Welll, it all went well... not a single complaint about anything... =) Busy though, just general stuff, trying to keep the work manageable so that it doesn't pile up in the in-tray. Had a review of my job application, still needs a bit of work to bring it up to what is expected standard. Planned on leaving somewhat on time this evening but ended up having to take some papers out to the other office on the way home. A bit of a diversion from the most direct route home and about 30 mins longer... oh well... its the weekend! Planning on studying this weekend and the weather is going to be miserable... perfect.. no missing the great weather outside. Turn the heating up and settle in for some reading and past exams... thats basically all I do to study for masters subjects.

Was meant to post this last night.. but blogger was down for maintenance... *sigh* so here it is... about 24 hours too late...

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Met up with Linah today for a coffee around lunch time. She's going back to Dubai for summer =P Missing out on the hot weather that seems to have left us already... She made me a card... and a present... music CD to "modernise" my music tastes apparently... At least there wasn't any heavy metal on there =P Had two meetings and trying to do two people's work at the same time, but handling it ok. Finally put some words towards my application for the A/P job, got an AGM as my reference too! =) A productive day... and its pay day tomorrow! =D

Whenever it rains, it pours.... and thats not just the weather... things are happening so quickly... I got an email today inviting me to an interview for the tax office. Still not getting my hopes up, but I guess I did ok in the assessment. Now for the hard part... the panel interview... This adds to a week where I already have too much to do... Its the big exam week at work, and I've got an exam on Friday next week. Arrgh... so much planning goes into everything, then it all happens at once... Work is supportive, my boss offered to be a reference for me in the future already and gave me advice on taking the time that I need to prepare! =)

Started studying for the exam... well, printed out the previous exams. I'm pretty sure most of the questions are similar if not the same... thanks to the hints given by the lecturer =) Have to really get cracking with the assignment too, although the exam is the priority at the moment. So much to do... so little time... Arrghh.. job application... must do tonight...

What is it with the "asian" way of buying something on special... yes... even at the supermarket. Canned fruit was like 50c off, so the shelves are almost empty of that brand... even plastic containers... all the biggest ones (hence the biggest discount) had been cleaned out. Its friggen ridiculous. *sigh*

Had an ok day today at work, its starting to get busy now, stayed till 6 to finish off some work that I didn't have time to do during the day because of the phone calls. There was an urge to get out of the office, so I did, just said I was going to the bank, jumped on a tram and went back to work about an hour later! =D Felt much better after that... now to take on the world... lol =)

First day of daylight savings, and I didn't even use the daylight that was "saved" =D Well.. actually, I did something that I haven't done for probably 3 years or something, went to a nursery and bought some plants, came home and planted it in our planter box thingy =P Ahhh.. suburban life... lol... doing gardening (well... planting) on the weekend, washing the car... oh wait.. stupid water restrictions =P

Did what I normally do on a Sunday today... sleep in till like 10:30 or so, get up, have some breakfast... actually sit down and eat it... normally its just a 5 minute thing between getting ready for work and walking out the door =P Nice and relaxing =) All prepared to bum around and do nothing for the evening now...

Hmm.... my mum got an email last night from a friend who was visiting here from HK... they haven't seen each other since at least 19 years ago when we left HK and haven't chatted at length since they both finished high school. That was like 40 years ago! So today we took her out to lunch and showed her some sights around Melbourne, mainly driving down Beach Rd from Port Melb to Brighton, to get the classic "Bathing boxes with the city in the background" shot. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit blurry... and later raining so it wasn't such a good day to try for that scene.

Tonight, I have decided I should start studying for the exam. Start preparing, right now... well.. after dinner, and probably after watching some TV... damn it... prolonging the study thing. Not that I have done any of it this semester... not enough to constitute calling it actual progress =P This *should* be the last time that I have to go through this exam ritual for uni... in the future, if I'm studying, its going to be truly for my career, not just because I want to find a career. Which reminds me, have to put in a few other job apps including the one for programers at my current work ... some of the people there have volunteered to help look over my application. =)

Had a good time tonight at drinks at the Camberwell office. They even put on a "Camberwell Cup Day" as most of us will be working during the Melbourne Cup next week. It was good to catch up with some of the people out there who I haven't seen for a couple of months. Its all going to be a long hard slog getting all the things that need to be done but it will be done! I just realised that its really sad that one of the things that I do when I get on the net is to check my work email, just in case something has gone terribly wrong... *sigh* oh well.. its the weekend! =)

Next week will be studying for my exam and trying to work on the assignment thing for uni.... I want it to be a good weekend to lead into the week =)

Its finally Friday afternoon... this seems to have been a long week at work. I've not done much today... again... just a few meaningless things and general admin... I can't believe how people here are actually looking forward to going to Camberwell this evening. Probably go there, chat with a few people and leave... I don't have that much to do with the stuff that goes on out there this time. =)

Very amusing quote on a sign (worn by someone walking around the city tonight)...

There's a village somewhere in Texas that is missing an idiot

lol... =D

Waah... bit better few days.. its been pretty good, had quite a few things to do which kept me busy and not staring at the clock so much... or surfing the web =D Had a job (2 positions) advertised internally today for programmers, with a nice pay rise if I get it. The catch is... applications close in the first week of November, it takes 3 weeks to select, the job is fixed term till 31st December! So basically 3 weeks work... then it gets readvertised... still.. better than what I am doing now... but possibly not what I really want to do... just a start in the world I guess! I must try to grab this opportunity with both hands!

Got drinks at the Camberwell office on Friday in preparation for what lies ahead... weeks of hard work I think =) hopefully not for me though! =D

Hmm... office politics... have to learn to play, play well and try to stay ahead of the pack. Our organisation is meant to be different, its not just another bureaurcracy with its own little place, but the more I work there, the more I feel like it is. Nothing gets done in a hurry, except if there is a "higher power" waiting for it. Oh well.

Feeling kind of lethargic for some reason, don't really want to do anything but have a few things lined up this week. Having lunch with Alcee tomorrow one last time (again) before she leaves town, Fel is coming to visit me and have dinner on Wednesday, and probably something either Thursday or Friday. And this is meant to be the pressure time, exams and all that. I'm going out more and more... I guess its like that when your working life is taking up so much of your week that you just want to do something social, see some friends and generally have a good time! =)

Bumming around on the net... did the IQ test on emode.. hmm got 131 and I'm a "visual mathematician" type... whatever that is :D

Oh friggen typical Melbourne weather... its sunny and there are hardly any clouds in the sky... =P

Woke up this morning to rain falling continuously... the wind blowing it against my window. It was kind of refreshing after the warm weather yesterday. Just one thing though, normally it stops after a while... I don't think its stopped since about 8am this morning. I have no idea why I was even awake then, but fell asleep again shortly afterwards..

Yesterday was interesting, went to the tax office assessment thing... it ended up being quite easy, well, I thought so. There were almost 400 applicants just from the Melbourne office and 200 got invited to this thing. So I'm in the top 200, but doesn't mean I will get through to the next round. Oh well, doing the tests on paper was much better than online. Partly I think because they don't have a timer in the top right hand corner reminding you how much time you have left :D

Had a look for a replacement car, but having second thoughts about that at the moment, its just that we don't really need a new car, it would just be nice to have it. I guess I'll have to see if I end up moving away for work or not first. So many uncertainties... I guess c'est la vie...

I would think an organisation such as ours would have its act together in its "core" activities. I mean, the things that I have had to stay back late at work and do over the last few weeks can be put down purely to a lack of planning and testing. Tonight was no exception. Stayed till around 6pm finialising some things that need to be couriered out on Monday. It was the mid-afternoon before anyone realised that it had not been done... oh well.

During the day I was bored, so I chatted a bit to BabySakura and later on to Alaysia. I was the only one in our department for most of the day. Basically I did a lot of web browsing, although I did do some actual work now and then =D Its the weekend finally, although I have a assessment for the tax office grad jobs tomorrow at 9am in the city, so another early morning. Probably going to look for a new car tomorrow in the afternoon, unsure yet whether I will actually get around to doing that though.

At Parliament this evening coming home (same time as last evening) they were playing the same song. It was that girl from "The Block"... Amity or whatever her name was. That was funny, you know you've really made it when your song gets played at a train station to drive the "undesirable" people away! =D lol

12 Voicemail messages... thats what I had left on my work phone this afternoon. The whole organisation had a staff briefing (more like a seminar thing) this afternoon and all the phones were diverted to my voice mail. I was actually expecting that there would be more, so I guess 12 in 4 hours or so isn't too bad =) Most of them left clear messages although one or two were really bad.... especially when they ask you to email them back and don't leave how they spell their name clearly... *sigh*

Had a long-ish lunch with Alcee today, probably see her again on Monday before she goes home. Another friend that will be overseas and I don't know when I will see them again when they leave. Its kinda sad... guess I don't have that many people in my life that are my true friends... hmmm.. =|

Geez, what a boring day. I had to go around to find work to do from another department. It was really really boring today, seems like no one wants to call us anymore. Oh well. And living up to their name, executive management sent this email in the afternoon:
   Subject: Return of newspapers
   Could the person who has borrowed today's Herald Sun from Exec please bring it back
=D

I guess it was a slow day for them too! It was a fine day until about 3pm, when the dark storm clouds rolled in and thunder and lightning made for a very wet end to the day. On the train home tonight, the inside of the train was wet as... and the windows fogged up... stupid old trains with no air conditioning =P

Yay, everyone got a 21 day extension on their assignment! It means we can study for the exam, then worry about trying to get the assignment done afterwards! =) Not that I really know what I am doing with the programs and how to get it to do the reports that I'm meant to produce. 21 more days to figure it out I guess =D

Got an email today "inviting" me to do an evaluation session for the tax office. Only thing its on Saturday.. I guess I'll book the earliest session (9am) to get it over and done with. Not sure yet, but I have quite a few things on this week. Having lunch with Alcee on Thursday who is flying off home next week. Later that afternoon, I have to attend a staff briefing so that will be hopefully some fun. Hopefully I don't have to stay back and answer the phones o_O

Ai.... I had no idea what I was doing today... didn't think that I did that much... I dunno. I guess it can only get better. Looking forward to tomorrow I guess, it was a long day with uni, which was actually quite boring and uninspired I think. It was basically the last lecture for the semester as next week is a guest lecturer from Micorosoft selling us their new product... Reporting Services which is going to be "the next big thing" in the Business Intelligence area. So I'm basically done for what will hopefully be the end of my university life after so many years, and a full time job or two in between. No real sense of achievement though, which I can probably put down to the lack of a career path ahead.

Had a good afternoon down in Werribee at Nick's cottage. The girls (his girlfriend and one of his friends) that live down there organised everything, including baking a cake for his birthday =) Nick's family (well, his sister and mum) came down as well as some of his high school friends. Had pancakes which is his mum's recipe and they were delicious. Wasn't much of a surprise, although he did run a half-marathon this morning, some 21kms in 1hr 40mins (including a toilet break!) which is impressive. I don't even think I can run that far =D

Now after I get home, I really don't feel like eating dinner I'm so full =P Oh well. Sunday evening and all I have to look forward to is work tomorrow =(

Still been looking for a career, but does this mean throwing everything that I have here and moving back to the home where I was born? I don't know, but recently I have been looking further afield, to interstate intially, but I'm not sure whether this is a great opportunity or something that I don't really want to get into. As someone recently told me, its taking yourself out of the comfort zone and into something different and uncertain. Is it a good thing? i don't know, it will give me new experiences for sure. You can only judge whether it is a good thing after the fact.

Waited for someone to call me this afternoon but I guess they had better things to do. *sigh* Going to surprise Nick at the cottage tomorrow with Chris and Caroline.

I'm glad this week is over. My boss gave me some OT pay for Wednesday night and so it ends up I'm getting paid for 93.5 hours this fortnight. I did about 91.5 hours anyways, so its only a little bit extra but the gesture is much appreciated =) Start in the new department on Monday and I have had.. uhh.. 15 minutes of training for it due to the work that I have had to do this week. Oh well, I'll figure it out I guess. Off to catch up on sleep I think...

This week has been full of one thing.. work... In 4 days I've done 41.5 hours. Yesterday was bad, really bad. =( I spent the day (another one) out at the printing contractors. Only it was completely different. We were meant to be out there only till 1 or 2pm, by which time they promised that they would have everything printed and ready. Ended up leaving there at 11pm. Delays, file problems and everything else that went wrong were to blame apparently. I had my backpack couriered out to me from work as it had my keys and other stuff that I needed. Finished up with 14.5 hours paid work but my boss wants to pay us extra overtime to make up for it.

Then today, I thought I would get there on time at 8:30, do a bit of work and finish up some things that I had left yesterday and get out of the office at around 3:30 or 4pm. Ended up leaving at 5:30pm as usual and adding more things to the backlog than I took off. The DE&T union had a stopwork rally thing at 10am so the main systems guy in our unit went, along with our A/P from IT. Then it was "decided" at the rally that they would take the rest of the day off work. Great, just when we find several large problems with the data, they decide to take the day off... *sigh* I'm actually quite proud of myself as I *shock horror* had to apply knowledge learnt from my undergrad degree to extract stuff out of the database. Writing SQL isn't hard, just understanding the database schema that spread over 3 A3 pages. I ended up asking for some help from another IT person to do the first one. The second ad-hoc query from my boss was completely my doing =) I just hope that it's right! =P

Another day spent out in the industrial wasteland that is the printing contractor. We checked so many reports that needed printing. I also got the company car to drive out there (6 people went so we took 2 cars) so that was ok. Bit tired though, especially after the late night last night. I also get to go out there tomorrow to finish checking the rest of them. About 1/3 of the total needed to be reprinted. Spent a good while this afternoon trying to tell them that, ended up having to prove to them, using their methods that they were way off the mark. Ended the day driving in peak hour back to the office and trying to catch up on work that I hadn't been doing. The person that I will be replacing from next week is *this* close to going into labor so I guess I should go and learn what I have to do soon...

Here's hoping for a better day tomorrow. I guess I'm not the only one stressed or pissed off... see here and here

Hmm.. ok.. the Yom Kippur thing is what I was trying to say in the post before... =P see here Even the lecturer called it a "thing" =D

What a Monday.... *sigh* Lots of problems at work with the printing and the distribution of CDs out there. Ended up at the printing contractor today in the afternoon, taking a taxi there with about 10 mins notice, getting a laptop, freshly burnt copy of the database and working on it while in the taxi to try to make it into some kind of understandable and usable form. Damn IT people =P

All this made me late, very late for uni. I didn't end up leaving the contractor's till 6pm, get back to the city and leave work at 6:30pm making it to uni for my 7pm lecture... only to find that the lecturer had posted that the lecture would start at 7:15pm as he was celebrating the... uhh.. Jewish something or other that ended yesterday =P And shock horror, we finished early today. I was able to catch my tutor at the end of the lecture and got a solution for the little technical problem that I was having.

Oh well, getting late and I guess I'll be out at Derrimut again to check more print outs...

Its the end of the weekend already... geez =( Haven't done much today, just some reading for uni and a little bit more on the project/assignment thingy. It started out as an assignment but has turned into a freakin project =D Things are looking up though, starting in a new area tomorrow at work so there will hopefully be heaps to do. I'm taking over from someone who is leaving on maternity leave at the end of the week so there will be lots of learning to be done. Then I have uni tomorrow night, for which I actually have some questions to ask the tutor.. omg.. what is going on.. lol =D

Trying to organise something for Nick's birthday which is this coming Saturday but I have to find out where he is going to be first... Probably be driving down to smelly Werribee on Friday night to celebrate with him it looks like. Should actually go to the trouble of buying a present as well this year =P

Just when I thought I had all the technical problems fixed up with my uni project, I find that the trial license for the reporting software that I am using has expired. =( pffft.. The tutor was meant to get for us proper licenses that will expire after the end of November but not sure when we are getting those. Oh well, I guess I could use the time to catch up on the mountain of reading that I haven't been doing =P Its just so frustrating that I can't get that far with it...

What a day... spent a lot of it doing not much and the rest of it... doing way too much. =D We ran into problems where the printing people were missing the mark by a few millimetres, making the text descriptions that go with it completely wrong. There were accusations of them not doing their job properly and how we would move to break the contract, etc. One of my bosses ended up going out there with a whole lot of the staff to try to find and fix the problem. There was talk of us going out there this weekend and working... but it got to the afternoon and they were able to fix the problems so we don't have to work =)

I was left back at the office and my other boss had gone (she is doing something this weekend for work, a presentation or something) and so I had an extra long lunch in the city =) Met Tedy on the tram on the way back. Hadn't seen him for ages and he was with a girl, not that she said anything =P Got back to the office and was looking forward to leaving early (It is Friday after all, and I had done over 40hrs this week) but then I got stuck with all this work that needed to be done, so ended up leaving at the usual time (5:15pm) =(

I actualy was able to leave early from work today.. well.. 15 minutes earlier than usual. Probably be an early day tomorrow as well I hope. Its Friday =) It was also pay day today so my bank balance now looks a little bit more healthy. Not much else going on, except that I have to learn the new job tomorrow and also finish off some of the work that we couldn't finish today due to various problems.

Going out to an office lunch tomorrow to farewell one of the people who has been working for the unit on a contract (they didn't renew due to the hiring freeze, not because they couldn't do their job) but it should be a quiet day in the office.

Oh, forgot to add that its been raining almost non-stop since about 12 noon yesterday... Thoroughly wet going home and coming to work... Also, had lunch with Linah (the evil one) yesterday...

Nothing much happening at work today... well.. less than yesterday but still a bit of work to do... at least I didn't draw the short straw and have to go out to the printing people to check stuff :D

Yet another long day... I was put into the role of systems guy... the person that gets all the information from the operational systems for everyone else. This was due to the fact that the guy that normally does that was out at the printing place trying to "fix" the problems. Even though they weren't really problems. It was good and I think I proved my worth =) Things happen so quickly so maybe I am onto something without knowing it. I hope so!