The Misunderstanding

I've been meaning to update this thing but never got around to it. Then things got busy and it was pushed to the pits of the never-ending to-do list. Thanks to a recent email from a close friend I was reminded about the blog's existence! I don't think I can pull off long posts like before but I shall endeavour to update with short write-ups whenever I can. Actually, these updates will probably result from trying to record memories or thoughts that are too long for a series of tweets.

Today's update is about an incident that took place at the recent Gatecrasher 20th Birthday concert aka the "OMG PAUL VAN DYK AND FERRY CORSTEN" concert. If you're expecting a tale of drugs, sex and alcohol, pack up and leave now.

So anyway, on the night there was this older clubber (she said she was 50) with hair bleached til it was almost white, skin tanned enough to make her look like semi-Melanesian, and an amazing body in a glow-in-the-dark mini. Let's call her Joan because I can't remember if her name was Linda or Liz lol. Joan seemed like regular at these kinds of events as she practically greeted every Tom, Nicole and Henry in the crowd as soon as she arrived. She eventually comes up to me, holds up her tanned  arm to mine and jokingly compares complexions, adding "Darling, you're tanner than me I'll give you that, but as long as you're not blonder we're good" XD. So the chit chat begins. But as soon as I mention I'm from the islands, her jaw drops and she starts congratulating me and wishes me the bestest night ever. Yeah wtf I thought she was just high lol. Next question thrown my way was: "Who are you here with?". After I tell her that I arrived on my lonesome she has this incredulous look on her face and quickly disappears into the crowd before saying "Honey you may have arrived on your own but you're leaving with a party!". Meanwhile all of this is happening during Mauro Picotto's classics set which was pretty damn great.

And then one by one throughout the night, people start coming up to me saying "Omg you're from Fiji? That is so cool! We're so happy to have you here. Enjoy the night!". Some people even asked to take photos. Most of them asked my name and introduced themselves back and at one time I was moshing out with 6 people who I had just met 10 minutes before! I felt like a flipping celebrity. I tried keeping count of the number of people but stopped after hitting 30. There were at least 60!

Towards the end of the event, Judy appears out of nowhere and asks if I was enjoying myself! After quizzing her about what she had told these people, I found out that she thought I flew all the way from Fiji just to attend the concert. Lol! Anyway thanks to the little misunderstanding the event turned out way better than expected.

Progress Check

I just re-read my New Years Resolutions 2012 post and was stoked to realise that I'd achieved my goals for the year! *happy dance*

Also, now that I look back, that presentation experience abroad did wonders for my confidence. I'm more confident about my work and now require even less time preparing for month end presentations. Maybe I've just gotten more comfortable with the crowd? *shrug*. I'm not pro-level yet and I know that I still need to act more naturally and try to enjoy the experience a bit more. My first boss gave me some constructive feedback last month and I'm looking forward to incorporating the advice next week.

I've also arrived at the sad realisation that the list of inspiring people/role models at work has dwindled considerably over the last 3 years. I am truly blessed that my immediate superior is still at the top of my list and I hope to learn as much as possible from them. My first boss is also on the list and I'm really really lucky that we work closely together and that we get a long really well (maybe because we share very similar traits).

On skills development, I know that I need to work on my leadership skills. I feel I've really developed my management skills a fair bit since I started acting on my current post but leadership-wise - especially in terms of inspiring the team to work better, needs a bit more sandpaper-ing. My third boss did a great job of this and I know that our team had a ball when working under him. I guess my biggest problem is getting frustrated and hung up on some member's lack of consistency in certain areas. It's easy to blame this on the fact that I didn't recruit any of them and hence didn't have the opportunity to mold them according to my standards. But then again a great manager and leader makes the best use of their resources and shouldn't let the little things stop them from motivating the team.

It's also a bit sad that as much as you want to help others develop, it won't amount to much if they don't also share the same objective.

This post is all over the place but screw it I'm just going to type things as they come to mind.

Last week I sat in on two interviews as a peer-advisor. Both great and new experiences - one involved only internal candidates and for me was a great test of patience, professionalism and objectivity. 

Glad to be watching anime again. I'm currently hooked on three great shows: 

• Sword Art Online - strongly appeals to the .Hack fan in me
• Shinsekai Yori - pleasantly different. It's starts with all of these unanswered questions and mysteriousness then proceeds to shed light on the back story and provide answers as the eps progress. Haibane Renmei employed a similar concept which I truly enjoyed.
• Zetsuen no Tempest - magic, fighting and not being sure which side is good and which is bad. Pretty cool.

I have also started on a series that I've waited SO LONG (about 8 years) to begin. I knew I'd like it and was only waiting to get all of the eps with me so I could marathon the fuck out of it -> Ghost In The Shell. So far it's proving to be well worth the wait. Also, THE TACHIKOMAS SOUND SO FUCKING CUTE!!! 

In other news, I have developed an unhealthy obsession with Jacques Pépin's cooking shows. THE ACCENT! Amagaad *_* (yes I am well aware of how weird that sounds).

HERE! Have some great Makoto Kusanagi (Ghost in the Shell) fanart from pixiv!

Follow the leader

Productivity blogs. Never thought I'd find myself reading them. 

Came across this line in this post about being an awesome leader:

"Like world-class coaches, world-class leaders may not always have the best talent, but they always seem to get the best out of the talent they have."

This is where my biggest problem lies - half the time I'm still trying to be the best talent.

Learning

Before acting in my boss' position, he requested that I run my presentation slides and notes by him while he was still at work a.k.a before he went on leave. The presentation was to be made to the Board and covered work from all four units within the department. When discussing the notes he pointed out a technical term that I had listed (relating to another unit's work) and asked if I knew what it meant. I started out explaining the term loosely/generally, and then went into detail in an attempt to impress him. What startled me was that he suggested right after that I not mention the term at all. He added that I didn't need to know about the term (in detail) and that this was only expected from technical officers.

The incident troubled me for weeks. I kept asking myself "Why shouldn't I know about it? Isn't it better to know than not to?"

Only until a few minutes ago did I finally realise what point he was trying to make. It wasn't that he didn't think I shouldn't know about technical terms in detail. He was in fact trying to teach me to concentrate on the bigger picture as that's what was required at that level.

I can appreciate how zooming out and thinking about things at a macro level assits with strategic planning and forward thinking, but I reaaaally love the technical work...maybe a bit more than the former. I know that at my level I should be developing skills for the former and I now realise that I still have room to grow in my current role.


Typing out the above really helped me sort out my thoughts. My boss' message seems so obvious now when I read the above but at the time I was genuinely stumped lol. Karaik.

 

Mami, Madoka & Sayaka (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)

Rotary & School

Can't be bothered with sentences and paragraphs so I'm just gonna do points.

Rotary 

• My transition was made a lot easier because I knew a good handful of our Rotarians personally before I joined.
• It's great for networking. Which I'm naturally hopeless at.
• Exposure to non-work related fields. We've had some great speakers on Engineering, Psychology, Psychiatry and Acupuncture already! Also the information sharing is quite impressive - some work-related news has reached me faster there than through the work grapevines.
• CHARITY! Which is important! As an only child I'm uncharitable and selfish by default. So I know this is good for personal development.
• To be honest I mainly joined to boost my CV and for the networking. This stopped me from joining initially because I knew I'd be signing up for the wrong reasons. But then a high school mate told me that the end result would be win-win: I'd get what I wanted, and charity would get my help! Made perfect sense to me and I haven't looked back since. Btw, listing this on my CV HAS opened doors, but that's for another post.
• Shit, I was supposed to stick to bullet points.
• We have some crazily efficient and amazing people on our Team. I pride myself on my work efficiency and multi-tasking skills but omg, some of these guys run companies and contribute way more to the club than I can manage. Inspirational really.
• I was inducted into our club and straight onto the Board Committee - which was forced me to get involved and....to care lol.
• We had our annual charity fundraiser on Friday and it was heaps of fun. A LOT OF WORK, but the spirit of camaraderie and team work made it blast. The event ended at midnight and but we left a little after 1am! We did make some mistakes here and there but everyone was so damn positive about learning from it and moving on that it didn't get us down. 
• I honestly thought it would be a drag and can't believe how much I'm enjoying it (even though I may appear to be whining about it at times....especially on twitter lol) 

In other news, I've resume studies - taking MA112 this semester. It has been pretty challenging TBH because it took me a while to remember stuff from MA111, our lecturer is not the best (I swear to God sometimes I feel like he's competing with US! HIS STUDENTS!), and our tutor also isn't the best (he....just gives us the answers). The only silver lining is that my MA111 tutor is taking our labs. His style might be annoying (he likes to pick on people, esp. if they haven't done the work, is corny and makes lame jokes BUT he is GREAT at teaching us how to tackle the problems, which outweighs all the cons). I'm taking the subject with a workmate which I'm really enjoying because: a.) company b.) shared taxi fare c.) default group partner d.) Easier to discuss stuff since we work together.

Ok I should really start working on our group assignment.  

Higher Responsibility

Acting on a higher post for the next 11 days. Excited!! Not looking forward to presenting to the Board though.

Btw btw, my first boss/person who recruited me now reports directly to me!! OMG my head is growing XDD Gonna enjoy it while it lasts.

Let's go!

Change

On my recent Melbourne sojourn, I was a bit disappointed to discover  that majority of the mates I'd made through my Uni anime club didn't....watch anime anymore :o A few of them just read manga while the majority have switched to watching Western non-animated stuff. Even the hobby collectors in the group have since sold most of their statues, gashapon, figmas and other figurines to fund new and different hobbies such as digital photography, cooking and music gear. I felt like I was the only one who hadn't grown up yet after no one answered my "So what animes are people watching nowadays?" question  >_>. Everyone still games though and most of them were into Diablo III and League of Legends. They tried to get me to join but I joked saying our net connection in Fiji was too shit to play - which isn't entirely an untruth. I'm just not in the mood to get horribly addicted to another game - have some work stuff coming up that requires at least 6 hrs of sleep a day.

I also found it interesting how most of the gang had branched off into smaller circles. The gamers are still a closely knit crew but the other, more outgoing guys have all these little sub groups. Not that people don't get along anymore, it's just that....interests are just widely different. But it was sooooooo good to see everyone again :) I honestly wanted to extend my stay for another month, just to hang and catch up some more with them.

In other news, work has been "so far so good". I have an upcoming acting appointment (short term) where I fill in for my boss for 11 days which I'm excited about. Not exciting though is having to present to the Board on my and other teams work papers. It should be a good experience though and the three positives are higher responsibility experience, acting allowance and being able to add it to my CV.

Instead of the usual Cosplay pic, I leave you with this awesome vid of a woman cosplaying Needle Woman from Fatal Frame III. The photoshoot with Pyramid Head looked amazeballs!