details. Theres a company name, but googling it doesn't turn up a website. So dodgy. The position seems pretty similar to that job offer I blew, but with better pay! Heres hoping!

oh! Theres actually another position that sounds good. Same type of thing. Business analysis & support. Would be cool if I get that too. $30-40/hour and based in the CBD. Absolutely perfect. At least this ad is more professional. See how it all goes la. Hope someone will give me a ring on my new phone :)

loving it!

feel bloody exhausted this morning for some odd reason. its not like i slept particularly late. I finally signed up at a job recruitment agency. Hopefully I can get a temp job soon. Went to the office yesterday and spent about an 1 1/2 hours doing some word & excel tests & some data entry. I got pretty good scores which was expected :) Doing the Excel test was more tricky, had to make some educated guesses on a number of questions, but still got most of them correct in the end.

I've been working on my share investment/trading plan in the past couple of days. I've completed a plan that I'm gonna try follow through. Finaly making use of my of $900 piece of charting software. I used it to backtest my plan, and it seems to be ok for a number of shares. Although I really need to test it for a longer period. Only problem is I can't get the data to advance a day at a time, so being able to see price data ahead of the date I'm backtrading is probably affecting my decisions.

p.s. just decide to re-read the manual, and figured out to advance the chart a day at a time now ^_^

5am. asthma getting worse. stomach cramps from my voltaren and a dripping nose. Not a good false start to the day.

6am. still awake. watching Cannes Lions ads. and YouTube. This is a very smart ad imo. shall try to go back to sleep now. 3 more hours before I need to wake up.

sigh. the days have been so demotivating. I'm getting rejection notices left, right and center. I'm just not getting anywhere. The only thing I find fun now is learning market related stuff and finalising my trading/investing plan. I've managed to stop checking prices every 5-10 minutes which is a good thing. That seems a bit too obsessive considering I'm not a day trader.

Unfortunately my living expenses are slowly eating into the capital I've allocated for my investments. Maybe I should go on my indomie diet again. Its about 30c a pack. 5 packs a day, thats $1.50. Multiply by that by a month, and its only $45 for a month's worth of food! Compare that with my budget for $450 for food expenditures. Thats a savings of a 1000%!! How wicked is that ^_^ Although the drawback is I'll probably shave more than 10% off my lifespan among other health problems. Aihs.

Anyway, I think I've worked out a decent budget for myself. I'll need $1400 for day to day living. That covers rent, bills, transport, food and some misc monthly expenses. Another $450 allocated for optional expenses such as leisure, clothes, toys etc. So thats $1850 in total. I intend to put 10% of my income towards long-term savings & another 10% towards investment purposes. This means I'll need a take home pay of $2350 to accommodate my budget. That'll give me a $30 surplus as well. Considering that I should be taxed at 30%, I'll need a salary of roughly $3350 before tax, which is a $40K base salary.

Sighh... now I miss the time when I was getting a $50K+ package before being jobless. I guess it kinda evens out to me having a lower paying job throughout the year. OK, its past lunchtime already. Need to start making calls to job givers. Maybe I should go into recruitment, just so that I can mass email rejection notices to other jobseekers. Hmmmmm. Interesting thought.

its been a decent weekend, albeit rather expensive. Went to Kobe Jones for dinner. Its a pretty nice modern japanese restaurant. Pricey, but the food was decent, and looks impressive. The moving scenery was pretty good too ^_^ The dinner was for fatty's birthday gift, split between Thos & me. Hmmm.. Kinda unfair. I didn't get anything for my birthday, except for a twisted knee. Considering the events of this & last year, it might appear that my birthday isn't exactly a lucky event for me. Oh well.

I have to start saving money already, at least until I get a job. I've been spending too much since I stopped working. About $7K for the past 3 months. Its not too bad I guess. I've had some abnormal expenses in the past months. Theres the snow holiday which is about $700+, my investment related book & software which is slightly over a grand, and the medical related items about $200. I probably spend a little more on food since I've been eating out a lot. If I stay home, I usually go Johnny's for lunch, or just buy takeaway from the cafe downstairs. Its becoming quite routine.

I've done my usual slew of job hunthing this morning. I've started looking for data entry positions just to line my pocket already. I really need to resume work this month. A 3 month gap on my resume really doesn't look good. Ah well, wish me the best.

this week seems to have gone by so fast. its already Friday, and it sorta feels like we just got back from Thredbo. I guess sleeping a lot does help the time go by faster :)

I went for my xray & ultrasound yesterday. what a waste of money. aihs. I should have gone to the clinic that does bulk billing (i.e. don't need to pay anything), which was the one I was suppose to go to. Instead, I opted to go to the one in the city, which ended up costing me about $100 extra. I really don't get the medicare claim system. A bit fucked up imo. Go to a clinic that bulk bills and you don't pay anything, go to a clinic that doesnt, and you fork out extra money for it. Aihs.

Anyway, the imaging didn't turn out much. I have a medial collateral ligament injury. Apparently one of the better ligaments to stuff up. The doc didn't say it was torn or anything. Its just swelled up pretty badly. Should take about a month to get better. I didn't get tested for cartilage damage, cuz that will take an MRI to detect, but it doesn't seem to be the case. It doesn't really hurt unless i move the knee in a funny angle or try to straighten it, so i guess the damage isn't too bad. I'm still limping around though. Kinda hard to walk if one of your legs can' straighten up.

Apart from doing my checkups and stuff, I've been searching for work as well. Getting quite demotivated. I've applied for a couple on Seek, and also googled for some consultancies that I may be interested in working for. Haven't heard from any of them though. Sigh... I think I'll just apply to do some data entry for a month or so. I should think about earning some money, instead of getting a job I want.

when your luck is down, its really down. aihs. the job offer i had from Acctek was rescinded. Salary negotiations didn't go that well, rather it didn't happen at all. The boss figured he wouldn't be able to offer me a salary that I would be happy with, so thats that.

Now I have to start looking for a job again. Guess I'm gonna be spending more than a 1/4 year being unemployed. This sucks... I'm starting to get depressed.

omg. i'm in fuckin agony now. twisted my knee really bad yesterday. came off a skilift, my board caught in the snow, and my knee went *pop* after it crashed into the ground and my leg went in an unnatural direction. worst pain i ever felt at that instant. it subsided after a minute or so but that felt like an eternity. The lady with the ski patrol was saying its a common injury in the sport, and the popping sound isn't a good sign. Might even need reconstructive surgery. I guess it didn't really sink in at that point in time. I didn't really feel anything about it. I was just "oh, ok!". They strapped me in to a sled and I got a ride down to the medical center. That was pretty cool :) I wanted Thos to snap a picture, but I think he was pretty freaked out.

Anyway, the doc said it wasn't so bad. I could move my leg reasonably freely when he diagnosed me, so nothing was broken. Most likely a tear of the meniscus cartilage. Can't tell at that moment anyway. Its pretty bad now though. Its swelled up a fair bit, and I can't straighten my leg at all. I need to get an xray done, and get the doc to prescribe me some stronger medicine. But don't know how man. The medical centre I go to is pretty far from here, and I can barely shuffle around the house. Plus I need to return the rental gear as well. Not a promising day...

To top it off, my whole body is absolutely buggered. I feel bruised and sore all over. My neck is the worst off though. If I'm lying down, I can't get up unless I use my hands to support my head. Or roll myself up. But I can't roll now cuz of my knee. Tried that this morning when I woke up. Fuckin hell... knee hurt so much I cried out. I'm cringing just thinking about it.

Kla. Have to shuffle back to the kitchen. I'm using a pack of mixed vegetables to ice my knee. Starting to melt already. Gonna put it back in the freezer.

Got another 3 hours to kill b4 I set off for Thredbo. And then its a 5-6 hour bus ride. The one aspect of the trip I ain't exactly looking forward to. I wanna get out of the house as soon as I can. Mainly cuz the smoke detector is driving me nuts. Its giving a very audible beep every 30 seconds or so. Soooooo damn annoying.

I went to see the chinese doc this morn as well. My ankle is still acting up. I did manage to go for a short job the other day. It didn't really get sore apart from occasional spikes of pain. I can't figure it out... it some particular angle that brings that pain. But when I was at the doc, couldn't replicate it. Theres no locations on my ankle that is particular sore. I dunno, maybe its just mine and the doc's definition of soreness. Not understanding mandarin that well doesn't exactly help. It didn't hurt when the doc massaged certain areas, but then he applied pressure at certain points. Good gawd... it bloody hurts. Don't know if its part of the treatment...but my ankle does feel better after the whole thing. Problem seems to be still there though, but I'm just gonna wait and see la. Gonna start going for regular jogs or something to see if it becomse worse.

Thats it. Wish me luck up on the slopse. I don't need to injure another joint. The only leg joint I have left thats in good working condition is my right ankle. I wanna try keep it that way at the very least...

5 minutes after I blog about not receiving a call regarding a job, I get a call offering me the position. Cool! The base salary is quite sad, but overall I might be able to earn $60K over. That depends on the hours I can charge out to clients. So it depends on how much business the company has.

I'm trying to negotiate the pay now. $35K base salary seems just too little. If all goes well, I'll probably start beginning of July, which would make it what? 3 months of unemployment? Or was it 2? I lost track of time already. Hope for the best. I'll still take the job even if I can't get the improvement on the salary. Thinking about it, its really a good opportunity. Its a really small company, so I don't have to work from the bottom of the food chain to become a consultant. I can start visiting clients once I feel I'm up to speed on my knowledge. 1 year is more than enough time for me to become an expert in the applications I'll be supporting. I might even be able to play a part in expanding the company! How cool will that be?!

Putting the job aside...We'r going to Thredbo tomorrow!!!! Woohoo! Picking up the gear today. Can't wait to see what kind of boards we get to use. Hope its something cool ^_^ Apart from that, have to start planning for our NZ trip already. Need to go down city and get some quotes later. Maybe I'll go visit the chinese doc if I remember later. And also check out some medical insurance stuff. Hmmm... quite a number of errands to do now that I think about it.

Ah well. Lunch comes first. I'm gonna go have a mushroom mozzarella melt. Won't have much chance to eat that during the week once I start working.

exactly a year ago, a blazing inferno started in my bed and almost took my foot off :) Okla..slight exaggeration, but if you wake up to the smells of burning upholstery and with flames dancing a meter away from your face, I reckon I can classify it as a blazing inferno :p

I didn't do much today. I got lots of loot in the mail, none of which are birthday presents unfortunately :p I received the stock charting software I ordered, so I spent some time reading & setting it up. I also got a new sim card! I'm going for a prepaid service, iSim. Its purported pretty good. Its owned by Optus anway, so you can't really go wrong service-wise. And the greatest thing about it? Absolutely the best rates in Australia as far as I know. 39c per minute, per second billing. NO flagfall. Thats zero, nil, nein flagfall. And 19c sms as well. Theres obviously no fancy stuff like wap, mms (not sure about this), and other frills, but honestly... all that stuff is nothing more than gimmicks. I'm transferring my old number over, so just hope it doesn't stuff up or anything.

I also finally received the application form for another stockbroker that I wanted to use. Each trade is about $10 cheapr...but I am soooo not impressed with them. Being budget is one thing...being unprofessional is a different matter. I requested their forms about what? 2-3 weeks ago, and I only just got it. Not only are the disclosure statements and application forms an in-house hack job. Its very sloppy as well. I don't mind photocopied booklets, but if theres streaks and black marks strewn over every single page, it ain't something I would want to show a potential client. It doesn't exactly generate confidence in their services. Terrible. Its no wonder they only have about 1% market share as a discount broker.

I didn't receive a call in regards to the job. Never a good sign. Guess I have to ring him up tomorrow morning. On another note, I'm gonna be getting a SE w810i phone. A gift from my mum n sis. I should get it when Andy comes back in about 2 weeks. Can't wait... Finally! A new phone.

its my birthday today! woop dee do :p I should be more excited that I'm 25 now (should I?), but every day this week is being overshadowed by the fact that we'r finally going up to Thredbo this weekend. Just can't wait for it to come. Shouldn't get so hyped up... I don't want to get disappointed.

My interview yesterday went pretty well. Scott (the boss) seems pretty ok with having me on board, but he still has to go through some other candidates. I should find out by Wednesday. Its a small establishment la. Just him, an older lady and I think he is hiring 2 more ppl (including my position). Its an entry level (in other words, low pay) Customer Support Consultant. Jobwise... its pretty ideal to what I want. I provide application support, travel to sites and fix problems and maybe even source out new contracts eventually. Not a lot of companies uses a junior for this type of position.

The problem? The place is pretty far. It'll take between 1 to 1 1/2 hours to get there. Thats still closer than my previous company though. I don't know the pay details yet, but he wouldn't be able to pay my $45K p.a base salary like Favco. And with Favco... I get away with more than that cuz my transport expenses were taken care of. It'll cost me $2K+ annually to get to work, excluding the time wasted on travel. So if the pay for this job is less than $40K... I really don't know. If its possible for me to bring my take home pay up to $50K+ by sourcing new contracts and stuff then thats ok la. I don't mind being paid for performance.

Other than the distance, the pay, and the fact that there are no chiqs at the company... its a pretty good opportunity for me. I should be able to learn a lot by working at this place. In 1-2 years, I should be able to become a proper consultant. At any rate, I'll just mull over it when I get the call tomorrow.

I can't wake up in the mornings, and I can't sleep at night. Just what the kuku is wrong with me. Aihs. Plus my ankle is acting up again. Cold nights are not good for me. I think I might go to the chinese doc again later in the day. Probably need to manipulate my joints again. I really want to get my ankle fixed... perhaps I should go for an MRI. Wonder how much that would set me back.

I guess I should take up private medical insurance. If only for the extra benefits. You can claim up to $350 for stuff like physiotherapy or chiro. Even acupuncture is included. Don't know how much the cover is though. Probably more than $350 a year. I've just cancelled my death & tpd (total & permanent disability) insurance from my superannuation. Eating up my superannuation for no good reason. The $1/week account maintenance fees are bad enough. I don't even know how much interest the super will be able to earn.

I don't believe in all this compulsory savings crap. Its not my problem if some people aren't smart enough to manage their money for retirement. I'd rather employers pay me the extra 8% superannuation contribution or so directly to me. I'll decide what to do with my own money, thank you very much. At any rate, I don't think the money an average worker gets from superannuation is enough in the first place. Some people still have to scrimp and save, or come out of retirement to survive. Those that don't have to... don't rely on superannuation in the 1st place.

Weeeee. I'm going on a spending spree. Having a credit card of your own can really let someone throw caution to the wind. I just placed an order for a sharemarket charting software. Thats $695. Ouch... I bought some books off Amazon last night as well. About $100 in total. The books come in about $20 cheaper than buying locally. Only thing is that I'd have to wait for 2 weeks or so. They've already shipped 2 of the books though. I hope they come in good condition, but so far its been excellent. The books I've gotten off Amazon so far doesn't have any crease, dogears or dubious stains.

We rented our boarding gear yesterday. $139 for the lot. Board, boots, parka, pants and a carry bag. We haven't actually seen the boards cuz they haven't been prepped, but the rest of the stuff are all new. We'r picking them up next Thursday, so I'll get to take some happy shots of it :)

I'm at a loss this weekend. I don't know what to do. Especially after having spent so much money. I already mentioned I have sort of an interview on Monday right? Hopefully I'll luck out and he already has an open position for me. Or maybe I'll work for minimum wage and pour coffee and stuff just to get my foot in the door. Hmmm. I think I'm too uppity for my own good. That kind of work feels so degrading... Ok la... I did work as a waiter/bartender/glassie, but thats different from being an office gopher.

Ah well. I feel like a mushroom mozzarella melt today. Gonna go pick up a magazine, and lame at the local cafe for a bit.

I haven't been looking for jobs this week. Getting sick of it. I'm meeting up with the boss of a consultancy company that I met from when I was at Favco. He knows about what I've done so far and was interested in my resume. He didn't have anything suitable for me back then la. His company does have a support position open, but he said that its too low level for me. Anyway, I forwarded him an updated copy of my resume, and he asked me to drop by on Monday for a chat. I'm not expecting much, but its better than nothing. I haven't even been for a single interview in the past month despite my applications.

Not gonna do much today. I ran out of market related books to read. Theres another one I want to pick up, but Kino doesn't have the paperback copy. And Amazon is actually cheaper even after factoring in the delivery cost. Haihs. I reckon Aussie bookstores really make a killing... Theres barely any price competition. Most books sell for the same price at Dymocks as they do at Kino. Only difference is when theres a Sale on or membership benefits.

I'm reading the book Jacq bought for me. The Rules of Work by Richard Templar. Its one of those tips to succeed at work books. Dress smart, have a firm handshake, etc etc. Makes for an interesting read. Oh! I've also re-discovered internet radio yesterday! :) I used to listen to them when working in the computer labs in uni. Its a good change from the mp3s I have on my drive. I've been sitting in front of my com so much, I'm starting to get sick of the music I play.

Oooo... gonna go look at boarding stuff today though! We might rent our stuff from a store in the city instead of up in Thredbo. Might have better stuff to choose from. I've still got stuff to buy though. I decided that I probably won't get new gloves yet. No current designs that I like. But I still nede to get thermals.

Blearrghh. Been having absolutely horrible mornings. Firstly its bloody difficult to get out of bed. I think my entire body can make that knuckle popping sound when I move. Is that normal? Secondly... I've been waking up with a congested nose the past few days. Its so damn annoying. And I can't even blow my nose to clear it...its just clogged up. It becomes ok after a few hours, but at the moment its bothering the heck out of me.

I'm sick of applying for work already. It just serves only to annoy me. Not only am I underqualified the positions I want...I'm also overqualified for them o_O what the fook man... Haihs. Like fatts put it. A noob > Kiangs. Sadness...

Isn't the 1st time actually. An application I did earlier on said the same thing. They only wanted recent graduates. Either that or they needed citizenship. I don't mind being rejected because I don't have enough technical knowledge... cuz thats partly true. But to be cut from a tech support position when I'm more knowledgeable than them is ridiculous. I know that for a fact because I used to deal with that department when I was working. They provided the Australian support for the accounting package I was implementing at the company. Bloody morons I tell you. They coudln't answer most of my questions satisfactorily. Alwez have to go back to the developers in South Africa.

I can still remember some 'solutions' they provided me. One was in regards to a button that didn't do what it was suppose to. I think it was meant to import a file or something, but it doesn't respond. The solution? Keep clicking on it till it works... o_O Another was an error message that keeps popping up when you start the program. Solution? Keep reinstalling the program until the message goes away... o_O

Very elegant...

p.s. to cut them some slack, the solutions do in fact work, which in all honesty is what businesses want. it doesn't have to be perfect or even efficient, just as long as it works. I really dislike this attitude though, although I've been prone to it on several occasions as well. Thats life I guess...

its been 1 1/2 months since i've been voluntarily unemployed. I'm kinda in a paradox. Time passes by so slowly...and yet so quickly at the same time. You can also say that I have so much friggin time on my hand since I'm not working, but I feel that I have no time as well because I'm not working. Aihs. What a muddle.

I wish I can just take off and travel around the world. Technically... I can certainly pay for it now. Although that doesn't mean I can afford it. Such a pain. I wonder when I'll be able to travel to Japan and the South Americas. Europe would be nice as well. They have such impressive architecture. Like the Sagrada Familia in Catalonia

from wiki

Coordinates are 41°24′13″N, 2°10′28″E if you want to check it out on Google Earth ^_ I'm not an architecture fan, but I still appreciate the beauty and effort that is poured into this structure. Seeing these kind of buildings are among my list of things to do before I croak. The Machu Picchu in Peru is another place I want to see with my own eyes. My friends who've been there (and SA in general) absolutely loved it. Incidently, Google Earth has Machu Picchu as well, but you can't see nuts since theres no lights in that area.

courtesy of wiki

Honestly speaking though, its not like you need super a lot of money to see all of this. Its a huge amount if you want to sleep in 5 star hotels, snack on beluga caviar and wash it down with foie gras. Round the world trips on statravel starts from $1500 to $3000. I guess it kinda depends though. One of my friends travelled around Europe and spent $20K. She did spend a whole month there... but it still seems like a pretty hefty amount. Ah well. No point thinking about that now since I don't even have a job to fund any escapades. At least I still have my ski trip next week, and New Zealand in September.

i just spent the most part of the long weekend playing Wild Arms 4. Feeling so stoned now... spent a bit too much time holding on to the joypad. I managed to complete the game, so its out of the way now :) I seem to finish an average of 1 game per week. I finished playing Rise of Legends last week as well. Or was that the week before? Can't remember...my timing is screwed up.

Andy's off to Spain for his brother's wedding. So cool. I need to decide on what phone I really want b4 he gets back. Mom n sis gonna chip in to get a new mobile phone for me. Initially I wanted the SE 810i, but after thinking about it. I probably wouldn't use the music feature much. So its kinda moot getting it. The K800 is a better choice. Its music capabilities probably aren't as good, but its a Cybershot! 3.2 mpx camera as well. Pretty darn good.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be out yet. No idea when as well. I saw a post on gsmarena.com that mentiones 26th June, but you really can't put much faith into what those random comments say. Aihs... I'm at a loss. Not that its a super big deal... can always get my mom to courier it over, but dunno how much that would cost. Oh... and just fyi, the phone is much cheaper back home (the 810i). It retails for about $700+ here, but its only rm1450 according to my mom. ZZzzz.. how how how?? Can't make up my mind. Dunno how much the k800 will be also in the first place. Probably not going to be worth buying it especially since if its so new.

Meh...I'll mull over it while munching on my Coles Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies.

i wanna go to bed, but i'm feeling too full! Aihs. Went to a nice spanish restaurant for dinner. One of the waitresses had really big ermm...assets :) Oh. The food was good too. Ate a bit too much in fact. Its kinda expensive though. The tapas are like $10 each serving...and its not much more than a single dish when you go yumcha. We (me, thos, andy) ordered 4 different types of tapas: tortila, mushroom, chorizo sausage & chicken wings. They sound a lot exotic on the menu obviously :p ermm.. A chicken & seafood paella (risotto in a wok?), which I think didn't have any chicken in it. And dessert too. So yeah...feeling quite fat at the moment.

I have to go to work tomorrow too. Arrrrghhhh! I'm so use to bludging at home now. Too used to sleeping late and not having any early morning commitments. Oh well. I guess I do need the money after a month of not working. Somehow... it seems like I'm spending a fair bit even though I'm not working. And thats not counting my losses in the market so far. I keep those expenses separate from my records.

Oh...its actually only $1,580.38. Not $2,180.38 like I originally thought :) Had to pay rent twice last month. Thats not too bad since the $1500 is inclusive of my ski trip. But haven't factored in lift passes and rental. That would fall under this month. Exactly 2 more weeks before Thredbo!!! Woohoo!

So so soooo tired this morning. Its been getting more difficult to get out of bed. I usually attribute that to my diet. Don't know if its psychological or not, but when I go through the South Beach or Atkins diet... I seem to feel more refreshed in the mornings. Now wake up, stone in bed for about 5 minutes deciding if I should go back to sleep or get up. When I do get up, I sit on my chair in front of the com for another 5 minutes deciding if getting out of bed was the right choice. Aihs... I wonder if its cuz I don't have to wake up to get to work.

Jez like this morning. I wake up at 8.30, take my multi vits, and then crawl back into bed :) I would probably still be sleeping if my ex-workplace didn't call me up. They having problems doing some setup for the accounting software, so called me up for help. Maybe I should get myself an ABN and start charging them for $150/hour for every 5 minute block. Thats what the consultants do. Hmmm.... So far I've received an average of 2 calls a week since I've left work.

I'm going back to work tmr to fix things up. It shouldn't take me long. I think I know whats the problem. Should be able to fix it in a few minutes...and then I can charge them for 4 hours worth of work :) Kekekek. Sweet deal huh? I backcharge my travel time :)

My trades are a losing proposition at the moment. Its all still unrealised losses, but with the the US markets are performing, it doesn't bode well. I'm not exiting till the share prices hit my stop, but if they do... I will lose up to $500. Sounds like a small amount, but thats more than a weeks expenditure for me. Oh well. Live and learn.

I really need to think ahead more and not let my emotions get involved when trying to trade. Thinking "Oh man... if I don't pull this trade, I'm gonna miss out!" is probably among one of the worst things you can do to yourself as a trader. And I always just realise my mistake AFTER the trade goes through... sheesh.

Just like the day before... I placed an order of about $4K plus for some shares which I figure are going to breakout (basically prices going up). I put the order in about midnight after reading up just a little bit about it. BUTTT, prices dropped instead o_O 2 things I could have done to prevent that. 1st was to look at the US market, which I believe was the pressure behind the recent downturn in the Aussie market. At the time I placed the order, the US market was already in a pretty bad decline. If I had known that, I would have 2nd thoughts since the stock I bought is essentially a US company too. Mistake #1.

Mistake #2. I didn't want to miss the rally...so I placed the order the night before instead of waiting for the market to open and observing the prices. I was too eager and ended up becoming one of the punters who gets raped by the markets. What I should have done is be patient, and wait for a point in which I can enter the market confidently. Prices go up, but they always come down too. I shouldn't have been so anxious to jump in at the start.

What ticks me off is that the stuff I just wrote...is also mentioned in the books that I've been reading to a certain extent. It just shows how noobish I am in trading. A lesson well learnt indeed. I won't be making the same mistakes twice. Oh. I've decided that I won't disclose or discuss the actual stocks that I buy. A reflection on my purchases in general is ok. Its basically to prevent me from developing an ego regarding my purchases.