Thursday, September 28, 2006

Bermuda (so far)

So much for me not getting online. I've barely done any work for the past two days! OK, granted, I was in a conference for the past two days, with five minute breaks between each hour and a half (minimum) presentation, with no lunch. But it didn't really feel like work. I was surprisingly alert through the whole thing, even with jet lag.

Tuesday night, I went to a cocktail party at the MDs house. AMAZING view. I didn't get to see much of the inside of the house because we spent all night out by the pool (they all have pools!), but watching the beautiful sunset over the Atlantic ocean isn't a bad way to spend a Tuesday night.

Last night Gary (the guy from my team who I came over with) and I went out for dinner with my boss and his wife, which was lovely. We went to a little outdoor restaurant with lovely food, and we sat drinking wine/beer and chatting till about 11.30pm.

I tried to do work today. I really did. But I have to access the server in London to do anything, and my computer really doesn't like that. It takes me about 15 minutes to even open a file, let alone do anything with it! So I got a bit of training done and a little bit of work, and before I knew it, it was 12.30pm and time to head down to the harbour for the afternoon boat ride! Which was fantastic, by the way. I felt a bit self consious at first being the only peely-wally one there (Gary goes on the sunbed once a week), but it was so hot that I had to sit on the back of the catamaran and take my cardy off and hitch up my skirt! I even went out on a canoe! It was lovely. I've had about three glasses of wine, and now back at the office, waiting for 5pm, to go to my bosses house for dinner and drinks with people that I used to work with, but have since moved to Bermuda.

All in all, the trip has been a pleasant surprise so far. I have enjoyed myself far more than I thought I would have, and I'm starting to see the attraction of moving out here!

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Bu-Bye!

Just a quick post to let you know that I'm travelling for work for the next couple of weeks so I won't be around much. I'm in Bermuda all of next week and doubt I'll get online at all, then I'm off to Madrid for a conference next Tuesday. I might get online between the two trips, or I might just sleep. We'll see!

Don't have any loud parties while I'm gone!

Friday, September 22, 2006

Bank Job

I've updated my "Song of the Moment" on the sidebar. It's now Bank Job from the new Barenaked Ladies album Barenaked Ladies Are Me. I finally managed to get it downloaded earlier in the week (I was looking for the delux edition, which includes the album that will be released next year sometime). I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It'll probably be a grower, like their last album. But there are a couple of really good songs on first listen, including Bank Job. If nothing else, you can always rely on BNL to make you laugh.

We all had our ski masks
And sawed off shotguns
But how do you plan for
A bank full of nuns

But I guess we panicked
We all have taboos
And they were like zebras
They had us confused

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Golly Gosh, And All That Bally Hoo!

How introducing us to guns is supposed to help us bond as a company, I have no idea, but whatever. It actually turned out to be a relatively amusing day, a day out of the office at least. Although I'm not sure I'd go again.

But it turns out I'm a bit of a natural with a gun. At least, I started out that way. We went round five stands, each with a different way of releasing the clay. Some rolled down a hill, some flew up into the air towards you, some flew up into the air away from you, etc. I got 9out of 10 on the first two stands, had a bit of a slip on the third and only got 6 out of 10, then got back on form for the fourth stand and got 8 out of 10. Unfortunately, I completely blew my score on the last stand and only got 3 out of 10! In the end, I was only 5 behind the person who won the prize for top gun, so if I'd only kept up my standard, I could have won. Never mind, I can't be too bitter when the guy who won had been in the South African Army for two years.

I did ok on the archery too, getting 42 out of 50 on that one. And my team won the prize for biggest overall score! Woooo! We got a shot glass each. Shot! Geddit?! ;)

Now I have a very sore shoulder where the butt of the gun kept banging against it. Those things have a massive kick! Although I'm just pleased I stayed standing. I'd watched an episode of West Wing the night before where Toby went clay shooting, and the force of the gun knocked him on his back. I had mental images all day of that happening to me.

I missed out on the dinner that night because I was off the the theatre to see The Last Five Years. It finishes this week and my friend wanted to see it after I raved about it, so I went with her. Even better, second time round!

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Winter Shopping

I went shopping today at Canary Wharf. Actually, my friend wanted to go shopping because she loves shopping and had never seen Canary Wharf. I just tagged along because I didn't have any other plans. My friend ended up buying just a couple of items, while I went a bit crazy. Probably not the wisest idea considering I don't get paid till Wednesday, but oh well!

I'm so happy with one of my purchases! It's my first winter purchase of the year, so you know what that means. Christmas is just round the corner! Ok, ok, I won't go on about it. I'll just leave you with this photo of my super-cute scarf and hat combo (you should be so proud of me Caz!).

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Miscellaneous Thoughts

The results for my September 2007 exams will be released on 21st December! The 21st December?!

a) People are most likely going to be travelling home that day for Christmas
b) Christmas! Are they trying to destroy it?! I'm probably going to be miserable about failing.
c) The results used to come out at the beginning of November and the exams were in April. Now they keep pushing results back and back, but not changing the date of the April exams. If you're planning your exams around any resits you might have, this completely screws that plan up because you're effectively losing two months of study.

I know it seems insane to be worrying about this just now, but this is how early we need to start planning things. It's just one thing in a long list to indicate that the Institute are taking the piss! Grrrrrrr!

I made lasagne for the first time the other night. It was very nice, if I do say so myself.

House! I want to talk about it, but I can't work out how to do spoiler tags in this blog, and my comments are a bit more spoilery than my last ones. I might make a special entry in my Blurty.

I've put my name in the pool to be an audience member for Strictly Come Dancing. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

It's the final of How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? on Saturday night. I'm so excited. I know that Connie is going to win, but I'm still holding out hope for Helena. I love Helena! She's come through against all odds (She's been in the bottom two nearly every week, but ALW has always saved her. Then amazingly enough, she made it through both public votes last week and didn't have to do the sing-off for ALWs save. Yay!). I don't get what the public has against her. I think she was unlucky enough to be clearly the worst in the first week and the public hasn't really forgotten that. But based on her performances since, I'm putting that down to a bad song, because I think she's great! She could totally do it, if the public could just get their heads out of their arses! Connie is a good singer, she's professional, she has stage presence, blah-de-blah-blah. There's just something about her I don't like. I wish I could put my finger on it. But I'm not too worried though, because I honestly think that all of the three finalists have what it takes to be a good Maria.

I'm going clay pigeon shooting on Tuesday. Look out people, they're giving me a gun! And a bow and arrow! I must admit, when the activity was first suggested as a team building exercise, I really didn't want to do it because I don't like guns and it all seems a bit too upper class for me. But everyone else seemed enthusiastic about it, and we'd been through about 10 other ideas and couldn't reach a consensus, so I wasn't going to be the only one to veto this idea. But the teams have been selected and the trash talking has started, so I'm starting to think it could be a good laugh. We'll see.

Monday, September 11, 2006

House Season 2

My lovely, lovely boxset arrived on Friday! Joy! I probably would have finished it by now, but I had plans to go away for the weekend. As it is, I've only just started the second disc, but I'm really enjoying it so far. I'm enjoying it even more because I can watch it guilt-free, without the worry of studying looming over me.

A couple of observations:

~ It's very funny. I have laughed out loud at several things, and I don't tend to laugh out loud when I'm watching TV on my own.

~ I can't say that I really like any of the three underlings, Chase, Cameron or Foreman. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly dislike any of them (even Chase, which is more than can be said for him in season 1). There are times when I really like their storyline or something they've done. But there are too many times I don't. I think the ratio of me liking them to not liking them is about 50/50, whereas I tend to like House, Cuddy and Wilson a lot more often. Especially Wilson! :P

But my opinion of them in comparison to season 1, Foreman is pretty much the same, Cameron has gone down, and Chase has gone up. So I guess Chase is doing better than any of them.

~ It's not as formulaic as season 1. And some of their patients are actually dying! Much more realistic.

~ Is it just me, or would anyone else love to see Stephen Fry as a guest? I had it in my head a while ago that this was actually happening, but couldn't find anything about it, so concluded I'd just made it up. But ever since, I've been thinking about it and would love it to actually happen!

Monday, September 04, 2006

Exam Round Up

9.45am - 1pm - Assets
Not bad actually. I don't think I could have asked for a better paper, in fact. If I failed it, it's not through lack of knowledge, but through lack of detail. I don't do well with wordy exams, and I might write something that I think is worth 10 marks, but only get 6 for it.

2.15pm - 5.30pm - Liabilities and Asset Liability Management
(I only discovered that was the name of the subject today when I hard to write it on my exam paper!)
Worse than the morning paper, but better than I expected. I nearly started crying when I read through the questions, but when I started to work through them, I realised they weren't so bad. There were a couple of things I made up on the spot, but I expected it to be a lot worse.

The crappy thing though is that it's actually one subject and I have to pass both papers to pass it. I could get 100% for one of the papers, but still fail if I fail the other paper. And have to do it all over again! But all in all, it could have been a lot worse. I really had no hope going into it this morning. I'm not saying I've passed. Just that I might have failed by less than I was expecting! It's a sad day when it comes to that phrase making me feel better! :P

7.30pm - bedtime
I was planning on cleaning the flat, but I really have no energy. I'm going to order take away, then plonk down in front of the TV to watch Gilmore Girls.

I might just clean the bathroom. And the kitchen. And put a wash on.

Aahh, no studying! :D