Just got back from the Grampians National Park yesterday. Above is one of the pictures I snapped from Boroka Lookout. It’s one of my favourite photos from the trip. Heh, it’s amazing what you can take with better equipment.

Below is another of my favourites, the Silverband Falls. It’s described as the waterfall that disappears in the brochures. Heh, it quite literally does as you see a puddle of water at the base of it and you wonder where all the water flows to.

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This trip round, it was same as old times, heh. Me in the passenger seat of Jack’s car, only it’s his younger brother Jerome in the driver’s seat now. My duties as navigator has been passed onto the wonderful invention known as GPS where a tiny little touch screen device gives you exact turns after you key in the destination coordinates. It knows exactly where you are at the moment, and gives friendly reminders when you are slightly over the speed limit.

I can’t remember how it was like the previous trip but climbing up to the Pinnacle, I was sweating heaps even at 11 degree temperatures. I had a little difficulty keeping up, and at first I thought it was signs of me getting old, but then I recall the half chicken I had for lunch.

Jerome has not been to the Grampians. For me, it was more an opportunity to test out my photography skills. The 12-24mm and 70-300mm are a good combo of lenses. Both fit snugly in my camera bag and I managed to frame my pictures within those focal lengths. For trips where landscapes are plenty, you either want your lens to be wide enough to cover the entire scene from where you are standing, or long enough to zoom into the interesting bits. Both lenses are not the best optically, but for the weight and size, they were good enough. I now know what a pain it must be for landscape photographers needing glass to be sharp throughout the entire frame. A tripod is also a must to get the base ISO setting to extract the most detail from your scene. Shooting in RAW format would have given me better options in post production, especially if you want to print larger photos (A4 is large by my standards) as you can tweak the individual colours of each object so that they blend together.

Brought my tripod along but didn’t use it. Heh, if this was a purely photographic trip, I’d have put more effort into setting up the shot but feel I got some nice pictures in the process. I do feel I have gone up a notch in composition and style. Post processing skills also help you get the colour and feel that you want to achieve. Heh, I’m happy with the subtle improvements I’ve learned over the past 2 years.

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Back to the quiet apartment and trying to fill out job applications. Heh, my notes for the CFA program arrived this morning and there are 6 books to cover. I have a little over 120 days to cram for this paper and fortunately I’m familiar with some of the topics covered. Heh, I’m still a little skeptical about my ability to get 80% of the multiple choice questions correct but it’s not really an option to fail either. So hopefully with Vyanne’s help (she’s taking the paper too), I might be able to pass this test.

I should look forward to when it ends. Heh.

Been wanting to cook this mushroom pasta. The above consists of king oyster mushroom, swiss brown mushrooms, fresh shitakes and bits of dried porcini mushrooms. I never realised that mushrooms could hold such aromas and flavours. Heh, the water infused by soaking dried porcini mushrooms smells similar to Campbell’s mushroom soup. Yum.

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Feeling a little more upbeat about interviews. Just piling on the job applications and waiting for phone calls. Didn’t quite make it in the previous job interview I was hoping on. Wasn’t quite expecting some questions and was not in the right frame of mind to answer them. I guess with all things, practice makes perfect. The response has been that my resume looks impressive enough for a face to face meeting. Now I just need to be able to market myself to a prospective employer. It may sound simple enough in interview tips but you really need to think it through and show what you are good at. Even if you have no experience with something, you just need to show that you are willing to learn and how you’d overcome those shortcomings.

Taking a side detour to the Grampians with Jerome tomorrow. It’s been 5 years since I’ve been there. Heh, bringing my 12-24 and the 70-300 as they fit snugly into my camera bag. The last time I was at the Grampians, I had my 35mm Nikon film camera and no knowledge other than just point and shoot. Hopefully I will bring back some more interesting pictures this time.

This is my current style of photography. I am a little more conscious on the framing, less needing to crop photos. Taking simple images and recolouring it to fit my purposes. Heh, being able to restyle the picture helps give it a little more impact. It’s just one of my characteristics I can imbue on an image I suppose.

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Vyanne’s started her temp job, which leaves me idle to do various other stuff. Functioned like a robot on Monday, just doing chores and various little things. Was very productive.

Popped by to an interview yesterday. It’s for a company I’d like to work for, and I’m hopeful they’d consider me eventhough I’m not a perfect match. Heh, I doubt anyone can be a perfectly matching candidate. I’d just like to move away from a processing/administrative role, to something a little more analytical. I lack financial modelling experience, which is in vogue now for the jobs I’d like to do. The next job I pick up would likely be something I’d be doing for another 2 or 3 years, and I’d prefer if the job was something I’d wake up in the morning, and be glad to get out of bed and head to. Just keeping my fingers crossed and praying about it constantly.

Today I think I fizzled out from all the excitement. Muscles still aching from the gym session on Monday and the 6km run yesterday. I guess it used to be worse as I’d hurt so much and it was so cold I could lie in bed until the sun set again. Heh.

Made a side bet with my New Zealand friend today. If he does arrive on Melbourne shores in December, we will be competing to perform 100 pushups consecutively. I was curiously reading about it online today and just as an incentive, the person who cannot do it will need to buy the other dinner ($25 in value). Heh, provided of course, the other person can reach 100 pushups. There are plenty of loopholes in the bet, not being sure what to do if both of us can accomplish it or not at all. Anyway, it’s just fun to give it a try.

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Reading about the news of the world doesn’t really give one much comfort. Heh, I could probably go on and on about financial markets, climate change, political uneasiness in various regions, but I prefer to be optimistic about things. There are the little things that make all the difference in life that one can be happy about. These days, I’d happily pour out my ideas and thoughts to any who would listen. Penning it to paper (or rather blogging it to cyberspace in this instance) doesn’t seem to have the same calming effect. I guess it’s just engaging in conversation that is relaxing. Heh, will work towards that.