shady

In discrete, I’ve been reading my text in pdf format and notes are all on A4 pieces of paper. why am I behaving like a thief, all of that just to use my time to study for my upcoming exams? I’ve just been warned against studying in office..but I can’t envisage spending hours surfing the net, playing games..looking at social networking websites. It’s such waste of time! underhand methods, i may call it, but at least I am still getting to use my time to learn and revise my work.

I am tempted to go on leave because I am finding correspondence with her becoming increasingly unbearable. She leaves me emotionless and I’m uninterested, to a large extent, with the “much work” she feels has to be done.

No, I won’t go into some mutiny against her..but it’s a secret insurbordination I habour. Should I plainly put it that she does not earn my respect and nothing she has said thus far gives me any assurance of development under her supervision. Eeks. I forgot, development of her staff is not top on her list. She’s more interested in getting the perfect report.

Revision for the coming paper is still undergoing pretty ok. I’m left with 1 chapter of notes to read. Next is to attempt all the questions, before finally digesting the mock exam papers. I will skim through the “phone book thick” text book for additional reading if time permits.

After the paper on sat, I’m going full steam out for my QM revision. I’m almost done with 1^st round of reading, just got to zoom into the questions and work through them.

Akin to running the final 5km of a marathon, I must pick up and sprint ahead. 2 weeks. I don’t want to look back in regret; not trying my best. on contrary, I want to seize success in this first hurdle and nothing will stop me! =D

Time seemed to slow down during the weekend. it was pure bliss just lazing at home, cooking meals, eating together and taking time to study/do our work. we didn’t need fanciful meals at posh restaurants, good thing dearie mind my no-class cooking, and we didn’t have to be a speck in the orchard road crowd because we have most if not all that we need.

Despite the downpour on both days, we managed to do some training! Saturday morning we biked down to spe for runfanatics training but found ourselves being chased by rain along bt timah road. Hurriedly, we made the decision to turn off near sixth avenue and then scrambled in the fastest speed I could make my legs move, heading home. Dearie had to pull me from the front because the headwind was strong and as I haven’t biked in eons, I could not go fast as much as I wished to. The gloomy rain clouds hovered over our heads and drizzled through the way. lucky, we must proclaim, because we escaped the heavy downpour by the minute. The moment we stepped into home, we heard the torrential rain fall from the sky. Gulps!

We rested at home and had some noodles and fried fillet for lunch before leaving for gym in the evening. We gymed 1.5hrs to burn some fats, and then came home for dinner. menu for the night: macaroni tuna salad. It was quite a mess of stuff but I think it filled our tummies fine.

Sunday morning we dragged ourselves to MR and did about 14km down to air-con road and back. we started slightly late as we had much problem getting inertia to move..however I’m glad we got there and ran the distance. I struggled badly through the distance but I held through. (yay!) Seriously need to get more mileage into my weeks because I found my stamina has deteriorated substantially.

After the grueling training (for me), we went to Queensway for a nice lunch before heading to shop around for dearie’s speckies. We found a really nice pair of oakley’s dicota 4.0 but the price tag was one that made swallowing hard. i got to try a pair of women’s Oakley coto 4.0 and I now understand why oakleys cost so much. the comfort of wearing it surpasses the current pair I have.

Yet, I simply can’t bear to spend on a pair because it’s $425 for the frame alone!?!? O_o

Therefore, I have decided to dangle this as a carrot for donkey-tricia. If I can clear all 4 modules in this year, I will reward myself with it. something way off my budget but pricey enough as a reward for the good work. if I don’t pass all 4 papers, then I’ve got to kiss my coto goodbye! okok, i'm hitting the books now. it's accounting exam this sat. gambatte tricia!! =)

worthless talk

I hadn’t bore much hope to begin with and I am right to do so because it has proved to be a dishonored cheque after all.

She has told me earlier that I would be put in charge to oversee the consolidation and accounts of the new logistics holding company.

A month of so went pass and I did not hear a single thing about the company. I didn’t even know they changed the name of the company. I didn’t know what went on until today I was forwarded an email to do GST registration paper work. having absolutely no idea of what has been going on. all I could do was to borrow the file from Irene and fill up the information required. Funny, how come the finance executive can’t gather the information herself?

This job holds no meaning and it’s a waste of my time in all ways. But I am only hanging on because I have time to study and I need the bonus to finance my studies.

I will hang till the end of the year. After which I will start searching for a new job. I’ll slowly find something more suitable..i’m still being paid anyway. So that’s the only consolation.

Talk is cheap.

checklists

I can’t seem to identify at which juncture checklists became clockwork in my life. i live by it every day. At start of each morning, I will start with 2 blank pieces of paper (sized ¼ A4) and I would jot down my tasks for the day. One would be for the time in office and the other, my time after work. as I complete each task, I will strike them off and this will go on till I’ve done most if not all that I’ve set out to do.

I’m not sure how others may see of this..but to me I can’t live without it. partly because I’m a forgetful person, hence a checklist serves as a reminder of what is left outstanding to be done.

For now, checklisting is ingrained in me.

bus

i wish i own a bus right now. been mulling over how to transport friends and relatives to the wedding and it's really a big headache.
dearie is right..if we had the money, then it won't be a headache at all. sigh.

i've got new clothes

QM class wasn’t that bad over last weekend. I am slowly seeing more light at the end of the QM tunnel. I just badly need to pull my socks up and revise through the questions.

Got a lot of things at the top of my mind now and I am jotting them onto a piece of paper to make sure I don’t miss any of them.

Weekend was pretty well-spent ..apart from classes, dearie and I got to go kia kia abit. Gotten the super duper late birthday presents for my parents, shirt, socks for dad and a brown bag for mum (as per her request). Dearie paid for the bag and he also blessed me with a new raspberry pink (I adore this color!) jacket and a new top for work.

We got them at the g2 blu sale and the buys were certainly good bargains! =D dearie bought a short sleeve shirt for work too. thank you to dearie for blessing me with new clothes!! muaks!

The shopping wasn’t pretty planned for as our primary objective was to visit the investfair at suntec. It was not as insightful as I thought it would be, hence I think I’ll still have to do my own homework online and check out for FREE workshops that’ll give me more insight.

2 more weeks to accounting exams and I have a tutorial this Wednesday. I’m considering of taking leave come nearer to QM exams..that’s if i can’t find enough time at work..

Relatives gave a disappointing call for our wedding in November. I’m not going to press any of them nor am I going to try please and convince them. If you are coming, I will try my best to arrange transport. Other wise, that’s alright. I will be just good with close friends and family.

this week will be pretty hectic but I’m sooooo looking forward to the weekend. With no classes, that means I can spend sat and sun morning training with Runfanatics and with dearie at mr, respectively.. and then spend the noon studying..and evening to have a good dinner and relax. The thought of a quality weekend is the driving force for now. hang on!

it hurts

Can you imagine closing your grip on the blade of a knife in your hands? the cold blade cuts into your hand and warm blood oozing out that stains the blade?

Work is much like that blade. It cuts me every single day. The blood flows continuously and I don’t know when it will stop.

Where is my breaking point? When am I going to snap, stand out and shout, “stop it! that’s enough.”

For all the courage I have now, I am only muttering it under my breath and in this space. =(

diving into books

Training yesterday ended at almost 10pm..by the time we got home it was nearly 11pm. Climbed into bed at 12am. Gee. I think got to feedback soon that Wednesdays training might have to end a little earlier because training too hard in the mid-week may leave us all drained before end of the work week.

I can’t join Wed training as there’ll be accounting tutorial on the 20^th. That’ll be the last tutorial before exams on the 30^th. I’ve got to grasp the exam format so as to do well. =)

Pretty happy with the way I am picking up my training again..but dearie’s been unwell since last week..hence it pains me whenever he pushes himself to run with me because he knows I want to run. I must nurse him back to health. Tonight I’m going to cook a light mee sua soup dinner for him and tuck him into bed early.

A lot to be done tonight as there’ll be intensive classes from tomorrow till Sunday. Argh. Dr tiong’s classes again. He confuses all of us BIG time. I thought I was the only one lost in the myriad of jargons he used in class..but after checking with my classmates, I realised I am not alone! They too are badly confused by him. He’s a very smart and knowledgeable person, but not that effective a teacher.

Oh yes. Things to do tonight. I’m almost done with the myob assignment. I just need to perk my writeup with more content..which I can do that with more in depth explanation of the ratios. Tomorrow I got to drop off the assignment with mum for checking of the entries. I need to finish up the other assignment soon too.

On my checklist.

1. cook mee sua soup
2. vacuum and mop floor
3. iron clothes
4. do laundry
5. tuck dearie into bed by 1045pm
   

weekend will be really jam packed with training, classes, investfair and getting presents for parents too.

I need to stop procrastinating and start on stats revision now. Only left with 1.5 days to revise whatever dr tiong went through..there’ll be tougher concepts or correlation and regression coming up this weekend and I desperately must grasp the fundamentals first and foremost.

Okok. Diving into the books now. Will update this space soon.. =)

birthday 110808

Yesterday was my birthday =) there wasn’t fanciful celebration but we did have cake – rm 6 banana cake which was pretty yummy. Mum will be baking pandan chiffon cake for me later this morning and I’ll collect it later in the evening after tuition. I told her it’s “tradition” to have pandan cake, as she wasn’t able to bake it yesterday due to the expired tartar powder. Better late than never, “traditions” must be observed! =P okie. I know I’m just being a glutton.

Weekend was spent at segamat and we just feasted like royalties. We had chin siew mee for sat’s breakfast, steam boat for sat’s dinner, lunch on sunday at good world (with steamed live soon hock) and the best was the rendang and bamboo shoots on Sunday night’s dinner. yummmmy! We left on Sunday night feeling all satisfied but a little guilty of all the food gobbled down. Hahaa. It’s ok, training started yesterday.

Dearie’s been sick and I insisted he saw the doctor yesterday. the medication helped to ease the wheezing in his lungs. I hope he recovers soon =)

Like I’ve always done, I want to thank these family and friends who never fail to remember my birthday. Seems to be getting fewer as the years go by..but that’s ok =)

1. dearie (spending time with you is the best gift)
2. mummy (thank you for the yomeishu)
3. daddy (thank you for the very expensive brain tonic)
4. kor (I always love angbow =P)
5. bee lan (thank you for the pretty mugs)
6. janson (thank you for remembering)
7. Joshua (thank you for flooding me with wishes, every year without fail)
8. bimo (you also always remember)
9. Adrian (better late than never)

my sunshine!

he's the sunshine in my life. ^_^

while i was feeling all upset just now, his timely phone call and words brightened up my day. he rationalised the situation with me and told me i have the power to do something about it. but for now i must hang on. hang on for the bonus. hang on to stabilise my studies. hang on to use the time to excel in my course.

thank you dearie.. you've made my day so much better. muaks!

i am sad

I really hate the feeling at work. I hate feeling I am wasting every day of my life here just to warm the chair. I hate the control freak supervisor I’ve got. I hate having nothing to do and I don’t know what I can do about it.

I really dread coming to work, apart from the time I can use to study. I can’t stop that feeling despite how I try to console myself that this is perhaps the only job that’ll pay me to study.

But can you imagine coming to work and whatever work that used to be yours is grabbed away from control freaks? Even work my boss delegates to me specifically, she has to jut her head in and then ask me to send all the hard work to her so that she can forward it out and claim credit. i am only called an executive by name, in fact I am doing nothing. I hate it. I really hate that feeling.

I am so tempted to thrown in my resignation letter and leave, honestly. i want to get out of this place because I feel I really want to learn more things instead of just rolling around this place like a pig waiting to be slain.

Sad thing is I can’t say all that during my interview. I wish I could have honestly expressed all that during my last interview..but I can’t. I can’t say I’ve got a bitchy supervisor. I can’t say I am idling doing nothing. I feel so caught at times. Feeling all emotional now, I really feel like crying whenever I see how pathetic I am fast becoming at work. =(

tired but purposeful

I’ve been feeling tired these days. It’s an accumulation from the long weekend intensive, brought forward and piled up. nonetheless, I feel accomplished because I find purpose in the things I do.

Every lesson I complete I know I’ve just made one mini step nearer to getting my masters. I keep myself going by flashing images of myself wearing the robe and taking graduation with my dearie and family. That keeps me going in my studies.

I am tutoring 3 evenings a week. although 3 tuition sessions only make up 4.5 hours, I have to spend time preparing for them and that consumes time. despite that, I find it helps me in many ways. Teaching POA forces me to revise all the topics and that really beneficial for my accounting module. Teaching the p4 is less relevant but I find that by tutoring I am gaining experience in coaching students. Relishing the idea of lecturing in the future, these are building blocks to that.

With tutoring I earn extra which is helpful. I’ve only received $90 so far..i’ve got 4 more lessons before I get $100 for the p4 and another 2 more lessons to another $180. wow.. I’m such a money face. Haha.

I am learning a lot these days too. Spending time to read enriches me.

Doing assignment with the free time at work utilizes all my time to the max.

Weekends with no classes are invaluable because these are the pockets of time I can catch up with sleep and spend quality time with dearie.

I’m looking at getting some supplements and tonic wine to help me keep me alert during studies and work. after drowning myself with 3 cups of coffee last weekend, I had a terrible tummy upset which was almost like gastric pain. The overdosage of caffeine left me high and light headed. Hence I do want to depend lesser on caffeine and in place find something more natural and herbal to replace.

Some options: yomeishu, benedict dom, gingko biloba and the expensive cordyceps. Will go find out and make use of these to boost my health. =)

no way dead end

I completed the intensives for accounting module and I am now 2 weeks away from the exam. I am hoping to do well for it, hence like dearie mentioned, I am unknowingly giving myself unnecessary pressure. He’s right. I think it’ll be wiser to place more focus and time to work on my stats rather than accounting, because that’s the module I’m more uncertain about.

As a matter of fact, I am now finishing up my last QM question as I am typing this. Ho ho ho..i completed it!

tomorrow I’ve got to meet my team mates for discussion..hence no training for me in the evening..after discussion, around 8pm, I’ll hop down to OG to buy a present for my nephew’s 1^st month birthday. He’s coming 1 month old this 14^th but I’ve yet to even see him yet. =( what a lousy aunt I am. I’ll want to pop by soon and pinch his chubby cheeks! his name is 哲睿..very chim name..it read Zhe Rui. Rui mean clever and shrewd. And Zhe is another word that has similar meaning.

Been reading vivaciously into many articles, papers and notes. I feel like a sponge soaking up a lot of information and I’m taking some time to digest it all. It’s about making sense out of the information and grasping it into ownership. Although sometimes I do feel this feeling of information overload, but when I lift my head up and look at the people around me, I know within that I am building myself up. With every piece of information I digest and grasp, I am moulding myself ready for the greater world out there.

Reading the papers these days can be daunting at times. On some days, the headlines would be all gloom and doom. Economic slowdown. Inflation. Crisis. Stagflation. On certain days, it boosts things like growth and people earning big bucks. Like I was reading old “newspapers” a while ago and as the first page reads economy becoming less rosy, the inner pages read a boom in the recent natas fair sales. The latter actually means people are still spending on luxury goods such as travelling.

With the varied snap shots of the economy, I wonder what is the real picture?

Time to work on my accounting tutorial now. Hope I can finish it on time to drop it off with mum tomorrow so that she has adequate time to check.

Just in case you are wondering why am I so free at work..i am free because I have completed closing for 2 companies. One more company I’ve got to wait for the bank statement to come in before I can do anything. Hence I am free. Nothing much to do. Stagnated at work but growing in knowledge =)

i am still looking for a mentor to work through my research..but i have absolutely no idea where he/she will appear from. i'm not hopeful..but i wish, dream, hope and pray i can actually find one.

fighter

i got this runner's world.. tips from elite runners..this was one of them:

Repeat a Mantra
"I have a lot of different words that I say to myself. One is 'fighter.' I think that and all of a sudden things come into focus for me. Even if I don't speed up, in my mind I calm down. I use my workouts to practice responding to these one-word cues."
—Kara Goucher

good luck fall from sky

I’m glad I woke up for a 5km run this morning. for all the food I’ve gobbled down last night, that’s the least I am doing to atone for it. =P

Have been doing a lot of self learning these days in the office. Being able to utilize my hours to enrich myself leaves me feeling satisfied, although sometimes puzzled with some weird stats theorem I can’t seem to fathom.

Taking autonomy of our learning is paramount in self development. In this environment which the company does not take a pro active role in moulding us, the responsibility is up to ourselves. This work environment works on a plane of equilibrium. If you can stay in that position for many years, people applaud to you. having worked here for 1 year 3 months, understanding the culture has left me wide-eyed. As unagreeable as I am feeling right now, there is little or nothing I can do about it. Time is not right for moving out yet. A caterpillar going through metamorphosis must be patient. Only having been through the process of breaking through the cocoon, will the butterfly be strong enough to take flight.

My point of view of things has shifted significantly through the last 2 years. from looking into just the few months ahead, dearie has opened my eyes to planning into my future and years ahead.

Life used to be, “so long I live today happily, that’s good enough”. To now, “I am hoping to achieve xxx in the next few years”. that’s progress in my view.

From a finance point of view, it’s not just spending today’s money and saving enough for next month. I learn it’s about understanding that money value diminishes and what must we do to invest so that our money grows faster than its shrinking factor.

I am learning and I really hope I can gain a better edge in this.

While walking to my bus pick up point this morning, I asked myself again if I should do up the research paper. Unfortunately, I have no idea who can I approach to be my mentor. My networking circle is so small that I hardly have anyone whom I can approach for help. Boss isn’t all too bothered about staff doing more studies. Supervisor is more interested in managing her reports and systems, rather than people. In this company, I can’t think of anyone to seek help in mentoring me in the research. Mr thong, my lecturer, hasn’t replied at all. I am skeptical to how keen he should be to mentor a student for no charge?!?..when he is commanding a lecture rate of $300/hr.

perhaps it's a no-go sign. if i still can't find someone by end of aug, i will pass on the research. that's not really that important for now perhaps.

can i find more practical working opportunities without leaving this company? leaves me wondering. sigh. i am digging for gold in the neighbourhood park.

Yet again, tricia gazes into the sky, looking for some good luck to fall from the sky.