18 til I Die

And I feel the self destruct mode kicking in already. U know, the theory of staying the hell away from things that can do you alot of good, but robs you of the ability to shield yourself from that very same thing that may also hurt you. Yeah, I definitely sound confused. I guess I need time to think, instead of just spilling my guts like some goddam drama queen.Somehow, has anyone ever felt that they loved more than they got back? Is it sumhow measurable with our invisible burettes or flasks? I felt kinda ignored today. Somehow. By that single little act, knowingly or unknowingly. Ah, whatever. It’ll go away tomorrow. Unless it doesn’t, then warning bells should sound.

My room in KL looks so bare. I’ve packed most of what my lazy ass was willing to haul in the journey from my ground floor room to my car in the porch. I guess it’s an end to this chapter, "Life at 16". And it’s not 16 as in ‘years old’  (i wish!) but 16 as in ‘house number’. The walls have seen many goings-on, from arguments to kisses, from burning the midnight oil to laidback magazine reading… I sometimes classify my life into different periods according to where I stay.. like the Tengkera time, Jln Baru time, Ujong Pasir time (to present), and in KL, the old hostel time, 17th floor condo time, penthouse time, kang hui’s house time, 21st floor time, to now. But soon, the ‘now’ will become ‘then’, as I go back to Kang Hui’s place to bunk for a month.

Met an old friend at the Christmas dinner the other day; she caught me at a really wrong time.. while I was stretching the laws of physics trying to pile more than is humanly possible on my plate. Naturally I was distracted. But I made up for it by going over to her table later. Heehee.

Let’s NOT talk about work. For once.

I’m seriously feeling abit woozy now. Must have been all the standing in the rain yesterday waiting for QianYi’s car to be fixed. But if I take an MC, my senior will kill me. There’s only two of us, as it is. Or could I just be hungry? But there’s no time to prepare anything. The guy should be here soon…

I cant wait for the weekend. Nevermind that the last one just passed two days ago. This weekend’s different because I have 3 days instead of 2 (oh thank you Jesus! and i mean it literally) and because I’m lugging ass back to Melaka. It’s about time my clothes got a proper wash and iron. Haha. Plus there’s a Christmas dinner to attend organized by my aunt’s church. I’m only going because if mom can be persuaded to go to such events, I’m good as well. Major attraction for me would of course be the food, seeing as I’ve been experiencing deprivation of really good meals lately.

Oh, the dude’s here. Ta.

To deserve being sent all the way into the deepest nook of Shah Alam to audit a company selling construction materials. Examine invoices for sacks of cement is not that bad, but what’s worse is that this is the first year it’s being audited… this means no format of working papers from past years to use when doing our audit. Me, a mere VT, have to design the test of control and audit procedures! By myself! *collapse* I have to stay up late tonite to figure sum stuff out so I don’t look stupid in front of the client and my senior. Imagine.. I didn’t know what an aged receivable is, and what its used for. I think I used to know, but that was for my Accounting B exam which was last year. So the whole day I was applying a universal rule my EY colleague taught me, "Dunno also act like you know."

We left Shah Alam at 630 and my senior dropped me off at the firm around 7plus where I’d parked my car. But I was not to go home for another 2 hours as I saw Qianyi unable to start her car. So accompanied her til AAM came and lent her some dosh for a new car battery.

off to do some prep for tomorrow. Ta.

If you heard me crying, you would understand, wouldn’t you? How about if I was yelling? Would you hear the unspoken beneath the spoken? Even after so long, I still believe you would. Funny isnt it? Maybe because what I’ve learnt these past few months have drastically opened my eyes to a different way of things. I’ll bet you’ve changed, I have too. I chose this road, and I’ll walk it to the end. But I wasn’t all that bad, was I? I mean, in between the pain, there was laughter, wasn’t there? And jokes, and tickles, and hot milo. You can’t say I didn’t give, can you? Maybe it wasn’t enough, but it wasn’t none at all right? Oh well. No point dwelling on what was not meant to be.

Now I worry I’m getting things wrong all over again, is it too fast, too much said, too little said, too many misunderstandings. But as my colleague said, "You learn from every experience. Every single painful one, and you just can’t fight it. You just have to go with the flow." Yeah thats what I’ll do then. Just go with the flow, see where it takes me. Not that I was good at swimming against the current anyway.

I’ve finished my engagement with UOB, finished with doing tests of controls, finished with taking the LRT to UOB’s branch in Masjid Jamek, finished with driving to another branch next to Menara MPPJ. I can only hope now for a good evaluation from my senior.. but it was fun working with the team. I preferred working in the PJ branch than the KL one though, prolly because the people in PJ are much more friendly. There’s this dude in the KL branch that I detest, this old geezer whose official designation I think is ‘Head of the Office Boys’ cause thats all he does, order the two office boys around, and spends the rest of his time ogling at the picture of the nude squat girl in the papers the past whole week. How all-encompassing his job scope is.

The MNG sale has started, and so far, I’ve been to the Pyramid and One Utama branches but I’ve only seen one thing that I could see myself buying. It’s the handbag we got shirley for her birthday, except that it’s in black. If the bag’s still on my mind when I wake up tomorrow morning, I’ll head to the mall to get it.

Tuesday marked the last of the events that I’m ever gonna organize for MUSA. It was the appreciation party, and true enough, although I’d ordered for 100 people, only 60 turned up in the end. Didn’t really matter that much though, since there was more beer for everyone and the entertainment was good in the Magical Theatre restaurant. Wish this place was around when I was organizing the O-Nite in Sem 1 this year.

I’m craving for the ‘pan mee’ in the corner shop in uni. Yes, I think I’ll go now.

It means ‘x-perience’ actually. This past week has seen me doing so many things I’ve not done before. And it has totally changed my view of those we call ‘auditors’.  A big myth debunked: -

Myth: Auditors do the accounts of a company. First big myth debunked at our orientation. Auditors do not prepare the accounts, they verify them. But of course it’s obvious that they need to have a thorough understanding of accounting to be able to comprehend the convoluted financial reports the client churns out everyday. (And the reports arent those standard stuff you read from textbooks; it differs by industry and there are hundreds of reports besides the big 4 we study-P/L, I/E, CF, BS) So far, as my first client is a bank, I’ve been looking at daily reconciliations, cash and cheque balancing, daily balance sheets etc etc. Us auditors were given a room to work in, and as days went by the room became full of papers and files. Wondering why? Basically, to do our tests (simple terms, analysis) of controls (in simple terms, bank procedures, we need the documents. We are doing it for 9 months, and we need the daily reports for each day. Each auditor needs on average 5 types of reports per day. Multiply that by the days in a month and then by 9 months, then multiply it by 5 (number of auditors in the team), and there you are. My job is pretty menial too, I get to get down on my knees (in my smart jacket and pantyhose) and scrabble among the storeroom boxes where the documents are stored. Then I get to climb flights of stairs with the boxes up to the highest floor of the bank where they keep the auditors. (i dont know if they purposely did it or wat)

One thing though was kinda clear, it does seem like a thankless job. Imagine coming in early, leaving late.. and whats worse, most of the time people see you as a nuisance. Going around asking questions, bugging for this report and that report, basically poking our noses into every process that goes on, asking more questions…And HORROR if any figures dont tally, we will bug the client until we get a satisfactory answer… (know from my current personal experience) But too bad, we’re here to stay. As long as statutory audit is required under Malaysian law. Hahahahaha…….

On weekdays, 8 hours of my time belong to EY. On weekends, they technically belong to me, but most of it belongs to ’sleep’, ‘eat’ and ’shopping’. Saturday was spent with the former two… it was good to just laze about doing nothing for once.. J and I saw an explosion take place in the quarry opposite his apartment, we ordered delivery service from Setapak and the Lagoonview cafe, watched Initial D again.. laughed at the same parts, cursed at the same ppl..

Today was at One Utama for a record 7 hours.. had afternoon tea at Bakerzin, the new deli on the ground floor beside CK or sth.. I had this heavenly piece of work called Jivara while J had the Black Forest. I swear I will never be satisfied with any other Black Forest EVER. The place is quite chic, and the price of the lattes and such are cheaper than Starbucks, though the cakes are not. But I dont care, I’ll pay for that piece of heaven again… Apparently the whole mall is on sale, both of us got a pair of pants each from Armani Exchange.. was quite disappointed with the FCUK store though, which was the reason I was there in the first place.. thanks to Sam who gave me notice about the major sale… 

It’s raining.. gee.. I missed the rain… oh well time to get rest… have to be up by 630 tomorrow.. its EY training for new associates and VTs for me at 830am.. ta.. I sound quite boring huh.. haha..

Going to EY has really expanded my vocabulary. I’ve now about 6 types of definitions of ‘independence’ in my head, thanks to yesterday’s and today’s firm-wide orientation. We must be interests independent of the client’s, be it financial, yada yada.. then independent of other influences.. the list goes on. I’ve heard so much of what NOT to do, I really am not sure if I should do what I think I should do. I’ve also heard a LOT of what TO DO, and I also dun know if I’m doing it right.

Today was Business casual Friday, but to my observation, most of the people ignore it and come in business attire anyway.. cos the business casual code is so rigid that some people just dun friggin care. Since I was wearing a skirt, I had to wear this long waist length panty hose. It was pretty clingy, but I could still bear with it. Until it TORE. And at a very mortifying spot too. Yeah, right at my butt. I think I must’ve sat down too hard on it and it tore. Or maybe I just have a big butt. Anyway, it was hidden from public view, still I felt so self-conscious, feeling my butt to see if the tear did get any bigger. But it didnt so, ..phew.. nobody knows except me and well, all of you.

I got to use my security card today. Haha. I think people can tell between the newbies at the firm and the seasoned ones. The newbies wear the EY lanyard and security card wherever they go, even for lunch at the mamak. And they’re actually quite puffed up about wearing it. 

I think the difference is that one is American English while the other is British English. But I can’t be assed to know which is which. All I know is that it means the same, i.e, "Yes!" "Thank God!" or "luckily"… My results this semester were pretty surprising considering I was still in MUSA, and frankly they’re the best I ever got in my 2 years in Monash. I think my mum nearly wept when she saw 2D’s and 2HD’s on my WES screen. Honestly, I nearly wept too. This means extra 2k spending money from the scholarship. Digicam here I come…

Today was my first day at the firm, and I think I overdressed. I was one of the very few there in blazers. But I think that situation’s gonna change as the rest are gonna turn up with one soon. I mean, who wants to look the sloppiest, even if sloppiest means collared shirt and skirt/pants? Why did I we (QianYi and I) have to join the industry with such a regulated dress code? And woohee, we happen to be in the division that audits another industry with even worse (read: practically dictatorial) dress codes… ie… Global Financial Services.. banks and such..