Went out today and did some shopping, just groceries and stuff. Then went to re-exchange some CDs with Eliza as she gave me the wrong ones yesterday. Also went to a family friend's house to drop some stuff off to be laminated (for free!) Thats about all. Had a pretty bad night at work last night. I asked someone how to do something and they told me to do it one way, which turned out to be totally wrong, and of course... I have to take the blame for it. Hmmph... This advice was from a person that works there full time and has been there for ages.. geez. I talked to the supervisor and she said, well.. its better to ask one of the other people =P *sigh*

Been working on the web-based systems assignment which I still think is "not that hard" but I'm sure that I will be proven wrong! =( Its just motivation to do it. I have none! Plus I have the IS security paper which is 4000 words long and 20 references required. Haven't really started or got a clue whether what I am doing is "correct." I guess there is not correct or incorrect answer to a research paper, just that there is less than a week to churn out 4000 words and I've got no real "urge" to work on it. Is this wrong? I dunno. Will get around to it tomorrow by which time I should have finished my parts (the draft of it anyways) of the web-based assignment, which is basically describe/justify why/how you would design a web page for an "expensive, imported sports car."

Yay, did the stupid short assignement and handed it in this morning. Drove all the way there just to submit it as well, and of course, its when you don't need a 2 hour parking spot that one becomes available =P Then came back and went to have lunch with Felicia at the South Melbourne market. That was nice and after a bit of cursing (only a little) we were able to find a parking spot =)

Off to work tonight, only working 2 days this week instead of 4 like last week. Just feel like doing the minimum and concentrating on making sure I kick ass in the assignments and exams coming up! =) Its not like I can't survive on the money that working 2 nights a week gives me, just that I would like more. Either that or the double my pay per hour rate =D

First off, here is last night's dinner photo (the usual group shot thing) =P

Had an early night last night as most people had to either work or uni. Meanwhile, I got up at 7am to drive my mum to the orthapedic surgeon to get an injection into her knees to help (hopefully) alleviate arthiritis. The appointment was at 8am, just in East Melbourne. She has to go to another one for the next two weeks I think. Then came home and worked on the assignment that is due tomorrow. Not sure even if what I am doing is remotely correct, but for 5% I'm not really *that* bothered about it. Spending more time to work on the other two assignments that are worth (I think) 25% and 40%. Better do a good job =)

Felt pretty sleepy for the rest of the day, so probably an early night tonight I think =P Have to get the 5% thing done though so I should probably not be procrastinating here and typing something that will get me marks =D

Progress, and truly a measure of the efficiency of people if they have to do something =P I got my paper marked and got a high-C (so somewhere between 65-70) and I hoped to get more, but its way better than no mark at all! =) Off to dinner with Nick, Chris and Caroline tonight at Joe's Garage (obviously a restaurant =P) in Brunswick St.

Hmph... Meant to get assignment marks back for another assignment, but as mentioned yesterday, the school server is down and therefore means no marks. No matter, the nice TA decided to email the spreadsheet with all the marks on it to everyone! I look, and look, and my name has... nothing... no mark... geez! I emailed him and he replied saying that there was no document attached to the submission (which was done online via their system). All is now fixed and having emailed him the paper, I'll have to wait a while (don't know how long exactly) to find out what mark I get. =(

Oh, a few things I forgot to mention earlier was that Tedy gave me a call saying he is back in town after his long exchange over to UC Berkeley. Second thing is that my school is the School of Information Management and Systems, which would hopefully have an idea how to keep a server running. The SIMS server has been down for a full 2 days at least (can't remember if it was down on Sunday) and I found out today that it was a hardware failure. I thought we would have some sort of redundancy in the hardware considering all the school's lecture notes are placed on that server along with content/news/assignments. Hmmm...

Hmm, another day at uni... getting quite boring now as its almost the end of semester... just one more week to go! Got some news from a job I applied for ages ago, they sent an email basically saying that they are looking at all the applications for the job (195) and they will make offers to attend a information session and to do some testing next week. Don't know if I will be getting that or not. It didn't say in the email... The other job related news is that they want me to work as a casual from 13/6. Of course I have 2 exams on the 16/6 but I guess I will be able to handle it! Its 7am-3pm, 7 days a week. I also want to keep my current job at the bank so I'll do that only on 2 evenings a week. Money! =D

Got 2 assignments back, one worth 10% and the other (I think worth 25%), they were both D (for distinction, not ABCD!) so I'm pretty happy. The 25% one I actually got 75% so really happy about that (although I would like to have gotten more of course!). That was for a subject that the lecturer (who I had last semester as well) marks really hard, so its good to get really good marks on the assignments, so you can hopefully get a decent final mark! =D

Oh, on a sad note, was chatting to my cousin in Sydney on ICQ and she told me that my grandparent's dog, Dolly, died last Thursday. So sad but at least I got to see him one last time when I was up there in April. =(

Hmm, another hazy day today but it was fine, although a little bit cool. The sun was nice but wasn't very strong. Went to uni today and didn't learn much =P Have 2 more classes tomorrow and then it will be almost over, just the final week review and exam preparation, and working like mad on completing the assignments.

Worked tonight but it was an early night =) Didn't really want to stay too late, although the extra money is always good when pay day comes around! Hopefully get one more day's work this week and I should be able to actually have some savings this month! =)

Didn't really do anything today. Meant to, but just didn't get around to it. There is a lot of stuff to do regarding my 2 major assignments that are left to do. I guess I will get around to doing it this week. Well, I had better as they are kind of due next week! Need motivation to get these done, and to do them well. Must do well... grrr

Went out and bought some rice (10kg actually!) at Coles as it was on special. Living in an apartment now it is not convenient to carry a 25kg bag of rice, not to mention that there is absolutely no place to put it! Was actually meant to buy it on Friday but the Coles we went to in Balwyn was crap and obviously too many chinese go there as they had sold out! =D

Got invited to the football at Telstra Dome tonight by Chris as his sister bought tickets and couldn't go. We got some "premium" seats that were $36.75 for like $10.00 =) They were really good seats as well, right on the wing and they had soft cushioning too =D It was the first time I had been there even though I live like one block from it and its only been there for like 3 years now.. heh.

I hate last minute changes, and I got an email at around 11am yesterday asking me to add stuff to the data warehouse project. I know, I said to send me any changes to the thing before 1pm but I mean, surely if it hasn't changed since the final draft (which was just missing a few uncompleted sections, the points were already there) they could have told me before hand, not leave it till 2 hours before I submit it.... geez! Anyways, its done and all is well again.

Worked last night till 11:40pm because some dyslexic people can't fill in a form properly and think that $230 is $320. That and putting extra items in to the batch of cheques. Bleh. Its also getting so cold at night now. Its ok if you're walking and moving around, just don't stand still for any long periods of time. I think it was 5 degrees yesterday morning, would have been about the same this morning.

Oh, went to this restaurant called Plume which is a chinese restaurant for lunch yesterday. It was yum-cha so its all good! The food was quite nice although expensive... oh well =)

Another night, another few hours to spend at work. The project is almost (95%) finished apart from the action plan and executive summary, so its ready to go for tomorrow! =) Now just have to start working on all these other assignments that I have to do. Oh well, I think I will spend the weekend on them and hopefully have some results to show for it! =P

We were told (promised would be too strong a word I think) that we would have the results of our research paper by "Thursday or Friday" this week, but I'm not so sure about it. Well, its not up there now.... but I guess there is still all day tomorrow for them to do it. Oh, which reminds me that I have to go to uni on Monday early to pick up all these short assignments that are in the office. The catch is that you have to go there and collect it when they are "open" for collections. Some weird hours like 10-12 in the morning and 2-4pm in the afternoon, times I'm either not going to be at uni or in class at the time.. geez =(

Gawd.... the final report with all the files is 2512kbytes now.... wtf?? Luckily it zips down to 131kbytes =)

Had lunch at a place called Wildflower today with my mum and our accountant. It was in a shopping area called Maling Road in Canterbury and its the "olde" type shop fronts. Quite a nice place. The weather was pretty terrible though, windy and cloudy but no rain. I had to leave early from lunch as I went to work 3 to 7pm. It was really boring as I was doing document preparation the whole time. It basically involves flicking through the work and making sure that it is the right order (debits first then credits), all the right way up and no staples to foul up the machine scanning it.

Apart from that, started getting all the parts together for the data warehouse project which will hopefully have a final draft done by tomorrow. Its in about 4 separate files at the moment but its already something like 400kbytes with some screenshots. I have to add the sample reports in but that shouldn't take up that much more space.

Had an ok day at uni today. It was sunny when I went in and pouring rain when I came out of the lecture theatre 1.5hrs later. I still had my sunglasses on top of my head... geez =P Had a group meeting which went ok I guess, still a lot of work to do for the data warehousing project which is kind of still on track. I also have to start on my IS security major assignment and the web based systems one which is another group project. What fun.

Meant to be catching up with Nick, Chris and Caroline tomorrow night but we have arranged it for next Wednesday by which time I should hopefully be in a better position regarding assignments. Hopefully better in terms of finding a grad job as well.

Yay... got rejected by Qantas... so now I have no real hope of getting a job. Anyone got ideas? I guess I can just go work outside of the IT field, but then why have I studied for so many years to do something that wouldn't even require a bachelors degree... *sigh*

Went to a late session of The Matrix Reloaded last night with Eliza. We got there about 9:00pm for a 9:30pm start and the line was like the length of the entrance hall. This was the line just for that movie. Geez.... I have no idea why it isn't assigned seating when it is such a huge movie. It was sold out before 9:00pm but I had already booked the tickets earlier =)

Last night (early this morning actually) it poured down for a while but now it is sunny again, although it is really really windy outside. Haven't done too much today, just working on assignments and finishing the grad app to the tax office =) Oh, got another few extensions for my IS security assignments as the lecturer has been away for a while. That just means that everything is basically due at the same time now... *sigh*

Foggy as today, couldn't really see that far when driving. This is what I woke up to this morning around 9:00am. You are meant to see some buildings and a big flagpole there, but today.. it was just grey...

Went to Box Hill today to do some shopping and most of the way there we couldn't really see that far into the distance. The fog was a bit better when we came home although it is coming back in again tonight so tomorrow will probably be the same as today. I bought some cakes from BreadTop which is like a bakery/cafe thing in Box Hill. Their pastries and cakes were really good, although the cakes look exactly the same (down to the name) as the ones found in Crown Cafe. They were about 20c cheaper though =)

Worked tonight and as I have to balance as well now, I stayed to I finished that which for me was 11:45pm tonight. Luckily I can walk home and its not that far =) Its not that hard, just have to learn what to write and how to do some of the more "special" procedures. Most of the time its pretty easy, just fixing up the errors that the keying people have made.

Weird kind of day here today, with rain in the morning and some sunshine and clouds... guess its a typical Melbourne day =D Could do with a little more rain though, really don't want water restrictions to get worse and not being able to use water anywhere.

Worked on my datawarehousing paper today and finally getting some progress, should at least have a first draft ready by tomorrow hopefully, depends how much work I do tonight I guess =P Matrix Reloaded starts tonight (well, midnight screenings) and I guess there will be so many people watching it this weekend. We will go see it soon I guess, at the same time as everyone else. No rejection letters/emails today, not that it means anything good, guess better than getting bad news.

Feeling not so well tonight, because the lecturer today was really hard to understand and had to concentrate. I think I have a bit of a headache, maybe from the lack of sleep the past few nights. *sigh* Had a group meeting earlier today and hopefully everything is going ok. I have to really start writing the report soon with hopefully something to look at on Friday. Not sure when our next meeting is as we didn't set a time, hopefully next week and not on the weekend =P

Not much to write here recently as I have been quite busy doing other stuff (watching tv, surfing the web =P... hehe only kidding) with uni and job apps. I want an interview... at least to say that I have a chance... *double sigh* (is that even possible?!)

Not much sleep last night as I was waiting for Eliza to call so I could pick her up. She ended up staying at uni until about 5pm today! She was doing her CPG thing so I guess everything else had to wait.

Worked tonight and they started to teach me how to balance. This means 1) extra hours as I will finish later and 2) lots more to learn and guarantees my job for longer! =P I guess its a good thing, but I wouldn't mind finding a better job in IT with more hours for next semester. I guess I'll have to see if anything comes up. Not much else happenning, just working on my assignments and going to class =)

Hmmm.. waiting.... Eliza is in a meeting so I don't want to call her... we're meant to meet up and do something like get waffles at Gelare or something. Dunno what is happenning now that its almost 4:30pm...

Spent the rest of the day just bumming around the apartment, doing little things and finishing my short assignment. Well, its almost finished, just needs a proofread and formatting to make it look acceptable. Its actually longer than my other "short" assignments but I think I rambled on a bit too much. Hopefully it will be ok. Have to do some more job apps... *sigh*... must find a job, must find a job. Not sure what I will be doing tomorrow but I will meet up with Eliza sometime in the afternoon after her CPG meeting.

Assignment got extended... the one for data warehousing so we have one extra week to do it now! We still aim to finish it by the end of this week as we all have other assignments to do but it gives us an error margin to fix up any errors and to "refine" our report =)

Yay, worked again tonight and finished early for a Fridy at around 11:00pm. I worked just a bil over 10 hours this week so my pay will be "normal" =) I just wish some people that owe me money would pay up! =P

In other events today, nothing... absolutely nothing, except for almost finishing the plan for the datawarehousing paper for which I have a group meeting at 10am at uni. I am going to drive there and probably pick up Alcee who is nice enough to give me a lift every Tuesday night after class =)

Early start this morning with my mum having a doctor's appointment in East Melbourne at 8:30am followed by an x-ray in Richmond. This lasted till around 10:30am at which time I was really really sleepy, I stayed up late (again) working on the assignments. Its all under control but still needs a lot of work to be done on them. Get the short assignment done tonight I think and finish the plan for the datawarehousing paper. I don't think I want to start writing it until I see their design just in case its completely different to what I *expect* it to be.

Had lunch with Felicia today and we went to South Mebourne to this pie shop that looked ok. The pie was $3.10 and then they charged 10c for sauce... *sigh*... run by Chinese obviously! :P Came home after that and slept for a few hours as I was just so tired... feeling better now but I guess I should try not to stay up so late tonight.

Went and bought some cushions from Ikea today that we thought would fit our dining table chairs. They are the old Chinese style chairs made of... uhh.. cherrywood and are about 40 years old I think. There was a slight problem as the elastic didn't fit over the chair legs so mum will fix that tomorrow hopefully. No more sitting on hard chairs at dinner time, well, they won't be as hard. =) Oh, and I washed the car today with those the high-pressure guns. Very clean now but you can see all the dents from careless people banging their doors against my car... *sigh*

Started writing the paper for data warehousing, just a plan at the moment with some facts put it. Probably have to put in some effort into researching some more to fill it out. Its taking shape at least. I really should just do the 500 word short assignment first, but I can't really be bothered for some reason.. lol =P

Was meant to have lunch with Felicia but she is giving blood today at lunchtime so we will have to make it for another day I guess...

Hmm.. I also seem to notice that I'm posting so late now... my body clock is seriously skewed to evening/overnight times.... *sigh*

Interesting day at uni today. The lecturer got a voicemail during a break that his partner was going into labour, so that kinda cut the lecture short! He will probably finish his lecture next week I guess, even though its meant to be another lecturer taking a different topic. Also Alcee couldn't get over a website for the Object Management Group who's web address is www.omg.org =) My first thought was that it was the "Oh My God" website =D

Had a group meeting as well, which I think went ok. I just have to write another report on how data warehouses can help this business that we are designing one for. It shouldn't be too hard as I can reuse some of the references that I used for my first assignment. Apart from the fact that I am meant to have it done by Saturday when we have the next group meeting at 10am... Geez... thats early =P

Have nothing on tomorrow but have to go wash the car as its very very dusty from the ventalation system in the car park of our building. Probably go out somewhere as well for lunch. Today we went to Polkinghornes in Port Melbourne which is an up-market butcher that also sells takeaway! It was $7.50 for a "cheesy burger" but it tastes soooooo goood :P They also have steak for sale there which is "melt in your mouth" steak. At something like $45/kg, I would hope so! =)

Woo! Everyone in my IS security class got an extension till next Monday as the lecturer has been unable to answer queries! We also haven't receieved any feedback apart from the first short assignment so he is giving back the second short assignment back tomorrow and the first part of the major assignment back the week after! Hopefully I did well in both those

Finished work at 11:05pm tonight and it was quite busy. Didn't run out of work at hardly any time (until the end of course). I'm hoping to find a full time job next semester as I will be only doing one subject and *should* have a lot of time to work and earn some money! =) Hmm, reminds me to do more grad job apps soon as they close next week sometime. Better to get in early as my mum keeps telling me.

Bah, just looked at my timetable and I have 2 exams on the same day. Considering I am only doing 3 subjects this semester, I have no idea how that worked out. Stupid timetabling =P At least all my exams this semester are 2 hours and not 3, so we don't have to write so much in the exam! I also finish on the 16/6 which is 10 days before the end of the exam period so I guess that is a good thing. =)

On a brighter note, I visited "the biggest Ikea store in Australia" today at Victoria Gardens. Its big... really really big and takes about 1 hour just generally walking around not really stopping that much to look at stuff. There's also the Victoria Gardens shopping centre which has a supermarket, Kmart, Freedom and some cinemas. Too bad about the traffic hassles getting to and from there during the week. It also looks like they rushed the job and its not finished such as construction equipment in what looks like free parking spaces! =( Still, its a nice place inside.

So spending another night trying to catch up on reading for my subjects. I'm so confused now, don't even know what actually I should apply to do the assignment for datawarehousing. Probably just spin some knowledge and hope that its the right bit for the assignment. We're having a group meeting on Tuesday so hopefully I will come up with some ideas for it.

One thing I hate is people owing me money. Then they say they will pay by a certain date (some 3 weeks after I told them) and when that day comes around, they give you less than half the money they owe. Whats with that? Sooo annoying! Have to do something about that later...

Wow, end of the week already and it doesn't seem that I have done anything. I just found out this other assignment is due in 2 weeks from today so have to get a move on next week! Took the car to be fixed today as we had petrol smells coming out whenever we would drive in stop start traffic. The guy replaced the whole thing from where you put the petrol in to the petrol tank. He also said there was something dodgy about the way those bits were installed (fixed after an accident) with bolts missing and rubber plugs put in the wrong way.. geez... hopefully its been fixed for good now.

Nothing much to look forward to this weekend, probably catching up on some reading for the assignment. Such is life...