a snowy weekend

I recovered from my flu just in time to have a rockin good time at Thredbo. And this time, I didn't come down from the mountains with any broken/twisted appendages. woot! I didn't take as many pictures since I only brought my camera up on the 2nd day. Michelle took quite a few, but I haven't seen most of them yet.

Anyway, kinda hard to take pictures when u'r busy boarding. I was thinking when I get really good, I'm gonna get a helmet cam and shoot my runs down the mountain :) That'll be bloody awesome.

me...

and Thos with my board in the background

the coolest pic I took of some random boarder. Check out the powder!

almost knee deep!

as you can probably see in the last picture, the snow was really good at Thredbo this year. Its obviously not that as deep as in the pic on all the runs, but if you go off the trails a little bit you can have a really great ride. Doesn't even hurt when you wipe in the powder.

And only 2 more weeks before we head off to NZ for what might be even better snow! woohoo!

out of commission

took 2 days off work cuz I wasn't feeling well. Finally made use of my sick leave. I think I've accrued about 8 days worth. To be honest, I wasn't feeling so bad yesterday. Just a bit of a sore throat and a bad bout of laziness. Thought I could just stay home and watch GTO all over again.
I still went to the doctor in the afternoon. Needed to get MC as well as a 'scrip for some asthma medines. After 2 hours waiting at the clinic, I came home with an MC for 2 days, cough medicine & a fever. GG.

I think it might be the stupid air conditioning/heater and all the sick people there. It was a reverse cycle air conditioner set on auto. Bloody annoying. One minute its blowing cold air..the next hot. Ughh. Felt totally dead by around 7-8 and I just went to bed. Woke up at bout 4 in the morning. Internet a little bit, then went back to sleep. Ended up waking at 10 in the morning. Fever was sort of gone, but didn't bother going in to work neway. Especially since I already have a cert to cover for it. Doctor said I could get one for tomorrow if I wanted to as well. Just need to ring up and pick it up :) Hmmm.. interesting proposition.

Anyway...have a craving for char siu and wantan mee now. All cause of stupid muns. Suddnely tell me she has a craving for me. I ended up looking for recipes for it. Char siu looks simple enough to cook. Kolo mee as well. Going to try to cook em both next week or something.

resignation time... and a new phase

don't believe I've blogged this yet, but I've received a job offer from my client to work in their team on a permanent basis. And the money is much much MUCH better (x2 better) than what I'm getting paid now. So hell yeah, I'm accepting it. I can't quite disclose who I'll be working for yet. Some confidentiality clause in my contract in regards to client details and stuff, so I can't post it online. Its amazing how even a site with low traffic like mine can get googled for random terms (my previous company name for instance).

Back to the topic at hand, which isn't much of a topic really. I'm getting crap pay where I am, but decent experience. My client actually approached me a while back. A month ago? I then had a chat with my boss, to see where the company is going, what I can expect next year... blah blah. All the warm and fuzzy stuff. Obviously wasn't too happy when I asked about salary expectations. Goes on about how my current contract is for a year, and that my review is in september, but it was only june etc etc. So I just left it as that. Would have been happy enough to wait till September, since I want to do the right thing by sticking to my contract.

But thennn.. about 2 weeks later, they came back to me with a small raise. About 5% and I think it was across the board for all the graduate consultants. Normally, that would have been really cool, but I had to sign a new contract with them if I accepted it. And theres new clauses in there that state I can't work for anyone introduced by the company. Not only that, it pushes back my review for another year. Which means I would be paid pittance for the work I do for another year, so stuff that.

Initially I was thinking maybe the amount they paid me was what my skills are worth. But I had a chat with a consultant who recently left the company, and he said that I should have been paid much more than that, especially in today's market. So yeah... long story short, I got the ball rolling to start working with my client. That was about 2 weeks back. As of Thursday, we've got formal approval from the division head to hire me. So all we've got left is all the fun legal stuff in regards to our contracts, and then I can tender my resignation.

woot! And 4 weeks after that... or earlier if my company wants to cut me loose. Its on to my next phase in life. The phase of having 40% of my salary gobbled up by the Australian government. Ah well.... at least that means I'm earning more money.

a post just to post

running out of things to do at home, so just figured I'd post on my blog. Can't download anime to watch since I've almost used up my 12GB quota with Unwired... and the connection isn't good enough for WoW. Sadness. At least 1/2 my day was spent sleeping, so I haven't been all that bored.

Went clubbing/drinking last nigt. First time in what feels like a very long time. Zzz. Figured I'd go since it was fatty's belated bday thingie, together with his sis & her friend, Nicolai (also an ex cempakan!). Fatty reckons she is Sharon v2, and i suppose there is a slight resemblance. Hmmm. Anyway, crashed in bed till almost 2pm today. Haven't slept till that late in ages.

Just waiting to go out for dinner now. Going to have some black linguini with a friend from the cafe/bar I used to work at. As you can tell, my diet has been put on hold for the past couple of days. Taking a short break this week from calorie counting and stuff. Didn't manage to go gym this week either. Too busy with work the past week. I did go swimming last Tuesday though. Nice change of pace. The heating in the pool was actually working this time, so it made for a good swim.

Ermm.... oh! Here are some pictures of Thos's new pad.

Balcony view, left

balcony view, right; and

the living room

I was standing next to the entrace when I took the living room picture, so the place isn't as big as where we stayed. But its dood enough, especially since theres a hugeass storeroom downstairs in the carpark. Tho's room is to the left (door next to the coach), and my room will be to the right. Best thing is, the living room is still as neat as when this picture was taken :)