The Witching Hour

'2.37am'

reads the little blue screen as I squinted with one eye and brought my phone a little close to my face in the cold darkness of my room.

Fuck. I can't sleep.

Its been 5 nights in a row now that I've been awoken by my overactive mind racing with too many thoughts.
Like clockwork, I'll awaken somewhere around the 3am mark. The witching hour.

Work has started for me on Tuesday. New role, new project, new industry. This looks promising, it'll be a role that will benefit me. More on that later as things becomes more apparent. I'm somewhat relieved that at least there's one less aspect of my life to worry about as mentioned in a previous post.

No.
I know exactly what's keeping me awake tonight.

Miss Sam is making the permanent move from Sydney to Melbourne this weekend. I'm flying up on Saturday night and we'll be making the arduous 800km+ drive to Melbourne in her tiny white Daihatsu Charade.

The plan was in the works for the future and this was supposed to take a long time to fruition over a few more months. However, she was made redundant in her job a month ago and this threw a spanner in the works and accelerated the whole process before you can even say 'I can't breathe'!

Nothing will change. Or will it?

What happens when you take the 'distance' out of a 'long distance romance'? The yearning, longing and simmering lust that builds up to a frenzied climax in between visits; melt away into a lesser degree of normality as both parties exist within each other's life and space on a more frequent everyday basis.

I certainly don't know.

What I do know.... is that the tiny white, slim rectangular tablet of Stilnox I'm popping into my mouth, will blissfully kick-in in 10minutes and effectively knock me out for the count, giving me some desperately needed sleep and quieten down the voices in my head. Before the witching over is over.

Andy,
Zzz

So... what next?

I hate this feeling of not having any direction. It's been gnawing at the back of my mind even though I know I ought to be relaxed and happy, however, it is in my nature to be happiest when I'm focused or fixated with a goal in mind.

One weekend ago, the 18month project I've been working on in my short career at Accenture came to its official conclusion at 1pm on a Sunday afternoon. The role wasn't something that I wanted in the first place, but I bit the bullet and got the job done nonetheless. I'm glad to get it out of my system.

So what's been bugging me now is the uncertainty of my next role. The make or break deal. If I can't get into another generic role for another year, it just wouldn't help me the slightest. I need something that will give me specialised experience that I could market myself with in the future. So, fingers crossed for now.

Ready, Steady.... Go-Live !

Its finally over! The project I've been working so hard on the past year and busting my chops from sacrificing weekends at work and 12hour days during the week has finally come to an exhausting anti-climax this Monday afternoon, during the last day of the Easter holiday long weekend.

The national managers came together for a conference call and came out announcing to everyone that the "go-live" decision was made, meaning that as of Tuesday morning we will be able to start billing Queensland customers. This would no doubt make Origin the 2nd biggest utilities company in Australia's contestable electricity market, since the Queensland electricity market got deregulated.

I need to get my life back to normal again. I woke up late Saturday morning and for a brief moment was confronted with a sudden feeling of unease, as if I had to do something or be somewhere. Force of habit; I thought to myself as I made breakfast and pondered what to do with the rest of my free day. For once, I didn't have to check my emails or run into work.

It was just nice to sit around the house all afternoon, potter around, watch a movie or two, go grocery shopping and then cook a late lunch.

In a random act of spontaneity, I signed up for an amateur salsa dance competition, held in 3 week's time at the Copacabana.
Jasmine, my salsa dance buddy at Thursday's class has agreed to partner up with me and train for the event.

We've booked in Liz, our salsa instructor for a private lesson next Saturday afternoon. So bring it on, oh yeah !

=)

Australia Day Weekend - Redux

Its rare that I get a quiet moment nowadays to write out my thoughts. Everything at work has been crashing down at once like a wobbly stack of cards built a little too high.
4 weeks before our project goes-live and honestly from my point of view I can see things going pear shaped. However, leadership are pretty good at showing powerpoint presentations to repackage the pear as an apple to the businesses.

Nonetheless, my whinging aside, life has been great of late. I did have an amazing Australia Day long weekend (yes, I know its been that long since I last posted).

My 72hrs of hedonistic pleasure started on Saturday evening where we packed ourselves picnic baskets loaded with food and bubbly, walked down the street to the Fitzroy gardens for a picnic in the park with the night's entertainment provided by 'The Soul Connection' a funk and soul band playing music from the 60s.
It was absolutely brilliant stuff, people old and young were running around barefoot on the grass and dancing in the twilight as the sunlight faded into the city skyline in the backdrop.


Sunday we celebrated Emily's 28th birthday during the afternoon at our apartment. Drinks and a BBQ were the order of the day and it stretched into the night when we all headed down to the Nightcat; a salsa club on Johnston street. A live latin band and couples showing off their slick dance moves on the floor.

A shot with Sam, Emily's cute friend from Sydney

After a rather interesting night out, the next day I went to the Alumbra on docklands. Miguel Migs and Julius Papp (Both whom I had the pleasure of catching in Singapore 2 weeks earlier) were playing, with live vocals by none other than Lisa Shaw!

The club is situated right in the middle of the pier and standing on the dance floor inside, I realised that the dance floor was made of glass and you can see the sea below your feet.

Me and Greg




Sam got persuaded heavily by me to come for the party, as no visit to Melbourne is complete without a party with class...



Enjoying the sunshine in the outdoor area



Marika dropped by late to the party, but in time for the main acts

The music was incredible, the crowd was great, this was one of those unexpected parties where everything was unplanned and you have one of the greatest nights of your life!

Dress Rehearsal 1

This will be my affirmation of the day: (borrowed from the Hay House Calender)
I am the perfect age right now. I have been younger and I will be older. I will never be this age again, so I make the most of this time and enjoy myself to the fullest.

This may sound cheesy to some, but somehow I find this line a source of great inspiration.
We need to live in the present.

Last night I was out at a singles event with Emily. This event was organized by dating website rsvp.

We had heaps of fun talking to random strangers, making some new friends and getting the odd number here and there.
There's a strange phenomenon I noticed that I like to call social proofing.
If a guy enters a singles bar by himself and stands in a corner nursing his drink in his hand while checking out the women in there, he does get noticed by the women. By the time he drinks enough dutch courage to approach a girl to say hello, they'll be less responsive as the women would have already noticed creepy fella standing by himself checking them out.

On the flip side. I walked into the venue, arm in arm with Emily in tow, we stood at the bar, got a drink and then proceeded to dance a few moves on the empty dancefloor while everyone else in the room looked on. After leaving the floor, I walked up to a bunch of girls and opened the set; launching into a conversation effortlessly because we've already established a few facts:

1) We were the most fun people in the room having a good time
2) Social dynamics will draw others to hang around fun people because they want to have a good time too
3) I wasn't behaving in a predatory fashion checking out targets from a corner before making my move, I was just there to have fun irregardless.

So there you go, social dynamics!

----------------------

In case you're thinking what is a "dress rehearsal" (the title of this post).

Well, sadly I'm at work this fine rainy saturday evening and am typing out this post while nobody's looking over my shoulder.

9 weeks to go on the project and we're having a trial run over the weekend working 24/7 in shifts as we run all our programs to migrate the 800,000 electricity customer and billing details over from Queensland.

Exciting times indeed.... although I'd rather watch paint dry if given a choice

So I'm was on call today and had to go into the office from 3pm till 6pm.
I finished up and just only got home when I got called back again at 8pm because something didn't load properly and had to be fixed.
Lets hope it doesn't pan out into a long night.

Good news is, one of our managers; Sarah is in charge of ordering dinner tonight.
We're having Thai... Yum !

800 miles from home

I’m 800 miles away from home and sitting in a café at Brisbane airport’s domestic terminal.

View from my seat at the Virgin Blue terminal.

An interesting shot within a shot, I took these photos on my mobile and sent the pictures via Bluetooth to my laptop. Red Rooster chicken salad and a cup of tea for my afternoon snack.

Actually I’m starving as lunch was hours ago and I’m still feeling sore from a hard gym workout last night at what I fondly nickname “The Dungeon”. The Fitness First branch at 320 Adelaide St in the city has a great windowless weights room in its subterranean basement, filled with big heavy dumbbells and barbells. Blood and guts is the order of the day, and I love working out there whenever I get time away from the office.

The past week has been a daze as I was up at 4.30am on Monday morning to catch a 7am flight. I’m up here again to work with the development team as they fix the defects from the last trial conversion. I’m also the only person currently tasked to work on the reconciliation aspect of the project, which accounts for every single record that we process and tracks that record from start to wherever it ends up. In essence, this is like auditing, except with data instead of cash flows. The business and external auditors will want proof that nothing falls through the cracks when we crunch, transform and spit out this tremendous amount of data.

I think I’m finally used to working as a consultant now. The short notice to fly interstate doesn’t even faze me this time around and I’ve rehearsed the packing of my luggage and toiletries like a marksman disassembles and reassembles his rifle with a map burned into his memory. I can be ready to leave for a week’s trip in under half an hour.

My toiletries bag is always filled with miniature versions of what I’d normally use, packed neatly and stored away in the little compartments. My electric toothbrush is charged and ready to be transferred to its clear blue plastic travel case, the battery good to last for a week.

My mobile has got the numbers of airport pick-up and transfer services in 2 different states which I use to avoid the nightmare that is queuing for a cab and dealing with smelly foreign drivers. Its always nice to have a guy in a suit holding your name on a piece of paper and offering a clean and comfy ride to your destination when you trudge off the plane.

I’ve also learnt the fine art of catching up on sleep during the interstate flights. I always bring a book to read while waiting to board the plane and when in the air, as it serves a dual purpose of feeding the brain and inducing sleep. There’s nothing better than falling asleep shortly after take off and waking up just when the plane touches the ground.

So here I am, the week before Christmas and I have never worked harder in my life before with all the overtime hours I’ve been putting in to make this project run. I’m hoping to go home to Singapore in time for New Years Eve, but all the flights are full at the moment and I’m stuck in limbo on a wait list.

Here’s hoping for the best anyway….

A sunday whinge

Its yet another sunny and warm sunday afternoon, its nice to sleep in my own bed the past 2 nights.

Hard to believe a week went by in the blink of an eye. Well to be honest it wasn't really a blink; more like a slow stabbing eyesore of a week.

I didn't get any time to blog while away, Brisbane was a nightmare with crazy 12hour days in a cramped office overseeing a bunch of indian programmers writing the programs to extract and convert the data. It was particularly frustrating because everything was barely holding in at the seams, most of these muppets aren't very experienced programmers and when things aren't working, nobody raises their hand up until the last minute!
Coupled with the fact that there were only a limited number of PCs which I had to share and it was impossible to work with a laptop on my knees, it feels like a futile exercise to go up there, hold their hands and answer the painfully obvious questions all day long.

Enough work talk now, I've got other stuff to whinge about.

As mentioned last week, me and Pat decided to kick our new housemate Samantha out.

We found her through a flatmate finders website which we've all used to get where we are now. Through the site, I found Lisa a year ago and we found Pat a few months later.
We were the perfect happy household that felt like a family.
Then in October, Lisa moved out with her partner Dave and we lost a fantastic housemate and dear friend. We then advertised on the website and did the interview rounds with potential applicants. The top few which we wanted to offer the room to either declined or found someplace else and I was the one who convinced Pat that we should take Sam because she seemed funny and down to earth although a little loud.

Turns out my gut instinct was terribly off the mark as you don't really know someone until you live with them.
In the 3 weeks she lived here, Sam:

• Sat out in the outdoor garden with her friends, got drunk and loud while chain-smoking
  
• Yelled drunken hellos at neighbours walking by
  
• Left a mess of empty wine bottles, glasses and filled ashtrays for us to clean up
• Left the bathroom in an absolute mess of hair, makeup and wet puddles
  
• Fried fish and made the whole house stink of fish for a week
• Left the frying pan full of burnt crap stuck to it soaking for more than a day
• Put a metal scourer to my non-stick frying pan to remove the burnt crap and successfully removed the Teflon as well
• Broken glass on the floor
• Dirt trails on the carpets
• Wet laundry left to dry all over the laundry area
• And finally earning us a warning letter from the body corporate and building manager because of numerous complaints against our unit from the residents in other blocks
  

So enough was enough, Pat called me while at work one day and suggested that we could get rid of her, to which I whole-heartily agreed and we ripped up the rental and bond agreement forms with her name on which we haven't handed in yet; sat her down and told her to start finding somewhere else to live as it wasn't going to work out.
2 weeks later she is gone, the house is nice and clean again and it feels great to come home now.

We ran the ad in the flatmates website again, interviewed some people and 2 days ago we accepted Emily, a soft spoken kindergarten teacher as our new flatmate!

Countdown to the snow

So here I am, finally crawling out of the clutches of the dreaded flu bug that's been plaguing me the last week.

I have this theory: On average, I fall really sick about twice a year.

So counting this and the time back in January when Steph and Simon came to Singapore to visit and infected me with some pommie superbug from their England trip, I reckon I have reached my annual quota of great illnesses. If we assume that the past is a good predictor of the future, I'll be bullet-proof for the remainder of 2007!

Its almost midnight and I'm still slightly drunk. Was out earlier this evening for an informal catch up between my manager and the few of us Accenture folk working on this project. This was also a sneaky attempt by said manager running us through our annual performance objectives; what better way to do that than over dinner and drinks. I boldly suggested the european bier cafe across the road from our new office building on the posh end of Collins St and it was brilliant to break my 2 month abstinence from alcholol on Erdinger Weißbier Dunkel and Hoegaarden!!

2 more work days to go, I head up to Falls Creek this Friday for a 3 day weekend to have a go at snowboarding!

Getting answers

Its been a hectic week for me.

Monday and Tuesday was burning it hard with 10-11 hr days at the office to finish my functional designs so that the developers up in Brisbane can start their technical work.

I made another trip up to Brisbane on Wednesday morning, it was pretty tough trying to stay awake after catching the 7am flight. Apparently it was a public holiday in Brisbane but we got the developers working through it.
This time round I was a one man road show coming up here, armed with only my laptop and trusty Analogue PDA (Notepad and pen) =)

It was good to finally meet development team face to face, since we've only spoken on the phone and through the email the past couple of weeks.
These are the guys who are going to be writing the data migration software based on the rules and designs I came up with from all the work done in the last 2 months. This is outsourcing at its best, seeing that they're migrated over from our various offices in India for the duration of this project.

The good:
The Indian team were great fun to hang out and work with.
Walking by myself up to the company we bought over to sit down with one of their programmers and getting all my important questions answered.
Room service food was yummy.
Fitness First on Adelaide St has a nice basement weights area which is a sweaty 4 wall dungeon filled with heavy weights.

The bad:
Getting hooked up at the Grand Chancellor hotel (again).
It ain't grand. In fact, it looks like it was built in the 70s.
Think porn movie set when you look at the raunchy red leopard print bedspread which matches the drab red carpets.
Situated on top of the tallest and steepest hill overlooking the city, you'd think it was an Everest expedition trying to walk up here.

At least the service was good, I helped myself to a cup of peppermint tea last night.
When I got back to the room this evening, sure enough the cups were cleaned etc, but the maid left a mug out next to the kettle with a peppermint teabag on top. Its little thoughtful gestures like this that really make my day! =)

Off to bed now.... So tired I can hardly keep my eyes open.
I can't wait to fly back to Melbourne tomorrow evening!

So it was an acronym after all

A brilliant thing happened this morning; I got to the office building only to find everyone locked out from our floors. Apparently there was a burst water pipe on the 32nd floor and water was seeping into the floors below which posed an electrical hazard.

I waited around the lobby and talked shit with some colleagues while building management allowed small groups of us to use the goods lift under supervision of a safety warden to go to our floors to collect any valuables. The 27th floor where I worked looked fine except for the desks near the windows where water was raining down from the ceiling boards. Too bad I didn't bring my camera today to take some snaps.

I retrieved my laptop and am now working remotely from a couch facing the window with an awesome view from the Accenture offices below. Its amazing what you can do with wireless networking and remote access passes. =)

Remember back in this post I was bitching about the stupid names that IT people give their systems? Apparently FROG did stand for something: Feedback Register for Organisational Growth. Yep, of course it sounds perfectly logical......
The funny thing was that nobody on our project knew what it stood for the last 7 months.

Tech. Consulting Workshop

Monday was a bit of a struggle getting out of bed, after all the shenanigans over the big weekend.

Thank god I had a 2 day workshop at the Hilton to break up the monotony.

This was a networking event for all the Technology Consulting practitioners in Accenture's SEAAK (SE Asia, Australia, Korea) region. A huge part of the costs are borne by companies like HP, Sun, IBM and the other big boys of the software/hardware industry as it was opportunity for vendors to showcase the latest and greatest in what they can do for today's businesses. Essentially we are the people that will be using these products to fuel our client engagements and improve the way businesses are run.

Did I say networking? Yes, the integral part of all business events cannot be complete without business cards being tossed around like bits of colourful confetti and names exchanged as fast as they are forgotten. Ahhh..... its like going to a computer fair, except a million times better because instead of getting nothing but shitty pamphlets you actually get cool freebies thrown at you and the vendors shout you lunch/dinner/endless drinks.

An example of cool technology being developed were: The Next Generation Data Centers for companies, that strive to be as close to carbon neutral as possible. (Data Centers require massive amounts of air conditioning; these new ones run faster, smarter, with less power and less air conditioning)

I got home that night at 2am, very drunk, carrying a brand new Dell926 All-In-One printer in a box and a massive bag full of promotional materials.

These are perks of the job I REALLY like ! =)

You spin me right round baby right round

My head is spinning. My brain hurts from information overload at work. Ouch ouch ouch !

You know you're in trouble when you're cracking your brain to understand some really difficult techie stuff at work, then you leave work and go to the gym, eat dinner, go home to bed and start dreaming about solving all those complex issues at work.
Dammit! No wonder I come to work and feel like I've never left. Even my seat feels warm, probably cos my out of body experience dream self was just sitting there not long ago.

On the positive side, I'm amazed at how much memory retention there is considering 3 weeks ago, I was scratching my head like an ape with no idea what I'm looking at. Now this massive jigsaw puzzle is actually making sense and the pieces are falling into place.
Perhaps the dreams about work is my moist human brain's way of organizing and remembering the stuff that's presented to it.

The idea that people need sleep to consolidate memories has waxed and waned in popularity since psychologists John Jenkins and Karl Dallenbach first proposed that sleep benefits memory more than 80 years ago. In the last 10 years, evidence from memory studies in humans and rats, as well as research on the cellular and molecular workings of the brain, have provided increasing evidence for the link.

Moral of the story? If you can't solve a difficult problem, try sleeping on it.

Gaps in my brain at work

If you haven't already noticed, I'm sorry about the week and a half gap between the Queen's long weekend posts. I didn't have access to the Internet or the photos in the following days.

Work happened and I was flown up to Brisbane to attend a Project kickoff meeting (4 months after the project started. Which raises the question..... why now?! DUH !!!) and sit through 3 more days of brain numbing data mapping sessions with the IT dept of the company we're taking over.

Being optimistic, I'd say I understand around 60% of what's going on at work now. The pragmatic side of me however would kick that figure down to a more realistic 25%.
Dammit ! *&^*&$^
I can't help but feel that the flow of knowledge in this project is really more like a drip to be accurate.

Why the hell do IT projects love to use funky naming conventions to their systems which mean absolutely nothing?
Let me give you an example: The data migration project will perform an extract, transform and load from FACOM, FROG and PEACE into our target CISOV and MOE systems.
Seriously, what the hell is a FROG system? Does it run on worms and flying insects?
After some investigative work on my part, I found out that PEACE is a billing system. I suppose it would give the consumer a warm flower power kind of fuzzy feeling knowing that their electric bill comes from PEACE.

You know what I really think? This is what happens when you put generation X kids who grew up in the 70s in charge of developing your computer systems. Remember as a kid you used to watch those cool TV series like M.A.S.K (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) fighting the evil of VENOM (Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem)?

Does anyone see the similarities here?




If it boils down to me having to lock up the senior contractors in a room with nothing to play with except crappy Lego and MASK figurines until they give up hoarding the information and tell me what I need to know, so be it!

Brisbane Day 1 + 2

Up in Sunny Brisbane now.....

Day 1
Brisbane is nice! I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised despite all the 2nd hand accounts from friends telling me how boring it is over here and the food is poor with nothing going on in the city. On the contrary, I found quite a few nice restaurants for food and drink and the usual gamut of small shops and stores. I’m staying at the lovely southbank area (bigger than Melbourne’s southbank) where it’s a bit of a tourist strip with the fancy restaurants, cafes and even an artificial beach right alongside the river.

Monday went by in a blur. Straight from the airport into the office and we sat in a meeting the whole afternoon with a manager and a contractor and I could hardly understand anything they were talking about as they knew the systems we were working on much better than I did.

By night, I had dinner at a nice steakhouse along southbank before getting on the CityCat for a scenic ride up the river to Brett’s Wharf and back. River transports like these are a fantastic idea! The catamaran was sleek, quiet and fast as it nipped from pier to pier dropping off office workers, students and city folk to their homes along the river.

I stood at the bow of the boat and just gazed into the Brisbane skyline, mesmerized by the city lights.

Day 2
The 2nd day in Brisbane was crazy, I sat through yet another gruelling long workshop session which could have been conducted in German for all I cared as it sure sounded like they were talking in another language I didn't understand. True to my guns however, I diligently took notes and put on my 'I'm on top of everything' face while ignoring the sinking feeling in my stomach. (Note to self: sinking feeling in stomach might also be due to crap coffee from downstairs)

It was a welcome relief when our manager pulled us out from the meeting early and back into the office for another long meeting with him instead. (definitely better than the meeting in german earlier)

That evening, our small team from melbourne went out for dinner by the riverside. It was nice to have the tab picked up by the company and since it started raining when we were through the meal, we had not much choice but to order dessert and more wine! =)

I'll try and upload some photos if I get the time later tonight or tomorrow...

Back in Melbourne, and leaving again !

I'm still tired.

I spent most of Wednesday hurtling through the air in a tin can with wings, flying from Singapore to transit in Kuala Lumpur for 2hrs, before taking off again to Melbourne.

I hate flying Malaysian airlines. No offence to the Malaysians out there, but comparing Malaysian airlines to Singapore airlines is like comparing economy to business class. Its the small details that count, like attitude of flight staff and quality of meals. I always frown at the supposed dinner that comes with the longer flights: what looks like a small baguette with some kind of stuffing, on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in cellophane. Yuck. Only bonus points I'll give are the episodes of Firefly and Extras on their in-flight menu.

Total flight + transit time = 12.5hrs. You can add another 1.5 hrs to that with Australian customs' warm and friendly methods of screening, x-raying, prodding, poking and sniffing every bag for possible traces of organic produce and illicit materials that might harm their precious farming eco-system. Somehow that episode of the Simpsons where Bart introduces the cane toad to Australia comes to mind as a pretty funny poke at the irony involved. Read more here

Thur 9am.
I really miss the coffee here in Melbourne. Nowhere else I've tried can compare or come close. Malaysia and Singapore was littered with dozens of Starbucks which make the most disgusting coffee I've ever tasted (but my gripe with bad coffee deserves a separate post later on). I got my usual skinny cappuccino with no sugar from Spiga downstairs, was even glad to see the regular blonde barista make my coffee.

Walking into the office and I hardly gotten into the chocolate sprinkled crema on the top of my coffee cup when Vik greets me and asked how the trip was, how the unpacking was going along. Great news, he said. Don't bother unpacking because you're gonna be flying up to Brisbane next week to help the functional team do data mapping at the Charlotte St office.

Huh? What?! I did a double take and pondered on this for a minute. Then I looked out of the window to see the freezing winter wind lashing out at people bundled in layers running across the street before a smile appeared on my face at the prospect of a few days up in sunny brissy weather. A further phone conference later that afternoon with our guys up there confirmed the finer details: I'll be flying up there on Monday morning with another contractor and returning on Thursday.

Did I mention that I like my job and company at the moment? Well I do.



Almost finished unpacking......... almost there...........

Resolutions

4.30am, Singapore (post Zouk)

So here I am, stepping into the realm of the blogging world finally.
I did make a resolution eons ago to make an effort to try to improving my creative writing skills but procrastination reared its evil head time and time again.

One can however argue that as with all new technologies, it takes time for it to be improved and mature. So I'm reassuring myself that its with remarkable 20-20 hindsight that I was procrastinating to give the blogging technology time to develop and mature to what it is today. Thanks goes to Tammy for pushing me over the edge at dinner last night by confirming that she would bother to read my ramblings which reassured me somewhat that I won't be the equivalent of a crazy drunk in the online street corner talking to himself.

The past 2 weeks have been exhausting, I was in Kuala Lumpur attending Accenture's Core Analyst school program where we all learnt the necessary skills to talk the talk, walk the walk and deliver value to clients as an Accenture analyst. Its incredible to learn that the company has its own methodology and model for practically everything under the sun with pretty graphics and diagrams to support. I won't be surprised if I needed to make a oven roast and they already had a methodology in place to deliver to you the ISO9000 best practices for roasting a bird in the oven.

Seriously though, it was a fantastic networking opportunity to get to know all the other analysts from the Asia pacific offices. In our group we had: Japanese, Indians, China'rians, Koreans, Singaporeans, Australians. Great fun was had by all, in spite of the gruelling 10hr days in class and working in teams with obvious language barriers in place. The Japanese were great fun, clicking away on their digital pocket-sized English to Japanese translators in class and getting pissed funny drunk when you go drinking with em.

I'll post up some photos from the past 2 weeks when I get back to Melbourne and organize my stuff. (and of course figure out how to upload photos in blogger)

Meanwhile, my bed beckons me and I'm going to recharge my batteries for the few days I have left in Singapore to tackle the Great Singapore Sale and play catch up with friends


Gd'nite!
..... Andy