Ellipsis [...]

Another buddy at work leaves the company today, to return to his home country possibly for good. Just over a year ago I was having a hard time understanding his heavily accented English, but after sharing a cramped cubicle for months, we became fast friends, sharing many a good laugh. I remember introducing mee bakso to him at the foodcourt we frequented for lunch, and he liked it so much he ate it for two days in a row. Even after I moved back to the company office, we still had to work with each other closely. Come to think of it, he’s the co-worker I’ve spent the most time speaking to on the phone – ever! Haha. And still we would chatter away whenever we met up at the occassional company function or at team get-togethers.

So many memories.

You will be missed, buddy.

Lately, I’ve been feeling increasingly dissatisfied with work. I believe it’s the result of the cumulation of many (seemingly) little events occurring recently, which is severely affecting my normally positive outlook on things. Right now, I’m just sick & tired of the way things work in the company. I’ve always held out hope that it will get better, but it’s been more than 3 years since I started out here & nothing much has changed except the staff. And that hope is fading.
Read the rest of this entry »

Finally, Contract & Agency Law is OVER! Submitted the end-of-course assessment earlier today – via courier as usual, being the lazy arse I am about travelling to school. The second term has rolled around before I know it, and being too caught up in mid-semester deadlines, I haven’t done ANY readings for the upcoming modules. Sigh.

Operations Management is a level 3 module, and it doesn’t look light, if you get what I mean. I printed out the lecture notes today, and the first set has 117 slides. Yes, one hundred & freakin’ seventeen. How the hell to cover that in a 3-hour seminar? I also received two new books for the second part of IT Project Management. The cool thing is, one of them is actually the PMBOK® Guide! This book is like, the bible of the project management world, used by project managers worldwide. This module is really worth the price I paid for it. Not only are the resources provided excellent, I’m learning things I can apply to my job right away.

Speaking of which, I’m not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow after the long break. Never mind that it wasn’t really a break; just a break from work so I could concentrate on school. But still, it helped to change gears for awhile. I’m almost afraid to check my work email after ignoring it for 5 days, so let’s leave that till tomorrow, shall we? Sigh. I wonder how many hundred emails will be waiting for me to sift through. At least it’s only 2 days to the weekend.

Back to readings now. Yeah, I’m severely lacking a life.

• Just splurged close to US$90 on a couple of DVDs I’ve wanted for months: 즐거운 인생 First Press Limited Edition DVD and 한성별곡 Director’s Cut DVD. Shucks. Where the hell is my self-restraint?! Jannah, you still want that iPhone / iPod Touch, do you?
• Speaking of which, iPhone 3G is landing in exactly 8 days! Oh gosh, if I end up getting one, please let there not be long queues.
• I really need to book a hotel room for the HK trip, soon.
• Why are IM clients on Windows so damn ugly???
• Going Turkish for team dinner tonight & Italian tomorrow with TKGians, woot!
• I swear, replying emails take up more energy than coding. X_x
• StreetDirectory.com has their maps back, yay!

Goal #4: Get my salary increased by 15% by end 2008. Check check CHECK!

My manager gave me the much-awaited letter yesterday. I already knew, as we had our salaries credited with the respective increments included, but was looking forward to the official announcement anyway. The funny thing is, before handing me the letter, my boss was saying that the company didn’t do too well (financially) last year, so the pay adjustment might not be much, maybe less than 10%. I was like, Eh? What is he talking about? And when I opened the letter, it said 15.4% increment. Haha. I guess Finance decided in the end to give that much.

So, I’m very happy. My family is happy for me, which makes me even happier.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe how much I’ve progressed since my career started three years ago. Back then I didn’t have any concrete goals or direction, career-wise. Luckily, somewhere along the way, I found out where I wanted to go, and here I am heading down that road with my heart in the right place.

My job scope will slowly become less & less technical from now on, so I’ll be spending some time formulating my career plan for the next one year or so. Actually, I’ve already started! It’s going to take plenty of time & work. But at least, I know I’ll be happy doing it.

Maybe one day I’ll reveal this top secret (haha, as if!) plan of mine here. Hee.

Just came home from a dinner with my colleagues in town. I ate almost as much as my boss did, which says a lot considering he’s a big guy. We were the only ones who had two full servings of rice – each. He was very surprised. Haha. I think he’s only seen me devour extra helpings of pizza but never rice. I don’t know why, but recently I’ve been polishing off every plate of food plus more. It’s no wonder I love my boss; he’s always feeding me!

The dinner was a farewell do for my teammate who’s leaving this week. He’s the one I’ve worked most closely with, the one I’ve learnt plenty from, and the one who’s given me the most trouble. I’ll miss him.

Sigh. I wonder who’ll leave next.

Now Jannah is one happy & relieved girl. Couldn’t care less about the results right now. I just want my life back.

I’m back in the office today and surprisingly NOT flooded with a tsunami of work. Which is not at all good, because it means the worst is yet to come. The only other Java developer on my team will be making his exit in a week, so I’m going to be dumped with his work. And I’ll be left alone again. Damn him.

So I’ll have what, seven, eight projects to handle starting June. Plus a new project coming in next month. If that’s not overloaded, I don’t know what is. Good thing my manager knows that very well, and makes it clear to the other teams that Jannah is indeed overloaded (so bugger off & don’t try to include me in every single project, thanks very much).

Despite that, I’m still looking forward to the next couple of months because:

• No school -> more leisure time, more SLEEP.
• More money will be rolling in – pay adjustments take effect this month!
• I’m switching from Windows to Mac, hopefully never having look back.
• I signed up for the Korean language course I mentioned before; classes start June 11th.
• Real planning for the HK trip in November will begin!

The whimsical side of me is considering taking drum lessons. Haha. Just for fun, and as an outlet for stress. The other time I came across a poster advertising a 3-month drum course at a little music academy near home. Well, we’ll see about that.

Last bit of randomness: I want an iPod Touch!