(short-sightedness)

First things first: for Yudha and Yanti, congratulations on the birth of little Nindya!! I pray so that this girl will be able to grow to fulfil her fullest potential in life.

OK, now back to blogging:
Working in a professional accounting services firm is really, really bad. I will tell you why.

There is this concept known as the going concern concept that permeates in all sorts of financial statements prepared. What is meant by going concern is the assumption that an artificial legal person (in most cases a firm) will keep running indefinitely into the future, which articulates that all values used in preparing the financial statements are not "fire-sale" prices you'd find on a garage sale - this helps level price fluctuations created by excitement. What makes this concept so bad is since these firms assume infinite numbers of years to live on, they are interested in ensuring that their assets sustain this supposedly infinite life (which I think is a somewhat futile idea, as firms are created to attain an objective and will naturally stop once that objective has been achieved.) This in turn, where I work, brings an unending stream of "works to be completed urgently" at all time. Whoever can do a lot of overtime to channel through this stream will be employed; those whose body 'betray' them i.e. those who cannot physically manage to satisfy the demands will be cast aside. I honestly think this is not a fair system when you have a look at it from an employee's point of view. Once you start working in a corporate world there is little time left to pursue your interests. You get so little compared to what you surrender.

I don't think I can cope with some 20 years working as a corporate-ladder climber. There are definitely better things to do for my right brain, my spines and my eyes. Working in an office necessitates you to have a "40-cm point of view" because you work, well, with a computer/laptop. I'm not against technological advances but this is bad since you tend to become myopic - you only see what is on front of you instead of the big picture. This thinking pattern is even more encouraged by the structuring of performance bonuses - a one-year period is not long enough to be called long-term! You get to sit on a dodgy chair for 9hrs out of 24 (plus another two in the car - the difference being the seats are nicer), which is bad for your spine.

Really lucky that my mum does not entirely close her mind to me having a gap year. Her idea is that I should go to UK to polish my English further, which is a bit different to what I had in mind (my idea is that I should go to Japan and help others polish their English.) OK, it's entirely different, but it still has something to do with polishing one's English skills. Should I really go, I think I'll cry my eyes off for the first fortnight or so of living in England. There would be little social support available, which makes me think I will not be able to carry on living in England for a longer period unless I have friends the way I do in Melbourne and Brisbane ^^ I miss them a lot. Even with the wealth of communication devices like mobile phones, it does not beat having fellowship with them over there. I can say Indonesia is not my place for the next two to three years for sure. I still can't see where I would be in the next five years.

Oooh, the next five years. Tante-tante have been ringing their high-pitched voice in my ears, "when will you go on stage?" To be mean I can say 'next week!' if going on stage is being spoken of literally, that is. Symbolically, ...well, I can only give an overly sweet cringe. They might have mistaken it as a smile. I go to wedding parties with an aim to revel in a good dress and eat well, as far as I am concerned. One friend puts me as "having a bearish stance". I think it's more of a bullish stance (I'm not desperate 'to be sold'.) It ticks me, but at the moment I'm more interested in finding out whether I am about to have a gap year.

I am so looking forward to this Friday; it's my day off. Planning to go to Mango Two and TA for the day, and to Sunter for the evening. The amount of new malls sprouting up in the past few years surely knock my jaws down. There are heaps of them.

OK, back to Square One as research monkey. Helping out with working out some comparables data. Take care and listen to a lot of music! ^^ It's good for your ears and your brain.