Recorded hottest September day in 6 years.
It’s not even summer yet, is it?
Fire fighters finding difficult to control bush fires.
Why are there bush fires already?
It’s getting harder and harder to ignore global warming.
Currently watching Finding Nemo (love the Pixar cartoons) with dinner (I actually cooked - chorizo & fettucine with tomato base) and a good drop of red - Taylors’ Clare Valley cabernet sauvignon 2004.
A group of Spanish speaking kids sitting on the sand building a sand castle. A playful middle-aged father dives into the clear water. Female surfers dragging their boards towards their desired destinations. A young boy boarding on shallow water. A couple standing knee deep in the water, looking towards the horizon. Husband slapping some sun screen on their sons. A father helps his children shovel through the sand, stacking up a small sand dome.
I finally decided to get up from where I have been laying, enjoying the sun and went for a walk. The clear, cool water runs under my feet. The sky was light blue spotted with white clouds. Cool but dry air breezes past my skin. I take a long breath and took it all in as I, too, look beyond the horizon.
This is why I love this place. Every time I go to the beach I fall in love with Sydney all over again.
Went out last night with some friends whom I have not seen for a long time - had dinner at Raquel’s Spanish Kitchen on Oxford Street - awesome tapas, reasonable price, run by an amusing family (we were served by the daugther who enlightened us with “suck me off” in Spanish).
We decided after dinner that we wanted to do some good ol’ clubbin’, so we dropped in at one of those clubs that we frequented back in those uni days. Wrong move for the night for me - I started to feel all the years of 23 (yes, it’s all relative).
They were all young, tiny, little things who wore tiny, itsy, bitsy, little things. The guys were also young, and tried to be something else. The first DJ was pretentious with the constant announcement that he was from NYC, that he was touring, that he his tour dates were so and so. Come on, everyone is here for a good time - for the music, not for your announcement services. If anyone were to go to your gig, they would have already known about it - no need to blast that out and ruin the music…
It’s funny how quickly I stopped fitting in those scenes - I was so out of place. It was only 3 years ago that I was part of the scene. Last night, standing there, all I wanted to do was just have fantastic food, a good drop and with good friends. It is time to move on…
It is time to move on indeed. Setting my sights on making a move to either US / UK in 2 or 3 years. It does makes it harder to focus at work though. Sydney is a beautiful city, but man does it get boring some times.
Putting a stop to my Sunday morning whinge, heading to Bondi Junction to get some swim gear - want to start swimming again (might not be a pretty sight though!).
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I have started seriously thinking about doing an MBA in the next 2 or 3 years. Serious enough about it that I’m starting to do more resesarch into it, looking into the application process, thinking about life post MBA, thinking about maybe visiting some of the schools if I’ve got the chance.
At the top of the list is UPenn’s Wharton’s MBA program. I love finance (specifically equities - else I woudn’t put up with the CFA program or the job) so I want some thing that is more “financey”. One of the Ivy Leagues, have been consistently top ranked and I got a good feeling when I went to their MBA reception here in Sydney. Philly seems like a nice city, not too far from NYC, and have been thinking of heading over to the US .
But, I am very aware of the fact that I don’t really have a career centered decision for doing the MBA - when most people do the MBA for career changing purposes. I love what I do now, and I don’t forsee myself changing industries - management consulting too much waffle for me, I probably wouldn’t fit in with the wankers in i-banking, equities research, maybe, but that would feel like making the same mistake twice, equities sale, definitely maybe. Buy side (private equity & equities) is probably the one that I really like - and I’m already in one of them…
Hence, the fact that it is a two year program concerns me - because that means giving up two years’ worth of income. Maybe I should think about it as a career break - but I quite like what I do - so break from what?
I want to do it for the experience of just doing it. This may be the first and the last time that I make my own decision (and that’s completely on my own) about my academic career - and this time I am concious of how well I want to do. And I think I want to stick around the US for a bit, work a bit, travel a bit. The gist of the story is then to spend some time also in London and travel Europe, then move on to Asia, before returning to Sydney - and all that over the next 15 - 20 years. By then I hope I haven’t gotten too attached to the world of finance - because then I’d like to quit the industry and spend the rest of the time working in non-profit.
So far, it’s on track, but I’m only at the very beginning of it and have no idea how plans will change. This MBA thing is certainly another milestone that I am starting to ponder on.
Good news is that, I’ve got another year or two to ponder on it - still have CFA 3 (coming June) to get through first!!
Currently listening to Evermore’s Welcome to Real Life again, and about to get ready to cook - finally, I’ve done some grocery shopping.
Note to self - remember to do grocerry shopping, especially edible foods, so as not to starve when home late.
Currently starving thinking about all that food that someone else could possibly prepare for me.
I decided aginst going to an ex’s drinks on Friday because I knew that one of the the girls that he lied to me about was going to be there. I think I knew how uneasy I would be seeing the two of them getting cosy.
My mate told me then that I was obviously not over it, that I should stop saying that I was over it. I insisted that I was over it.
That conversation obviously touched a raw nerve in me. I knew that I was over him. But my mate was right, if I was, wouldn’t going to his drinks be like (as he likes to put it) water off a duck’s back? It stuck with me, and it stuck in my head for the weekend.
I knew that I was over him - because I am indifferent as to who he is when I spoke to him. How could I not be over him for the extent of emotional damage he had on me? I have to admit, that I am different now, as a result of that relationship - but which experience in life doesn’t change you as a person? If it doesn’t change you even a bit, doesn’t that mean you failed to learn the lesson?
So then, back to it, why didn’t I just go to his drinks? I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to see him and her sitting next to each other, holding hands, getting cosy, lips on each other’s. I don’t want to be reminded of the pain that I had went through. It was not that long ago that I was grocerry shopping, him calling me telling me another damning story. I stood in the cleaning aisle facing the shelves as I wipe my tears away whilst avoiding strangers’ eyes. I didn’t want to be reminded of the mistakes I made and I didn’t want to be reminded by how stupid I was. I didn’t want to be reminded how badly I midjudged and how it was that I came to blindingly believing what I wanted to believe rather than what was true.
Because I just didn’t want to. I had already learnt my lesseon. I don’t want to turn back.
Currently awaiting my honey teriyaki pork ribs delivered to the door (I am lazy and a half).
On a morning that threatened with rain, my girl friend and I stood outside Customs House at Circular Quay amidst teeny-boppers, wanna-bes, and young kids, just to see 5 minutes of Evermore. We stood through Sneaky Sound System (they actually weren’t bad after all), Guy Sebastian (love his voice, but just can’t seem to get around to liking his music) and a lot of the host, Axle’s (I think that was his name) jokes. We even managed to grab some brekky from Macca’s (and I haven’t been to MickiD’s for ages…).
Evermore is amazing. I love those guys since their last album Dreams. They have a gig on next month, and I am going to have to start my desperate search for some one to come with me - my girl friend would go but she’s travelling.
I love their music - it’s beautiful. And the songs, there must be some magic in it - it seems to spell out my thoughts…
Check out Evermore and their blog
Here is Evermore’s Running
Too many words
Too many lies
I can’t quite see the truth
When I look into your eyes
I feel I am cured
And I know I should
Step away turn around
Let my feet hit the ground
… running, running, running ~
You don’t need a broken heart
To know one can be broken
You just need to open your eyes…
We don’t need to be deceived
To know a lie can be spoken
We don’t have to learn everything twice
I don’t know
I really don’t know
If this castle in the sand
Is strong enough to stand
Clouds come down, clouds come down
Here is Evermore’s Light Surrounds You
I see you by the water
Your toes dipped in the sand
I thought that it was over
I thought you’d understand
But the feeling is returning
Thought time has made us change
And I understand
If you don’t wanna talk to me about it tonight…
Cause I see the light surrounding you
So don’t be afraid of something new
Time was overtaking me
And I guess I was confused
They were all inviting me
But I wish I had refused
Cause I’d been there before
And I’ve seen it all
And I believe in you
And if you never had my heart
I would’ve never called you back
At the start that night
And I want you to know
That I see the light surrounding you
So don’t be afraid of something new
Cause I see the light surrounding you
So don’t be afraid of what you’re turning into
Blue-eyed sun shines on me in the morning
Can’t help but feel a little cold thinking of you
I have many flaws. I make a lot of mistakes and I may be in denial too. The only thing I know is that I think you are awesome but I seem to keep saying the wrong things. I’d be in pains if you fell away but by the same token I’d like you to know that I appreciate your time. Thanks.
I think that’s the closest that I could ever get to - “I adore you. I’m sorry. Don’t go away”.
But I’m not going to say that. Because I am not going to ask him. Because my head is a puddle of mud. Because he is too nice.
Currently sitting on my couch pondering on the mistakes I once made… I think I might go clean the apartment instead.
I have a lot of bad habits.
Bad habit #1: I talk too much
I have never been an introvert, but before this I used to say less. Mid this year I thought to myself that I should open myself up more, because I started realizing that many people thought I was incredibly confident, that I barely needed to make any effort for anything I wanted - hardly so! So along with that, I promised that I would talk more.
It probably was a bad idea. Or maybe I really am a boring person. Unfortunately, I took me losing 2 or 3 friends before I realized that it was a bad idea. I guess I had scared them away. I feel particularly badly about one though - in my mind he was one of the nicest guy you could ever meet, and I made the bad habit of speaking to him too often. I suppose I didn’t realize I was being needy! I wish I weren’t - he was such a great guy.
I then started thinking why this was so. I suppose it was because for a long time I had this person (the too-good-to-be-true ex) to lean on so often, that when it was over I didn’t know who else I could lean on. Unfortunately I shifted too much of it on to my friends. I trust people too easily, and I forget that most of the time people don’t really want to know what’s there in my mundane little life.
Action: Snap out of it and get back to the old ways.
Bad habit #2: I am too competitive
Okay, so that’s not new news, but it does kill me some times how much it eats into me. I don’t want things to be how it was at ML - where I measured where I was in life with where I was in my career. And I don’t want to have him just because everyone wants him. I don’t want to hinge everyday’s ups and downs on tiny little things, that really, when it comes down to it, does not matter.
Action: Take a chill pill when the tough gets tougher.
Bad habit #3: I drink too much
And if it’s not because I am doing this running thing, and this rowing thing, and this work out thing, I would most probably smoke too much too. These are my vices - drinking being the most potent of all. But at least I am consistent with it.
Action: I like it too much to do anything about it.
Bad habit #4: I am not as strong as I’d like to be
When I make up my mind about something, I should stick to it. And accordingly, I should react the way that I should.
And when I said I had made up my mind and that things are going the way I had initially planned for it to be, that I should not whinge about it when I am not as strong as I thought I was - that I had emotions coming in to.
And for god’s sake, I am not allowed to whinge even if the only reason I didn’t exercise my option was all because I was scared, or that I was afraid that I would mess things up big time. It was the way it is, I made a decision (and even not making one is a decision in itself), and just live with it.
Action: Stick to it - no one to blame but yourself.
I think that’s enough finger pointing in one evening - going back to enjoy my red.
Currently absolutely LOVING my afternoon runs with my brand spanking new iPod nano.
