this holidays went by rather swiftly.. i guess tt's because i managed to meet up with my friends for various outings, from sports to class reunion to chalet overnight stay.. not to mention e genting-KL trip in between.. gonna be a busy jan too.. school's starting.. and my b'dae's on wed.. and my sis is getting married e day after my mum's b'dae.. yup.. there's no typo there.. and btw it isn't a shotgun marriage, just in case u were wondering..

just a little sidetrack here.. had a nice dream yesterday.. always has been when i see familiar faces in my dreams.. e atmosphere is just so relaxed and fun..

anyway b to e hols.. there was also e big 4 interviews which i went for.. or rather e big 3, since i didn't manage to get shortlisted for PWC.. preparing for e interviews was a crazed affair, trying to update and fine tune my resume and cover letter.. not forgetting e preparation of e supporting documents.. actually e preparation was b4 e hols.. its only e interviews which were during e hols.. so in e midst of this craze, some of us found out tt we haven't really accomplished much in our 20+ years.. well, i guess wake up calls are never too late..

had a couple of hiccups in e interview process, some of which were rather serious i think.. anyway, it seemed tt e bleak job market outlook also clouded over this recruitment drive.. some take away from this interview experience was perhaps tt big companies does not necessarily equate to good HR practices.. i'll just give some brief background regarding this recruitment drive.. there r basically 2 rounds of selection/shortlisting.. wat e big 4 does during round 1 primarily involves classifying e interviewees into 3 groups: those who r shortlisted for a job offer, those who r on e reserve list and those who r rejected..

so for KPMG, i was 1 of e unfortunate (or otherwise) ones who was rejected (i later found out tt their focus was on e accounting grades and not GPA.. and it was on such basis tt they based e starting salary tt they offered to successful applicants).. anyway, i got to noe of e rejection through an email sent by e HR manager.. strange thing was, not too many days after, another rejection email was sent.. this time on a mass send basis, with e recipients clearly stated in e TO: fill.. well.. somebody clearly didn't remember this thing called e BCC: fill.. (sidetrack: e recipients were clearly identifiable through their email address, as it is e norm in such professional correspondence, to provide professional looking email addresses.. this means email addresses which spell out yr full name) and it was weird to find tt such an email of, presumably significant importance, was (re)sent by an intern no less (considering e fact tt e HR manager had previously sent an email of e exact same content).. butched HR job.. period.

and no.. didn't post tt cos i was having a case of sour grapes.. anyway, tt wasn't e worst to come.. was over e moon when i received DT's call of offer on e day of e EY interview.. so i thought oh well.. i could still go for EY's interview (although i was sort of settled on going to DT) to gain some interviewing experience.. turned out tt all tt i heard from my friends didn't happen on tt day.. there was no seniors in e waiting room to talk with e interviewees (which was not e case for KPMG and DT) and there was no office tour.. and during e interview itself, e words from e interviewing manager made me think tt i was at e wrong place.. stressing on (school) grades and performance every now and then, i had e urge to blurt out halfway through e interview: "hey.. i think i noe where u r getting at.. u want grades.. and my grades r not good.. so wat am i doing in this interview room?" TOTALLY NO SINCERITY. if it was grades tt they wanted so badly, den dun waste everybody's time by shortlisting me for e interview.. and just to add, e EY interview schedule was arranged in a declining GPA manner ie. those with poorer GPA were interviewed last..

not tt it was e end of e whole thing though.. it happened tt in round 2, where e big 4 call up those on e reserve list, EY gave me a call (of offer).. rather surprised cos 1) of e above mentioned event 2) it wasn't supposed to happen, as i had notified my school of my preference, which was den supposed to have been communicated to e companies.. just so happened tt it was a missed call btw.. and so i waited for them to call me back again.. which, as it turned out, nv happened.. and which, i attributed to e reason given above: NO SINCERITY.. anyway it was perhaps only good tt they nv called again.. cos i might have given them a crappy reply for e treatment given to me on tt interview day..

e primary school outing was beer at club iguana at clarke quay and desserts at e nearby TCC.. quite an impressive turnout with 10 ppl present.. nice to meet up with them after like 11 years.. although i still sorta keep in contact with some of them once in a while.. talked abt a lot of stuff.. some of which i dun quite remember being a part of.. like going to tommy's place for computer and board games.. although i do remember him bringing those stuff to school after exams.. anyway, some updates.. turned out tt ruth was e new face for new paper in '07.. and chee hui had scored some 9 distinctions for his As.. haha.. still as brainy as ever.. and laisan was actually alex's ex.. and joshua sounds so ang mo now, after having spent (still spending) a decent amount of time pursuing 3 majors (in a span of 5 years) in UWA..

thought this post was a bit long.. and yup.. it's over a thousand words le..

deleted maplestory from my laptop e other day.. well, haven played it for like months already anyway.. come to think of it, maple really turned out to be too much of a money churning machine for asiasoft and a ground for those ginnas to show off their uber godlike wow prowess.. puts me off really.. can't stand e monotony of staring at e same monster for hours, only to see e exp bar raise by some miserly %.. which den leads me to think abt slpinstory, a private maple server.. haven played tt for months too.. haiz.. to think of all e time spent on e game.. seems like a insatiable quest with no end in sight.. e time spent might have been put to better use and i prob might not be facing e grades tt i'm having now..

1,179 words