Hello 2012! ^_^
Many unforgettable happenings and changes in 2011 which has led to my new life now.

No longer single, and haven't been since mid Apr 2011 - my significant other turned out to be the co-worker who was always never far from my mind since I started back in July 2008. Significant other and I have also both left the company within a week of each other and started new jobs, him with GE and myself with Victoria Police. Currently living as the 3rd housemate in their apartment since 1st week December, and both of us will be moving out to our own apartment by February.

Many big changes and decision in 2011. Looking forward to how these will shape my life in 2012 ^_^

Note to self: New Year's resolution - Learning German and continuing with Piano.

Been close to half a year since the last post in this lj.
Work has been a pain and unfortunately, will be again by the end of this month.

To summarize the past months...
In July, our Team Leader decided to take on a new role in our department leaving only two of us in the team. Already way under-resourced, we both shared the duties of our old Team Leader and tried to survive until the promised new team member moved into our team (majority of the team leader duties were left for me to pick-up however 'coz I was the unofficial go to when our team leader was unavailable).
Then manager delayed the new team member's transition for half a month. When she did come, "Yay! Finally new team member!".....was the thought. But after three weeks with the new member (who already knew part of our work since she was from the team who assisted with our calls) we'd almost preffered that it was just us two again. How this new member graduated from uni... is an absolute mystery. In the words of her old team leader "She has the memory of a goldfish. I'm glad to be rid of her" and from one of our colleagues who was preiously in our role: "she's had the most training and support given compared to all the people who were in the role and still she struggles with the most basic?!"

For two and a half month's I stayed in the role+team leader duties until one day one of our colleagues in the Operations team (Ops team) turned in her resignation. Three weeks before her last day, our manager asked me if I was still interested in joining the Ops team and of course I said yes. I'd been wishing to move into a role in our Ops team for over a year by then. Beginning end of August, I was juggling my role+ team leader duties + rushed training for the new role.

Mid September our colleague left and on 17th Sept, I stepped into the new role.
Supposedly I'd received a promotion. The working word is *supposedly* considering the increase in my salary doesn't exactly reflect the whole "your new role is of a higher position with more challenges". Not even going into detail about it as there's no point considering I was so desperate to move out of my old role and into this new one, I didn't have much leaverage for salary negotiations.

Beginning of October, the stress of the past months together with my 50-hour week at work to accomodate my first shot at my new position's "Monthly Reporting" task, finally caught up with me through increasing appetite loss, nausea, insomnia and rapid weight loss. Saw my GP, confirmed that I've worked too much and was also Vitamin D deficient - GP told me to eat lost of fruits and go out. Alright, time for break... no annual leave yet, but I took GP's advice and headed out for some drinks with colleagues - Recovery :)

I've settled into my new role and I like it. The skills that I can develop from this position is more marketable, not to mention it's more suited to my personality and interests - more technical and more client and management facing. Of course now, I experience the whole "Start of the Month" stress with reporting but so far so good and by early October we got a new Team Leader managing both my new team and old one.

But good things come to an end. My collegue in the new team has just handed in her resignation start of this month. Our team leader is new and although she's great... she's not quite hands on - i.e. she can't cover for any of us if we're away. No ad has been sent out for my colleague's position yet, and I can already tell that management is expecting that I'll be looking after her tasks + my work. She has 2 years worth of knowledge and training to pass and I've yet to get exposure to more projects and testing - which is her role's focus.
Again the company is expecting me to perform some miracle.

Can't escape it, but at least I have a team leader who's reasonable and will back me up. Also, I'll put into practice the advice from a senior colleague of mine who said: it's all about managing expectations and communicating to management in black and white terms: "There's only one choice - it's either this goes or that goes - which will it be?"

Oh well, a year or so more in this company, just to get the experience, and maybe I'll follow the mass exodus that my old colleagues began this year.

Been some months since my last post in LJ. Too much RL stuff -_- happening, paticularly work. Haven't been in the mood to post news except now - a day which deserves a memorable post of its own.

After 20 years of wanting one, I now FINALLY have a full-sized 88-key piano!
Am a proud owner of a Yamaha Clavinova CLP340 in polished ebony finish.
It's a digital piano - next best thing to an acoustic one. In economic terms and practicality - this is the best choice at this point in time.

Really enjoying listening to the proper sounds of the notes, with each of the keys' sounds recorded from an actual Yamaha grand piano. It also has the feel of a real piano, with the keys being weighted and it also having all three pedals. The polished ebony finish also makes it an elegant-looking piece of furniture.

I've got a few songs which I've learned through my old keyboard, but playing them on my clavinova and using the additonal features has me relearning the pieces again. Not to mention my fingers need some strengtheing up - with the keys now having weight. Before it was "press" the key, now it's "strike". Piano playing sure is exhausting now ^^;

To give my fingers a break, I think I'll end this post here for today.

Just before heading out today, a man claiming to be from the energy company AGL appeared in front of our door inquiring about a possible change in our electricity use and wanted to discuss the matter. He asked if I was the person on his list of account holders and it just so happens that it was me... my full name and address. *SHOCK*

Now, I've always lived with my parents here in OZ and have never held a household bill in my name. Not to mention, that our electricity billers has not been AGL since residing in this address (an info we were not aware of until later when mom confirmed with us). Older sis and I told him that no way would the account be in my name & it would be in our dad's name, as per the reasons above, and wanted to understand how in the world my name was on his list. He answered that he was puzzled himself and that the list came from their office. We then requested that he provide a phone number which we would use to contact the company to discuss the biller name issue, but he completely brushed it aside and said that it could all be rectified once he could speak to our dad and get his details. Dad was out shopping which we informed him about and he said that he would return in two hours and left. (The man was wearing an AGL shirt, holding papers with the AGL logo and had what looked to be like an ID turned around hanging on a lanyard on his neck).

Unfortunately, twin sis and I were in a hurry to catch our train which was why we couldn't interrogate him more. Had I had more time, I would've gotten his name, contact number, requested for ID and demanded explanations.
Returning home from our outing, older sis informed us that the man did not return at all, contrary to his words.

... Dodgy?

Now, I work in company that deals with people's personal information and have also just had a workshop in Privacy. My work involves matters that have involvement in identity theft and fraud, so I may be somewhat more sensitive when it comes to others having my personal details, especially if I cannot trace any connection between myself and them. Of course, they can get people's information from public listings and other sources, but the main thing is.... how in the world did my name appear as an account holder for a household utility service when I've always lived with my parents and it has always been in their names? Not to mention, us not using this company as a credit provider for the past 8 years.

From now on, our family will be stepping up our scrutiny of all door-to-door enquirers. Also, I am off to check my credit reports and add some sort of alert to try and prevent any possible identity fraud.

Yes, it's no joke at all. Some individual finally cracked it and decided to try and blow the company I work for to kingdom come, sending a fake bomb to our building in our level 8 office. (Well, considering it was fake, scaring our personnel and inconveniencing our operations were the results).

Just a little before 2pm EADT the fire alarm in our building went off. Some thought it was a fire drill, others thought it was the workers downstairs causing some problems again (burst water pipe last week), while another guess was someone trying to sneak a smoko inside the building since their smoking area has become off limits with the renovations.

My colleague in charge of emergencies called our Admin manager to ascertain what was happening and the next thing we were hearing was "Evacute! Everyone Evacute! It's no drill".
From last year's fire emergency experience, we quickly got our cellphones and bags and evacuated the building. Being right next to the emergency exit, we were down from the 6th floor fairly quick.

Before we could get to our allocated emergency spot, as few buildings down, our OD (org devlp't) manager called out to all of us to move onto the park behind our office. There we were trying to work out what was the actual cause of the emergency evacuation. Being well connected with the other people from our other departments, my other colleague quickly found out the cause. Considering that the department who received the *package* is pretty connected to our own department, it wasn't long before we started remembering certain *special people* and created a **possible** list of suspects.

Our top three were (in no particular order):
- Drunk/drugged, sweaty man who came and terrified our reception last week with his complaints, demands and large suspicious bag.
- Mental lady who came to our office several times last year with her unreasonable demands and bogus assumptions. (She thinks she's being monitored by some group of people therefore would not discuss anything on the phone. Later I found in the documents she provided us a scrap of paper with a note along the lines of a free mental/psychological assistance facility)
- Freaky, abusive, threatening, rude man on the phone two weeks ago, using a digital voice, demanding we provide the information he wants immediately or else he will come down to our office with police in tow.

Well, we definitely had police, detectives and possibly a bomb squad in our level 8 office today. They eventually, worked out that it was a fake bomb (though I heard mentions of fertilizer) and allowed us back into the office by 4pm. Although level 8 was still off limits for investigation. Some people had already gone home before 4:00 ...management advising that we could go. Us, too busy sharing with each other our experiences with *difficult* people - as prompted by the situation ... stayed back until we were back in the office again and resumed operations.

Being famous for my "workaholicness" my colleague commented that I finally got a bit of a break. Jokingly, I told my colleague..."well, it seems that it takes a bomb threat to get me to stay away from work".

Arrived back home this morning via Singapore Airlines from Osaka->Singapore->Melbourne.
First flight was excellent as the plane was only about 2/3 full and generally those flying with us where still Japanese people. Touch down in Changi airport and we we're back to hearing English non-stop with the flight back to Melbourne being just crap in the A380, took twice as long to board, disembark, not to mention the 45-minute delay caused by 6 passengers not checking-in and having to extract their luggage from our plane - only reason we remained patient was due to knowing how much of a hassle it is for the airport staff having to re-calculate the weight distribution and everything - thanks Yamada Yugi and your manga.

Feeling exhausted and trying to adjust to Aussie food again, not to mention the weather. Fortunately the heat wasn't too bad and it's cooled down some tonight. Not looking forward to Monday though... back to work with a temp of 41 degrees.

Good thing I've got the weekend to re-adjust - got tons of cleaning and re-arranging to do in my room. Bought quite a number of manga, clothes and whatever else which are still yet to fully arrive when our four seamail packages get to us in 2 months.

Being back in Japan was great... actually, needed. The trip to Gifu-prefecture for onsen-ryokan was an absolute delight.

Details and pics... later to come.

Still not completely done packing =_= and our flight's this afternoon.
Blaming everything on work considering I've been doing overtime continuously since mid-November. Was even in on a Saturday for four hours just so I could ease off overtime last week, but of course that didn't happen and I was still in the damn office for 10 hours on some days.

Anyway, better get out of bed now and get some breakfast of brunch and complete the packing (sorry room, I couldn't clean you).

Will be spending X'mas in Gifu Prefecture enjoying Onsen Ryokan. And we'll be welcoming the New Year together with some of our fave seiyuus in the Gundam 00 event. Busy, busy schedule - alot of days trips and back and forth between Osaka & Tokyo.

Berocca - you better do your job.

I'm supposed to be filling out my internal application and updating my resume for the new vacant position in our company, but brain's not up to it this evening so...(making Wed my deadline)...so I'm doing some productive procrastination (hopefully helpful).

In an attempt to help out a friend, been searching the web for a courier/door-to-door parcel/luggage service from Australia to Japan. Australia Post is an idiot and has removed their Seamail service to Japan, so have to look for an alternative. Unfortunately, there's barely any other alternative. The Japanese one's I've found are 90% moving overseas even after and the one I found previously during my exchange - http://www.economovejapan.com/ barely has any info for stuff TO JAPAN.

Only two AUS companies came out of my 1.5 hour-long search: (Japanese ones weren't helpful and focused more on moving OUT of Japan
http://www.cubeit.com.au/cubeit/city_melbourne_en/freight/to-japana.php
http://www.discountfreight.com.au/index.php
The only other I can think off would be DHL - http://www.dhl.com.au/publish/au/en/services/mail_services/globalmail_parcel.high.html

*@ 12:23am - Note to Self: Have now booked the last 6 nights at Chisun Hotel Shin-Osaka*

Enjoyed the night out with a 焼肉 dinner at an authentic Japanese restaurant called TAKUMI in Melbourne CBD. Got an invitation from a friend who's off to Japan in less than 2 weeks and enjoyed it with others who came.

The atmosphere was great, the food was perfect for the price paid - excellent Wagyu beef. Service was top notch as if in Japan. The only draw back was the time limit of 2 hours as they seem to be always completely booked out with their limited tables. We're the type to take 3 hours when eating out with an additional 2 hours in some cafe later on to continue our catch ups. A shame there weren't any cafes open at night in the area we're at.

どうしても触れたくない had me joining yoneda_kou community and had me near to ordering the manga online (thought to wait since I'll be in K-books in 2 months). I adored the story, the characters and the angst, and am looking forward but also dreading to listen to the drama CD. Very excited and satisfied that Shima is being voiced by Nojiken, Ishikawa Hideo-san should be fine as Togawa... but I don't think my heart's yet prepared for the heavy angst Nojiken will be sounding out of my earphones.
Doushitemo & her other works had lured me to her story-telling and art, but the real clincher would be her doujinshi sequel to Doushitemo with the side character Onoda and Deguchi ...I lament that they didn't have someone else younger voice Onoda (but you're still my 帝王, 森川さん... .
Page 22 of her doujin After 9 hours totally just broke my *heart* *sob* *sob*...
Yoneda-sensei's work doesn't rely on dramatic language or ostentatious aesthetics. Her dialogues like her art is deceptively simple. But with her masterful execution of view angles and exceptional paneling, she takes your breath away and has you unconsciously riding a whirlwind of emotions.
Yoneda-sensei's works will definitely be proudly occupying my bookshelves very soon.
ヨウネダコウ's ｂlog：　http://dororororo.blog92.fc2.com/