on a good note

Today’s episode made me change my view point about tpl. We were rushing on the parthandling budget all morning, till now, quarter to 3. she had wanted me to change my figures twice which I didn’t do the first time because I plugged her formula in and the figures went all awry. Imagine a 52% positive variance in revenue? Cannot be right? Given the global recession. She insisted how wrong my budget was and wanted me to do it her way.

I was pissed, to be honest. so I perused into the supporting documents and discovered her method is wrong. Instead of blindly following her method, because she wants me to, I went a step further.

First, I amended the report with her formula. Then I saved the same report in another file name and revised it to the usual method we’ve been adopting. Then I emailed along my findings and to let her compare. By doing so, it silenced her on her formula.

I apportioned the revenue via dealer’s net and sales.. and she wanted it to be changed to sales strictly. It’s not something I couldn’t do, but I just felt it was extra work that was unnecessary as I’ve already tabulated and averaged 1 year’s worth of charge out.

I did the regrossed figures as instructed and wow..i was impressed how accurate it made the budget become. I thought the 7-9% variance was pretty neat..but with the -7% to 9% variance now, it is even more accurate given the trend from 2008 to 2009.

All of a sudden, my biased-ness against her was lifted and my whole spirit got lifted. Bitterness is such a heavy burden to carry along. I realize that all of us have our strengths and weaknesses..our blind spots which we need people to help point out to us. For this instance, I pointed out her blind spot and vice versa. By working together, we really made the budget very accurate. Putting aside her kind of sacarcism and impatience, I actually found working with her not that bad. I had initially thought the broad total figures were sufficient enough the effort..but going into the fine details and perfecting them gave me such a sense of achievement.

Waaa..new findings..the budget has not be completed yet. We found some big variances in the given budget for forecasting.. 10mil of difference..waaa…we’re going to investigate..haha..suddenly I find investigating problems really fun =) this budget thing is a mystery we will solve.

It really good to end the working week on a good note. At least I leave office with a lighter heart. Somehow I am already looking forward to work next week as I’m pretty keen to investigate on the variances further. Yay. one last paper tomorrow and I’m a free bird!

yay..after mugging hard for 2 night and today's lunch time..i'm going town with dearie and family..yipeeeeeeee

how long can i hang on?

managed to finish one more round of econs revision. tmr i want to read up some mas macro review..and go through sample exam paper once more. then i'm pretty prepared for the econs exam on sat, i reckon. with 2c-s for both the presentation and quiz, i think my d is getting out of reach.

work is dreadful these days. tpl is a monster. she's worse than fiona and shirley from carrefour days. i'm hanging on for my dear life till end of the year. many moments of the day, helplessness overcomes me and tears just well up in my eyes. i try to brace myself for the worse. i am still accepting it all and taking things in my stride. i don't know how long i can hold on. a part of me tells me i should hang on till i finish my studies because economy is bad and i may not find another suitable job; it might turn out worse. yet, another part of me dread that worthlessness, like a small leaf being trampled on by others in the office. i wish the wind would bring me along and land me somewhere else. =(

time to sleep. i'm tired- mentally, physically and emotionally. i'm looking forward to next week. it ends on thursday and i won't have to face the monster for 6 days. -heaves a sigh of relief-

Our Wedding Page

Our wedding page is up! Do check it out after 30/11/08 as we'll be adding more actual day photos in too.

http://www.mywedding.com/billytricia

Do kindly sign our guestbook while you are there. Thanks! =D

definition of bliss

I have simple definitions of bliss.

When he takes pain and injures himself to fix up the study room because he feels I need more space to study.

When he’s tired yet still stays up to keep me company while I mug for exams.

When he wants to go out for a walk or train but still choose to come home to give me morale support.

When he ferries me to and fro school with no complaints.

When he gets up early on the morning of my exams and goes out to ta-pao vegetarian bee hoon for me to eat before I head out for school.

His frankness and honesty to reason with me what he feels is good and not.

When I’ve ordered hor fun and he orders mee goreng, yet I want to swap with him because I feel his mee goreng tastes better. He’ll willingly swap.

When my cooking is horrendous yet he’ll still finish them up and tell me it’s not bad. Hee!

When I want to run and he has an injury. He’ll still run with me.

When I start blaming myself for the stupid mistakes I’ve made, he tells me he’ll still love me no matter what.

When he shoulders on burden that should have been shared, because he wants me to save my money for studies.

When he always give me the best yet scrimp on himself.

Even when he was tired from all the extra assignments and part time work he had to do, he will always tell me it's ok, because he wants to earn more for our future.

When we dream about what we want to do in the years to come together.

For all that, and much much more I can't finish writing down, thank you dearie. you’ve showered me with love and bliss more than I can ever ask for. I am blessed to have found you. =)

piece our home

We toiled through the weekend, literally. But it was wonderfully fulfilling!

Let’s see. On Saturday, after pof paper, mum, billy and I went out shopping in town. We had dinner by the river then headed down to funan and city hall. We shared a pack of marks & spencer gummy and the sweetness melted in our mouths and hearts.

Sunday we slept in till 8+am before heading out to abc for brunch. Next, we went to ikea and got a new long study table and photo frames to put up our wedding photos. upon reaching home, dearie fixed the table up (which caused abrasion to his hands due to the tedious work of manual tightening of screws into the table) and we packed our study room. It’s so spacious and neat now. somehow that packing stretched out to the rest of the house.

Dearie packed our messy store room while I cleared the shelves in our bedroom and guest room. He then packed the waredrobes in both the guest room and study room. We threw up boxes and bags of trash; things we’ve been piling up in our little house. After all the packing, I gave the house a nice vacuum and mop.

It did not end here. During the evening we went to jurong west for dinner then to giant for shopping. Bought a new shoe rack (something we’ve been wanting to get for the longest time ever!) and a book rack.

Dearie pieced them up together, like a surgeon of carpentry works. By the time we completed revamping our house, it was already 12am. Dead beat, we plonked onto the study chairs, admiring at our accomplishment.

I can only go “WOW!”

impressed. By very impressed! Haha. we spent about $250 on 3 pieces of furniture and it made our place a lot neater and created more space.

I’m glad I’ve got a d-i-y dearie who hands-on-ed on many things in our home. From curtains to mirrors, tables to shoes racks.. we saved a lot because we bought the d-i-y furniture which we could assemble. Dad and mum will be at our place from Thursday, so I’m sure it’ll impress them lots too. meantime, tricia has to ensure all that stays in place, clean up the house on Wednesday again to make the house comfortable for them to reside. =)

new toys!

dearie bought me new earphones after my old panasonic ones spoilt.
it hasthe BLING factor!
it's flexible so it fits around me head like a hairband.

new skin care for myself. i've finished clarins so it's onto kanebo's lunasol series =) this is the emulsion.

the packaging is 1st class! i've tried the little sample packs and i love them. above is the toner.

this is the added little treat for myself. the scrub.

mummy got dearie a pair of shoes as part of the wedding procedure. i suggested instead of giving him an angbao, buying him the actual thing is a better option. give dearie ang bao he'll most probably save it up and insist his shoes are still ok. dearie picked a pair of Dr Martin's Nick Moc Toe. Exactly what you see in the photo.

we spent a good day shopping around. it was something we haven't done in a while since i started the term. a nice break before i begin mugging for econs.

wow.. i still feel so blessed with new things =D thanks dearie for the early christmas pressie! hehe. will definitely use it for training and during the upcoming scsm. woohoo!

running in shape

Tomorrow’s pof paper. the module touches on this wide spectrum of topics and I’m a little lost in the labyrinth of information. I’m onto my final lap of revision but I know I won’t finish in the front pack this time. all I’m hoping is to pass the module.

Tricia deserves a pat on the back and dearie a muak on the cheek (because he has kept me company despite his hamstring injury) for running on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday we didn’t run due to the wet weather. Tonight I’ll do another run for 45mins then begin my last round of studying. Running makes me feel strong and a sense of comfort because at least I’m burning off some of the food I’ve pigged out on. lunch for the past 2 days had been oats, which albeit being a tad boring, is a healthy option I choose to make. Today I’ve brought home cooked fried rice which tastes a little weird, thanks to the new “stuff” I added into it. =X

Keep it up tricia! wedding is 2 weeks away. Scsm is 3 weeks away. Keep this up and I’ll be in shape for my wedding and marathon. Quite a last minute effort but it’s better than none!

We’ve managed to get the slots for japan marathon..but due to classes.. we may not be able to make it =(

I plotted out my classes out on the 2009 calendar and the entire year is packed! Really hope to clear the remaining 6 modules which will start at after Chinese new year till early December. In a way, i can almost see the finishing line from where I am now. it’s just another 1 year away. 6 more modules. 36 more classes. 6 more exams. 12 more months of pure sweat and slog. It’s not that bad. I can almost see myself taking graduating photos. I wonder if there’ll be a convocation of some kind.. in Adelaide maybe? Oooh..i relish the idea of a holiday in adelaide. =D

28 days! (working days)

I took pleasure in the short break back to segamat last weekend..feasting on the sumptuous meals mum cooked. Yum yum! (albeit feeling guilty of not training and only eating =P) upon coming back from holiday, I went on 1.5days of conso course which I deemed a train-chasing one, I struggled to keep pace with prof ng’s speeding through of the context.

I covered the reading of pof but I’m experiencing a mental block while attempting the questions. My concentration level is low and I am encountering difficulties in comprehending what the questions are looking for. At 11pm yesterday, after working through 1 topic of questions, my brain was at this point blank, and all I wanted to do was to stare into blank air. Stress fell upon me like this huge anvil and i was in a way hard pressed. i snuggled with dearie as his words comforted and his warmth encapsulated me.

I got to work through it and I believe I can. I am not going to let the stress beat me.

Year end is drawing to a close. Work is revving up due to upcoming audit, board meeting, budget exercise and year end closing. 28 working days more before I see my bonus coming in. yay! show me the money! =D

ahhhh..holiday!

It’s a pretty laid back day for me as I have completed my work this morning. there are only 4 of us left in the department; 2 on half day leave and 1 on mc. I hope this tranquil will remain so till the end of the day in 3 hours. I’ve been taking the time on my hands to read my pof notes. Out of 11 topics, I’ve finished 4. my aim is to finish 5-6 out of the 11 topics so I’ve got lesser reading to do during my break. I’ll concentrate my effort on attempting questions. Received an econs tutorial to work on as well.

We’ll be setting off for segamat tomorrow morning instead of tonight. It’s a wise move as it’ll give me more time to finish off the housework, do an easy run with dearie and also do some econs reading. Don’t intend to bring the 3 phone-books thick econs text home, hence I’m going to speed read through for main ideas.

I’m pretty on time to complete my revision before exams. I can’t imagine missing 2 rf trainings consecutively, therefore I am still going to be there for training on sat morning before exams. In order to be able to do so, I must ensure I have revised well through that’ll leave no need for last minute cramming on the morning itself. I reckon running before training may not be a bad idea as getting blood run through my brain will definitely wake me up. it’s not a long paper, 3 hours for pof, 2 hours for econs, I’m sure I will be able to hold through pretty decently.

Scsm is less than a month away, as much as I hope I can better my timing from last year’s I also recognize the fact that my mileage has been pretty insignificant compared to what I managed to clock last year. Therefore, I can only hope to hold my run within the 5 hour window.

We’ll be missing rf training for the weekend, both track on sat and 35km run on sun. nonetheless, dearie and I have made plans (and will be determined to accomplish) for training on our own. Tonight we’ve planned to do some easy track training, something easy as we’ve already been tortured yesterday. we’ll run on fri and sat..on which one of the days we’ll go over to the slope behind dearie’s place. the gradient of that slope is crazy, worse than the np one we did last week, but shorter of course. I’m thinking we can probably do anything from 6-10sets. We did 10 sets at np (4 short, 6 long). Running the ah-gu loops is fun..with lots of up and down..so it’s nothing like running on a flat road. Good thing is we will have to do it no matter what because mum goes brisk walking everyday, so that’ll be a perfect motivating force for us to get our butts off our seats. With all these training, it should keep us in proper form before wed’s training. we could really use some mileage..maybe we can make that up on the 16^th after my exam on the 15^th. A 30km run will be great to have. we’ll plan.. plan and execute!

I’ve also penned down the revision work i’m hoping to complete during the break. I love studying at dearie’s house. We get to do our work at the big dining table (this gives us lots of space to sprawl all our barang around).. the place is bright and peaceful (minus the music I always play in the background).

It’ll be great. I’ll get to study.. train and eat a lot of good food. Woohooo! I’m so so so close to my holiday. =D

another down!

so accomplished today. finished my budget comparison for hrd. yay! now can take a break and go into hibernation mode. aiya..no text book else can study abit. hehehe. it's only 3.25pm. =) weee!!

POF assignment down

woohoo! i've completed my pof assignment as planned. sent it out to mel and roger for review. should be able to finalize it and get it sent out by the monday deadline.

one step closer to my segamat getaway.. but i'll not get away from text books and revision. ahhh...

i feel such a burden off my shoulders. now the next thing i need to do is to read through my econs text in the next day or so. after which it'll be more of revising for pof. pof exam is on 15/11. econs exam 22/11. step on it tricia. get through this well and i have the whole of dec to enjoy! woohoo!!

losing focus

I’ve been very distracted and my focus has been all over the place. worked out the calculations for the assignment but I can’t seem to gather my attention to delve into the question. I literally spent 30mins looking at the spreadsheet with nothing in my head. =(

Shall set some targets to accomplish for the week so I can keep my eyes at one point.

1. finish pof assignment by Wed

2. revise pof and econs sample papers. To raise all queries for econs during mon’s tutorial.

3. try to speed read through econs text for quick notes. Not going to focus much on it though. Just for main ideas.

I’ve been considering the papers for next term. If I do get a slot for Tokyo marathon, doing fixed income will clash with it head on. the only alternative is to do portfolio management..yet I’ve been warned it’s one of the toughest modules..and advised that if I’m doing portfolio, I should not be doing other modules concurrently. I feel so torn.. =( really do hope some little miracles to surface when the timetable does finalize; the minor changes would mean fixed income would be brought back 1 week or brought forward 1 week.

Ran 8.5km yesterday..and i’m hoping to run everyday, even if it’s 30mins’ worth.

Won’t be able to do 35km with runfanatics this Sunday..but it’s ok..we’ll do our own ah-gu route with mum! we can top that up with some circuit training too..torture ourselves abit.hahehea.