Crossroads

A few more hours left in Sydney. I have pretty much gone through everything in my To Do List. Too many changes still. My publishing career is on 50-50 hold at the moment. Just sudden bursts from the publisher. The present team is made up of more than 50 editors and writers. They are streamlining. Not like we're getting paid. This is just to make their complicated lives a tad less complicated. Aaaaarrrggggh.

I really need to breathe. I'm kinda broke and my future is back in the greyest of greys.

The broke part is potentially taken care of for the mean time. My tax return is about 3 weeks shy of getting into my bank account. That is a not very optimistic estimate.

I need a new job. A new mindset. A new perspective. A new focus.

My weekend away is just about to start. Workaholic Ivannah won't be bringing her laptop so help me God!

likes and dislikes

If there's a blog I have always loved, it's bound to be Marika's. She's American but from a British background and she's into travelling around the world in exotic and grand places. She's meant to be into missions but I'm not really sure what she's up to.

Marika's a Starbucks chick. Ever-hyper even without the coffee cos she doesn't drink coffee. She's filled with crazy ideas and interesting stories. I just love stories and her stories has by far been the most interesting, most diverse and mose adventurous experiences of one person alone. She's nuts. In a good way though.

Speaking of Starbucks, there are too many organizational changes, most of which I do not necessarily like. So what will become of little me who lives in Starbucksland?

It's definitely time for my alternative plans. Can't really count on anyone and anything these days. Was just talking to someone who used to be my friend about that. He didn't even realize I was hinting to him. Blur.

I got peeved with immigration processes. It totally stressed me out today and ruined my good intentions. No details here. Totally not the space for such rants. But all is well now. I am rather proud of myself for being vocal, thus saving myself $7 in outright monetary terms, at least $50 in 'accruals' and some other opportunity costs.

I had to print out my academic transcript for immigration, too. It didn't look that bad. So I'm smiling.

Tomorrow's a brand new day to look forward to, I daresay. It's almost the long weekend!

Reformatted...

Changes all around. Today is Day 1 of my 15-day annual leave. Very relaxing. Not! Still have my other stuffs. Uni starts this week so I'll have to attend to my studying again. It's my final session, which is good. One more deep breath and I should be fine.

Had a bit of my life back last night despite having to rock up to work at frigging 7:30am on a Saturday. I was late because trains weren't running. It's very convenient to blame faults on public transport. I got to sleep in this morning. Been working 50 hours per week for the past three weeks. It's nice to have a lazy Sunday.

My tiredness consumed my brain. The magazine decided to have last minute changes for the September plan, which included the format. The changes were not as dramatic but it threw me off-balance, I researched for the wrong thing after being misled by my editor's explanatory e-mail only to have my initial lay-out rejected. I was discouraged on one hand, motivated on the other that I sat through the plan instead of dozing off and I found out today that I pulled it off! All the articles are assigned to their respective writers and I can pretty much sit back and relax for now.

Erm... not yet, really. I still have errands to run, legalities to attend to. Oh well. It's just a matter of time.

For the life of me, got to catch up with a few friends. Got more people to catch up with, perhaps try to take time and chill before I get away from it all and enjoy the comforts of having someone as good as immediate family around.

I've inhaled too much disinfectant trying to do housework. Ick.

On Speed. Not!

Still tired. Can't sleep though. I finally finished drafting and allocating my planned articles. I am so crossing my fingers for this. I would be more nervous being the writer than being the editor. Still so many many things to do.

I'm freaking out. I can see where I got this from. I recently felt hanging up on somebody whilst on the phone. I restrained myself but the other party decided to hang up on me. I felt more relieved than anything.

Edward Norton's good in 25th Hour. But it kinda reminded me of Fight Club with the monologues. I slept through the ending.

I should sleep. Nitey!

zen attempt

That urge to break free.
I either suffer from overcommittment or work/information.concern overload. I was kinda looking forward to this week just because it may be the answer to my plea for air. I guess each new week just brings in something slightly out of the norm. I like those little changes.
 
Time-out!
Definitely doing a bit of a tour thing next week. Haven't finalized the nitty gritties yet but almost there! I can just sit and stare into the sky! Queensland, here I come!
 
My so-called hang-over.
Went to a friend's birthday bash during a weeknight last week. It was fun although I was way tired. Had a couple of those vanilla-lime-hazelnutty mix of almost everything nice and a lot of ice. I got like four hours of sleep plus my tireness baggage and went to work in the morning all happy and nutty. I got tired easily though. I was pretty much dead the following morning but a work mate bought me a couple of krispy kremes to hype me up. Cute.
 
More krispy kremes.
We ended up with 2 dozens of krispy kremes end of last week. I'm still munching on the remains. Been microwaving them for the past couple of days. I still couldn't do it right. One of them have gone not only krispy but also krunchy. I won't be having doughnuts for a while.
 
Girl power revisited.
It was fab to have Narlz back. Went around shopping and stuff. It was fun just looking around food and stuff. Hunted for a few bargains. Got a pair of shoes for $20. She got a couple of tops for work that were $10 each. Was just nice hanging out with the girls again.
 
Re-format.
My current publishing career is just about to start. I was quite happy about it and now it has to change. Oh well. Not much has been done on my part but hey heaps more will have to be done for the mid-August deadline. And where in the calendar are we now? Sigh. Hectic life.

Mid-winter hot water fiasco

I came home to discover that the hot water tank in our apartment block bursted and so we do not have hot water. How am I supposed to shower at 5am? Sigh.

Been awfully tired from doing work. I'm slashing down my uni holiday plans. The film making failed the feasibility study.

Narlz is back in Sydney!

It's been all good. Except Barbs is no longer our manager. She got sent to Hornsby. And so we are orphans again. I'm like the big sister forced to be 'mom.'

I'll go to Queensland nonetheless.

"Thirst Editor"

My new job title. I shall get a business card soon. COoOoOol! It might take me a while to get over this. I just love the work involed in being editor. You source the materials and pass them on to subordinates. Aaaahhhh... this is the life.

Backtracking a bit to the life that is realistic, friday's tax law exam was not too bad. I used up the 3 hours we were allocated, brought 2 books in but only used my trusty drool-coated text book. I left it at Wynyard cos I didn't want to carry it around the whole night. Got myself a shift in Balmain to help Rene out.

I hung out with Pauline and Sririn. Came home and found myself blaberring with my flatmate for ages before we decided to call it a day. Slept in a teeny bit the next morning so I was 4 minutes late which was rather insignificant. Work was boring. Spent a lot of time just getting things done and organized in the store and allocating external shifts to people. Everyone's on a quest to earn money. At least in our store.

Rosa and Amy came by to visit. Went by the Apple store intending to get earphones for Casey but they were crap so me and Rosa decided to head to Dendy Quays cos I wanted to see Super Size Me (American doco where this guy ate nothing but Maccas for 30 days).

It was witty but still it's a doco. Makes you stay away from Maccas and the rest of the fast food pack. I think I suddenly had this urge to become self-consciously healthy. I'm planning to go vego after I finish up the steak I have in the fridge. =)

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. I just felt crap. Probably still having Super Size Me after effects. Had yum cha with Casey and his friends. Met his parents and stuff. It was eat all you can yum cha but I refused to eat that much and I had to run away early cos of my editorial meetings.

We all wondered why the meeting was held in Parra of all places. I had to take a cab from the city because it's a Sunday which means trains and all that are not as frequent and I did not have the luxury of time. But I was glad I wasn't late and I am happy I got myself involved in this. Met a lot of nice people.

I felt tired the whole day. The travel home wasn't that bad.

I shall map out my three weeks of all work now.

First of July

Halfway through 2004. Interesting year. I bet I'll say that again in 6 months. July is a good month. Always been good. I have Taxation Law exam tomorrow to start off with. Hopefully I would at least pass and so I can pass the whole darned thing and get on with my final law course. It shouldn't be too difficult.

I got 2 books out from the law library yesterday. I had to check with Al which level it is on. Luckily I still had the call number of one of the books in my course outline so I didn't have to fiddle with the computerized card catalogue thingy. I found 3 books I wanted and tried to loan them. I was prepared with a big Starbucks double bag which I used to transport 12 liters of milk to Martin Place.

The librarian commented that people normally return books this time of the session. But hey what can I do, I still have an exam so I told her that and she accussed me of last minute cramming! I said it's an open-book exam and I can bring in as many books as I want and then she went "AAAHHHHH!" We then find out that I cannot actually borrow the legislation cos it's still 'Out' in the system and then she said I can have a look at it in the library. No thanks. I left with my two books and headed back to Wynyard.

Sririn was there visiting and Pauline and Abby were still on shift. They got so hyper from drinking french press coffee as we decided to do the plunge for fussy people who didn't want a long black in place of their usual brewed coffee. Oh well. Hopefully they would come fix the Columbia Shuttle pronto.

Headed to Transport House with Sririn to try and get some studying done. We did more talking. And then Amanda came and joined us after her shift and then Abby. Such is life. I love those people. I stayed on after they all left and decided to say hi to Natasha and Tim at Wynyard after I got sick of my book.

Today marks the end of my second year at work. Made me contemplate all the more vis-a-vis recent turn of events. Some seemingly small decisions drastically affect a whole structure. Fingers crossed, I am still hoping for enlightenment.

I came home to find home cooked meal. I was happy Na did the groceries. It saved me having to put down my books and heading out again to get stuff. I watched Open Your Eyes on DVD. It's pretty good but I don't like the story. I was telling Na how it is 98% Vanilla Sky. How can Hollywood have a very limited imagination?

Merely having a break here. Back to Taxation Law now.