Drained Out

The intensive 6-day preparatory course for the exams I'm writing in the upcoming week ended yesterday, and I cannot be more drained out. I thought school was bad, but that was much worse. Not in terms of difficulty (I really cannot think of anything more difficult than designing a linear-quadratic regulator for a floating magnetic ball, but that's just me), but the intensity of it. I never had to sit through an eight hour lecture about the same topic for six days straight.

Now I have a few days left before the exams themselves.. I spent the entire day studying in the office. Somehow I have turned into this anti-social being that only knows to study over the weekend. I *really* need to get a life.

At least I'm working on my procrastination problem..

Happy Birthday to me! (Part 2)

This marks the third anniversary of this weblog. I know I say this every year, and each year it just gets more and more convoluted. Sometimes I am not sure why I continue to pour my heart out to the world to hear, considering that it resembles a 16-year-old drama queen who cannot stop talking about her life problems involving the decision on the colour of her prom dress. Just doing a quick survey of all my entries in the past year, and I realised how insignificant some of my concerns were.

I wrote in my birthday entry last year about retribution and how it always comes back to bite you when you least expect it. The theme of this year is relatively similar. Although circumstances are different, as there were many significant changes to my life throughout the year, but I feel the underlying person is finally emerging. I had long forgotten who I really was, or where I was going in life. Somehow I had steered off-course, and became what I really did not want to become as a person.

So I paid for it - dearly. It prompted me to change, to recognize and identify what the problems were and to correct them. There were just way too many overdue problems that I had ignored for far too long. Progress was made, and I started to see how wrong I was and how truly I deserved what I received.

By no means that I think it is complete. I see it more as a transformation of character, which is only the beginning of reforming myself. There's still so much to learn, and so much to improve in. I get discouraged easily - but thankfully there happens to be people always around me to point me in the right direction.

Thanks for those who remembered.. at least some people cared. To quote myself, "There are people whom I once thought would be there for me regardless what happened, and now I don't even get a simple 'happy birthday' from them.. "

C'est la vie.

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to meeeeeeeeee,
Happy birthday to me!

Weekend = Studying

I spent the entire day yesterday in the office, revising for my upcoming exams. Yes I know they're not until the week after, but what's wrong with being prepared? Oh right, this is out of character. Perhaps I'm finally working out my procrastination problem and starting early. I'm quite surprised myself that I am working this hard, but perhaps the horrible incident last week had really changed my views on that.

Vacuum Cleaner

Woke up quite early this morning even though it's Saturday. (a side-effect of having to wake up at 5:45am every morning) So I thought, "Hey, maybe I can finally start unpacking my last piece of luggage and put my clothes into the closet!" Then I discovered myself surrounded by bunnies.. DUST BUNNIES.

Then I realised that I haven't cleaned/vacuumed the flat since I moved in.. o_O

So I either need one of those "wonder mops" my friends were selling in Vancouver, or I would need to buy a vacuum cleaner. The fact that I don't have a permanent residence here brings upon another problem: I may or may not move around throughout these years. So buying anything bulky would be quite a burden. I started looking up handheld vacuum cleaners that will do the job just fine.. anybody have any experience with them? Please leave me a comment and let me know what you know.. because, quite honestly, cleaning was never a strong suit of mine..

Taking Life Seriously

Sometimes I feel that I'm not really taking my life seriously enough. In some weird and strange ways, I'm living just like a student. Not only that, but my mentality is still very much like a student. When am I ever going to grow up and stop worrying about little things that are insignificant? When am I going to see the big picture for good?

Revision Day

I wonder why they put a revision day *after* the two exams had been written? Not that I'm complaining, because at least I get to revise for my OTHER exams coming up. I spent a good portion of the morning reading the manuals and listening to lectures on CD. Now I just got back from a bit of grocery shopping. Today was really sunny outside! Come to think of it, today is probably the first day in a week that I've seen sunshine. *sigh*

Back to more studying!

Why do I put myself through this?

It's been a well-known fact that I procrastinate too much for my own good. Throughout the years, "it" never fails to take a blow at me when I least expect it. Much like.. today. My loyal readers will know I'm about to complain and bitch about the two exams I wrote today, and how unfair it was, or how horrible I performed. Yes, I don't think I did very well. I think I would be lucky to pass (mind you, the pass rate for these exams I wrote were 70%!). It was long, tedious, testing on material that a) I have vaguely seen in the notes but not covered in lectures or b) I never thought they would ask because they are so insignificant.

So why was I so ill-prepared? I seem to forget that I spend a disproportion amount of time doing nothing. I need some "reminders" once in a while that I need to watch what I do with my time. Unfortunately, the exams today matter - I could potentially be fired for performing poorly! That would certainly bring a sad ending to my adventure abroad.

I'm hoping for the best (at least a pass) and let this be a reminder that I should really watch my procrastination habit from now on. Two down, four more to go!!

Am I prepared for this?

Somehow I am finding a parallel between my five years in my engineering degree, and the atmosphere surrounding my graduate class. I feel the sense of high competitiveness and I can even define different types of personality that matches in both classes. Perhaps it is because both classes consist of people selected from a large group of highly qualified people. In the case of my degree, any high school students that aspire to become an engineer applies for my school. In the case of my company, it is one of the more well-known firms in the UK. They also have a very vigorous selection process (which I was not part of, thankfully), so the people selected were also of a very high caliber. This is not an attempt to up-play the prestige of my company, but I'm just trying to illustrate how smart these people are in my graduate class. (minus me, because I got the job through some weird coincidence)

This is when I start worrying - Do I put myself in these highly competitive situations for fun? Or am I slightly sadistic? I have been told that I tend to put myself through painful situations, complain about it, and then repeat it next time. (I'm looking your way Evelyn, Adrian, Prish, Lisa, etc.) For example, I absolutely despised a certain type of course in school. Yet, I keep enrolling myself in them term after term.

The main point is, I feel that this competitive environment is getting the better of me. It's really beginning to drive me crazy. I am starting to feel the pressure from my class, because it's full of achievers. I need to work twice as hard just to keep up! On the other hand, I have learnt a lot from my five years in engineering school, dealing with the ever-increasing competitive pressure. The bottom line is, am I ready for more of this?

Public Speaking

Thanks for all your kind words about my sickness. I have gotten much better over the past few days. Still really stressed out and tired, but at least I am not throwing up anymore. *sigh*

These two days I have been attending a public speaking and presentation skills class as part of my training at the company. I pulled out some of the skills I learnt from my last semester in school, and all the experiences I had doing presentations. It was.. ahem, for a lack of better words, "presentable". I was quite disappointed with myself actually, because it was not up to my usual standard. Perhaps I got a bit too nervous and I just blanked on the spot. Still have a lot to learn I guess..

Today's presentation was much better. The instructor was impressed with my style, and gave me yet another few pointers to improve my business presentation skills. I realized that there are slight differences in presenting for different reasons, and I am glad he was willing to walk me through my presentation and correct the small mistakes for me.

What really annoyed me today were these two classmates.. I made a presentation about the qualities of a good salesman. I thought, hey, why don't I make it interesting by doing it from a viewpoint of "the best salesman", and talk about how *his* qualities make him a good salesman. So I took on this persona, and delivered the speech. I got comments back from these guys ranging from "You sound like a used car salesman" to "You're suck a loser". Uh, constructive criticisms? I had thought this kind of behaviour would have been long gone, especially in this professional capacity.. guess not.

Oh well, I guess I have more important things to worry about than these jokers..