Merry Christmas

It's Christmas again :) Wishing everyone a blessed Christmas and exciting new year ahead. To the people down in Christchurch, next year is gonna rock hard! Let's make it a meaningful and memorable final year :D

• i'm happy today because i received an email from a land far away :) being remembered and appreaciated makes my day
  

HOLIDAY!!

So it's the first day of my Christmas/New Year break!! Been quite a fun day today. Was up at 5am and me and some friends head out on the boat to go fishing. Caught two snappers so I was happy, although they were just the size of my palm so we had to throw them back into the sea. I think between 7 of us we caught more than 25 fish altogether. 15 of them were caught by just one person. He literally put his line in the water for 10 second, felt the bite and reeled it in. And that happened a few times. Twice he caught 2 snappers in one go (he had two hooks on his line). And one time, the fish has hooked on its tail. Whats even funnier was that we found the bait still in its mouth..clever little fish thought it could steal and run away with our bait (which happened quite a few time actually..)

The last few weeks has been rather eventful. Auckland was good. Great to catch up with friends that I've not seen for awhile. After Auckland I got dropped off at Waihi and jump in with a group of friends thats going to camp for the weekend in Coromandel. I thought the beach in Tauranga is the best I've seen in NZ so far, but the beaches in Coromandel were absolutely stunning. There is one place called the hot water beach, and you could dig your own spa there. Sadly we got our timing all wrong as we got there during high tide.

WORK, WORK, WORK
Last week of work was quite hectic. Everyone was rushing trying to get work done before breaking off for the holidays. On Monday I was sent to the Norske and Skog site in Kawerau to file the backlog of drawings they had. Was quite a boring job but still good to get out of the office anyways. The rest of the week I was just drawing up the tank details I got from my time in Auckland. Wasn't going too bad at all until Wednesday when I found out all my hard work got deleted. Well my fault I guess coz I saved everything in the Temp folder. But I did check with my bos if he want me to move all the files to the Project Drive but he told me to complete the work first then transfer it to the Project Drive. Whats really gutting is that theres only around 5 drawings(out of 80!!) left to do and I've spent nearly 20 hours doing it! So Thursday and Friday was just quite crazy trying to catch up on that. On Friday we finished at 3 and everyone head to a private club where we had drinks. Had some Steinlager Pure which was absolutely magical. Never tried a beer so smooth and clean before. It is completely free of additives and preservatives and apparently, you won't get a hangover the next day. Didn't drink enough to find that out thought. The end of year drink was pretty cool.. Manage to get to know a few more people. Some really interesting characters in the engineering world. Haha..

LOOKING AHEAD
So it's going to be Christmas again soon. My second Christmas away from home now, but I guess festivities as meant to be celebrated with loved ones. It's ok though, all part of the experience I guess. Next year I'll be home :D!!

So after Christmas I'm going for a road trip/camping trip to Northland. Gonna spend New Year up there and I can't think of better people to spend it with. . Well, theres a few but I'm contented to be able to spend time away with friends. Not really sure whats the activities that we are going to do coz we'll just make it up as we go. What can go wrong when you are in the company of good fun people right? Looking forward to chilling by the beach and doing nothing.

I've calculated that after this break, I'm left with only 1 month of work with BECA. The experience has been good so far but I'm beginning to wonder if I really do want to start my career working as a consultant. Theres definitely lots of plus and minuses to consider but whatever God wants me to do I guess.

Till then, cherio! ;)

It's that time again!

Time for the most anticipated moment of the week!! It's that time again when Raymond updates his blog!! (Yeah right..) Haha.. Gotta say the week has been rather eventful.

The Christmas Function was quite average. Food was ok, drinks were plenty (think the bar tab at the end of the night totaled nearly $4000) the people were average.. Haha.. Guess I'm not assimilated in the Working Adults class yet..

Working life has been good. Came to realise how alcohol is such a big part of the NZ working culture. BECA provides a fridge full of beer every week just for those who wanna chill out after work on Friday. They even have someone responsible to fill the fridge up every Friday morning. Then every once a month, theres this Young Professionals day at the pub just down the road. Someone told me its because some young working people felt that Tauranga is lacking young people so this event was started. I guess free flow of beer does draw young people.

So last week I went down to site twice! Went to Morrinsville to check a chemical storage facility and then to Waihi gold mine. Its great going to site and running way from the office. Way more fun to work in the outdoors. Also, you spend 1-2 hours in the car travelling and still getting paid for it! Haha.. I'm going to be sent to Auckland next week for two days. That should be great fun.
They gonna put me up at this hotel and I get $50/day for food. Haha, yes, I feel important.. Oops, all I've said is my treatment up there. Well, really I'll be working. Going to work with Lion Nathan. They are relocating and merging with another company. All I know is that I'm gonna go down the construction site and do some sketches and measuring some stuff. Not that I care what my task is.. all i know it's two days of holiday and I get to catch up with friends :) so people up in Auckland, I'm coming your way!

I'm beginning to appreciate the weekends more now. Climbed up Mount Mauganui yesterday and today. Haha, yes thats two days in a row. Different company so that makes it all worth it. On Friday went with Tim and some other guys. We started climbing at 8pm so by the time we got up there..it was BEAUTIFUL! The lights from the city and from ships afar and orange skys.. Simply magnificent.. Then today went up there again with Claire. Wasn't quite the same during the day but just as beautiful as well. It's nice just to do something and enjoy being around people who builds you up and encourage you. Quality fun time - LOVE IT!

Oh by the way, as a parting note, I'll leave a picture of my cuisine last week. Miss all the asian food so decided that I would cook myself a treat. Received alot of compliment about it as well. Try guessing what is it. I'm sure it's not that hard ;)

Recent Happenings

It's been a week now since I reached Tauranga. Other than the early morning starts, I guess everything has been pretty good. Been waking up at 7 every weekday now...Not that I could sleep in much longer anyways since sunrise is like 5.30.

Stuff I've done over the last week:

• been compiling a data book on a chemical filling facility. Darn thats a boring tedious job, been doing that for the last four days so today I decided I had enough of it. So today, I started going to the project manager after I did every section he told me to and ask for what should I do next on it. Haha, guess what.. After 3 or 4 rounds of that, he got quite sick of me coz he couldn't do his own work so he told me, "I guess theres really not much you can do on that anymore". Lol.. I was struggling to contain my joy and tried hard not to smile.. Hahaha.. Then I was told to check some calculation on a pressure vessel coz the number doesn't adds up and I manage to find whats wrong ;)
• Hang out at the beach with Tim after church on sunday. Man, the beach stretch for miles and what beautiful waves... Might learn how to surf if i get the chance
• Went to a small group. Quite cool bunch of people. Played touch with some of them today as well. Darn my fitness is real bad. Time to work on it

Stuff to look forward to

• BECA Christmas Function tomorrow! It's at the golf club at the Mount so should be quite posh. Free food...what more can a poor student ask for ;)
• Camping at coromandel? Well, dunno just yet. The small group i went to plan to go i think in 3 weeks time... We'll see how i connect with them over the next few weeks.
• BBQs..BBQs..BBQs..
• Probably gonna head to Auckland for one weekend soon..Would be good to visit some friends especially since its only 2.5 hours away

Well, till then... SEE YA!!

*darn..why did the bullets turn out so girly?!! Anyone know how to change that?
01/12 - bullets corrected.. thanks cy

Tauranga

So I’m now in Tauranga. Tauranga is a really nice place. Weather is awesome most of the time and loving the pace the city live by. Guess I’m really not a big city kinda person.

First day blunders
Work started yesterday. The Tauranga office is really relaxed. I started on Friday (yeah, weird day to start work) and it so happens to be “dress down day”. I put on a polo shirt and jeans as I don’t wanna dress too low on my first day. Some ppl even came to work in t-shirt, shorts and slippers. Thought that was pretty cool. Oh, and you also take your own break and lunch time. Being new I don’t know when is the best time to take a break so I end up not using my two 10 minute breaks. All you need to do is just fill up your time sheet against what project you are working on and the client would be billed accordingly. Kinda funny thinking the client gets billed $30-$40 for an hour of my time. Worth it you think? I certainly don’t think so! Haha..

I’m assigned under the heavy industry team. The first half of the day was pretty boring. Had to read some Work Instruction/Health and Safety thingy and fill up a quiz after that. Did two sets; safety in office and working with hazardous material. Really didn’t want to fail it so I took quite a long time answering the questions. Guess what, I got half of it wrong for the hazardous material one. Haha, but I pass anyways. Guess they pass everyone just as long as you read it up and fill in the quiz. The latter half of the day I was scanning ancient 200 pages worth of engineering drawings. Darn that was boring and frustrating since the big machine was not really in the mood to cooperate. Then I had to scan a project file. Didn’t realize some of the pages were stapled together. Guess it was getting late and I was already really tired. I lined the whole stack of document nicely on the scanner and pressed start. It end up ripping the first few pages apart. Haha… Oh well, it’ll surely get better. Apparently on Monday I’m gonna do some calculation on pipe stresses, some mixing plant project in Auckland. Got no idea how to do it, but it’ll be good. ;)

My first South African Brai
Last night I was invited by Katherine for dinner. Kat’s house is very impressive. Its located on a hill with lots of avocado trees and heaps of farm animals. Felt like I was back at my village, only that it’s way cleaner and tidier here. Those were the days, waking up in the morning and collecting chicken and duck eggs. Anyways, the main event of the night was the Brai. A brai is what South Africans call a barbecue. I just love barbecues. Think I had at least 4 in the last 2 weeks. There was this guy last night, he is just hilarious. He just reminds me how unique kiwi sense of humour is. Just can’t help bursting into laughters everytime he speaks. What a joker!

Seems like it’s going to be a good summer this year… All I need to do is just make a few more contacts at work then it’ll be sweet..

Fart

Came across this while walking around in a mall in Tauranga this afternoon.

"Guys fart on average 14-17 times a day. Girls fart 8 times a day...A healthy person farts 16 times a day... GIRLS!! STOP HOLDING IT IN!!"

Can't help but burst into laughters.. LOL

Disclaimer:
*fact may or may not be true*

The first post!!

Finally succumbing under pressure, Raymond has a blog now!!! How awesome is that? ;) So what do I do from here? What do I post? As you can see, I don’t really know what to do. The layout of the page itself is halfway done. Thought I try my hand on posting an entry as I’m not sure on how to further improve the layout of the page.

Few things to look forward to:

● BBQ tomorrow – more chance to hang out and chill with people I love!!

● Driving up to Tauranga on Tuesday!! Epic journey of more than 12 hours on the road and 3 hours on water..figure that out ;)

● First day at work on Friday!