Damn Socialists

I find it really annoying how loud mouthed socialists go around preaching crap. This is especially true when walking around uni. If its not about student rights, its about the war on terror/Lebannon. If its not about war, its about prisoners of war. If its not about POWs, its about how its so unfair that people such as George Bush control the most powerful army in the world and use it to further their agendas. If its not about that.. well.. I'm sure they'll think of something else. Whine whine whine.

Lets deal with the last point on the list. Its not really unfair that a stupid monkey like George "Dubbya" Bush gets elected president of the United States of America. Despite the rather exhalted name, citizens of the US of A can be extremely dense. Or maybe they're all just monkeys and voted in the King Monkey.

Though when you look at elections of this type. That is, elections that are meant to pick the leader of an entire country, you're effectively giving them free reign to further their own agendas. It would also imply that the majority of people who voted in the election would agree with that agenda, or at least some part of it. So the socialists should stop blaming Dubbya for the war on terror, the war on everything, and start blaming the American public. Blame the rednecks in Texas for raising a president who can't speak properly. Blame the other Mr. Bush for giving his son the basis from which he could launch a political career. Blame John Kerry for not making a big enough effort. Finally, blame the intelligent Americans who didn't turn up on election day to vote against George.

Sometimes it makes me feel happy that Australia has compulsory voting. All they need to do now is to make it online so we don't have to go and write something on paper and get handed flyers by politically motivated people at polling booths. Though if they do, they should still have a 'donkey vote' option.

Oh btw: GG

Woof

Okay so it hasn't exactly been the most frequently updated blog recently, but I'm sure I've got an excuse. Just because I can't think of one doesn't mean there isn't any.

Well no. I've got it. I only really update this blog when I'm bored, or when I really have something to say. However, neither of those criteria have really been met recently. Its good that I'm not really all that bored, and its good that I've been keeping my blogging mouth shut to slow down on the exponentinal growth of blogging. Doing my part to slow down the pollution of cyberspace so to speak.

To sum up life in the past month or so:
- More munny!
- Lots of working!
- Some uni work
- Lots of DOTARRRRR
- Not much sleep

Though now the theraputic effects of blogging are starting to kick in. Its a bit different typing things when its not for work and not for study. I'm typing things I normally wouldn't type, and its kinda good. It FEEEEEELLLS good.

Um. Yeah.

Nudie Run

I saw my first nudie run at uni yesterday. Not exactly the most pretty sight in the world, but it was a first. Trust a bunch of guys to run through a 80% female lecture in the nuddy.

Legs

I think I understand why girls spend a lot of their time shaving their legs or wearing pants or other types of clothing to cover them up.

Hairy legs on girls are.... *shudder*

I was nice today...

Offered a similarly sick person on the bus a strepsil...

Two things

1. I bought two cheeseburgers from maccas for $1.95 today. I think they gave me the wrong change.

2. Theres this new hot chick at work. A welcome change from all the old people there...

Christian reincarnation

I know I keep coming back to this. But its just interesting how twisted some things can be. The other day, I found out by talking to a family friend that somehow, the Christian faith decided some day to stop the teaching of reincarnation. Granted, this was a long time ago, but I just thought it was worth sharing.

It was during the Council of Nicea in about 325 A.D. where all the bishops decided to get together to decide on a few things. Essentially, all they wanted to do was get their story straight. Fair enough, if I was trying to preach salvation to the masses, I'd like other people doing the same thing to tell the same story. I guess thats one of the reasons why theres been so many religious wars. But I digress...

Personally, I don't really see how reincarnation fits in with Christian teachings today. Theres no place for it. Well actually, theres no real place for a lot of things in it, but oh well. Makes me wonder how they used to do it back then, and how they got it. Perhaps its just my preconceptions of the faith, and how its evolved over the years.

Me, Not me

Stressed, Emotional, Sick. Normally not words you would associate with me. But alas, probably what you would say of me these past few days.

Stressed - Damn industrial project stuff.

Emotional - Well. I don't know actually. Maybe the feeling is coming back after all this time.

Sick - Ditto.

The next stage in life

So I accepted the job with the big investment bank. And no, I'm not actually in investment banking, I don't do a commerce course. Nor would I actually want to do investment banking if I were. It leaves a lot less time for the finer things in life, such as sitting around, sleeping, and eating.

Its a big relief to have the next stage of your life set for you, especially when you've been worrying about it for a while, and you don't want to be a bum. While the idea of being a bum appeals to me a lot, I think the lack of things to do, not to mention the lack of good things to eat (due to the lack of money) kind of overcomes that.

I think the point where you start working also brings into focus the other things adults probably think about. That is, moving out, a mortgage, loan repayments, etc. Its kind of sucky, but also a bit of an eyeopener as to what my parents kind of went through when they did the same thing.

Theres also the thought of kids and stuff. But then, thats not really an issue for me since I can't seem to get over my lack of effort to find myself a girlfriend. Well, at least my pseudo-girlfriend will do for now =)

Funny

Everyone seems to be leaving this one building in the city. Its the Australian Stock Exchange building in Melbourne. The worst thing is, even the Australian Stock Exchange are moving out of the building, into the building across the road. How ironic is that?

To quote from The Age:

"AAP [the news company] is the third company to leave the Collins Street building. The Australian Stock Exchange movies to the Rialto in September."

Maybe its time they tear it down, as soon as all the law firms move out.

Headhunting, or just having a big head myself?

I just had the most random call. It was the recruitment lady at the company I got offered a job at. Since I didn't actually remember her name the first time she called, I've got it down as -insert company name- grad recruitment. So when this name came up in my phone, I thought maybe I'd put the wrong number down and it was some other random debt collector in NSW (I had another call last week from some gas company... cos you know... I use lots of gas). Also keep in mind that its about 7:15pm...

So anyway, I pick up. NOTE: Below's transcript is NOT ad verbatim.

"Hello?"
"Hi, is this Alistair?"
"Yes, it is."
"Hi, its -DAMN FORGOT NAME AGAIN- from -insert company name- .... Have you had time to consider the offer etc."
"Yeah been thinking about it a lot..."
"Did you manage to talk to -insert other company with last round interview- about stuff?"
"Yeah, they can get back to me on Friday after my interview."
"You wanna go have coffee with someone who can tell u heaps more about the company?"
"Err.. yeah alright!" (thinking its free coffee :) )
"Okay, when you next free?"
"Oh, well.. I'm in tomorrow, like.. to come work for you guys..."
"OK cool, I'll get someone, and call you back tomorrow!"
"Alright, ttyl! lol" (thinking I'll get paid for drinking coffee)

Wow. Like the first time I've been called ON THE PHONE, for coffee. At least that I can remember. Not to mention the fact that it MIGHT BE FREE!!! Damn I'm a cheapo.

So headhunting me? or maybe I've just got a stick up my butt... Either way... Here's hoping for free coffee tomorrow!

EDIT: Yeah, its just me with a big head.

Recent things

Lots of stuff has been happening.

The week of the interviews was kind of breezy. One half of the reason why I haven't been posting much is because, if I remember correctly, there was wayyy too much DOTA and nothing productive happening at all during that week.

Half the reason why I haven't been posting is because I really haven't had that much net access. A few friends and I went to Sydney for a short holiday. I don't think I'll say too much about it because its already been covered here. But in a nutshell, we kinda went up on Sunday, went around doing some toursity stuff, and sat around some more, then came back home on Thursday. There were Krispy Kremes involved somewhere in there as well.

Also, the company which I said I did alright in the interview for offered me a graduate role, which is great news. I can finally breathe easy about next year and not worry so much. Dad was quite happy to hear about it. He was more worried about me having a job than I was. Poor guy.

The company which I said I did pretty badly in also invited me to their next round of interviews. This is with a senior executive ... and they let me know if I get offered a place for next year on the day, which is pretty good. Though I think to work for this company, they'd have to pay significantly more than the previous company. The work is a lot harder too, and a lot more boring. Coding all day... *shudder*

But yes, in a nutshell. Hap hap happy!

Even more interviews

It seems like a whole heap of recent posts are about interviews. This one isn't going to be any exception. Well, since almost all I did yesterday was attend them, its kind of expected.

The first one was pretty good actually. The standard behavioural type questions with the usual bullcrap answers I pull out of my butt on the spur of the moment, sometimes with a grain of truth in it as well. They're good because I've done quite a lot of them, so theres nothing really suprising about them. Coincidently, this was also the company that I did my internship with, so I already knew the people interviewing me, and they started talking to me about that part time role they gave me before they even started with the interviewing. That one finished right on time, after I asked a well timed and throught provoking question.

The second one was for another large multinational company specialising in IT. For my previous interview with them, it was actually good. I had an interviewer who was frank and gave good feedback. The second interviewer was... French. It didn't exactly help things. Half the time, I couldn't even understand what he was saying due to the accent. Luckily he was just blabbing on. I just nodded, smiled, and said.. "yeah... okay.... cool..." Rinse, repeat if desired. He also just kept blabbing on about stuff about the company that they did in the 1st interview already.

The questions were a bit different from what I was used to as well. They asked about the last software project I worked on and things like that. I struggled... especially when they talked about testing. No, I've never had any formal training with testing software projects, and no, I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to writing things like test plans for software development.

Oh well. That one went wayyy overtime (I think) and I think I screwed it up.

Nevermind. Good things come to those who wait. At least thats how the saying goes.

Yay

I am now a part time IT Administrator. Well, okay, maybe not NOW, but.. will be soon.

I didn't think that kind of thing could happen. Administering stuff part time...

Awesome.

Where do you want to go tomorrow?

Its about this time in life where people start to ask "What do I want to do with my life?" Its usually because they don't really have any idea where to start. Theres too many possibilities out there, and no real way to tell which one fits each person. It would probably be helpful if we had some sort of futurama like device which tells us what kind of job we'd be most suited to. Too bad we don't :(

After becoming an adolecent, I never really wanted to be anything. There was no driving force to do what I'm doing now. I kind of just adapted to whatever I was doing at the time. For example, I hated literature like English classes in year 11, but by the time it was the end of year 12, I'd already come to enjoy it. In the same way, I think I'd come to enjoy any kind of uni course once I got into it.

So I really don't get it. People drop out of uni because its "not for them" or something along those lines. It "isn't what they want to do". Well if I had a choice of what to do, it wouldn't be study. I'd be sitting on a beach somewhere drinking pina coladas for the rest of my life. But alas, to finance such a lifestyle, it would help if I had a job. Moreover, how can it be "not for them" if they've been at school for the last 13 years? Surely another 3 more wouldn't have that big of an impact.

Maybe I'm looking at this too much from a snobbish well off university student's point of view. But then you go look at the people who drop out, and they go and get themselves a dead end job selling vaccum cleaners. Do they like it? It doesn't look like it, but thats just my view. Maybe I have too much bias on this topic :/ I like to think that I'm just adaptable.

Yay

Got uni marks for this semester back just today.

Turns out my marks were pretty good. Interesting thing was, marks were inversely proportional to the time I spent studying. So sad :(

North Korea vs Iraq

I like it how the US is so ... inconsistent about how they choose who to attack.

Iraq: "Hey, we don't have any WMDs, wtf are you talking about?"

Korea: "Yeah! We've got nukes man! We're gonna blow you guys to hell!"

US: "Ummm..." *scratches head* "Lets invade Iraq guys, they've got friggen nukes!"

Another interview

I think I've already mentioned how interviews aren't a very good indicator of work performance. But, I had another one yesterday. This one was for a rather reputable IT consultancy/outsourcer. It was interesting because they didn't really ask what other employers asked in their interviews. I.e. There was less emphasis on behavioural type questions and more emphasis on what kind of experience and knowledge you had.

That was a refreshing change.

So there were questions about what technical skills I had and stuff like that. It makes sense though. I guess they're recruiting to put you to work straight away, and work you like a dog until you're half dead, then give you some time off, and work you like a dog again. At least the money is good.

If I get past this one, it means theres a technical interview. Looking forward to a good grilling.

Bible bashing

Its quite ironic that the gospel of Judas wasn't included in the Bible. You would think that the word of one of the most important people in the Christian world would be fairly important. Though somehow it got excluded by the earliest people of the church.

Without Judas, the story of Christ's sacrifice wouldn't be quite what it is. Not only was he one of the apostles, he was also instrumental to his crucifixion. Other apostles had their gospels included in the holy book, but somehow his got left out.

Maybe its because he personifies the devil in the stories. Somehow he represents the evil intent in all of us. The ability to be bribed, and then feel guilty of our crimes. Then somehow he kills himself, one of those mortal sins. However, he can't exactly be evil since he is one of the apostles. The translation of Judas' gospel puts him as one of Jesus' confidants. Supposedly he was one of the most trusted of the apostles. It makes sense as well. How else would Jesus know about his betrayal? Maybe he even asked him to do it.

However, you would think that his contribution to the necessary evils of the story would be significant enough to make his thoughts important too. He was, after all, Christian.

Oh well. Maybe its just one of those ancient predjudices. Christians being anti-christian.

Australia through to last 16!

Normally I wouldn't write anything about this. Buts its just THAT good.

Its probably one of the most exciting things thats happened recently, and I don't get excited by much. But as usual, theres not much to say... Go see for yourself.