While I've Been Away......

Again, I was lagging behind in my posting. But more;

1. Forecast
The Outgoing Boss (which is going to be posted in Bangkok) asked me to do a forecast on tourist arrivals for year 2009. Eventhough I'm not handling statistics now but I was tasked to do it with the help of another assistant officer. We had to do linear regression in order to achive the projection. Kinda like your basic "upwards" chart but have to do some calculation to get the value of y=a+bx. In my desperation, I asked La Signora to forward me Ash's mobile number to help me check on the calculation. She checked it and basically said I'm on the right track. Anyway, we referred to another colleague who had done this years ago and he gave us a shortcut way to do it in Excel, and soon both of us were doing all kinds of regression which included Polynominal, Exponential and Linear. That was basically what I was busy with last week. Today, I found out from my colleague that the Big Boss won't use it as they have come up with another forecast. Sheesh! Time wasted...but at least I can say that I've learned something new, and I know that it's going to be a valuable tool in the future.

2. Meeting in Kuching
Barely two weeks after attending the workshop in Bandung, my Immediate Boss (IB) asked me to attend a meeting on Cruise in Kuching to replace her as I am a senior officer. I told her that I know nothing about cruise, being in Research only for two days and what if they ask me all kinds of questions about policy. Our organisation only focuses on promotion and marketing, policies are under the Ministry. So I pleaded with my IB to bring the project officer of cruise study along to be my understudy, as he has more technical expertise on this. So the two of us went to Kuching on Thursday, 20 Nov and returned on Saturday, 22 Nov. More stories on my adventures/misadventures in Kuching on my next blog posting.

3. Status
On my placement in the office. Again, when I was away from the office, important letters regarding the future of yours truly arrived. This kinda pisses me off as it had been the third time it happened. The first time was when I was in Kuching in August 2008, I received letter informing that I was to transfer to Research Division effective that September. Second time it occured, I was in Bandung and the letter infomed that I was being transferred to Domestic Division effective 10 November 2008, barely two months in Research. I vehemently refused to go to Domestic as 1) feels that I've more to learn about Research and wanna be good at it; 2) Domestic is hot seat division, why trouble myself after what I've been thru for the past 6 years. In this regard, the division had decided to retain me. This is when the third important letter for me arrived, dated 20 November 2008 while I was in Kuching from 20-22 November. It stated that I would be retained for the period of one year starting from the letter's date. What does the events are trying to tell me, whether it is pure coincidence or God's will? Who knows.....at least now I know where I stand and can be firm about it.

4. Connection
Hubby recently bought a black casing yet transparent desktop with BenQ's 19-inch flatscreen monitor, instead of fixing his busted laptop. It cost him a cool RM1750.00, the monitor being RM450.00 only! Now he's in front of it every night playing cyber soccer. Well, at least we won't be fighting for the TV, plus I urged him to subscribe to Astro's movie channels by next month.....I'm in my heaven....lalalalala

Will update more on my trip to Kuching....