Aussie Cricketers Cane!!! - All I seem to cane is my liver....!
Yup, I'm just a teensy bit proud of being an Aussie at the moment. A lot of people around work are hearing about it too... Yup, Aussies are awesome. I wish I was like the Ashes team.. absolutely destroying everything in my path! That would be much more preferrable than what I have been doing lately, which is basically destroying my sleep pattern and liver. As you can guess, it's been another rough couple of weeks of Christmas parties, friendly get-togethers (obviously involving drinking) etc and I am definitely feeling the pinch (does this mean I'm getting old!?!).
It's been ages since my last post so I must apologise to everyone for being boring. Unfortunately the loss of my work laptop has had a nasty consquence in that I've lost a lot of correspondence and partial blog entry posts and now had to re-do them all. I am limping along with a total piece of crap laptop from work (it's one of the ones which is so crap that it just gets passed around to the next unfortunately victim) but have been temped to throw it out the window on more than one occasion.
While my lack of posting is boring, life certainly hasn't been! With January planning kicking off in the last two weeks I've started to get involved in the management of the teams and the individual rollouts. My boss hasn't been around as much as he used to so I've sort of been doing his job which has made things more hectic. In his defence, he's finally been able to work in the office and get some of higher management type stuff sorted, which has been put aside for a long time now. I actually got a cold (first time I've been sick here) and had to take a whole day off work to sleep, so now that makes 3 days off in the last 2 months (well, just under it) - wohoo for working everyday (I just keep thinking of the money). It is getting tiring though so I'm happy we've now finished for the year.
So aside from always working, I've had Christmas functions (3 of them, though one was a double whammy - more on that later), friends birthdays, Christmas shoppings, two farewells (aussies going home), holiday planning, Ashes games to listen to (on the web), and general catching up to fit in. Some of my friends politely let me know that they haven't seen me for over a month... whoops (time flies when you're manic).
Oh, and to all those who remembered my birthday, thank you very much. I know it was ages ago but I don't think I actually said anything before. Special kudos go to Jen for my CD of photos and music - one thing I _really_ miss here is my TripleJ and all the nice music. Although it's all available online etc, I simply don't have the time to search for it (plus my laptop went AWOL, so that was all the new stuff I'd collected GONE!).
Boring stuff first - work. I had to go back to Manchester for a massive site migration a few weeks ago (the post hotel posting). From a technical standpoint things went really well, but personality clashes between the boys and the manager of the site made things quite difficult. It was pretty nasty actually. After that we came back to London with the hope of trying to clean everything up before the end of the year. It didn't really happen and the really annoying part of it all is that we've had to basically become shift workers so that we can work nights (obviously so we don't disrupt the business with the migrations). Working nights bloody sux! For some reason it's just stacks more effort, it screws your sleep patterns and you miss out on all the good stuff. Still... every job has bad patches, we just had to push through this one.
Now for the fun stuff - Christmas functions! Our major office Christmas do was on a Wednesday night, but the whole things was complicated by the fact that our recruiting company representative wanted to take us out too. The only time we were all available was the afternoon before the main Christmas party, so that was what we did. We started drinking at 3:30pm or something and I was sort of ok, I paced myself (stuck to the Guinness) until it was time to head to the office bash at approx. 7:30pm. The bash itself was really awesome. There were stacks of people there, the venue was great with party games and stuff inside one big room of a nightclub and someone had actually found females working at our office (it's sausage-fest heaven at our work - all IT nerds). All the guys we'd been working with at the various sites around London and Manchester etc were there too so we got to all catch up. The problem was the there were a couple of girls going around with tequila bandoliers... and yeah... things went downhill VERY rapidly.
Not many of the Deployment team boys can really remember what the hell went on, but we all had a good time! :P I was semi-saved by a mate called Rob from the office who lives in Southfeilds too. At about midnight he told me he was leaving, so I (realising I was totally plastered by this stage - which I'm actually pretty happy about) decided it was a good time to go for me too. I got chauffered home by Rob, so big thanks go out in that department :)
Now to the Ashes!!! so cool!! we caned so bad!!! *strut*
BUT, victory doesn't come without it's price! And as I said earlier, I'm feeling pretty awful at the moment. Working at night, then staying up and listening to it on the web (it started at midnight most nights) has just been killing me! On top of that I've got numerous sms's at 5-6am from a few people which have made me get up and turn it on. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for the sms's as some amazing things have happened (the final day of the second test for example), it's just been quite a testing (get it!!!) time :) I can hear a 12th man type voice saying going: "marvellous joke that, really super stuff" hehe.... (ok, dellusions of grandeur).
In the last few days I've managed to get a bit of sleep, but more importantly I've got the Christmas shopping all done. Whew. Around here Christmas is actually a really nice time. Sure, it's dark by 4pm but there are stacks and stacks of Christmas lights all around the city, it's cold so people rug up and head out to shop at all hours as everything is open... it's pretty cool. Negotiating stores with thousands of shoppers can be a little trying though, and the tubes are packed solid at all hours of the day/night. But there's Christmas trees up in places like Trafalga Square, a giant snowman somewhere in east London, Christmas window displays, outdoor iceskating rinks, mulled wine (yeah, it's gross, but still..) and stacks of other nice things to get you into the spirit.
The other thing which has dominated my shopping expeditions is my impending SNOWBOARDING holidays (yup, holidayS, as in more than one!) which are coming up. Time to 'toughen up buttercup' and get out into -10, -20, maybe even -35 degree weather. In preparation I've bought a nice new ski jacket, I've got some gear off my uncle David (ski pants that come up to my armpits!), socks, snow-resistant-shoes and yup, I even went and bought real-proper-super-gay thermals! Yup, I'm now officially English (apparently everyone has a pair of 'johns') and if anyone really wants to see me in skintight leggings.. well you are in for a treat it you come skiing!
I'm actually all packed tonight (and it's getting late, so I'm ploughing through this blog quickly) to leave for Austria tomorrow (well, it's today now as it's 1am). I'm flying straight into Salzburg and then getting a train up to a town called Zell Am See. It's a small town right on the edge of a massive alpine lake and lots of ski runs. I've been told there's also a glacier 20 mins away which basically guarantees there's somewhere to ski (there's a lot of places which haven't had decent snow falls yet, apparently it's really bad in some low-lying places with no snow at all!). There I'm meeting Damo and Zac for a few days of fun in the snow before Christmas, sort "just cause I can". The flights and accomodation are costing absolutely bugger all.. it's awesome. That will give me 3 days in the snow before heading back to London for Christmas.
After Christmas, it's straight back on it as I head off to Canada on the 26th (Dec) for nearly three weeks. There I will meet up with Brettski, Michelle, Damo and Zac for another full week of snowboarding before heading off to jetset around Canada and see some places. I reckon it's going to be an amazing trip as I've heard all sorts of things from other travellers and almost everyone has great reports. I also get the chance to hang with Ski again and catch up on the stuff all of you are getting up to back home.
After getting back from Canada we've got one week of work in London then it looks like we're off to Paris for most of February, then heading to Brussels. I really hope it comes off this time (some of you may remember there were plans to do it this year, but it all fell through). My sister is due over here for a holiday too in February, so I'm banking of ski trip #3 taking place then (cmon Kath, let's go!). It looks like a big new year coming up for me! If only I could go somewhere warm and sit on a beach as I'm getting insane jealous of all of you and the warm weather.. Trigg beach.. *sniff*
I think that'll do things for now. Hopefully I'll have some nice pics of me in the snow to post when I get back in a few days. Thanks Stoney for the Christmas card (and no thanks to Jen for the note in the email - I will _SO_ kick your arse Jen for that one).
And Happy Birthday Mum for Monday.... (I sent flowers people, no nagging!)
Talk to you all soon!
Aussie-proud-Anka (.. on a snowboard.. wooo!)
It's been ages since my last post so I must apologise to everyone for being boring. Unfortunately the loss of my work laptop has had a nasty consquence in that I've lost a lot of correspondence and partial blog entry posts and now had to re-do them all. I am limping along with a total piece of crap laptop from work (it's one of the ones which is so crap that it just gets passed around to the next unfortunately victim) but have been temped to throw it out the window on more than one occasion.
While my lack of posting is boring, life certainly hasn't been! With January planning kicking off in the last two weeks I've started to get involved in the management of the teams and the individual rollouts. My boss hasn't been around as much as he used to so I've sort of been doing his job which has made things more hectic. In his defence, he's finally been able to work in the office and get some of higher management type stuff sorted, which has been put aside for a long time now. I actually got a cold (first time I've been sick here) and had to take a whole day off work to sleep, so now that makes 3 days off in the last 2 months (well, just under it) - wohoo for working everyday (I just keep thinking of the money). It is getting tiring though so I'm happy we've now finished for the year.
So aside from always working, I've had Christmas functions (3 of them, though one was a double whammy - more on that later), friends birthdays, Christmas shoppings, two farewells (aussies going home), holiday planning, Ashes games to listen to (on the web), and general catching up to fit in. Some of my friends politely let me know that they haven't seen me for over a month... whoops (time flies when you're manic).
Oh, and to all those who remembered my birthday, thank you very much. I know it was ages ago but I don't think I actually said anything before. Special kudos go to Jen for my CD of photos and music - one thing I _really_ miss here is my TripleJ and all the nice music. Although it's all available online etc, I simply don't have the time to search for it (plus my laptop went AWOL, so that was all the new stuff I'd collected GONE!).
Boring stuff first - work. I had to go back to Manchester for a massive site migration a few weeks ago (the post hotel posting). From a technical standpoint things went really well, but personality clashes between the boys and the manager of the site made things quite difficult. It was pretty nasty actually. After that we came back to London with the hope of trying to clean everything up before the end of the year. It didn't really happen and the really annoying part of it all is that we've had to basically become shift workers so that we can work nights (obviously so we don't disrupt the business with the migrations). Working nights bloody sux! For some reason it's just stacks more effort, it screws your sleep patterns and you miss out on all the good stuff. Still... every job has bad patches, we just had to push through this one.
Now for the fun stuff - Christmas functions! Our major office Christmas do was on a Wednesday night, but the whole things was complicated by the fact that our recruiting company representative wanted to take us out too. The only time we were all available was the afternoon before the main Christmas party, so that was what we did. We started drinking at 3:30pm or something and I was sort of ok, I paced myself (stuck to the Guinness) until it was time to head to the office bash at approx. 7:30pm. The bash itself was really awesome. There were stacks of people there, the venue was great with party games and stuff inside one big room of a nightclub and someone had actually found females working at our office (it's sausage-fest heaven at our work - all IT nerds). All the guys we'd been working with at the various sites around London and Manchester etc were there too so we got to all catch up. The problem was the there were a couple of girls going around with tequila bandoliers... and yeah... things went downhill VERY rapidly.
Not many of the Deployment team boys can really remember what the hell went on, but we all had a good time! :P I was semi-saved by a mate called Rob from the office who lives in Southfeilds too. At about midnight he told me he was leaving, so I (realising I was totally plastered by this stage - which I'm actually pretty happy about) decided it was a good time to go for me too. I got chauffered home by Rob, so big thanks go out in that department :)
Now to the Ashes!!! so cool!! we caned so bad!!! *strut*
BUT, victory doesn't come without it's price! And as I said earlier, I'm feeling pretty awful at the moment. Working at night, then staying up and listening to it on the web (it started at midnight most nights) has just been killing me! On top of that I've got numerous sms's at 5-6am from a few people which have made me get up and turn it on. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for the sms's as some amazing things have happened (the final day of the second test for example), it's just been quite a testing (get it!!!) time :) I can hear a 12th man type voice saying going: "marvellous joke that, really super stuff" hehe.... (ok, dellusions of grandeur).
In the last few days I've managed to get a bit of sleep, but more importantly I've got the Christmas shopping all done. Whew. Around here Christmas is actually a really nice time. Sure, it's dark by 4pm but there are stacks and stacks of Christmas lights all around the city, it's cold so people rug up and head out to shop at all hours as everything is open... it's pretty cool. Negotiating stores with thousands of shoppers can be a little trying though, and the tubes are packed solid at all hours of the day/night. But there's Christmas trees up in places like Trafalga Square, a giant snowman somewhere in east London, Christmas window displays, outdoor iceskating rinks, mulled wine (yeah, it's gross, but still..) and stacks of other nice things to get you into the spirit.
The other thing which has dominated my shopping expeditions is my impending SNOWBOARDING holidays (yup, holidayS, as in more than one!) which are coming up. Time to 'toughen up buttercup' and get out into -10, -20, maybe even -35 degree weather. In preparation I've bought a nice new ski jacket, I've got some gear off my uncle David (ski pants that come up to my armpits!), socks, snow-resistant-shoes and yup, I even went and bought real-proper-super-gay thermals! Yup, I'm now officially English (apparently everyone has a pair of 'johns') and if anyone really wants to see me in skintight leggings.. well you are in for a treat it you come skiing!
I'm actually all packed tonight (and it's getting late, so I'm ploughing through this blog quickly) to leave for Austria tomorrow (well, it's today now as it's 1am). I'm flying straight into Salzburg and then getting a train up to a town called Zell Am See. It's a small town right on the edge of a massive alpine lake and lots of ski runs. I've been told there's also a glacier 20 mins away which basically guarantees there's somewhere to ski (there's a lot of places which haven't had decent snow falls yet, apparently it's really bad in some low-lying places with no snow at all!). There I'm meeting Damo and Zac for a few days of fun in the snow before Christmas, sort "just cause I can". The flights and accomodation are costing absolutely bugger all.. it's awesome. That will give me 3 days in the snow before heading back to London for Christmas.
After Christmas, it's straight back on it as I head off to Canada on the 26th (Dec) for nearly three weeks. There I will meet up with Brettski, Michelle, Damo and Zac for another full week of snowboarding before heading off to jetset around Canada and see some places. I reckon it's going to be an amazing trip as I've heard all sorts of things from other travellers and almost everyone has great reports. I also get the chance to hang with Ski again and catch up on the stuff all of you are getting up to back home.
After getting back from Canada we've got one week of work in London then it looks like we're off to Paris for most of February, then heading to Brussels. I really hope it comes off this time (some of you may remember there were plans to do it this year, but it all fell through). My sister is due over here for a holiday too in February, so I'm banking of ski trip #3 taking place then (cmon Kath, let's go!). It looks like a big new year coming up for me! If only I could go somewhere warm and sit on a beach as I'm getting insane jealous of all of you and the warm weather.. Trigg beach.. *sniff*
I think that'll do things for now. Hopefully I'll have some nice pics of me in the snow to post when I get back in a few days. Thanks Stoney for the Christmas card (and no thanks to Jen for the note in the email - I will _SO_ kick your arse Jen for that one).
And Happy Birthday Mum for Monday.... (I sent flowers people, no nagging!)
Talk to you all soon!
Aussie-proud-Anka (.. on a snowboard.. wooo!)
posted by Anthony Hawke at 12:20 am
2 Comments:
Merry Christmas Anka :)
Alright! - now you can count yourself as a world traveller. Merry Chrsitmas! We had a lovely day with all the family then a couple of days in Mandurah, caught 15 crabs one afternoon on the estuary it was totallly sweet.
*arse punch*
Kath
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