So Japanese class Level 2 started today on a less auspicious note. Firstly was late by 10 mins cos manager was in the office talking to both MD and me. Then the weekend was so busy that I didn't really get to revise what we did in Level 1....oh who am I kidding, I just didn't revise enough between the end of Level 1 and the beginning of Level 2.

However it's confirmed after this class now that the expectations have been upped. Firstly, hiragana is expected to be memorized by class #3 (although I seem to be the only one who doesn't know it by heart yet), and the teacher speaks more in Japanese than in English. In fact his English vocab is not as strong as my Level 1 teacher's.

Class is slightly bigger than Level 1 and comprised of the following (nameless not by choice but because I really didn't catch their names):

1) Guy in hawaiian shirt - visited Nara and Osaka before, working Chinese-English translator (he says Chinese is easy and he's white -- puts me to shame!!), brought an electronic dictionary to class, by far seems to be the strongest pupil

2) Guy with blond spiked hair - has Japanese gf as the reason for taking classes

3)  Older guy with glasses - taking class out of interest

4) Younger guy with glasses - student at Ryerson taking extra classes with aim of working in Japan

5) Aly - classmate from Level 1 who has colleagues in Tsukuba and travels there for collaborative research, hence needing to know Japanese (phew, finally another female and a friend!)

I managed to muddle my way through, even though the last 1/2 hr was particularly gruelling.... just reading out loud and individually from a sheet of sentences written purely in hiragana...help!! I had to give in and admit to the teacher that I couldn't do it and "Could I please skip this exercise?" Embarrassing....but I guess that teaches me a lesson. To think that it was going to be homework for next week till I told him that he actually had 1/2 hr more of class (he thought it ended at 8pm). In hindsight I think that 1/2 hr could've been non-existent and still I would be at the same place as I am now....but perhaps not as embarrassed. :(

It's been 3 days since I seconded to the fin audit dept, and I'm feeling mixed abt it.

On the plus side is the biggest indicator that my managers were right in saying that it would be good for my development to second: the work that fin audit does is pretty different from what I do in IT audit. It's unexplainable but I think I've been working with processes so much that I subconsciously pushed it to the back of my mind. 'It' being the fact that a big part of audit is footing (calculating totals), variance analysis (determining if the changes in totals are reasonable), reconciliations (whether debits and credits balance out to zero), calculation of accruals (whether the correct amount is recognized in the right period) and evaluating the nature of financial statement line items (whether they are classified correctly).....among other accounting fun stuff.

The cause for concern to me is two-fold: firstly, I've never done Advanced Accting nor Auditing courses when I was in uni, and to compound that, uni was 2 years ago, so I'm taking some time to even recall the regular accounting stuff. Contrast that to the two other 'juniors' on the job who are both studying for the UFE and thus are immersed in the subject matter -- and I feel a little inadequate.

On top of that, the client I've been assigned to is a non-financial services one. I've been told that I'm lucky to be assigned to one of the more organized engagements, but still, its a smaller company than most financial services ones. Young P used to say to others that he likes financial services cos there's more flexibility in the budget just cos the job is bigger. Now I see what he means. The team has a strict budget and the partner had expressedly said that no changes were to be made in timeline. While back in my own dept, I've always been sheltered by having the managers 'cover' for me when dealing with budget issues (mostly justified, since quality is the tone and sometimes more work is required to gain comfort), I'm out in uncharted waters here in fin audit. I don't think they discount quality at all, rather, I don't know how they deal with deviations from the norm nor what the standards are.

Last Fri when submitting our timesheets, the senior told one of the intermediates to make sure to charge time to my section as he provided coaching to me. The manager was onsite too and while she is nice, she kinda (half-jokingly?) said that it was all my fault that she didn't have anything to review. This is kind of true, because I was still trying to get my bearings and understand what was done in the previous year (thank goodness it was ONLY two years since I left school and accounting!!!), and the client....welll...the primarily client contact anyway (the Controller), does not seem to like me in comparison with the rest of the team. Is it because I seem so clueless (the truth being that I was never part of the UFE process hence not having the background to draw from -- but he doesn't know that of course...probably he's considering me a UFE failure in the making) or am I just too timid i.e. I should just assert myself to emphasize that I'm the auditor, and he the auditee....

As the outsider, I also have this fear that I'm creating a bad impression of my own dept. It's one thing to be part of fin audit and have the issues I mentioned above, but another to be from outside the dept -- the former is easily forgiven as "she's one of us", while the latter (in the worst case scenario) will be labeled the burden and resented for having to be coached so much. The team is ok in that one senior is reassuring (perhaps cos she can see my subtle distress?); the intermediate and one of the juniors are constantly helpful but who knows what the others think.

At the onset, they gave me a section to do but are they regretting it now? I think I'm new and unjaded enough to want to continue my secondment (perhaps to a diff client?) even after it ends early March (my original 2 months had been shortened to 3 weeks due to lack of needs), but after this, would I be viewed as a liability not worth taking on? AD had mentioned that when she was on secondment, she was assigned to photocopy and basically do gopher stuff. I consider myself lucky: but will it continue? The manager reassured me that I'll definitely learn something useful from this secondment, but I was assigned data entry last night. To be honest, they were apologetic about it, I've seen another junior do admin stuff too (stuffing envelopes and compiling paper files) and I myself don't mind, but is this an indication of things to come? I hope not.

Nothing like starting from the bottom again to to remind oneself how to be humble, and how to ask for help.

It seems to be that the irony of what gives me happiness is that those very things grow less and less likely to repeat themselves as each day passes. Or even if the situation lends itself to repetition, when and how and my reaction to it is just unpredictable. Wouldn't it be great if whenever the mood dictates a certain feeling or moment I want to relive, the memory or the experience is there at my beck and call?

But perhaps that's what they call human nature. The fact that something is rare or impossible, makes one long for it more, think of it with greater fondness, and crave it with deeper passion.

Young P has signed the papers to transfer to Washington DC Apr 16, to be closer to his gf. Even though I'd known since I'd found out about the potential move that he was likely to be successful, somehow hearing it confirmed... there's the feeling of finality there. We've been coworkers for a little more than a year only, and only really talked in the last 5 months or so while we were on client site together. But we can't ignore that additional angle of emotion, the feeling that something is going to be lost. Maybe me more than him because this is just another example of how ppl enter and change my life, and how I pine after them when they leave, and judging from past experience, how we'll sooner or later settle into a strange kind of friendship based on MSN msgs and blog entries.

At lunch on Thurs at Canoe, coworker and I were talking abt how we started together and now that we've had some time to settle into our jobs and now know what is expected of us, it's given us more time to think of ourselves and what directions in life we want to take. Coworker explained how he grew up in the same city, went to uni with a bunch of friends, then moved to TO with another bunch of friends. Essentially, his point was that he played it safe all the way. Now that he's gotten an idea of what it feels like to be part of the nation's workforce, he's thinking that if there's any good time to break out of the box and try something new, it would be now.

I understand where he's coming from, and a small part of me feels the same way. Perhaps that's why I strive to try different things at work or play all the time, trying to find the groove that suits me best. But on the opposite end, is the feeling of wanting things to stay as they are.... 

I was organizing my music and came across the soundtracks for the few Final Fantasy games I played. Technically I cheated because Bro played it first, then helped me out with the harder parts. The memories of searching the Internet for walkthroughs and guides, and waiting for the slow computer to load the graphics (we played using an emulator then, not a Playstation)! Then I started counting back and realized, this year'll be the 10th anniversary for FF7 and 8th for FF8. These were the only two editions that had PC versions created -- back then, it was for Win 98 / Win ME. Even playing it a few years later on Win XP required a patch or two. A few days ago, Microsoft Vista went on sale. What are the chances that there'll be a patch to make these two games compatible with Vista? Again, the feeling that I'm losing something as time moves forward relentlessly.

It made me think of one of the scenes in the FF8 storyline. Cliche in places it may be, but it does have its moments. For those unfamiliar, the main character, Squall, has frequent dreams where he is another man called Laguna. In this scene that I cannot shake (probably because it even has a theme song, 'Fragments of Memories') from my mind, Laguna wakes up in a guestroom in a small cottage in a sleepy but peaceful village. There is a small girl, Ellone of about 5 years old and a woman, Raine who had taken care of him, and it is clear that they all regard each other warmly. Laguna's old war buddy comes to visit, and they talk abt old times. Then Laguna, a chronic wanderer/restless spirit, suddenly talks about how he hopes he'll still be in the same bed when he wakes up, in the same cottage and in the same village, living with the girl and the woman...and his war buddy makes an observation that he's changed.

Maybe it's human nature to always secretly want what you've been taught to ignore and overcome. Such as moving every 5 years when I was growing up, being told and knowing also that it's a part of life, but still hating every single time I had to readjust my life. Such as going relatively further than most ppl for studies abroad, and then pursuing a job overseas and now starting to build a career -- but in the corner of my mind, wondering how things would've turned out if I'd rejected independence and like my coworker, played it safe by going with the crowd. Would I be happier? 

I want to come home and see Bro playing his computer games, Mom cooking, Sis full of the day's events at school, Dad watching TV. On weekends, to go watch movies or eat with friends. To wake up each day and go where I know ppl welcome me. To be 18 again and spend all my free time texting collegemates, hanging out with the TV on, walking aimlessly in the malls and talking about nothing of importance at all. To be 16 again, spending hours after-school looking at the new books that the library just procured, having lunch with Meru-chan and the others before going to tuition/additional classes, pseudo-arguing on the phone with TMY and opining on the short stories he wrote. To be 13 again, sitting next to Sit and asking for her help with homework, reading Lik's 'serialized' short stories written in an exercise book. To be 10 again, and during holidays, to go to Grandma's house and walk in the garden, looking at the new additions; or to potter around the kitchen, helping her and aunts with preparing the daily meals or the season's festive delicacies. To be 8 again and catch the small fish in the drains and bike around the neighbourhood in small races, to play carefree during recess, to have snackfoods bought at roadside stalls while waiting for the bus to arrive. To be 6 again, preciously collecting the books given as birthday presents and rewards, reading them again and again.

In the series Cowboy Bebop, Faye Valentine is an amnesiac character 'defrosted' from a cryogenic state. As the series progresses, little clues of her previous life emerge -- one development in the subplot was when she receives a Beta videotape: in the timeframe when the series is set, videotapes were no longer in existence. Spike and Jet endeavor to find a player but in a mishap, they pick up a VHS video player instead (Beta's are smaller). But then fate steps in and a Beta player is mysteriously delivered shortly. When watching the tape, she realizes that it was filmed by herself, when she was a teen, and it contained a message to 'the adult Faye'. Desperate to find out her past, she tracks down the location from the visual clues in the tape, but in the end, she chickens out of returning to her previous life and decides that she would rather stay with Spike and Jet in her 'new life', calling the past something that shouldn't be dwelled in. 

The reminder of technology obsoletion notwithstanding, somehow, it feels like she's got the correct answer to living life... Just like the characters in Honey and Clover, ppl are brought together by similar motivations, opinions and / or circumstances; but they then have to branch out to find the best path for themselves . To limit oneself just based on other ppl's actions is to constantly try to guess what others will do and in the end, conform to others as opposed to doing what's the right thing for oneself.

Again, it's obvious what's to be done, but I can't help feeling that melancholy that I wish I could just compartmentalize and put away: the sooner I accept the way life is, the less conflicted I'd be feeling.

I am, frankly speaking, nervous. Afraid of the uncertainty, afraid of what's to come. Things have been playing out in such a way, that it's so hard to determine what the right path to take is.

I said what I felt to Counsellor, in very general and hand-wavy terms, taking care to add in all the disclaimers I could think of, but he's gone ahead and put the question out there. The counselling tree will look at it first of course, but it's only a matter of time till the word gets out. Am I really ready for what might come out of it? The truth is....no. Not yet. Counsellor has put down a quantified time frame...but is that too short a time?

Trying new things and taking different directions as suggested by the ppl around me....but when things start happening, am I really ready for it? Which way should I handle it?

A 'can-do' spirit is a double-edged sword. There's no reason not to believe that if I put my mind to it, anything's possible. If I embody it, the sky's the limit. Life seems to take on so much more meaning, because there's always something new to try, something new to take on. But if that's true, how do I know which way to go? Where do I start first?

That's when I start looking for restrictions. At the start it might seem easy enough to think of all the things I lack when considering a certain option, or all the things I'm responsible for that I can't leave behind. But I also am aware that they are, in a way, just excuses as well. Knowledge can be gathered and retained, responsibilities can be reassigned or reshaped. There is nothing right now that is an absolute restriction that cannot be worked around, or massaged into something that suits me. It really just depends on how much I want something.

Unfortunately, that last point is something I can't determine of myself. Do I really want it? I'm afraid of what the opportunity cost of it will be. Am I giving up something, altho as yet unidentifiable and unquantified, that I will regret later? Thinking that a restriction is not really one, or vice versa? What if I waved away a "but...", and then later find out that I shouldn't have? Or inversely, assigned too much weight to a factor and make a decision on it, then later realize that it would've all resolved itself even without me anyway? 

These things ....are they the right things to be wanting? Am I falling into the trap of wanting things that I think I'm supposed to want, as opposed to actually wanting them?

It's like being able to drive a train anywhere, being able to lay tracks before me, in any which way I want. North, South, East, West and all the degrees in between.

The only catch is, some tracks will be one-way once I've laid them.

Somehow although I had the 25th, the 26th, the 29th and the 1st off, not to mention the weekends as well...the holidays didn't feel as satisfying as I thought it would.

I showed up at work today and find out that both managers that I owe stuff to were either still on vacation or working from home -- with flexi-hours/work arrangements, no way of telling which is which, not that I care much anyway...they work hard and deserve it.

Howeverrrrr....looking at all the review points I have to clear for the long engagement....let's just say that the number of points brought up is proportional to the time I spent putting together all those documents for review. Everytime I gather up determination and open up one of the working papers, the comment boxes jump out at me, asking questions I have to rifle through my brain to bring all the pieces of info together (never mind that they were gathered at varying points in time and through various, sometimes undocumented means) and tie them all back to come up with a fitting answer.

Usually I can buckle down and systematically kill each one off, but today...I just feel so restless. Although I keep telling myself that work is this tedious at my level, and I'll just have to grit my teeth and bear it till it gets to the interesting parts....the thought kept popping back into my head: "Where am I going with this?" Not that I even have an answer to that question...

I wonder if this is a result of post-holiday antsy-ness, or the recent discussions with friends/acquaintances about new year resolutions and life goals, or is there a deeper reason...

Manager on the short engagement msged me online today and said that we were going to wrap everything up by the end of this week as the senior manager wants the files ready by Monday....said we'll work on it first thing tomorrow. Given the management style, it's going to be one intense day (or week, for that matter) back on that engagement. Also, it only can mean taking time out from working on the long engagement...which means working on the long engagement on the off-hours.

Long engagement's manager also emailed me today and asked if I'll be needing more time than budgeted. I don't know what to say...technically speaking I could more or less finish everything by the date budgeted if I allow myself to possibly work crazy overtime, esp at January-end. But do I want to do that and set a precedent? But I also feel bad for eating up so much of the budget as of now already and not really keeping to the milestones as set out at the beginning. And there's the external factor of possibly not even having the option of getting that additional time from the engagement scheduled to start in Feb....

Bleargh...just suddenly feel like a hamster on a wheel. I will myself enthusiasm that can be turned on at will to get through this month!

Nov 24 there were 5 of us and by Dec 31 it was just Bro and myself.

We had food made from recipes we grew up on.

Went shopping at Yorkdale, Eatons Centre and Queen St W -- first round for winter items, second round for boxing day deals. The latter involved a lot of patience in sifting through piles of clothing e.g. sis' reaction after arriving at Zara 2 hrs before closing (echoing mine) "So this is the aftermath..." Aside from Zara (where Mom unusually bought a funky neo-70's short dress), also some stuff from H&M, Le Chateau, Fila, Esprit...and lots of Aldo.

Hunting for a part-time job with Sis.

Various brunches/dinners/lunches/snacks at Eggspectations, Fran's, St Lawrence Market, Shopsy's Deli, Druxy's Deli/Hero Burger, Marche, Solferino's Gelato, The Keg, Oh Geul Boh Geul, Hosu Bistro, Kama Indian Cuisine, Old Spaghetti Factory, Terroni, Pazza, Cafe Crepe.

Parents and Sis sat in at my skating lessons and proclaimed the pre-school class after mine "very cute penguins".

Dimsum in 3 diff places: Highway 7 and Woodbine, Leslie and Finch, and Chinatown.

AGM of the Malaysian Association of Canada (MAC).

Dinner with Jas and Hil -- they wanted to treat us for accomodating them when they visited M'sia.

Researched the possibility of owning property and of Sis coming here for Grade 12/Form 6.

Calvalcade of Lights kick-off at Nathan Philips Square after chicken rice dinner with JCh and CH.

Made dinner for family -- whole wheat spaghetti with roasted red peppers, mozzarella cheese, pesto, thyme and smoked ham.

Creme caramel project with Sis, along with frozen pizza project and molten chocolate cake project.

Two birthdays -- mine and Bro's -- complete with mee sua, cake and presents. Shopping for presents.

Convinced by Sis to donate to the UNHCR's Darfur crisis fundraising effort.

Messing around with iTunes and Bittorrent downloads.

Made Mom a fan of the anime 'Fantastic Children'.

Home cleaning with Mom.

Grocery shopping trips.

Putting together the Japan travel scrapbook with Sis -- that was a lot of cutting, writing and planning!

Discussing shopping with Sis.

Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).

In hindsight, nothing really exciting -- after all, it's not the first time they've been here. But writing this...brings to mind the caption on a mug (now at home in M'sia) I got for one of my birthdays: "You enjoy being in love, but you especially treasure the love of family and friends."

It's cliche to believe in zodiac signs perhaps, but that's exactly how I feel.

'A split second can change everything'.

Sometimes it's more like a few minutes, days, months or years than a split second, but what's key is that in the final split second of that period of time, a decision was made -- and the course of fate was changed.

If I was nice to you and you returned the kindness
If you made friendly chitchat and I chitchatted back
If I joked with you and you humoured me
If you asked "How are you?" and I said "Good, and you?"

If I looked at you and you looked back
If you caught my eye and I smiled back
If I spoke to you and you spoke back
If you started a conversation and I mused back

Things might've turned out differently. You and I may have become acquaintances, business partners, coworkers, relatives, friends, colleagues...rivals, enemies.

We were rash when we were younger, and subsequently suffered the embarrassment of being known as "that girl who..." or "that boy who used to..." Man can those memories stick! Something that happened 10 years ago and somehow continued for the next 4 till I was almost out of high school....he brought it up on my birthday, saying "Those were the days..."

We vowed to think clearer next time, to look before we leap. With time and practice, it worked -- we act rationally, we evaluate all options thoroughly before picking the one most suitable, we made the decisions that were the safest and brought the greatest good.

Lately I've been thinking though. Have we been conditioned to be too careful? Perhaps overanalyze to the point that opportunity (in that split second) is lost?

My surroundings change faster than I can say "Whatever happened to?" I'd rather they didn't, but even when I'm standing still and hoping the earth slows down its turning...the world keeps going at its own, disregarding pace anyway. There is no choice but to change....but I guess I've always changed just enough to ride on its coattails and make sure that I didn't fall off the flying carpet altogether. To me at least, leaving home and leaving school brought on a whole new dimension of grey area where there doesn't seem to be one path that is the right one to follow. More importantly, maybe the one path that shows itself is not necessarily the right one, just the easiest and the one that allows the least change in attitude on my part.

Perhaps it's time to be more proactive. Do something slightly less rational than your usual everyday actions, just outside of your comfort zone. Not too far if it's scary at first, but enough to challenge yourself just a wee bit. Make a move instead of waiting for something to happen. Maybe others are waiting for it as well....but have not arrived at the decision to act instead of react.

Seize the day, because tomorrow may never come.

Phew...finally, after the past weeks' insanity, things are finally beginning to slow down. I'm starting down the road of getting stuff off my plate, either through eating it up or pushing it to someone else's. Heehee.

For starters, the exam that's been worrying me all Fall is DONE as of Saturday, Dec 9. Yes, I'm talking to you, CISA Dec 2006!

Parents arrived since Nov 24 and one left today (Dec 11). Sis arrived with them -- the chickie got a part-time job working for Dairy Queen/Orange Julius. It's a good thing, me thinks. It's true she likes how the money will multiply by three times by the time she takes it back with her, but she's a generous one. Bought me 3 sets of earrings for my upcoming bday (in anticipation of her 1st paycheck)! In total, too many earrings to be able to regularly cycle through, so gave her 3 pairs and mom one. But it's the thought that counts.

So I wrote the exam on Saturday morn...will not comment on whether I'll pass or not, but I think any extra studying wouldn't have helped. In short, what I put down on that Scantron sheet was with the most prepared mindset that I had. If I wrote the exam later and did better, it would only be because I had more experience and not  because I studied more.

Anyway, exam was freaking 4 hours long and we had to be there approx 1/2 to 1 hr before it started, and I was rushing there to begin with cos I was worried I might get shut out.... so I was really hungry by the end of it! Streetmeat never smelt so enticing...and after that, I had a haircut. To be honest I'm not a fan -- liked the last one better....and the lady was kinda gruff too. Sniffed disdainfully at the person who cut it before until I told her I got it cut at the exact same place.  -_-

Night time activities....well, dinner at Mediterra Restaurant at Richmond and York St downtown. Well the manager told me to make sure everyone was on time or else he'd charge me...so yeah, I did get kinda worried and actually put it down on the Evite. I mean, I know ppl are wont to be late, however, I thought by putting it on the Evite, they would get it and actually try. Human nature is hard to change though...one by one, ppl either flake or they call and say they'll show up later than expected. When I arrived (with only LW), the manager actually said, "So all 15 ppl are here, eh?" However, it seemed to be a case of bark worse than bite, because nothing came out of the initial threat. In the end, the guestlist was: Young P, CR, JV, AK, RD, MelT, Mirchan, JCh, LW, KS, JW and SH.

Food-wise, I have to be honest and say that mine was only ok. The yellowfin tuna was perhaps a tad too...medium. I blame it on the style of cooking. Grilling does tend to take the juice out, and yellowfin is not exactly the fattiest fish. LW got the Chilean seabass and pronouced it awesome though.

Many presents later (JV -- scarf, LW -- Nina Simone remixed CD, AK -- one set of festive monkey-shaped gingerbread cookies and one set of chocolate cheesecake, JCh and MelT and Mirchan -- a special(!) teddy bear from the Stag Shop and a gift cert, JW and SH -- a dozen pink roses)...KS made the dinner complete (for me at least!) by surprising me with a piece of fresh tiramisu from their dessert menu with a candle on top! I like!

The next item on the plan was to go to Easy Social Lounge. However, it was their snobbity night and everyone had to be on a guestlist/VIP list before you could get in. Now you could either get on it in advance, or you could talk to this guy who stands outside the club and 'evaluates' your worthiness before possibly putting you on the 'special' guestlist. I didn't make an advance reservation  and I guess we didn't qualify for the 2nd category that night.... Oh well, I guess Fridays at Easy are better.

Moved onwards to Schmooze instead. Young P immediately deemed it to his liking and between him, LW, JCh, MelT and Mirchan, proceeded to get me really drunk....and after at least 3 tequila shots, two vodka 7's, a flaming shot (Lamborghini?), a Yaegerbomb and something red that the bartender recommended...i think they pretty much succeeded! I look bright red in the pictures, and I had a mighty hangover -- although no puking, I woke up at abt 6.30am (abt 4 hrs after getting into bed) with uncomfortable heartburn that gave way to a pounding headache that gave way to a hunger unsatisfied by the traditional bday bfast of mee sua (longevity noodles) and hard-boiled eggs. Although in hindsight, the heartburn could've been from the burritos we got post-club from Burrito Boyz. :P

Tis the season for appreciation....so....

Thanks to the ppl who wished me, through various means, good luck and success for the CISA...the very catchy "luck and pluck" is worth a special mention -- I was repeating it to myself all the way to the exam hall and even while waiting for the exam to begin.
Thanks to the ppl who sent me bday greetings -- its a multimedia world out there when you get them through emails, phone conversations, ecards, phone SMSes and of course, in person.
Thanks to the ppl who look out for me....among many other gestures: Cold-FX appearing next to my laptop with instructions on a Post-it note, giving me rides to skating class and to dinners/outings, delivering my presents post-bday bash, taking the long way back in the taxi to make sure I get home safe...I've said it in person so you know who you are.
Thanks to the client and managers who accomodated my last minute request to have a study day.
Thanks to my counselor who called me from Florida to wish me happy birthday...although he was a week early.
And of course, thanks to the family for being family.

A friend regularly blogs about how she hates humans. I think that what she really meant was that she hated having to deal with the complexities of interpersonal relationships.

It is only recently that I'm beginning to understand the degrees of complexities that she was talking about.

Up until recently, it seemed to simple me that you either liked someone as a person, or you didn't. You either got along, or you didn't. You either chose a side, or sat squarely on the fence. You were either the popular kid, or the outsider. If you were from opposite ends, you just knew to stay out of each other's way (or deliberately aggravate the other group, but only if you were still in kindergarten or were of that age group's mentality).

Up until recently.

Now I know that you can like someone for some of the things they do, and dislike them for others. You can pretend to get along, but secretly hate each other's guts. You can hate each other, but be fair enough to give respect where it's due (although probably not much else). You can express admiration for a person one moment, and condemn him/her the next. You can switch sides so many times in a series of conversations throughout the day, that by the end of it, your audience can't tell which side you're really on. You can't pick a side anymore without ruling out the possibility that the champion of that side will suddenly cross the floor and you'll be left looking like the fool. You can appear to be the popular kid and actually have people play along -- but who knows what they're really thinking? You can complain about someone, but stick up for them the instant people start agreeing with you.

Maybe it really is all a game with the end-goal of making yourself feel good or of furthering your own interests. But maybe it's because I tend to be loyal (and perhaps naively trusting) to the people I associate with (at least until those people demonstrate that they either don't appreciate it, or don't realize it), that it bothers me when I see the politics of it all. Who will know if you associated with me because you wanted to, because you were forced to, or because you thought it would be the most strategic move? If you consider that motives filter down to the most mundane activities, even something like a simple compliment on the way you look...may not be what it seems.

For the longest time, I wanted everyone to be happy and wherever I could, I would be nice and try to help. But more and more, as my own well-being gets called into question, and I look harder and longer at what is left of me at the end of the day, I wonder if it's hurting me in the long run to act like it matters when all it might really turn out to be is just a game.

Maybe it's time to disconnect. Leave the question of morals to the chessmasters behind the moves, and just live my life by my own views -- being careful to sidestep the landmines laid by those same strategizers. I may not be the target, but it's so easy to get caught in the cross-fire. Lower the standards by which I measure others by, and I'll be less disturbed when another instance of politicking occurs.

Hiphop? Doesn't sound like it to me. The funky, pop-pish "Sunday Morning":

Lindy'ed to this one before without even realizing it was a new song! The jazzy, groovy "Crabbuckit":

I remember this from a while ago... Rap/hiphop-ish "Man I Used to Be":

Another Friday, another realization that I'm running out of time.... 50 days to go till the CISA exam and no progress in my studying.

Manager is asking for stuff too...it's hard to give him stuff while I'm in these client and/or team meetings all day trying to decide how to approach problems. Yesterday I wondered out loud to MD why this yr's budget for this client is the way it is. Last yr they had 1 manager and 2 staff and the manager did abt 50% of the work, if not more. This yr, 1 manager and 1 staff (i.e. me) on an engagement that has 30% more work, and I do 90% of the entire thing.

Then I came to the realization (with MD's help of course) that managers have a higher chargeable rate (naturally), and while this is ordinarily passed on to the client, for this particular type of engagement, we are charging a FIXED FEE. Hence, it would obviously be more profitable to cut Manager's hrs and to get me to do the work instead. Great learning opportunity for me (and I'm not being sarcastic) .... if I survive through it (now I am).

Thankfully, Manager has been pretty good to work with. Yesterday, a 1.5 hr-ish long-distance phone discussion on engagement matters (my bill's going to be through the roof this month!!) but it was casual and by the end of it, I think I've been half-trained to say "Right on" (at his joking insistence) instead of "Ok" or "Sounds good". :P He gets the feeling that I'm a little stressed out, but I can't bring myself to tell him abt the CISA yet...

On the bright side, the client's providing us an Internal Audit resource on Monday to help out. On the dark side, I get to be his senior. Much as I know I'm ready to start senior-ing at this stage of my career... it's going to be work in terms of prepping for it.

This Saturday, my first formal skating lesson! Jas and Hil are flaking cos they're off to their convo in Waterloo -- can't blame them, how many times do you graduate in a lifetime anyway -- but I'll be fine. I was going to do this even if no one wanted to go with me. I wish I could go for their convo...but this is my first skate lesson!! Plus I know I'll be flaking later on -- parents and sis have plans to visit late Nov (and expect me to spend weekends with them), and those are 80% set.

Yesterday, lunch with Shin and MD. Somehow, conversation turned to coffee and MD and I started comparing notes on the options we had (not many). Within walking distance, we had the in-house cafeteria, and  the adjoining Coffee Time (a low-end 24-hour coffee shop chain) and a Williams Coffee Pub across the street. There were a few Tim Horton's outlets around the area, but all required driving and it was a pain due to check-in/check-out restrictions at our current client. There are probably two Starbucks outlets in Waterloo, but again, you need a car -- and Waterloo is abt a 15-min drive away.

It's funny how one man's meat is another man's poison. MD was saying that the in-house coffee was at least better than Coffee Time's, while I recall my client contact cringing at the in-house coffee and suggesting I get some from Williams or one of the independent coffee shops outside instead -- even going as far as saying that I could always go to Coffee Time as an alternative. I brought up Williams Coffee Pub to MD but she shot down the idea, saying that it was expensive...and when I countered with "But you definitely pay more for your daily Starbucks!", she replied that that was the point: Williams is not Starbucks. ^_o

At this point, Shin called us coffee snobs. :P

It was a joke of course, but his opinion was that a coffee has to be reallly good coffee for him to pay more for it, and conversely, it has to be verrrry bad coffee for him to totally reject it. I think I lean towards that viewpoint, although I think that my range is probably narrower than his. Personally, if there was a Tim Horton's and a Coffee Time side-by-side, I would pick the former. If it was between Williams and Starbucks or Second Cup, I would pick the former unless I was hankering after a latte/cappuccino/chai tea/anything fancier than black coffee -- in which case I'll pick the latter.

Anyway, in the Globe and Mail newspaper today, a Dilbert cartoon that went something like this:

Dilbert: Wally, how do you cope with the soul-crushing futility of this job?
Wally: One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
<next pane shows Dilbert carrying a backpack-sized coffee mug with a feedtube and whistling>
Dogbert: What got into you?

Which brings to mind something MD said while we were working on the prev client..."Coffee makes me happy."

...and from personal experience, very motivated.

*sips her second coffee of the day and goes back to work*

Today our Kitchener team headed by my current engagement manager grew by one with the addition of Shin, who's here for just a week to help Munk and myself out. When Munk and I started talking lunch plans and looked to Shin, it was funny to hear him say that this was the first time he's been on an engagement where he would 'do stuff' for meals -- says he, he's mostly been on solo engagements and resorted to casual eats in front of his computer.

Goes to show how work experiences can differ even within the same department and job position.

Anyhoo, the main reason for this entry is the astounding coincidence that we discovered today. Manager, myself and Shin can be technically said to be on the same engagement...and Manager's bday is Dec 9, mine is Dec 10 and Shin's is Dec 11! Plus, Manager's wife is due to go into labour on Dec 6....and so Manager half-joked that maybe his first kid will have a bday on Dec 8 or Dec 12.

Wouldn't that be weird...  

In a Psychology course I took while still in uni, we came across a chapter about stress and it's psychological definition -- basically, "any event or situation that puts a heightened demand on someone's mental or emotional resources." The implication of the class discussion that day was really what I remembered though, i.e. that stress was not necessarily always the result of a bad event. For example, someone who is preparing to run a race is not in a bad event, but he/she would be considered stressed if he/she was running to win.

Having said that...

It's been a stressful week. Pretty much worked independently Monday because I had follow up from Friday. Tues and Wed I didn't want to disturb my manager because I knew he was away on training. Wrote him email late night Wed to discuss some points with him and then only heard from him on Thu saying he was busy with the planning work for another client, but that he'd seen my email and we could talk late Thu or early Fri abt it.

I guess that after being 2 weeks-ish on this client, I've gotten a feel of what the environment/engagement is going to be like, but in a corner of my mind I was hoping to actually see him in person (instead, I got a phone call sometime after lunch on Fri)... I think it's because this is not what I would've expected someone of my level to be doing. I thought that I would've gotten lots of coaching on what I should be doing. I thought that he'd be checking in every couple days or so to see where the status was at, and which items were done, etc.

Instead, our discussions have mostly been along the lines of, "How are you doing? No problems so far?" (i.e. really general) and all technical-type discussions have originated from me ("Given the way they've recorded these changes, how do I choose a sample size?" "Is it ok if we walked through only this portion of the process and if we do that, will it be enough?"). Most of the time I feel like I'm answering my own questions and just looking to him for affirmation that what I've decided is suitable. Most of the time, he seems to agree.

Don't get me wrong, I think he's a cool manager. He's got good solutions and strategies stemming from years of experience, and he seems genuinely concerned about me as a person. Just today I mentioned that I was getting pressure from the previous client to wrap-up (one of the big contributing factors to my week's high stress levels). This is hard to do when said client is downtown TO while I'm mostly in Kitchener for this current client, AND technically sposed to be working on the latter. He asked if I wanted to move some of my booked time to the previous client instead of juggling both clients at once.

Well...that was nice of him...but it's not like the work I have to do on the current client is going to be reduced any. In fact, the plan is for me to help out another coworker working on a diff division once I'm done this.

He also doesn't know of my other stress-inducing responsibilities. The CISA exam is coming up and I'm not even done Chapter 1...and Phil said he took abt 3 months to study for it. I have just two and a bit. 

There are a bunch of late-surfacing issues with previous client that is the real reason why wrap-up work was being dragged out (aside from logistical factors) -- issues that need back-and-forth emailing/phone-calling with those client contacts, whom I've got to eventually explain to when they ask me why I'm digging so deep. Logically (and also from experience), ppl can get defensive when we broach the subject of issues -- I hate that part of my job, but letting the client know abt it slightly before hitting them with a formal document is also something we have to do.

Last week and a couple days before that was "that time of the month", and yes, I'm prone to PMS, no joke. There were also some personal responsibilities that I've got to handle...and still am in charge of.

Personally I don't think it's fair to cite any of these items as excuses for not doing work on my current client or getting stressed out abt it. After all, that work is what I'm being paid for. But it doesn't change the fact that it's a new client to me (so a steeper learning curve)...and I've never really done an engagement of this sort. I've never independently done one of a similar sort either. Because this engagement is a new client for me too, I don't know the ppl and honestly, I frequently wonder if any one of them is writing me off as a "auditor who doesn't know better" (I know I shouldn't care, but I do want to build good and cooperative relationships with them). Most importantly, I don't know this manager, and I don't have a clue of how I'm measuring up in his eyes -- and his opinion of me counts a lot towards the end-year discussions on promotions and salary. Now to do this kind of engagement independently with a new client and with a manager I've never worked with...feels like the stress from each factor all got bundled up into a big, heavy ball sitting in my head.

This situation has its advantages though. Having to learn new stuff in a short time frame usually has me remembering more than if I read it over in a leisurely fashion. Independently handling this makes me virtually the owner of the engagement -- my manager has an overhead view but I'm the one with the details, at least for this year. Also, with a manager as hands-off and easygoing as him, it gives me room to devise my own strategies and explore the engagement, and because he's still the manager, I can check with him whenever I'm unsure and he's still responsible for making the final decision. I would call all of this positive stress.

However...positive or negative stress is still stress. Late nights and early mornings and 2 cups of coffee daily for the past week or so has taken its toll somewhat. Driving back from Kitchener this evening, I felt strangely numb and like I was floating in a dream -- just the portion of my grey matter that usually occupies its time thinking abt stuff while the rest of the brain figures out the hand-eye coordination required of driving. Weekends are spent recuperating instead of improving.

And I fall asleep as soon as I settle into my comfy position each night.

We are all entitled to our opinions and perspectives on living life...but is it our place to speak out when we see someone deviating from what we deem healthy in terms of behaviour? Personally, I think that part of being a good person means that I should do something about it.

Things are rarely that clear-cut though.

Take, for example, a person who enjoys sitting at his computer all day instead of going out to socialize. Is this bad if he still communicates over MSN? He could argue that he doesn't like meeting new ppl, preferring to have a close relationship with existing ones instead.

How about the person who lives life like there's no tomorrow...how can you argue that there will always BE a tomorrow, so that person should plan for the future? No one can tell if you or I will still be here after night has passed and the morning sun rises.

Ppl have emotions and for some, the peaks and valleys of just trying to..live, need to find an outlet somewhere. It could manifest in whining, or angsty emo-ism, or having a good cry while watching a sad movie. For some it comes spewing out in writings, forums, artwork... it's all part of what makes us individual. But some of those acts of expressions may end up hurting himself and/or others. The most recent case being the one involving Dawson College shooter who killed himself after attacking a crowded cafeteria. On a lesser scale, more personal and also more grey area, are ppl who cut themselves out of unhappiness and frustration... what can you say if they insist that they'll never go to the lengths of suicide or serious injury, that the wounds are all superficial?

Everyone has different goals in life. What determines your motivations and yardsticks will be influenced by your upbringing, the ppl you hang out with, the media you're exposed to, your experiences. But what about the person watches so much of a certain kind of TV that he starts identifying with a particular character, to the extent of emulating his/her dressing, actions and even decisions? How can I prove that he's wrong or right in following what the character decided? How can I say that what was on TV is not the real world, when I myself am only one person in the real world? Characters are based on real ppl after all. Maybe I'm the anomaly and the character reflects a more accurate picture of what real life is actually like.

How much can I say or do without imposing my will on others? More importantly, how much better are my views as compared to them? It's their life, they should be in charge.

The truth is that I'm afraid that one day I'll wake up and regret not saying something sooner. That same one day is the when I'll know for sure that when they said what they said, or did what they did, it was going to end badly if they went on. But that same day will also be the day that they did go on, and I didn't stop them...and it would've been too late.

when I was interviewed for this position, I was asked if I was ok with travel. That was abt a yr and a half ago. Since then, I've never travelled further than the northeast edge of Scarborough, which is still technically part of the Greater Toronto Area. I've been to a ski resort in Orangeville for training, Cleveland for still more training, and Nottawasaga for a dinner tasting (thanks videosifter!) but that's abt it.

Last night though, the start of my first business trip...to Kitchener, an hr and a half away from where I live in Toronto. In fact, it's one half of the twin cities of Kitchener-Waterloo, and Waterloo is where I spent my university years. So really, it shouldn't be too bad.

Driving the highway stretch of it wasn't bad. Helped that I travelled it with my dad not too long ago. But once I hit the town... I  realized that I know very little of it after all. Altho I did live there for almost 4 years, my knowledge of it was really restricted to what was on the bus routes, and only the bus routes that passed through the university area...which basically means my knowledge is mostly only Waterloo. Plus for the first time in a long while, driving alone and at night. Didn't take too long to find the hotel, but still, a little more nervous than I thought I would be.

Anyhoo, today was my first day at this client. My schedule's all laid out with an average of 3 meetings a day for the week, and judging from these first few meetings, it seems like  like the client has everything prepared. On the positive side, perhaps I won't have to spend as many weeks on this (who am I kidding...they'll just pull me over to the other sections of the engagement). On the negative side, they're more prepared than I am, having done it a few times over, so gotta be on the ball....

Random fact I learnt today. Unverified, but apparently the reason why the roads in KW are so windy is because they were trying to avoid the sand pits, which are also the reason why all the buildings are low-rise...

I also realized how sketchy Kitchener is after all -- even in the middle of town, at 5.30pm the streets were mostly empty and the ppl who were still around, well, aren't really the kind you want to make small talk with. Maybe I've gotten more used to TO than I'd thought.

It's true what they say...most of the travel you do for work is usually of the uninteresting kind. Altho maybe later I think I should go look around Waterloo for old times sake.

What is your time worth? How much time do you spend outside of work, doing work?

I've always known that most ppl working in my kind of business have lengthy work hours and sometimes do trivial stuff (at my level). Perhaps that's why I wasn't too shocked when I found myself pulling 10-12 hour weekdays, and sometimes working a few hours on the weekend as well. Perhaps that's why when some of my peers complain abt the type of work we do and the time we spend doing it, I can emphathize but I can't say I didn't expect it from the beginning when I interviewed.

Even if the hours were to be compared against investment banking (where ppl spend similar hours at work), I don't believe the pay is equivalent...and don't even talk abt bonuses.

Today, I arrived home from work at approx midnight. Granted that I spent a longer time at lunch for NM's farewell from the client she's on (I was on the same team but rolled off earlier), and then spent abt 2 hrs at dinner with her and Mich. And it was my last day (technically) on the client so I had to make sure all the hard copy stuff was organized in a way that was easily retrievable by anyone who might need it. Plus I'm going off to Kitchener on Sun night for my next client.

But the bottomline was that I was still at the office at 11pm-ish. Anu saw me online and was pretty shocked that I was still at the client site...but it only made sense cos the stuff I had to organize is well, physically there.

Why then, am I still working here? The funny thing also, is that I'm actually ok with the work hours/pay tradeoff!

Hmm...maybe it's cos I've been told again and again that if I want to exceed, I have to be prepared to go the extra mile. Maybe it's because I know that this is the nature of the job -- for any one staff member, scheduling it so that at least two of his/her clients will overlap is really the most efficient way of running this type of company. Maybe it's cos there's such good rapport between team members and I feel like I'm always being supported. Maybe it's cos I feel like I'm learning something new everyday. Maybe it's cos I think that my work is actually making a difference, whether by helping the client figure out better controls or by helping reduce the work that the financial auditors do (or maybe I've been brainwashed!). Maybe it's cos I'm easily taken in by the bribes, I mean benefits and perks that the company offers. ;)

Or maybe it's cos I'm just easily convinced. As time passes, I do notice how much stress some of the higher-ups are going through. A co-worker who just made manager was saying that most won't stay more than 1-2 years bcos of the level of responsibility (a decision to audit in a certain way can have serious repercussions if it doesn't satisfy requirements in the end) and the sheer amount of multi-tasking that needs to be done. Those who are able to withstand the pressure are rewarded of course, presumably with a generous compensation package. And if you can do these two things AND bring in new business, well, you're looking at becoming a partner...but then once you get into that, responsibility increases twentyfold. More senior, more is at stake, more responsibility, more stomach needed. No wonder some ppl choose to forgo being a partner!

Responsibility and multi-tasking. Right now I'm experiencing it myself, albeit on a smaller scale. It gives me a veritable headache when I'm trying to finish a deliverable (usually a Word or Excel document) while following up emails pertinent to other deliverables, while answering scattered questions from seniors and peers alike, while maintaining a level of sociability/casual chatting... My decisions aren't going to bring down the firm if they turn out wrong, my tardiness in finishing deliverables isn't going to fail the audit...but it would affect my chances of working on interesting stuff (taking the last bit of fun out of work), and in the end, my chances of moving up.

In some weird way though, I like the way the company operates. True that I probably can't do it 7 days a week, 8 hours a day for too long, but this pace and type of work really gets the blood pumping for me. Comparing it to when I was on the advisory client just before this current one...well, the former feels almost lethargic now.

I have to admit that there are trade-offs. When I was at the advisory client, I actually had time to do other things, like watch TV or catch up with friends on MSN or meet up for dinners and chat sessions. I could've even taken regular lessons in whatever if I wanted to. Right now...well, not so easy.

The question really boils down to this: what is knowledge worth to me? What is social/non-work time worth to me?

I'm still the person who wants her cake and to eat it too, and sometimes I wish I had more than 24 hours in a day.

How many of us dreamed when we were younger, only to dismiss them as the years slipped away?

"I want to be a scientist". "I want to be a teacher". "I want to be a tour guide". "I want to be an environmentalist farmer."

Somewhere along the road to adulthood, those aspirations gave way to reality. Take on a position in the corporate world. Take responsibility. Start climbing the ladder. What you love can wait...and for some ppl (e.g. yours truly), what you end up doing becomes something you start to get used to and to get good at doing.

What about those dreams we held on to? Those were innocent years, when the world was at our feet, and all we had to know was what we wanted, and our self-confidence made us sure we would get it when we grew up.

Well, they do say that ignorance is bliss. Nothing comes easy and after a while, we decide what it is we do the best, and stick to it. For the sake of security, we take on stable jobs with decent pay, telling ourselves that later, we will pick up where we left off with those dreams.

What we didn't count on was what the passage of time does to our memories.

I visited TMY's site today, after quite a long hiatus.

TMY and I, we talked a lot in high school. Those were the days when we debated movies, the days when he wrote short stories (sometimes unflattering ones using thinly-disguised names of ppl we knew, myself included) and we discussed them. It was purely platonic, but I like to think that because of our shared interests, hanging out frequently actually built our relationship and for me at least, expanded my horizons.

Looking back, I don't even know how we never really ran out of things to say back then. I'm sad to say it's not the case anymore...but that's a story for another day, another gripe abt living in a country foreign to where you grew up.

But back to TMY. In our last year of secondary/high school, when we were in our 17th year, TMY, myself and LWA wrote an article for our yearbook. We did it in three parts: TMY wrote abt the past, LWA wrote abt the present, and I wrote abt the future.

I wrote that TMY had become a famous author and movie producer, and I was managing my own publishing house while proof-reading his manuscripts on the side, while LWA had somehow managed to be one of the few ppl who were lawyer-cum-doctor. They were just baseless aspirations that didn't factor in the hard work needed to achieve them, but they reflected our sincerest view of the future that lay before us, and the endless possibilities.

6 years down the road....LWA has chosen a different, albeit still professional path as an auditor and accountant. Leftist, socialist me started out in technology, did an about-face and turned to finance and accounting, and then turned around again and am now straddling technology and accounting...and politically speaking, moving rightward every day. I think that both of us are happy to have gotten where we are, but we have to admit that we didn't exactly keep the mindset that would've seen us on the path towards our dreams, or trying to get a foot on it.

TMY however, is a different story. He's been writing all this while. He's finishing a university degree in Communications, and he definitely has been playing around with the resources available to him through that program. He's made a few short films, and he's just posted the trailer to his latest one on his website. While I exchanged my dreams for stability, thinking that I could do what I love on the side (yeah right, not with Channel 1 work you don't) while keeping afloat financially and professionally....TMY has continued working with what he loves best.

There is a slight twinge of envy when I see that happening, but at the same time, I feel happy that he's continued with his passions, and doing well in them. When I visit his site, I'm reminded of the days when I believed that all that limited me was the extent of my ambition and imagination....and the jaded me is reborn.

Someday, perhaps, I can spend more time doing what I really love....

Today at work...I realized how much I still have to learn, how many possible roads I can pick as my experience builds up, how many things I could still do within the bounds of my organization...

...and I'm getting this creeping feeling that I'm not going to be able to do it all, much as I want to.

So today I was talking to one of the financial auditors on my team and he didn't realize that I was a junior member of our team...started asking my opinion abt whether a control could be scoped out (something we all look forward to as it means less work) and if he was right in calling it a logical access IT general control. 

Basically the control was this: a customer may have any number of accounts, say 10, but he doesn't necessarily need to have all of them attached to one particular bank card. One bank card may have only 5 of those 10 accounts. The key is that swiping the customer bank card and and combo-ing it with the particular customer service rep's password would yield a screen showing only those options available to those 5 accounts attached.

The financial auditor thought that it was a logical access control because there were passwords involved. I thought that it was a program change control because there was clearly some real-time edits matching the password with the bank card number or something similar -- i.e. someone must have set it up that way.

After abt 1/2 hr of discussing, we ended in a stalemate -- we decided to ask my sr manager when he came in. Nevertheless, I asked another manager...and as we talked it through, I realized the financial auditor and myself were both wrong. It was not even an IT general control, but an IT-dependent manual control. The reason was because although it's the system that decides what accounts to display based on the card and password, those accounts were attached to the card by a person.

The impact on the audit was that if it were an IT general control (whether logical access or program change), it would've already been tested by our team. If it were a business control, the financial auditor would have to figure out if he'd already tested it. If it were an application control, our team would have to test it. But since it's an IT-dependent manual control....the financial auditor would test the whole thing but rely on the IT general controls to reduce the sample size down to 1.

Now who said auditing was just all book-keeping...? Well to be honest, you have to do a lot of tedious, bookkeeping-like work while at the junior level. It's only if you manage to survive it to the senior level that things start getting interesting.

It's because I'm at a junior level AND have not done any actual financial auditing that I couldn't successfully argue my case. It's because he knows very little abt IT audit (and I don't blame him -- the financial side of things is pretty complicated even without trying to factor in the IT components) that he couldn't prove me wrong either.

The solution to my end of it really just boils down to experience, said the guiding manager when I commented that I didn't know how to evaluate the situation, esp on the fly. And I know this already...that's why I have my eye on a secondment to the financial audit dept to better understand how our dept and theirs work together. My manager added that even without that secondment, I would get better year after year as I learn more and more abt the different things a bank does.

From my point of view though...it really feels like I'm restricted by a timeframe of sorts. Things like working on a non-financial client, or seconding to the financial audit dept...these things you do when you're still at a junior level and haven't been considered part of 'XYZ client's must-have staff' (managers love staff continuity -- it cuts down on questions and mistakes and follow-ups). I have 3-4 years to go till I make manager...being a manager in my dept pretty much means an end to experimentation unless you all but quit the dept.

To complicate things, I'd like to try working back in M'sia too. And somewhere in the corner of my heart, I'd like to try working in a different country (like somewhere in Europe) -- not necessarily permanently, but long enough to get an actual feel of what it's like in that environment. Plus do some sight-seeing. :P 

Doing things like these will cut into the time I spend on a return engagement -- and subsequently the 'experience' and learning 'the business processes' that will happen when I come back to this client next year. And finally, yes, I would like to settle down with someone someday. How do you settle down with someone if you're never in one place long enough? It's a sad fact that there is still such a thing as an expiry date for single females...otherwise I could just take my time in getting to manager level, thus having enough time to do it all.

I guess the ideal way for things to go would be to spend 2-3 months being seconded to the financial audit dept, spend 2-3 months on non-financial clients, work on return engagements to build on past experience, get a long-term secondment/transfer to another office (ideally UK or some other English-as-business-language European country) for a year or so, then another transfer to M'sia or S'pore for a year or so. Settle down somewhere (hopefully with family and friends nearby) by age 30, and make manager around that time as well. And all the while, my clients will be interesting and with room for exploration and I'll have loads to learn at each one.

Now all I have to do it convince Fate to let me have my way. ;)

One thing that really bothers me is when ppl call other ppl fobs. Living in a heavily immigrant city like Toronto....the word's integrated itself into everyday life. To call someone a fob is to single someone out in a bad way -- honestly, have you heard anything good said in the same sentence as the word 'fob'?

The funny thing is that no one calls white ppl fobs (or any other degrading name, for that matter) even if they speak funny...and I'm not even talking abt the British. White ppl who grew up in any non-North Am location have a good chance of having a weird accent -- having a manager from NZ, I can attest to the fact that Kiwis have an accent that doesn't go easy on the ears!

The thing is this: if someone like my manager stutters or messes up his words (which he does very often cos he thinks faster than he talks), no one thinks it's because of where it's from. They think (and rightly so) that it's just "him". Now try getting someone to think that way abt an Asian (whether yellow or brown) person! It's an uphill task.

This fact of life as it is really peeves me off. When I start on a subject that I'm excited abt, my thoughts start coming faster than I can get them out in soundbytes. To get my thoughts across, I'll admit right now that I suppress my Msian accent....but it definitely takes effort. Since in my case, accent suppression is inversely related to interesting topics of conversation, somewhere during the course of my speech...I have only so much brain RAM so I start stuttering and/or mixing up my words. If it were my Kiwi manager, it's just "him" (and he's not even doing the access suppression thing!), but since it's yellow-skinned me...

One more thing I've noticed -- there are some ppl who just don't bother suppressing their accent...and they don't get that label. Now, why the bias?? Is it because they don't LOOK like your typical Chinese person and/or are attractive, so you forgive them for it? Or is it because they don't give a damn whether you understand them or not? Perhaps I should do that too and save my accent suppressing efforts for work-related matters only since in THOSE cases, it's absolutely important to make sure your message got across correctly.

Oh, I forgot: I look like your typical China person.

You know what's the worst thing? People who label other ppl 'fobs', are themselves Asian.

When she visited here, Mom made the observation that she gets worse service by ethnic Chinese ppl than by anyone else.

What is it with them? Do they think they're better than everyone else because they were born and/or bred here? Or is it becoming too non-white and they're feeling the reverse effect of being able to say that they made it in the white man's land? Are they afraid that the new immigrants are taking their uniqueness away from them?

Everyone here's an immigrant or the descendent of an immigrant, even white ppl. If you're not white, you or your parents came here because they thought they would get more equality here as compared to where they came from. Ppl in other parts of the world are STILL being treated unequally...that's why they moved. Would you have liked it if ppl made it hard on you or your parents when THEY immigrated?

Msia's immigration situation has stabilized. Yes I am a descendent of an immigrant, but I'm perfectly fine with where I stand with everyone else...and so is everyone. I'm free to speak any way I please without wondering if ppl are just nodding their heads dumbly or if they go behind my back and call me names, or if they really understand what I'm saying.

That's one point up for you, Msia.