I just read back over some of my old posts on this blog from 2004, I totally still have the same decision making processes that I had back then, I think about what I'd like to take, then I seem to talk myself fully into choosing a different thing that sounds like the "right thing to do" because everyone else thinks so, or because it was something I never really gave much thought to and sounds like a great idea. Then I swiftly turn around and end up choosing the thing I wanted to go with right from the start anyway, funnily enough this has worked for me so far and I haven't ended up regretting those choices. This is good, makes me feel better about the job I accepted today.

Things will turn out just fine if I work hard :) .

So today I accepted a graduate job offer, looks like I am going to start work at my new place of employment in Sydney at the start of Feburary! Pretty exciting to be moving but also scary, I just hope I can make everything work out for the best. It is a big leap to move interstate for a job that you don't even know you are going to be any good at/like because you've never done it before!

I just refuse to do much uni work, I really only have a few things to do before I can start studying for exams, they are not hard, just time consuming and I can be bothered, yep, just another regular semester of uni for serp, always spluttering to a halt at the end.

Rargh, I'd just like it to be a month from today, then I'll be frrreeeeeeeeee.

Don't you make me come over there and make you blog! *shakes fist*

Ok I have reached my 'enough' point for uni this semester, I can't be bothered doing any more, my brain is packing up and leaving the building, ho hum.

I only have 1 month to go, until i'm finished my undergrad degree(s), it'll be grand, I just hope I don't do something silly and fail a subject, that would be a total pain in the arse.

Hmmm did I say I was going to take a certain job? No! Never! Now I'm leaning back towards the big bad corporate that pays a shitload of cash and will pay for my move to Sydney, I'm a god damn capitalist pig! Burn me at the stake! Buuurrrrrnnnn.

I had a chat the the managers from this place on the phone the other day and the job really does sound like something I could really get into, yeah it might not have the breadth of the other role I was talking about a few posts ago, and doesn't come with the "wow you worked for company x" prestiege but yeah, hmm, hard choice! If only I didn't feel like I was getting ripped off for working for company x! Plus they also have a really inconvienent head office in Sydney for me to travel to if we want to live near where astro wants to do uni, could take me over an hour there and over an hour back via PT, whinge whinge.

I had another interview for another IT consultancy firm yesterday, I think it went pretty well, this place was very lax with how they hire people and there has been hardly any hoop jumping. I think they are going through such a massive growth phase that they just need ANYONE with basic skills to join. IT consultancy companies are what you make of them however, they are hard work, lots of face time with clients and lots of travel. Something I don't mind however I don't know if I really want to get back into coding in a big way, some days I think its fine and some days I shudder at the thought. I've been told I can totally avoid doing programming in these places if I want to but I am not completely sure how true this is from the get go. More double hmmmms.

Tonight I went out with shrike and astro, we went and ate really good cheap chinese food and then went and saw a band that shrikes work mate was in, they were really good, much better then I expected, and in my time I have heard a lot of undiscovered Melbourne bands, and these guys stand a chance of getting a record deal with a local independent at the very least. Good luck to them.

It was good to see shrike and chat about things, it seems like we are all sort of growing up a bit, scary but also kinda of nice in a way. :)

Sleep!

You know there is actually one cool thing in Adelaide, and that is this place!

Now that sounds like a fun place to do a PhD!

Damn I never thought I would be spoilt for choice, do I take a job in one of the biggest companies in Australia that pays a truckload of cash and possibly end up specialising so much that I could never change jobs easily? Or do I take a job at one of the largest technology companies in the world for quite a bit less money but possibly more career flexibility?

This is one of those positions where I use to think "Gee wouldn't that just be a great problem to have!", but in reality it is more stressing than not having the choice!

Yeah I know, whinge whinge whinge :P Poor serp! He has so many choices! Ohhh it must be so hard! Trust me, I am very thankful, but I think you can understand where I am coming from, I just don't want to make the wrong choice (for whatever reason that might be! Maybe I can't make a wrong choice!).

So today I had another final assessment centre thingy for a technology/computer company we all know. It was the hardest assessment centres i've done, many interviews with different business managers, very hard logic solving and mathematical tests (so much harder than any of that SHL made stuff!), and a group presentation. Today I was more relaxed however because I already have offers on the table and I know I have something to fall back.

So I thought I did pretty badly, I hardly had any sleep last night, was not feeling very with it when my first interview started but quickly warmed up after that. Didn't get the "usual" questions you get at interviews and had some quite technical things to answer, then after lunch I had my tests and group work stuff to do which I was feeling really tired for and hadn't done any sort of that kind of thinking for over a week and a bit, which was my assessment centre.

But tonight I got a call and was told I had been accepted (quick turn around time! Only like 2 hours!), a position was allocated to me for Melbourne, but now since astro got her GAMSAT scores she is wanting to go to Sydney to do her study, so I asked them if they could accommodate me in Sydney somehow, the woman was caught off guard a bit and told me she'd get back to me on Monday or so to let me know, I hung and then 10 minutes later she called me back and told me I could start in Sydney in Feb, hooray!

I really like the feel of this place I went to today, seems like it wouldn't be a dead end corporate job and has plenty of opportunity to go sideways or specialise in whatever I want to eventually get into. It pays a lot less than my other offers (It's base salary is almost 20% less) which is a factor to consider since I am moving to the most expensive city in Australia (my GOD the rent prices are insane, you thought Melbourne is getting bad!), however I am going to go with my gut on this one and take less money and more opportunity, and hopefully a more rewarding work environment (maybe even fun!).

I'm just glad that Katy and my goals have almost aligned for us to be moving forward together in what we want to do in our lives instead of having to go through the long distance relationship that we were both thinking would be inevitable.

Who knows, I have more final interviews next week, I am thinking about dropping them as these three positions I have already been offered more than satisfied what I have been looking for. Although I guess it can never hurt to have too many options, right?

I got another offer today, however its for the same company as my previous offer, so everything is the same and it is still based in Sydney. However this offer is the one I really wanted from the two, it was a lot harder to get into (well there were only a couple of places compared to my other offer which had over over 30 or so) and I think is more inline with where I might want to go with my career and also has the type of work I think I would enjoy more.

I'm in a funny situation though, no one else has been offered two individual graduate roles so they are unsure on how to proceed with making my decision easier in reqards to which area I would like to work in. I think I have it pretty sorted in my mind after thinking about it today where I want to work, however I've committed to a phone conference thingy with both managers so I can ask questions and they can sort of answer them on the spot to help me figure where I would be best suited. I just hope at the end of that conversation they don't turn around and go "Ok so can you tell us who you'd like to work for?", because I'd hate to disapoint someone!

God, i'm worried about disapointing someone, I can't believe I am actually in a position to pick and choose, a few months ago when I started all this crap I never imagined I'd be in a position to even have the chance to do a final interview let alone be able to pick and choose places I'd like to work, this is insane.

Hell even if I don't get any more offers from companies I'm feeling pretty satisfied about everything, it is a funny feeling for me.

I've done fuck all today when I really should have gotten more done. I haven't slept well since Thursday night, I dunno what it is but maybe its because a lot of things are happening right now and I have plenty to think about. I need to get a whole bunch of uni crap done but I'm not doing it, I'll kick my arse tomorrow and get into gear.

Still, it is good that life can be exciting.

Stop press! In breaking news, SMH reports "Granny beats off alligator"!

So I am up very late because I can't sleep due to eating waaaay to much Chun Po's, damn that is good food, and I haven't had it in so long, so tasty!

Anyway, today has somewhat been a big event for me, I got a call today and was offered a grad position over the phone, the contract is supposedly getting here Tuesday so I can look over it. Quite frankly I was flabagasted, I really thought I hadn't been up to scratch in my final interviews and over the last 2 weeks I had started to really get down on the whole process. When I woke up this morning I was feeling very "meh" about going to another interview, but I got up and prepared and went, this interview turned out to be really excellent in the end, I felt really on the ball, the conversation I was having was a two way street and very easy, and the questions I was asked seemed easily answered and relevant. I was even lucky enough to not only be told I was going to the final interview day for this company, but also to be told that she was going to forward my resume/her notes to a dude for a role in a certain development/product team that needs an I.T consulting grad type person in the very near future. And considering whole these guys were, I was very excited/nervous about that!

So I left that interview with a renewed faith in myself, I was feeling quite positive about what I had ahead of me and a new found vigor, then I turned my mobile, had a stack of messages, one was from the place that gave me an offer, I called them back thinking I was actually going to get rejected and they gave me the good news and the rest is history. This offer I got is considered pretty good for a graduate role so that made it even sweeter, the position is located in Sydney, so I will have to relocate but they will pay my expenses for all that jazz, which is great because it will cost a bomb! I'm not sure if astro is too keen about moving, she is going to miss her family (and tiger) so very very much, I guess I am lucky because I've lead a fairly nomadic life and have no real deep roots laid anywhere family wise.

Another good thing about this job is that it starts Feb 2007, (well so I think!) which could leave me open to the greatest thing of all which is FREE TIME FOR MYSELF WHICH IS GUILT FREE! Oh man, I'm looking forward to that biznitch.

So now I wait for the contract, sorta want to see it in my hands before I consider it 'real', and then I play the 'leverage' game, where I call up all the other places I am still in the running for and let them know I have an offer and if they are interested in me to please let me know soon, i'm sure most of them will tell me to gagf, but here is hoping some of these other places in Melbourne that I would like to work for get back to me with a 'we are interested in you' message.

The best thing about all this is now I don't feel like such a loser, I have terrible marks at uni, I thought I had no hope, I thought I had cheated my way (somehow) into these interviews and didn't feel like I belonged there. I had to fight every ounce of disbelief I had in myself to keep going, just so maybe I could pull something out, I have always been one of those people who when he really applied himself he always came second or third, always up there but never first. Today to beat out 5000 other applicants for a position made me feel like I had won first prize, I feel like I am worth a damn and that maybe I am not destined for mediocity and that when I work hard at something I can achieve my goals and come out on top.

Today is a new beginning for serp.

Had a phone interview today with a large IT consultancy firm, they want me to come in a do some "temperament" based psychometric testing, I hate that stuff, it basically consists of questions like these:

My strongest inclination is to be

a. Dominating
b. Charismatic
c. Conscientious
d. Steady

Or

A compliment would be to say that I'm

a. Charming
b. Patient
c. Logical
d. Sensitive

Or

I take the most pride in being

a. A winner
b. Competent
c. Authentic
d. Accountable


Dear god, and they based who they are going to hire off these questions.

I can't believe they let Stephen Colbert get up and give a speech a the White House Correspondents Dinner. He basically just ripped into G.W Bush while he was sitting a few metres away, half the time the audience was just shocked that he was getting away with what he was saying, Pretty funny.

Here the the google video link of the speech.

Sydney Experience Intermission

Ok before I continue with the rest of the Sydney blog, I am going to give you my quick thoughts on the town of Sydney.

- It is nice and warm, I could totally deal with that type of weather in the winter.
- People are pretty friendly in Sydney, seem to always be willing to help or have a chat.
- The poverty is more apparent, they don't try to keep it out of the CBD like they do in Melbourne
- Peak hours in the CBD are toxic, it must be all those buses and the shitload of people on the sidewalks, really hard to breathe.
- There are about 1 billion Oporto chicken places in Sydney and about 2 KFC's, God damn it when I want chicken I want KFC!
- I saw 4 Westpac skyscrapers in the CBD, 4! Westpac branches and ATMs were everywhere as well.
- People in Sydney talk about AFL now.
- The public transport system is hella expensive, but easy to use and on time, but man paying $12 to go from the airport 5 stations to the CBD seems very expensive.
- The CBD itself is much larger than I remember it.
- The airport feels like a proper airport.
- Driving around the CBD looks like a nightmare.

In other thoughts, I know this is terrible but when I went to theage.com.au website just before I saw this picture and thought "omg it's Ramman!"

Sydney experience part one

So how did it go in Sydney? I'll tell you.

Didn't get much sleep the night before, I dunno if it was because I was hella nervous, taking my sweet time in preparing/practicing stuff, or because there was road works going on outside. I woke up early, really didn't want to get out of bed because I was feeling extremely tired, slept for another 15 minutes then dragged my arse out of bed and into the shower where I tired to get warm (I get extremely cold and sweaty when I am nervous), ended up feeling like I was short of time when I finally got ready, sorta ran downstairs and checked out of the hotel (which was pretty nice) walk up the road to the Hudson offices and was 15 minutes early, great.

So I loitered outside in the nice morning sun, it had been 24 and 26 degrees in Sydney the days I was there, blue skies and warm winds, just beautiful really. I went over a few of the things I thought they would ask me, sipped some water (i was the only thing I could stomach, I just couldn't bring myself to eat breakfast) and then headed inside.

I don't know what it is about hudsons offices, but the 2 the I've been into have the most confusing elevator system, this one consisted of no buttons on the wall to press to call the button, you just have to wait at a particular elevator door for your level and hope that it is coming soon. Met a fellow grad in the elevator, nice guy, got upstairs, walked straight into the reception area, loaded my "confidence" file into my main RAM component of my brain and it was game on.

Got shuffled off into a beautiful room with the most awesome views of Sydney, everyone was very nice except for all the extremely nervous grads (10 of us all up) filling out a ton of paperwork, they gave me that ton of paperwork too, I basically had to write my whole online application out for them again, a bit ridiculous really, although I guess these records are for the hudson people so they can forever hold you on file. One of the stupid questions they asked was "tell us your place of residence for the last 10 years" with full addresses, phone numbers (wtf?) and all that crap, They had like a 4 line box for this, another guy and I pointed out to them that we would have to have about a whole page to fill out that section, so they just made me fill in my last 3 (Still couldn't fit it all in). Stupid.

After paperwork, we got shuffled off into an even bigger and better room with even more awesome views, we then got explained to us the whole day and what we would do, how proud we should be for getting to where we are (this place had over 5000 applications), and how we must all be academically brillant for getting to this stage (I was laughing inside my head on this one, I hardly call scraping together my average brillant, it is seriously bad.), we then had a presentation on what exactly the department of this business was all about and what they actually do, which was really great because I really had no idea what they did day to day, they sort of make everything sound pretty exciting on the website but really give you nothing.

After this we were split into two groups of 5 and put in seperate rooms to do the group assessment, this basically consisted of giving us a business problem and then we have to discuss (or argue) about it and come to a group consensus of what the best course of action to take. This assessment was much larger in content to the one I did last friday, about 3 times as big, so there was a lot of information to take in in the same amount of time, I was doing find in my preparation time until they threw a spanner in the works and told us to look at this other sheet where it gave us a particular role and stance we had to take up on the situation, it was a real bitch because up until that point I was making a case for the opposite decision to the one I was forced to take up, and then I only had about 5 or 10 minutes to formulate my arguements, needless to say that when discussion time came I was not quite ready, all these dudes just went for it (I had all guys in my group) spewing out all the easy crap first and throwing it open to everyone else, about 2/3rds of the way through the discussion I started getting major grillage from two guys out of no where, asking me for my opinion on something totally unrelated to what I was talking about, and the answers I gave couldn't consist of much more than a sentence as the long fluffed questions that gave me were pretty much yes or no questions. I dunno, it all went a bit badly I think. Then we had to give a group presentation which two guys out of our groups said they were going to do but then ended up just introducing the group, the main points of contention and then just blindly threw to me and the other 2 guys for comments on shit whenever they ran out of things to say. I think I did ok in that presentation bit, didn't get to say much but I hope that the assessors see that I was coping with the grillage I was getting and then picking up where the overbearing group members gave up.

Next was the psychometric test, it was exactly the same as a test I did previously, 40 questions in 20 minutes, all "what shape comes next" questions. These tests are designed so people can't finish them I've been told, well this time I finished it with a good 6 or 7 minutes to spare, probably cause I remembered the answers from about over a week ago, if you enjoy puzzles you'll do well on these tests, and trust me, if you've spent the majority of you life playing puzzle games on a computer you are going to do alright! So yeah I finished early and was just staring out the window and the assessor woman, she was looking back at me shocked like, she was motified that someone actually finished early, that or either she was going "omg you must have cheated!>@#$@#", so I was thinking "uh-oh" and then just started going over my answers again, was basically looking at one question which I didn't get and I am CONVINCED there is no way to figure it out, I'm going to have to go and try to find it somewhere so I can show everyone, maybe one of you guys out there will figure it out.

After the test it was behavioural interview time, i've never had one of these face to face so I was a bit nervous, but it ended up being alright, the people were really nice, I had decent answers to all there questions (although I could have tried to punch home some qualities about myself and actions I took which I sort of forgot to do) and they seemed pretty happy by the end of the interview with what I had to say.

Next was preparing for a presentation that each grad had to give to all the business managers, hudson people, the other grads and some other former grad program dudes they got to come in, we were given roughly 30 to 40 minutes to prepare for this which would have been fine if I wasn't constantly interupted by other grads trying to make friendly conversation with me, I mean yeah you gotta be nice but fuck off I am trying to think! I ended up only getting down about 2/3rd of my presentation sorted out before they told us to stop because we were going to have lunch.

I gotta go to a meeting now, so I'll finish this blog later.

If Peter Mitchell and friends from channel 7 news are "always there when I need them", why the hell can I never see them around when I need cheeseburger or someone to drive me to the airport?

Geeeerrrrahhh, every rejection email I get from grad programs are like a light kick in the balls, at first you think "wow that didn't hurt at all" only to discover moments later that you are sitting down, out of breath going "oww!". Ok not really, but you catch my drift, I dunno, it doesn't really matter that I am getting rejections, I realise that I am just not suited to every job, and because I don't have excellent marks I will often be rejected at the first stages, but it doesn't make it any easier to take rejection, or to pick yourself up and keep going.

I am dreading getting rejections from the places i've had initial success at, making it over all those hurdles to only be knocked on my ass because I didn't give a suitable answer or because compared to other graduates I suck. I am starting to get really nervous about going to Sydney on Wednesday for my interview/assessment centre Thursday, I'm trying to do some things to make myself more confident, memorizing answers to potential behavourial questions, making sure I know how I can relate what I wrote in my application/resume to the job/business I am going for, doing practice psychometric tests, practicing doing impromptu presentations, but doing this takes a lot of time out of the day and unfortuently I am flat chat doing school work I have been neglecting since I started getting serious about all the graduate program stuff. I hope by the time I wake up Thursday morning I will be moderately relaxed and prepared for what I am going to undertake.

I don't know why I am putting myself through all this bullshit, some days I wake up and feel like going "fuck it" and just stop trying, I know guys at uni that have done that after only a few applications and subsequent rejections. But I have to keep going, I have to learn to deal with rejection, I have to become stronger at doing things like this, I have to grow.

Super Mario Bros. Live on stage. Some college kids play out the first level of SMB1 live on stage, pretty funny, even with the sound screw ups and all.