Studying in office

I am finding it so difficult to concentrate on my preparation for actuarial exams at home. The temptations to switch on my laptop and read news from my Netvibes, play Scrabulous with strangers from Facebook prove to be too much to handle. Or rather, it's the urge to avoid studying at all cost.

So, I had to come up with a desperate measure - study in my office over the weekend. And it worked. I studied for 5 hours continuously, a feat yet to be done thus far for this year's April exams preparation. Going there again tomorrow and hope to do 7 hours tomorrow.

Took the opportunity to snap a photo of my workstation with my handphone.

Actuarial Department Dinner

It was probably the latest Christmas dinner ever - 6 March. But I would be the last one to complain as I would not have been part of it if it was held earlier.

My department had the dinner at the same place as the previous year - a restaurant in Southbank called Number 8. Our partner/spouse was invited too, so I brougth Johanna along. Initially she was quite reluctant to go as she has been through quite a few actuarial gatherings and just didn't enjoy the things we talk about - work, actuarial exams, studying for exams, etc.

This dinner turned out to be very different. We sat right next to Tim Chambers and his wife. Tim is the head of my department, also the Chief Actuary of the company. It was my first time really sitting down and have a good chat with him as he has been very busy since I joined. On my other side is my colleague Chit Wai, who is also from Penang. He has helped me a lot to settle down at work since I joined on 29 January. The dinner conversations turned out to be very interesting. Tim told us about his interesting experience in London (he originated from there) and Toronto and why he moved to Melbourne.

Chit Wai was very nice to send Jo and I to the dinner and back home too. He also fetch my other colleague, Anh and his wife to the dinner.

Many thanks to Elena for organising the great dinner and bringing along her camera so that we have something to remember by.

From left: Johanna, Tim, Tim's wife, James (my manager), Stephen, Elena, Daren, Anh's wife, Anh, Chit Wai and myself.