Wow. So observation. Very deep.

Observation of the week: if somebody's asking you on a Thursday what you've got planned for the weekend (completely out of context, and not in a 'how about you spend it with me?' kind of way), chances are that this person and yourself aren't exactly soulmates.

Word of the Day: Soulmates

The Gold-en Age.

For no discernible reason, I was just sitting here, drinking my ritual pre-gym huge glass of skim milk, at my desk, in front of my computer, when I felt a sudden nostalgic desire to play Pokemon Gold.

For no discernible reason, this also made me very sad.

Probably because I remember how back in the day, in Grade 6 or whatever it was, my life was primarily divided between Pokemon Gold, school, and homework. The latter two didn't concern me in the slightest, and it was all fun and easy. School was basically just friends and games, with a few jerks. Homework was learning my times tables. Pokemon was Pokemon (and still is Pokemon) i.e. awesome.

School has now been replaced by work, where I have a lot of friends, but you also run into quite a number of jerks, or people you'd rather not spend hours and hours and hours (and hours) with.

Homework is now Taxation Law. Income tax, CGT, FBT, T.T. I don't get it. At school, up until about Year 10, I just got things.

And Pokemon Gold. I've sort of upgraded to HeartGold. I like what they've done with those games. They're sort of more or less the same, just kind of spruced up.

Problem is, I can't even find the stupid DS right now.

Or it might be the music.

http://youtu.be/pfIrjx19p90

Word of the Day: Gold

If I were a rabbit.

It's amazing how often the behaviour of the house behind me highlights some of the most annoying things that people can do.

Right now, they're listening to whiny American 'rock' 'music' on full blast. While vacuuming. And swearing conversationally at each other.

That's just RIGHT NOW. On a frequent basis, they:
- Jump around in their pool screaming. At 11 at night.
- Get screamed at by the household matriarch in their garden.
- Pump stupid club music until well into the morning, whilst screaming tunelessly along with a few hundred of their teenage friends.

No wonder their rabbit continually runs away to our side of the fence.

Word of the Day: Rabbit

Wedding season.

Lots of wedding photos on my Facebook feed this weekend. Off the top of my head, I count five 'friends' that have attended weddings this weekend.

And those are just the ones that have chucked photos on Facebook.

I don't know really know what my point is, other than to remark on this sudden spike in people posting photos of other people's weddings on Facebook.

Come my turn to attend a wedding, I'm going to post so many that I'm going to break Facebook. Then they'll all be sorry.

Vengeance will be mine.

Word of the Day: Vengeance

Happy one year.

365 days ago, I started full time work.

Nothing really prepares you for it. Even vac work, working full 8-hour days for four weeks, didn't really get me ready for it. It wasn't until I was well and truly stuck in that it sort of sunk in, that this full-time work thing was for, more or less, the next 40 years.

It seems stupid when I put it out there, but there it is. There's some kind of Chinese proverb/wise Mum saying that my mum often says, which goes something along the lines of:

"Everyone knows that a cut on the arm is painful. But you don't truly know what the pain feels like until you've been cut."

Given all of that, a year of 9-to-5, five week days would've been a bit of a shock to the system. Especially coming out of uni, where starting at 10 and finishing at 4 was considered a long day, and not having at least one day class-free was considered by many to be some kind of human rights infringement.

I won't bore you with all the details, but suffice to say it's been much more than 9-to-5, five week days. In more ways than one. The hours, the experiences.

And just when you think you've almost got a handle on the whole work-life thing, CA starts.

And now you have to re-adjust that equation to work-life-study. It ends up looking more like work-life-study.

I've learned an incredible amount, and I've been thrown in the deep end more times than I can count. The two probably go hand-in-hand a little bit. The number of times that I've done work, and seen somebody a couple of years more senior sign off on last year's equivalent is getting more and more frequent.

I'd like to think it's made me stronger. The truth is, I don't really know. Technically, professionally, and auditing-ly, most definitely yes. Physically and emotionally, I'm starting to feel a little bit drained. I think this is what burnout feels like.

Especially from the start of January, it's just been go-go-go. Not even client to client. More client (not really finished) to client (not really finished) to client. I'd rather be busy-ish than have absolutely nothing to do, for a variety of reasons. One, it means people are liking what you're doing. Two, doing nothing gets boring pretty quickly. Three, if you're not doing, you're not learning.

But I would've liked a couple of days of nothing somewhere along the line. Or even an easier client. Not even to do nothing, but just to do some admin stuff.

When you're on a bad run, nothing works. The client this week was supposed to be pretty good, and out in Dandenong. Just a one weeker, nothing major, and close to home.

Nek minit, client not ready until Thursday, working from the office. Looks like it's going to be a mad scramble to the end on Thursday and Friday.

I'm planning on booking a few weeks of leave for later in the year. No idea what I'm going to do with it yet, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

It could've been worse. I have friends in other industries that get worked much, much harder. Heck, I have friends at other clients that get worked much, much harder.

Still doesn't stop me from feeling slightly burned out though.

At least I've got two CA subjects in my pocket now. It feels like I'm limping through them, but if I can pull that off for the next three, I'd be over the moon. I'm calling it now, drinks on me.

A major plus is that I've met some fantastic people. Not only people from my level, but people from other levels as well. The great thing about rotating through a number of teams is the variety of people you get to meet, and if you don't like them, or if they don't like you, you're rid of them for a long time. And if you do happen to get along, there are ways of keeping in touch.

I've also worked on some pretty cool clients, and travelled to some pretty cool places. Well, cool places being Perth. Sydney not so much. Mainly because of the workload.

To bring it full-circle (for the first time in months uncounted, HR have managed to nail something, and probably by accident), I met the buddy that's been assigned to me today. Youthful vitality is refreshing. I'll try and keep it for a bit longer.

Word of the Day: Circle

Knacked.

I don't think I've ever been so glad to reach the end of a working week.

I don't even know why. I've definitely had tougher workloads, more difficult problems to solve, worser people to deal with.

 Suffice to say that the euphoria of last Friday has definitely, definitely worn off.

Word of the Day: Suffice