makumaro.net

Personal Reboot

Haven’t had much net access the past few days and it’s a good thing I feel. Not trying to cram in every little morsel of detail means I have time to think about other things and not just absorb information.

I’ve been banging out posts on my Eee PC, and I’m not sure if they will see the light of day. Heh, haven’t even posted details on my Adelaide trip, and things tend to get lost when they sit idle for too long.

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It’s been an interesting week, not having routines and meeting different people gives you insight into things from a different perspective. I’ve been quite content with myself over the past few months (or at least, since I’ve started working) and I’m starting to slide into complacency again.

Failed my CFA paper. I sort of half expected it, with my mind going downhill the last week before the exam, suddenly becoming muddled with the enormous syllabus. Heh, knew I should have followed my instincts when I was against taking the paper 2 years ago. I studied but slackened off towards the end. It wasn’t something I was keen on doing. No one but myself to blame on this.

Was adamant I do not want to retake the paper. Heh, not so sure of that now, but I will give it some thought over the next couple of weeks.

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I’m not quite sure how I’ve managed to graduate from university but there was a glimmer of hard work and brilliance back then. I need to start fresh and really tackle the marathons of life. Like my 100 push up scheme with my friend (failed that and managed only 50, but that was due to a sore shoulder which I’m not quite sure has fully healed) and the failure to pass this CFA exam seems to indicate that I have turned soft (only 35% passed this year, down from 39% the previous year, but that’s just an excuse not to pass it).

Need to prove to myself again that if one sets their mind to it, they can accomplish anything. Have the 14.1km run coming up in April, I need to discipline myself to be able to finish that within a set amount of time.

So starts my belated New Year’s resolutions, unless of course I’m starting from the Year of the Ox. If I’m not perspiring from the things I do, I’m not trying hard enough. So there it is, a simple resolution to keep for the next 300 or so days. Hopefully I keep on track.

Bad Keeper of Time

As much as I try, I don’t pack very well for trips. My flight is in 6 or so hours, and I’ve not really packed much stuff yet. Waiting for a shipment of cherries to go into my luggage that will be at the base of it, before I can pile anything else on. Heh, not bringing too much stuff back, and I’ve promised colleagues I’d bring food back for them, so there’s a new challenge. (Edit: Or so I thought, I’m stuffed to the brim on weight allocation.)

This is the first time I’ve bought more than the few odd dollars worth of gifts to be distributed. I have a booty of 6 loaves of bread, 20 bars of Cadbury chocolate (which you can find in Malaysia, but using a different grade of milk, it tastes very different), some honey, jam and the cherries mentioned. I have no idea whether everything will make it back home unscathed, but trying to reduce the hassle doesn’t seem to sit well with my current self.

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Any plans back home? Other than the usual binging (I have recently come to the conclusion that weight gain is like the consumer price index, aka CPI/inflation, you will never be able to escape it and there will be periods in a year where you are in a festive mood and consume more than your poor body can burn off, hence, a 3 to 4% gain of weight after it’s all over) on local food, visiting relatives and maybe a few friends, I don’t think I will be doing very much else.

I didn’t manage to tidy the room the 1 1/2 weeks that Vyanne wasn’t here. Heh, different things sought my attention at the time.

Heh, just waiting for dinner to happen so I can continue cramming all the stuff into my luggage. At least mom gave some good advice to always prepare a packing list. Hopefully I don’t forget anything.

Whither This Blog?

A few more days and I’ll be home. Heh, going back to KL and for the first time it won’t be familiar surroundings. Mom has moved to a new house and there’s a new pup August which I’m yet to meet. Always interesting what my reaction is to new things.

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As for the title, it’s that time of the year again when I have to consider what I am going to do with it. Heh, for a couple of years I have considered switching providers, but there is the hassle of transferring my domain name to the new provider and any unforeseen hiccups that might happen along the way that I wish to avoid. I sometimes wonder what this characteristic flaw is about, avoiding trouble at all costs instead of doing what it takes to get something I need done.

Heh, not much wrong with the current provider, although I’d prefer a snappier experience with the uploads and SQL queries. The website crawls to almost a halt sometimes when I do strange things to it. I’m paying a pretty cheap fee for what I’m getting now so I’m thinking I’d run with this for another year maybe?

I am also thinking of just buying a domain name for myself and running a web server with one of my spare laptops (which I have been reluctant to eBay all this while, heh, another case of avoiding trouble at all costs. Too many variables in terms of how much I’d get from the sale, packing it up, shipping it off, getting the time to do that during the weekends, whether I will get paid for it, and how do I even begin to start advertising for it on eBay?). Heh, strange indeed. Don’t mind digging a hole for myself in certain things I do, as long as I can control exactly how deep I go into the hole. Back to hosting a website at home myself, that seems much simpler (most people would disagree and find an eBay listing faster) as you can do things step by step. I already have a fixed IP address form my ISP, I have a spare laptop which I’m itching to test one of the other Linux variants on to run as a web server and the last pro going for it is that I have instant access to changing the files on it whenever I want. Process dies on me, I have a physical on/off switch to fix it. Heh.

Still have two or so weeks to decide this. Will ponder it when I take time off from work.