aaaaaahhhhhhh....

I've been looking forward to 1pm today for a year. It's over. I'm so happy.

The whole thing was a blur.. 7 cases.. I think I have a slight recollection of maybe 3 of them... one of them was about an ostrich farm... one about a coffee house franchise.. and one about a DVD rental store.. can't remember.. don't want to remember the rest.

On the way out of the examination hall, there was a guy standing there handing out envelops.. they contained a note with words of congratulations for writing the UFE.. along with a business card of a rep. from a head hunting service. Hahaha.. I knew there'd be headhunting, just didn't think it'd start the second we leave the room. Funny.

time for: I should pack, going to Ottawa for the weekend. Yay!

bring it on..

The first day of exams will be over by this time tomorrow.. at this time on Thurs, I should be enjoying some lunch. Or having trouble keeping it down... 4 days from now I'll be complaining about work.. at work.

Someone told me yesterday that I'll eventually pass this thing. Gee, thanx. For the first time ever, instead of getting annoyed and raging about dumb comments made by this person, I just laughed. Surely no one's that cruel. Maybe they are just really that.. uh.. not-smart.

As my UFE friend put it not-so-eloquently, "UFE YOUR ASS IS SO BIG, IT NEED A WHOOPING!!!"

I'm sorry, that just cracks me up. Bring it on.

time for: a tiny bit more review. really just putting my mind at rest. I'll do the photo post at some point, blogger's been keen on eating my posts.

and so ended my 17 days of bliss..

What do you get when you add 10 days of morale-crushing case writing, 3 days of food poisoning/stomach flu, 3 days of one heck of an annoying roomate and 1 day of moving 2 futons up and down 3 flights of stairs? Why, 17 days of pure delight, of course!

Me no crazy. There were a few things that made up for all the crap. Namely 2 great cities and one great, great, great guy.

Oh stop your barfing. I'll post pics tomorrow.

father's day dinner..

Instead of eating out on Father's Day like we usually do, when the restaurants rip you off and offer only selected dishes on the normal menu, we decided that we'd have a feast at home instead. We had a bunch of my dad's favourites.... BBQ pork from Sam Woo, BBQ duck from Sam Woo (my fav too.. mmm)... and one giant lobster on sale for 6.88 a pound at T&T.

Look at it! It's HUUUUUGE!! The claws were the size of my head.. and I swear, when my mom held it up by the tail (when it was still alive), it went from the top of her head down to her tummy.. it's crazy! That's what 7 pounds of lobster looks like. Surprisingly, the meat was still really tender and springy (chewy??). My mom cooked it the chinese way, chopped up, first boiled, then fried, to give it that authentic chinese restaurant taste. Crazy. It was delicious and I don't even like lobster.

Speaking of father's day... my dad and I had a good laugh the other day about something in the garden.. Specifically about the plant in the picture on the right. So the other day, when Carol, my mom and myself were all outside, my dad asked us the following:

Dad: Do you know what that is??
Mom: A flower
Carol: uhm.. i dun get it
me: *silence*

I had something in mind, but I just didn't for want to say it out loud for fear of sounding idiotic. Turns out, my dad was thinking exactly what I was thinking... So what did we think the it was??? Any guesses???

... A Q-tip fit for a giant... you know, to clean his ears!!!

MUAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH.... my mom just shook her head and said, "Eve, you really are your dad's daughter.".. hahah.. yes. I got his weird sense of humor.. and his giant calves.. thanx dad. *mumble grumble*

So on another note, I'm feeling quite cheerful tonite since I gave myself a night off from studying all things accounting/auditing. And I'm also happy that I'm close to reaching my goal regarding my jogging. I wanted to hit 6km on one of my jogs... and tonite, I did 5.8km.. so I'm getting there.. slowly, but surely. I just have to keep it up.

time for: watching either Emma... or Match Point... or maybe i'll watch both. oooh! overindulgence!

I know I'm going a little crazy when...

When asked about where a movie is playing, I automatically say, "FMV"... when I really mean FMP. First Markham Place is where the movies are. FMV is Fair Market Value which I've been dealing with incessantly for the past week in our crazy tax technical sessions.

Panda tried to tell me why he needed the software DVD he had given me:

panda: I need it cuz I've misplaced it.
me: you what?
panda: MISPLACED!
me: what??? I don't understand.
panda: I credited it and now I don't know how to debit it.
me: ooooooh.

HAHAHAHAHAH.... this is what happens after only 1 week of hardcore accounting/tax.. what's gonna happen to me in a few months??

time for: lunch with mom and dad. so hungry.

April Update.

Update:

Work: f'ing tax season. This year was way worse than last year despite the fact I now know what I'm doing. *grumble* We also had two people working through the whole season as opposed to last year when I was left all alone three quarters of the way through. There were just so many new clients and so much time wasted. I cannot believe that I have to go in tomorrow. Deadline's monday, if clients are still bringing stuff in, why can't we tell them to just f*ck the hell off? Jerks. Taxes are a fact of life, people, get with it!! I hope all of you have done your taxes, and if you haven't, please don't tell me.

Everything else: What everything else?? No time for anything in the past two or three weeks. *grumble* Wake up, go to work, work OT, go home, eat dinner, do nothing, shower, go to sleep. I honestly don't know how you tech people do it. Working from 9am to 7 or 8pm every nite. How do you not go crazy?? Actually, if my time at work was used efficiently (ie. no long-winded stories repeated over and over, no useless meetings and less procrastination from others), I wouldn't mind it much if I had to do OT for a few weeks. Work has to be done, my style is to work quickly and get things done. When others slow me down, I just think, "what's the point?" and draaaaaaaaaaag things on.

Anyway. Enough about work. Curse you all, damn time-wasters!! Ok ok, enough.

Edward was originally supposed to come back on May 6th.. but alas, he needs to stay in Boston to do his rotations. So Angry Panda, Babychai and I will take a little road trip there during the long weekend in May. Me so excited. I foresee lots of shopping, good food and sightseeing. And I get to see Edward, so that's a bonus. Oops.. uhm. I meant the shopping will be a bonus. Yeah. Yup yup, that's what I meant.

Speaking of a road trip... I should get my car checked before we go. I was driving around last Saturday when people in my car noticed a weird rattling noise emitting from somewhere in the back. I inspected it, thought it was stuff in my trunk, removed everything and the noise was still there. So I took to a Mazda dealership (Avante, I love them), and lo and behold, my right rear wheel was missing 2 out of 5 lug nuts. Lug nuts are the things that basically secure your wheel to your tire and without which your wheel will FALL OFF!! I was also informed that the three lug nuts left in the tire were not at all secure, meaning my whole wheel was loose. *insert wtf face* I had taken my car to this tire place to change back to my summer tires. I guess the guy did a shoddy job. I knew there was something I didn't like about that old guy. Grr.. I want to go yell at them since this was highly negligent on their part but I need to think about how to yell in chinese. So are there any volunteers?? I need someone who can yell in chinese. Where are my parents?!?!

Right, parents. Off on a 7 week trip. Don't ask me where. I can tell you which continent, but that's about it. (Europe). Been cooking and packing lunch every single day. You'd think I would go out a lot, but I'm trying to be good. It's been salad everyday for lunch for the past 7 days. It's getting rather boring, but I'm determined to stick with it for a while. Incidentally, the PC blue menu mango vinaigrette is really tasty.

Enough rambling. I will ramble again soon. I think.

time for: dishes. sigh. downside of making own dinner.

*bleep*ing ipod!!!

My pink mini may look all pretty, but the hardware/software inside it and related to it are pure evil.

Or maybe I just don't know how to use it properly.

I can program VCRs, I can figure how to use most programs pretty quickly, I am the go-to tech person both at home and at work. (What? I work in a tiny office!) But I cannot figure out this whole itunes/ipod thing!! Why won't the files be sorted the way I want it to? Why won't Chinese show on my ipod?? Why is the software so slow???

Stupid apple. Yes, Apple is "da bomb" and all right now, but the interface just isn't to my liking. It lures you in with its prettiness and then WHAM!, leave you struggling to figure out how the hell to use everything. Yes, everything looks so neat and tidy and organized.. but how the hell do find anything?!?!? Augh! I'm so a PC girl. If i wanted a pretty white laptop, I'll go buy myself an ASUS.

If the mini wasn't so much cheaper compared to equivalent MP3 players... I swear... I'm seriously considering bugging Edward to trade his MP3 player with me. augh.

time for: nothing. just gonna relax and read.

dude, a 40 day trip?? nice.

Yup yup, I'm going on a 40 day trip..

In my dreams!

My parents, however, are considering taking a 40-day cruise/trip. They found a really good 19 day cruise in and around Europe (again, but with different ports) for just under 1,000 USD. That's one helluva a good deal. 50USD a day for accommodations, all the food that you can eat and the chance to see many different cities in Europe? How badly do I want to join them?

Sounds awesome, right? Especially for my parents, who have worked hard for 30 years (dad at work, mom at home), don't they deserve to take holidays whenever they feel like it? For however long they want? I'd say they've earned the right. My sister, on the other hand, doesn't think so. She thinks 40 days is too long.

I asked why:
E: Why is it too long?
C: Because it's too long.
E: Why?
C: Because it is.
E: That's not a reason.
C: I don't have to give you a reason.

And right then, I think my blood pressure shot up a few points. Nothing pisses me off more than not getting a straight answer from people. It just drives me insane, as I'm sure many of you know. A couple of names come to mind when I think of people who do this on a regular basis. Grrr.

But that's an entry for another day.

Back to my parents. I honestly cannot fathom a justifiable reason that 40 days is too long for a trip. My parents are in their mid 50s, relatively healthy with the help of drugs that I'm sure most middle aged people take. They are not stupid. They've taken trips by themselves many times before. They don't work. When they are at home all they do is go to the gym, go shopping for groceries, cook, watch TV, etc. So it's not like they have any responsibilities to neglect here.

See, I think this is were the key lies. While I think my parents are entitled to having no responsibilities to anyone but themselves (hello? Youngest daughter 24 years old!), someone else in this household, however, may not want to leave home for too long. Why? Because it'll mean that dinner will not be ready when she gets home... and bathrooms won't magically keep themselves clean... and groceries will not appear in the fridge on its own. I hope to hell that these aren't her reasons, because they are so unbelievably selfish.

But other than that, what could it be?? Their health? Afraid of the bird flu? I don't get it. Are they supposed to stay at home forever due to the possibilities of health risk? I'll never understand why children get upset when their parents go out or take vacations. They are grown ups; they aren't stupid; they aren't doing anything immoral; they can take care of themselves. What's the deal?

time for: wax on, wax off, as Edward likes to say whenever I get worked up.

doesn't get any easier, huh?

In about 6 hours, I'll be driving Edward to the airport once again.. it'll be the third time I've driven him to the airport in a bit over half a year. On the one hand, that indicates that he's back in Toronto quite often.. but it doesn't really mean anything when he's back for such short periods of time or in the case of last december, he was back for three weeks, but my focus was mostly on my CKEs.

I've spent all the time I can with Edward in the past 9 days, so much that I feel a bit guilty since his mom didn't get to spend much time with him. Sometimes I think it'd just better if I didn't spend so much time with him when he's back, going from 0% to 100% and then back to 0% is hard on the system. I just can't think of a feasible way to warm-up and cool down.

Speaking of which, in a completely different context, I think I should start jogging again. I have the next consecutive 7 Sundays off so perhaps I'll try to jog every Sunday morning if the weather is decent. I said try, so don't hold me to it. I need to use my Pilates DVDs too. I have been eating so much food.. healthy and otherwise. I cut off fried food for a week and then I broke it yesterday with tempura... and then again today with Swiss Chalet fries. Man, Chalet fries are gooooood. (Yes, I call it Chalet. Calling it Swiss is just weird to me) I'll try to cut it out again for another couple of weeks.

I have only been lured once by the current Roll-Up-The-Rim-To-Win stint, 0 for 1. That's it, I'm done. Good luck to all you RUTRTW whores.

time for: sleep. or at least try. I slept in 'til 12:45pm today.

entry with no title..

No title because I can't pinpoint any one particular thought to build the title around... Hello, I'm Miss Scatterbrain. Maybe I hit my head too many times on the slopes the other day.

Still can't believe we went for so many runs. Never mind the falling, just the physical exertion from 16 runs was almost too much to deal with. Why does snowboarding have to be such ridiculous fun?? I want to go again before Edward leaves. There's something satisfying about the noise the board makes as you carve down the mountain.. kinda like crunchy-slicy noise. One day I'll be able to hear that noise continuously through the whole run.. one day..

My boss is coming back from his little Blue Jays Spring Training in Florida vaca tomorrow, I'm not looking forward to it. I have to pin him down (his words, not mine) and make him answer questions about some of the stuff I'm working on. I'm merely a lowly CA student, I can't make some of these decisions... hell, I don't want to be responsible for some of these decisions. As a student, you sometimes kinda dread how a file is going... you know what's right and what needs to be done... but you also know that to do it correctly and to fix previous mistakes will mean a whole crap load of work. This is how I feel. I wish people would do their job properly and make copious notes for subsequent years. Or at least for people knowing the rules so they cab attempt to do their job properly. It just takes so much energy and brainpower to fix pervasive things that have been done wrong over the years.

Enough about work. I shouldn't think about it at home. It already takes up 7 precious hours of my days, I'll be damned if it ruins the remaining 17 hours. Edward's here 'til Monday, and so I shall spend every single minute I can with him... not sure when he'll be back again. Maybe in May? That's too far away! Boo.

time for: burning DVDs for various people..

I should start again..

Haven't blogged in a long, long time. Haven't had time to gather my thoughts and translate them into coherent sentences.

A breakdown of the essential parts of life (in no particular order) for the past month and a bit:

Work - is alright. It's tolerable. But I'm seriously lacking motivation. In the beginning of the year there was a lot of yelling in the office and that brought my morale down. The yelling has ceased in recent weeks (although I did hear that there was some yelling going on regarding myself when I was in Boston), but it hasn't been long enough to be forgotten. No one in the office is a fan of yelling, nor are there any fans of the swearing and attitude that come with the yelling. It's kinda like a time-bomb, just waiting for the next apeshit episode. I've also noticed that I'm the only one in the office who doesn't have a photo of some sort on her desk. Even apeshit lady has a few. Hmm... that brings me to the topic...

Love - Went over to Boston (yup, it's over to Boston, not down, cuz it's technically just east of T.O, not south) for Valentine's Day. Had an excellent, excellent time. There was a time when I thought I would get sick of someone if I spent all my time with them, but really, that was just an excuse. You don't get sick of being in someone's presence, you get sick of putting on an image in someone's presence. If you can completely be yourself and still enjoy spending time in the same room with others, you won't really get sick of them. What I'm trying to say is that I can't wait 'til we move out together.. Boston, Toronto, somewhere else, doesn't matter to me.

Friends - I remember a time when I used to go out all the time. See movies. Get coffee. Just hang out and have movie nights. Now it seems like people only get together for birthdays or if someone's back in town for a few days. Mags and I met up for lunch today because she was passing by the proximity, give or take a few kilometers, of where I worked. Quick 1 hour get-together was hardly enough, but at least now I don't have try too hard to remember the last time I saw her. Thanx for the posters, lady. We need to fight the fatigue and go have some fun, and don't even tell me that sleep is fun.

Family - what can I say? They are family. Drive me up the wall one minute and crack me up so hard the next. I may roll my eyes at my Dad and Carol a lot because of things they say or do, but they make me laugh so hard... sometimes with them, mostly at them. I'm not being mean, that's just their role in the family. Everyone has a role. My role is the ungrateful little brat who gets annoyed if you wake her/bother her/ask her questions or sometimes even speak to her. Yup, while I'm at home, I'm stuck in teenage-rebel mode. I hate you all, leave me alone!! heehee.

That's about it. I was going to post some pics... but I couldn't find enough.

time for: clean up my room? some things never change.

CKE results

So after all my agonizing (oh man, I SO failed. Crapola, I'll have to write again...), I found out that I had indeed passed the CKE on Friday morning.

But alas, it's never that easy. On Monday, I received the following:

Ms. Wong:

Result: Satisfactory - Warning
Overall decile: 8

WARNING: Based on your result in this examination, there are significant overall core-knowledge weaknesses which should be remedied before continuing in the ICAO Professional program.

I specifically need to work on Assurance and Performance Measurement. Those are the biggest chunks of the exam... worth 30% each. So I guess I will be studying afterall. And also, does anyone know what a "decile" is?? I don't understand. It says that an decile score in the range of 6 to 10 means remedial work has to be done. How do they calculate that? Is that some sort of stats term? Come on, you brainy economists, gimme a hand here.

16 days 'til Boston. :)

time for: some pilates.. then dinner.

here we go, proper entry.

So it's been about 30 hours since my last entry... I've since then had lunch with Edward and his mom, "helped" Edward pack his stuff (more like him helping me), drove him to the airport, pouted for a while, fell asleep on the phone, slept in, breezed through a day of work, came home and installed as many programs as I can think of so my computer would be up and running.

*whew* I'm tired just reviewing my day. Time for a nap. Or maybe I won't.. since it's already 9. Where does the day go, seriously? Does anyone else feel like they get home, eat dinner, rest a bit and it's already late?

Anyway, back on track.

2005 was a good year for little ol' me. I'd call it a great year except that it wasn't, one thing wrecked it all. What could I be refering to?

In the beginning of year, I had set some resolutions. Never being one to actually follow their resolutions, I think I did pretty well.

1. Find a job - check
2. Buy something big, like a car - check
3. Lose weight - something I'd never thought I could accomplish - check. Thank you, weird Chinese medicine!
4. Be nice - uhm, still working on that. Judging by my mood swings and a couple of yelling sessions so far this year already, it looks like this resolution will make it on my list next year for the third year runnning.

Some high points and honourable mentions of 2005:

03.03.05-03.05.05 - Boston with Edward for his interview. Only did a tiny bit of research before we left, wound up just walking around the city a lot. And did quite a bit of shopping for a weekend trip. His interview obviously went well as he recieved his acceptance a couple of months after that. Gorgeous city, even when covered in slushy snow.

06.06.05 - Brought my shiny indigo car home. *sniff sniff* mmm.. new car smell. Will quickly realize that this car, while pretty on the outside and pretty powerful on the inside, will be my main financial drain for the next few years. The thing eats gas like my sister eats candy. Geebus.

06.06.05 - on the same night as I got my pretty car, or maybe a couple nights after that, Edward received a letter from UT. Contents? Basically that Edward wasn't welcomed. *Evie shakes fist and yell, screw you, UT!! screw you!!* Sleepless nights followed, but in the end, decided to look at the bright side of things. Living away for 4 years is not a bad experience. Independence can only be achieved this way.

07.30.05-08.01.05 - Fun filled weekend with friends. We were all a little worried and scared about how dangereous this was going to be. All the built up made the runs themselves a bit tame, methinks. It was fun to get away though. Couldn't see a damned thing in the tent while playing Uno. I think our eyesight worsened at least a little because of that weekend. Also, we found out that it was nearly impossible to sleep under a metal roof when it's pounding rain outside. And also, someone spoke in their sleep. Quite angry and exsperated too. Heehee. We all knew who would fall in the water. (yes yes, you held on... even thought Mags' pics indicate otherwise). We love you Ab. I stole that rafting pic from Mags' xanga. I think if you blew it up you could actually see that it was indeed, us, flying down the river.

10.21.05-10.30.05 - Edward had left for Boston at the end of August... 59 days later, I finally left stinky T.O to visit him. I love that first couple of seconds when I see him after having not seen him in a such a long. It's like that feeling you get when you are on the arrival ramp in the airport and there are all these smiling faces staring at you, you can't help but smile. When you know one of those smiling faces belongs to someone you love, it makes the moment slightly euphoric. Mind you, that didn't happen when I went to Boston, I waited for an hour for him to show up. He had an excuse. A "midterm", apparently. Heehee. Had a lovely week in Boston. Met all his friends, shopped a whole lot, spent every moment I could with Edward. I didn't want to leave.

12.17.05-12.19.05 - Ahhhh, Tremblant. The plan was to pick Edward up from the airport at 1pm and be in Tremblant by 7 or 8pm. We got there after midnight, and that's with me driving an average of 130km most of the way. The roads got really windy towards the end of the trip, which was bad since I was so tired from driving already. I've never driven up a mountain before, it was rather cool.

Edward had to drive back to t.o. I was way too sore to drive properly by then. The snow was perfect, most of the trails were soft and fun to board on. Edward and I went on a blue trail by accident but it wasn't that steep, so I rolled down w/o too many injuries. Couple of bruised knees, that's about it. I did manage to trip and bounce on my right butt cheek during the first day of boarding though. That rather hurt. The trails were long, a little too flat in places, but overall, so much fun! I want to go again! Be sure to click on the photo on the left, it looks much better in its original size. The mountain was breathtaking. The snow made everything so clean and pretty. The pedestrian village at Tremblant is filled with little boutiques and shops, but the whole thing felt too commerical, it didn't achieve that "quaint little village" look that it was striving for.

Then it was back to T.O for some hardcore studying. And of course, I managed to fit in another day of snowboarding, a couple days of shopping, a couple days of fun with my sisters and really, in the end.. not a lot of hardcore studying was done. Oh well.

time for: I think I should get gas. Right after I reread this entry. Or maybe I'll just get gas tomorrow.

and the countdown starts again

Edward's flight is in 7 hours. Noooo.

Perhaps I shouldn't have started my first entry in months with a complaint.. about Edward.. again, but he's been back for three weeks and it feels like i've hardly spent any time with him. Stupid studying took up so much of my mind and making me so stressed out! It's been over for 4 days but I've only started to calm down. I feel like I've got all this pent-up stress and anxiety. Grrrrrr!

I'll follow up with a proper entry later. I kept thinking about things that I wanted to post while I was studying. Heehee.

It's just 33 days, that'll fly by, no?

time for: lunch with Edward and his mom.