still alive

didn't realise i haven't posted since the thredbo weekend until jacq complained to me. thats actually lots of stuff to update, but i'm feeling quite tired now. Just got back from New Zealand a few hours ago...feeling a little depressed now. Absolutely loved it there...but now I'm back home. Back to the routine of waking up early to go to work...instead of waking up early to hit the snow. Sighhh...

More on the holiday later, when I get the pictures up. Work-wise. I've already handed in my resignation about 2 weeks back? So I'll be starting my 'new' position on the 27th. Can't wait till I get my 1st new paycheck! Definitely will be needing it after the NZ holiday, and the recent sharemarket madness. Lost a lot of money over the past few weeks. But not too bad I guess. Hmmm, its weird how I can think of losing a few thousand as 'not so bad' nowadays. All in perspective I suppose. I'm fairly confident I can make that money back, so I don't stress about it too much.

Waiting for dinner now (pizzalicious pizza!) so I'm just going to bum around till it arrives. On a downside to the holiday, I'm 2-3kgs heavier now from just 1 week of eating good food & not gymming. Ouchh....

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!!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!!