A lovely day with applaudsable achievement and heaps of funs

Today passed so quick that I did not realise I have spent six hours with Bryan to write up our economic assignment. It would be an excellent work, I bet. We came up with creative ideas to explain the pricing strategy for the 2006 Melbourne commonwealth game. Bryan is going to draw a comic page about two scenarios we predict would happen according to the current pricing schedule. After staying in the library for a day, we went out to watch a Hollywood comedy movie, The Hitch, simply to get our mind away from the economic graphs. Classic Will Smith movie genre, a brilliant hippie guy falls in love with a prideful woman. Tones of laughs fall in between the storyline for their jokes.

Bryan is such a cool guy, with smart brain but quirky attitude. “I don’t go to Melbourne Uni for nothing”, he said. The more time I spend brainstorming and working with him, the more interesting things I find about him. I will never worry about getting into relationship with him, simply because our chemistry doesn’t match. We could even hold hands without sparkling a single flare.

Please forgive my waffle today. I am sick. I should be laying in bed to relief the pain from grumbling and twitching stomach; also the spreading allergy spots makes me itchy and my skins are torn with scars.

A bad cook

I have to admit that I am a bad cook with an eccentric imagination. On Easter Sunday, I cooked myself a spicy salted noodle soup with garlic and basil tuna. What I did was to chuck every sauce I had in the fridge into a bowl and boiled with the noodle. It was shocking when I found nothing but a bunch of noodle and some left over sauce. With my eyes half-opened after four hours of sleep, I cooked what I had. After the “tasty” Cloris’ cuisine, I decided to go for a grocery shopping. Otherwise, I would only consume bread before I can enjoy the courtesy from grandma next Friday.

I have confronted the common obstacle most green-hand journalist will face – hard to catch the interviewee. I have spent days on choosing the right person, who needs to be interesting and relevant to Melbourne local community; and spent three hours tracing up him for an interview. Still, two-hour’s of waiting returned with an answer that I have to come again tomorrow. God knows what will happen tomorrow!

Brilliant warmth

Brilliant sunshine

I have been skimming immigration information both on Chinese newspaper and immigration website. I told my dad that I don’t know what I am doing this for – I will not stay in this country very long yet have to get a Permanent Residency. How silly can life be!

My spirits have lifted tremendously because of the last summer warmth. Melbourne autumn is a romantic season with leaves swirling around. I continue my bad habit of not bringing enough clothes every time I go out. Many times, I either came back home with someone else’s jacket on or shivering with gooseflesh.

“Take some time out this week while the sun shines. Because even if the weather remains mild through April, the daylight is diminishing and will continue to do so until the solstice in mid-June.”

Auntumn Confrontation

Easter arrives earlier this year. Four weeks into the new school year, then we can have a break. Nothing much I can do in this break, apart from going to one or two Comedy Fest shows and catching up with friends.

The gloomy feeling of autumn is hovering around everyone. Wind shivers cold down my back; maple leaves are swivelling everywhere; the sun hides behind clouds; and drizzle is flying over in the air. Autumn is always the sadness seasons in Melbourne.

Next feature

I have been busy applying for mission impossible high-end jobs. Couples of rejections letters have not yet destroyed my ambitious and vision of getting a job in Melbourne. I have the gut to confront all the impossible and unpredictable outcomes. After all, my main purpose of staying in Melbourne is to please my grandma.

Same as last year, heaps of works to do over the Easter break, including stacks of assignments and commitment for SALP selections.

I have been thinking an interviewee for my next feature story. I am going to an anti-social meeting on Thursday and try to have a talk with the group leader. Hopefully it will be an interested person for my story.

An Easter grief

Easter again. A brand new year blends with old memories. Memories of last year still stick in my brain cell vividly, I don’t think I can easily rip them off. I had the most joyful moment watching Totoro with Caroline; I was excited about my first clubbing experience in Melbourne; I cancelled the Confess binge jungle clubbing but went to Williamstown instead. And it was this time of the year the horrible memories fill in – gangster shooting, robbery, and walking in the middle of the road against the scenarios given above. I am such a serious person that trivia could make a great impact in my life.

A tragic weekend news bulletin was aired in this morning. In a small Victoria town called Bendigo, three young children were burnt to death alive at the back of their parents’ wagon. Their 7-month pregnant mum was sleeping while their dad was attending a community event. The whole community was in grief for the lost of three young kids and showed their sympathy to the sorrowed family members. The police announced there was no suspicious for the tragedy. It was caused by the children playing matches in the car and ignites an explosion.

Heaps more to learn in the rest of life!

8:30 in the morning, a long queue was winding outside the executive lounge in the post-graduate building. I was one of the units. What are we queuing for? It would be a FMCG competitive game organised by P&G inside the lounge. P&G is one of the consumer focused organisations that recruits student for marketing positions. The fact is to generate such enormous responses is because of its emphasis on posting new recruits to Singapore straight away! It is indeed very tempting. I would love to apply if their first hurdle does not require Australian permanent residency.

“The consumer is the boss” is the theme of the game. It is mainly consumer and market knowledge (CMK) orientated. Given us a real P&G market development case study, a group of six had to decide which strategies should go for. The steps and strategy outcome were based on our evaluation of the research throughout the whole campaign process. Our team was just a bit swayed away from the succeed result. However, from participating in such a game, I have discovered a fatal weakness of myself– that is lack of marketing knowledge. Before, I thought marketing could be learnt through real world interactions; yet hearing other Master of Marketing students talked about their ideas, I felt myself stuck. I wanted to express my opinion, but I don’t know how to support my preference. My knowledge went like blank. There are heaps more I have to learn. The gloomy thing is, I will graduate at the end of this year and will not come back to study in a few years time.

I would like to take some intellectual stimulated job. Whereas, there are thousands of people have the same thoughts out there and lining their applications for these well-established companies.

One thing made me feel better was, even those studying commerce/law or master did not seem to be much smarter than me. I have my strength which I had demonstrated in the group discussion. On the other hand, I still not dare to speak out my opinion. One reason is I am shy sometimes; but mostly counted to my lack of back up knowledge and experience.

My exhibited photos

My photo exhibition promotion

Time to move on

In the third year level of economics, tutors are odder one after another. One is an environmental zealot; the other is a true blue of punk culture. They are both cool. They understand the invisible hands that are behind the economic running of the nation system, they want to apply a unique way to break through the set rules.

What am I busy at these days? No more club participation, no more event planning, and no more new projects. I am actually applying for graduate recruitment programs offered by the big commercial companies. I know the chance of getting in is rare giving the fact that I don’t have good academic results. But remember, nothing is impossible if we try.

Finally I have decided to apply for Action Learning Group Leader with SALP, dropping the invitation of taking up another leader role offered from CTG. I would have a lot of fun with CTG, however, it is time to move on to another level. Self-esteem builds on the gradual increase in the challenging levels.

Seniority

Moving to the final year, there is no such a concept called “text-book”. Both of my media and economics text-books are scratched copies from various bulk prints. Study requirement emphasises more on application. A couple of my assignments are designed to apply the knowledge I acquired in the past two years in the real world situation. One is to set different price schemes for Commonwealth Game, and the other on is to analysis the composition of a selected video text.

I went to Swing social dance on Friday night. I found myself forgot lots of the moves despite I have learnt Swing for a year! Street Latin takes up most of my time, while swing is left out as a minor in my dance hobby.

Since uni begins, I start to feel my senior position among those first/second year kids. No motivation to wait in a queue for a free BBQ hotdog; rock up in the preferred tute without trying to sign up in the idiot Allo8 system; attending numerous career info session and took home piles of company information booklets; running from meeting to meeting. These signs of seniority indicate I should be serious about my life now.

All the stories have ends

Yesterday I finally jumped over all the bureaucratic structure and met with the Arts faculty dean. For my case, his academic perspective is that Arts students should border their knowledge in diversity fields; while my perspective is to concentrate studies on one or two areas of interest. I feel like we were in a bargaining situation with different value aspects. What he offered was he would allow me to do the two core subjects that I appealed for, BUT, in returned, I have to give up two economic subjects. Dare enough, I said “No” to the faculty headman of this prestigious university. “It is not something that should be given up in exchange.” I said. He seemed a bit irritable as our negotiation went on and I did not want to compromise with his “generous” leeway. As he only had 15 minutes spent on meeting with me, I was left to discuss the “deal” with the general manager. I knew at that stage, if I still firmly gripped my stance, I would end up with the worse gain. After a 20-minute break, I came back with four options and let the general manager choose. While she was accessing my options, I led her to the one I desired with sound reasons. Half an hour later, we agreed on a compromise ground which I only need to give up one economic subjects in exchange for two core subjects. I am still overtaking media subjects (seven media subjects while the maximum is five),

At 9:30am this morning, the battle came to the end. I earn the most of what I want and the Dean also gets what he believe is good for me as an Arts student. The faculty general manger commented that I was the most difficult student ever. She warned me that I had to do well in this year as both she and the Dean will be watching!

I felt so relief now. You can not imagine how hard I walked my way through to attain this result. I am just a student, while my negotiation body is the academic Dean. For the whole appeal process, I went bottom-up - overcame the hierarchy of staffs and finally had a chance to meet with the Dean face-to-face. I felt myself was empowered. This battle will definitely be one of my memorable incidents in my uni life.

Sincerely thanks to all my friends who gave me supports, as well as the International student support unit. Without them, I think I have given up already.

Now, I have heaps to catch up. Tones of things need to do and need to do well. Several job applications need to send out by the end of this week. Alas, it is now time to start working hard and taking in challenges again.

Everyday in campus, I would bump into couples of people I know. Most of the time I have to stop and have a short chat with them. As I am always in a hurry for something, it looks a bit rude to just go past by with merely a nod. So now, I have to walk with my eyes focus only on the pave way. Ahi… knowing almost half of the people in campus may or may not be a good thing.

In the afternoon, I was wondering in the bookshop intended just to buy a course reader. Like most of the other time, the magnetism of the books sucked me in the bookshop for an hour. I ended up buying Style, a journalist writing guidebook published by News Limited. I am going to use this one as a guideline for my Writing Journalism feature story assignment. An interested short story here for finding this book. I had been looking through the whole General Reference shelf trying to find a writer’s manual that would suit me the most. While I was just about to leave without any luck, a bookstore staff came up with couples of Style and chocked them at the bottom of the shelf. A ha! This is the one. Without much thinking, I grabbed it and went straight to the casher. Sometimes, luck flashes without you try hard to find it.

Another story is that Hanna is going back to Oslo on Friday. My connection with Drummond St will also go to an end. I don’t think I will go back to the block of flats I had lived for quite a while; the same as her that she will not come back to Melbourne after she leaves this time. I may see her again if I have chance to visit Europe many years later.

Fight for Justice

My stomach gets worse in the last two days. It is mainly caused by my unease state from the subject dispute. I have got red spot (caused by indigestion) all over my leg along with on and off stomach twitch.

Today my case took a further appeal to the Dean. I went to see the M&C program coordinator, Simon Cottle, to get his support on my academic side. Then I went to International student counselling office to get the manager to press the Arts faculty to quicken the process of my appeal. I don’t know why I will be put into this kind of unfair situation. It is like having a legal battle, and I am the innocent victim. I know I am going to violate the faculty rule, but it is those course advisors that make me to break the rule! If I don’t fight for my right, then I will fall in conviction and never receive the justice.

One outcome will be I get the thing I deserve; the other one is I will be upset and resign, then the other faculty will soon know how crap arts faculty is. However, I personally receive an email from the associated Dean, I can tell he is a fair man and will resolve my concern by tomorrow.

Whatever the outcome is, I will treat this as a media experience. Finding my way to win for a justified answer. I did not seek help from low level people. If I want to win the battle, finding the right person who can empower me is crucial.

Homesick

In the situation that supports are most needed, I really miss home. I know my parents can not help to solve any of my problems and concerns at all, the place of home will always give me shelter in adversity. My head is spinning with heaps of plans and uncertainties. I am not a lucky person. Can someone just come and give me a hug?

Melbourne summer is going to an end. I fall sick at this time every year because I know I will miss the warmth in the next six months. I will soon be forced to confront with the misery wetness.

A day for researching

This morning I have been doing a lot of research on the current Australian job market. Apparently, there are a lot of jobs and opportunities out there, whereas most of the jobs that I can meet the criteria are low skill. BCG, L.E.K. and McKinsey are every graduate’s dream destination. The brutal truth is, no more than 1% of their applicants can get into these well developed professional companies. Those who get the job are the top talents in the top talented pool. I am not talented, SO, what can I do? I have ambitious and belief, however, how can I compete with those H1 double degree local students? I think I will apply for every graduate program now, and apply for other media positions in mid-year or later.

If it is not for grandma, I will start looking for jobs in Singapore and move there in a year or so. Now I have to confine in this country and struggle for life in seeking for jobs and battling with those stupid faculty ass.

The worse thing is, I have decided to take three subjects this semester and four in the next one. I changed my NetCommunications subject to Multimedia authoring, because I find the later one is more useful than the former. Although I will need to work a thousand times harder, I do not regret to choose to learn something I don’t know rather than taking the easy way out.

An unfair truth

I am still pending for the approval to my subject appeal from the Associated Dean. This unreasonable matter is hovering around my head in the whole week and will extend to Monday. I am tired with the Melbourne Arts faculty. Anyway, I definitely need to get those subjects approved, and have no reason to compel to this ridiculous and unfair situation. Complain and being irritated only makes my situation worse. The only thing I can do with those slackers is just wait and plan for the further appeal pathway. If my appeal is not successful on Monday, I am going to send my appeal to the vice-chancellor and spread words to the student union magazine. Don’t forget, I am a media student. I have a will and ways to spread words around quickly.

I talked to one of my HEWSO team mates Sing, a post-graduate commerce student, her suggestion was inspirational, “Strive to get your subject approved, then get the hell out of this city.”

Apparently, Sing is not content with the academic level of Melbourne Master degree. Together with other considerations, I have discarded my plan to pursue for further master study in Melbourne. Firstly, I don’t have enough money. Secondly, I am ready to enter the workplace. However, I know I am still lack of a lot of knowledge in the real world competition. I have always have troubles and been brumpy in my undergrad years. One thing I have learnt from that is I should never give up hope and believe in making “impossible possible”. I have been through the worse state in my life; I will never get back to that time again.

These days I have attended a lot of on campus recruitment info sessions and busy working on my resume. I have a lot of things to put in my resume and I have kept updating it from time to time. The problem comes down to my academic result. I have been working hard for my school works, yet the result is not as good as most people think I should get. My academic achievement has put me into a disadvantage. However, there is always no harm on trying. The field I really want to get into is consultancy. Advertising and marketing will also be considered.

I went to the Boston Consulting Group’s info sessions on Wednesday. There is no doubt that every top student across all disciplines wants to get into this top consulting company. As I could see from the crowd in the info session, I know the competitions out there are fierce. Five to eight students from 3000 thousands applicants, those without good academic results definitely could not be considered in the recruitment short list. A lot of H1 students I know is going to apply, included my tutor, the HEWSO winning team members and lots of my other friends. My humble result and resume will be among theirs. Optimistically, I should feel fortunate as I am not in the BCG recruitment team to go through thousands of applications in a week.

Melbourne is such a small village, everyone knows everyone from different connections. My Intro Micro tutor Stuart is the boyfriend of one of the girl in the HEWSO winning team. The person who inspected my ex-flat becomes my new housemate; and the person who inspected my current house becomes a housemate of my ex-temp housemate’s housemate; and etc. etc. other people involved in our house and HEWSO. Before we discover all these behind the scene connections, we did not know each other. Small world!

The producer of this year’s CTG production is Stanley. I happened to bump into him today, and he asked me to be the ticket manager for this year’s production. I have to think about it although joining CTG is fun. I have got several things on top of my head at the moment, so I will not commit to the new thing before I sort other things out.

Career suddenly listed at the top of my agenda now. I have to start looking for the real job and keeping eyes on the job market as the daily priority now on. Lina and Kate have already got part-time jobs in the accounting fields. They really motivated me as none of them are Australian PR. I can work for Asialink. However, after three months working there, I know what kind of jobs they will offer me. I am not content with that. Asialink is just a spring board for me.

Taking out my anger, ambitious and plan here helps me to relief a little bit. Now is time to get back to study and plan for the new semester, whatever the result will be on Monday.

Dropped from Heaven to the Hell

Why do bad lucks always follow me? Can’t my faith make my life easier? I just build up my confidence in my coming study, yet I was shocked that I have to drop three media subjects by the course advisor!

Ridiculous! Ridiculous! My given reason is that I love media too much and I have been doing well in the media subjects, so I can not take any more media subjects. In substitute, I have to take three other crap optional subjects in Arts faculty. I will definitely not to comply with those course advisors bullshits. I have written an appeal letter to the faculty dean. If he still keeps this stupid comment, I am going to take my appeal strategies further to the chancellor. I have a strong characteristic; I have the will to make “the impossible be possible”. The course advisor said the handbook was the “Bible”, then I will utilize my will to ask the God to change it. I know if I don’t persist at this stage, I will regret in the rest of my life. I am serious.

The attitude of the course advisors made me feel angry. They have no concerns on student’s future. They tried to protect their jobs and said things like: “You can not blame on me”, “it is not my fault”. I get into this big trouble is mainly because I was mis-advised by them. To be honest, I have lost my passion towards the Arts faculty in Melbourne. I think I am going to resign from being the faculty Rep if my problem is not resolved.

Currently, my mood is in the lowest tide again. How come it is always me?

The first day, a final year

First day back to uni, hmm…at least for most of the others, new anticipations for a challenge year. I start my day running on my toes. I finalized my timetable, bought all the textbooks and liaised with my volunteer with C&E (Career & Employment) by 4pm today. Monday has always been a busy day for me.

This year I feel a bit different from the previous years. Firstly, I am living with different people in a different location and will have a different living habit.

Secondly, I have more practical subjects than my last two years. There is one that I have to conduct a project with an allocated organization. I know I have strong skills in project management field. Recently, I have found a qualified professional title for this field, called PMP (Project Management Profession). This is an international recognized certificate, equivalent to CPA. Working experience plus tests, it is not an easy title to enquire. This is the goal I have to achieve in ten years or less.

Lastly, as most Arts subjects are mixed with 2nd/3rd year level students, when I say: “I am in final year.” I feel so old. The others response in a terrified expression: “Oh, so you are leaving by the end of this year!” Yes, I know. Many of my friends are thinking to take either master or honour to extend their uni life. For me, if I have unlimited budget, I definitely will go for my plan A – to pursue a master degree in commerce. However, I have to lower down my expectations and stand on the solid ground. I have no choice but go out to work. The confronting doubts are can I get a job? What kind of jobs can I get? I have no more excuses to ignore the graduate programs and companies listed in the C&E, although half of them I can not apply because of my national status. Now, several company recruitment brochures are lying on my study desk. They keep reminding me to compete with others for those limited amount of graduate intakes.

A busy holiday

I have spent the whole day tidying up my stuff and preparing for the new school year tomorrow. My uni friends and housemates complaint to me that they didn’t have enough holiday. I am on the other side - I don’t feel like having enough holidays. Alas, two days only! “你自己弄得自己这么忙的.” Two people have already said this to me. Indeed I can not stand myself doing nothing or being free from concern. Keeping myself busy and under sleep actually make me feel more energetic rather than wondering on the street or walking from pub to pub.