Aaaaalriiiiiight!

I'm so proud of myself I just finished my first assessment for the Introductory Accounting part of my course! YAY! I gotta tell ya, those were a lot of numbers I went through - I never went through so many numbers in the past 10 years, it was really like I was back in high school again doing homework! Do kids now do assessments online and submit them online? How old do I sound ....

I also inquired about an el cheapo flight to Paris in January. I've never thought of going to Paris in January but there you have it. It's coz it was cheaper to go to Paris than it is to go to London so I thought what the hey ... and I get to see Paris! Accommodation now ....

Anyway today was a good day for me. I'm sick though (not swine flu, maybe piglet flu) but I'm proud of the very small little tiny steps I made today in my quest for .... the pursuit of happiness. H A P P I N E S S - spelt correctly.

Yay me!
=)

Ohhhhhh, OTEN!!!

OTEN student support services are bugging the hell out of me, it must be said. Here's my original email to them (note the date):

Sent: Saturday, 1 August 2009 3:12 PM
To: Businessmarketing, Oten
Subject: Communicate in the Workplace unit no FNSICGEN301B

Hi, I'm fairly new to OTEN and I'm a little bit confused. I wanted to start the "Communicate in the Workplace" unit but when I went through the CDs for this I found out that I needed a textbook. I've already order the textbook through the Co-op bookshop site, but I wanted to know if I could go through the toolbox CD while I was waiting for the textbook to arrive? I've also read through the Learning Resource overview and there is a learning plan, but do I do this while I'm reading the textbook and do the chapters relate to what I'm up to in the learning plan? My OTEN number is ********** and I've just started the Cert IV in Financial Business. Please feel free to contact me via email or on 1234 567 890.

Thanks

I just checked my email today and here's the response they gave (again, note the date):


Thursday, 13 August, 2009 3:33 PM
From: "Businessmarketing, Oten"

Good to hear from you.

Apologies for the delay in responding to you. You are welcome to work through the Toolbox, although I'm sure the textbook has arrived by now!

Kind regards
Finance Teacher
OTEN Marketing and Financial Services

I swear, WHAT THE HELL?!?!?! Could they not tell from my original email that I am in a state of complete confusion about this whole OTEN self-study thing??? Ohhh my lord OTEN. Still, I have to admit, the times I do study I do really get into it. I went to uni straight after high school, so all my academic study has been done with plenty of theory whereas TAFE seems to give you theory based in practice. Or maybe it's because I'm been working for a good decade and I can see the theory I'm learning in my every day work situations. *Siiigh*. I just hope I get through all the modules on time. I don't want to fork over another $900-odd for next year only to have gotten through like 2 units so far ...

Flights Are So Cheap I Gotta Wear Shades

It saddens me to see cheap international flight deals, particularly to South America. Why? Coz it's so easy to drop everything I am planning on, book the damn tickets and get the firetruck outta here. And why don't I do that? *Shrugs*. Something tells me I will be back home with little or no money, and I know what it's like to have little or no money. So I'm blocking all the cheap fare advertisements I am seeing for now, and hoping that when I am finally ready to get the firetruck outta here, I will have enough money for that and some to tide me over when I get back to Sydney.

In all honesty though, I feel a bit loser-ish doing this delayed gratification thing. I am a member of Gen Y after all, and this is just not the done thing for people in my generation. Aren't we about now now now, live for the moment, all of that stuff? It would be great to be able to live like that, but I have never earned the money for it. So I will just sit here and wait till the timing is right and all the stars are aligned before I book anything. I'm kind of waiting for the perfect opportunity to do this all. I could save money for a down payment on a house, but where's the fun in that? Once I start complaining about the mortgage repayments, that will be the end of me wanting to go on big trips. I could marry rich, but I can't even date poor so that's out of the question.

Ohhhhhhhh but it's soooooo fuckin killing me!!!! I hate you Webjet.

Saturday arvo in Regressionville

Was it a smart idea to move back with the parentals in order to "save money"? Depends who's judging the smarts. If I were my mother, the answer would be yes. She told me I could stay for as long as I wanted, that there was no need to move out. This is the same woman who wants me to marry and have kids. Not really sure how a 29 year old living with their olds is supposed to start a relationship with someone who'll stick around long enough to tie the knot and have kids, but hey, those technicalities are easy to iron out, right? Yeeeehhhhhh ....

Other people to be judging my decision would be me, and other people like me. I can see their minds ticking over already. Aren't you too old to be living at home? Why can't you afford to pay rent AND save money? What are you earning anyway? Don't you live, like, I dunno, a THOUSAND MILES away from where you work anyway? Where the fuck do you live? I think it's these thoughts that are plaguing me the most. I feel like I am regressing, big time. I am, to be fair, saving a lot of money. I haven't saved this much since forever. But it's hard to watch people I went to school with buy houses, travel, get married, have babies etc. when my biggest worry right now is the fact that I have $6.00 in my bank account and I get paid next Friday. I refuse to take money out of my savings account though. Does anyone even have an ING account at my age, or is that soooooo 2002?

In the meantime, I've started a Cert IV in Financial Business at TAFE. I've done 1 chapter of a textbook so far. Yeh, should probably get more done ... but I'm going to the movies tonight (in the city - I know, RANDOM!) so I might not start on it today since I'm giving myself 2 hours to get dressed and get there, and it's 3pm now.

Regression's a bitch, but I'm gonna have to milk it for all it's worth. I just keep thinking "no rent to pay, no rent to pay, no rent to pay". I wish I was on a deserted island somewhere, doing something exotic like .... playing Survivor.