Dear blog, I have isolated you for almost 3 weeks. How amazing is that for a person who was so addicted to blogging? I've been totally busy these days (busy working, going to dinner invitations, spending HEAPS of time with my family and friends, et cetera that I couldn't be bothered spending a few minutes to blog). Anyway, I'd like to write about my graduation that occured on Thursday the 14th of December. Oh, and not to mention a few pics that I'm about to put up here!

So how did my graduation go? It was AWESOME and EXCITING!! I could definitely say that it was one of the best days I've ever had! Below is a pic on the night before the graduation day, I wanted to see how I'd look with the trencher -->

Then on the morning of the 14th of December (aka MY BIG DAY!!), I transformed myself into this (sheesh, I look like a ghost in this pic!) -->

It was such a big day for me; just wearing the graduation dress felt soooo amazing!! I couldn't wait until the ACTUAL ceremony, which was just a few hours ahead of me. At 11am, my family (excluding my dad as he's busy with work in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Indonesia) and I drove to Victoria University's Pipitea Campus (aka the "2nd home" of the students from the Commerce and Law faculties). We just had to take some photos before the graduation parade began! Awww I'm missing uni already.. especially the Pipitea Campus.. more specifically the Rutherford House building where I spent most of my lectures listening attentively to the lecturers, drawing, day dreaming, sleeping, and even reading the Harry Potter book!!

At 12pm all the graduands assembled for the parade from Pipitea Campus to Michael Fowler Centre in Civic Square where we had THE actual ceremony. The helium balloons made the parade really colourful! When we reached Civic Square, the mayor made a countdown from 5 to 1, and a second later everyone released all the balloons. It was such a wonderful view: the bright blue sky decorated with numberous red, yellow and green balloons squiggling up in the atmosphere. It was a symbol of our freedom from university life, perhaps?

At 1.30pm, the graduation ceremony began. This was it. The BIG moment. The moment where I can formally call myself a Victoria University graduate. It was such a happy and touching moment for me. Every couple of minutes I was about to shed some tears of happiness, but I couldn't let myself cry so I really had a hard time holding them back. I was classified in a seperate group: a group of graduands who have gained both a BCA and a GradDipProfAcc simultaneously. At only 20-years-old, I'm probably the youngest graduand in the group, and I'm proud of it!! Anyway, when the group was announced, I was the first person to be called up on stage to have my qualifications conferred -->

The graduation ceremony ended at 3.30pm, and by that time I was soooo hungry!! So we had lunch and drinks, then my mom, bro, and I headed out to take some more pics AND gelato!! Yummm!!




At 5.30pm-ish we went back home. I had a major headache by then that I had to rest in bed instead of going out to Chiqa's graduation+farewell dinner. However, just as I was about to climb to bed, I received a phonecall from Sherley who offered me a temporary full-time job at Transit New Zealand as an Accounts Clerk. It was such a great timing as my part-time job at Sony Style ended on Saturday the 16th, whereas this new job started on Monday the 18th!! Talk about rejeki on the day of my graduation!


So what's next, you ask? Well, as I've mentioned before, I'm working full-time at Transit NZ but only until the 24th of January 2007. I'm on my 6-months work permit now, so in the mean time I still need to find a full-time ongoing job (preferably accounting or finance related) in order to extend the 6-months work permit to the 2-years one. Go Dessy you can do it!!

Labels: Celebrations, University Life

FREN123 (French Language 1A) : A+ >> Mwaaahh!! My love for French will NEVER die! This was a pretty tough full-year course, and to tell you the truth I was scared I might get a K (a fail grade due to not meeting the mandatory course requirement of at least 75% class attendance) cos I HARDLY ever attended my tutorials, hehe..

SPAN112 (Elementary Spanish) : A >> After having my textbook stolen and never returned, as well as losing my Spanish dictionary, I guess an A isn't so bad after all, although I still wish the "plus" (+) sign was there.

COML303 (Law of Organisations): B- >> Lower than expected, but then again I'm crap at Commercial Law. Oh, and perhaps my absence in most parts of the lectures (due to the clash with my French compulsory lectures) are also to blame. (ada aja deh alesannya.. lol)

ACCY303 (Auditing) : C >> Don't laugh! I'M RETARDED, I KNOW!! However, considering the tremendous number of students who failed the course, I consider myself quite lucky. I'm still disappointed cos I really thought I did okay. Oh well, at least I won't have to repeat it again next year and that I can finally GRADUATE from my BCA and GradDipProfAccy simultaneously next month, and I'm thankful for that :)


Conclusion: Long gone are the days when my grades were dominated by A's. BOO HOO. I desire to make a great comeback in the workforce arena! And I hope my laziness won't get in the way, ever again!

Oh by the way, I've got 2 more job rejections. BOO HOO! First of all it was for the position as an Internal Auditor at KPMG. They said that I nailed the interview, but the result of my psychometric test was lower than expected *hwaaaaaa!!* Then today a partner from Hercus King & Co (a Chartered Accounting firm where my friend Kenny works) called me to say that I didn't get the job offer either. When I asked him for feedback, he said that I was a really good candidate and that I didn't do badly at all. He told me that there were 4 applicants and they all did really well, so in deciding whom they were going to offer the position to was a matter of who fits within the firm's culture best, and.. well.. that person wasn't me. I told Kenny that I'd give him a treat if I get hired, and I'm sure he already tried his best to promote me to the firm's partners.. but nope, no job offer! So no special treat for you Kenny!! Haha!

Anyway, I guess in New Zealand, organisational culture is very important after all. Being good is not enough; if you're an outstanding candidate but don't fit within the company's culture then it doesn't mean they'll hire you. I still remember when a partner from Ernst & Young told me that one time there was a candidate who'd make an excellent auditor but he didn't fit within E&Y's culture, so they decided not to hire him.

Aargh.. when will I ever get a full-time accounting-related job?? *sigh*

Labels: Job Hunting, University Life

Today I met up with my bebi Ing-Ing to watch the 2006 Christmas Parade. It was great catching up with her after not seeing her for ages! After the parade, we went straight to the Parliament building as well as Victoria University's law school (aka the Old Government Building). We didn't go inside our beloved Rutherford House building (aka Commerce students' elite new building that's envied by those who get stuck in the old Kelburn campus, lol) cos we knew that the doors would be locked on Sunday. So here are a few pics that Ing-Ing took of me with her digicam:

Labels: Fun Times, University Life

Okay, this should be the shortest blog entry I've ever written. See, yesterday afternoon Kenny texted me out of the blue only to say that he passed Auditing. Then a bell rang in my head: the ACCY303 aka Auditing final grade was finally there! I was curious, I wanted to know what I got!! But.. but.. I was so scared, finding out my Auditing result was like choosing between life and death. I was so scared that I might fail Auditing, because the course is well-known as the hardest Accountancy course ever introduced in our university! As proof, a great number people have failed it every year, including one of my girl friends who failed it last year. So yeah, I didn't have the courage to check my result yesterday. As a consequence, I couldn't sleep properly last night as I was haunted by a number of nightmares about my Auditing mark!!

Anyhoo, this morning I wasn't planning to check my Auditing mark either, but in the afternoon I was chatting with Nina and had this random urge to find out my result. So there I went.. every mouse click throughout my online student records was a step closer to viewing my result. And there I was.. scrolling down and searching for a D (a fail grade).. but I couldn't find any D's. So I looked on the left side of the box to find ACCY303.. there it was.. and I looked at what it said on the right. Then.. Alhamdulillaaaah.. I passed it!! I passed Auditing!! I passed the freakiest course I've ever done!! It was a very low grade. In fact it was one of my lowest ever, and I'm still kinda disappointed by it. But at the same time I feel so thankful that I've passed the course! As I've said before, a lot of students have failed it (I've checked the whole list of Auditing students and their grades, and yup, TONS of people failed the course! I couldn't believe it myself, I've never seen so many failing grades ever!!) and the last thing I wanted was to fail the course and having to repeat it again next year (oh, and they already warned us that they're definitely gonna make the course harder next year!). Oh thank you Ya Allah for letting me pass Auditing .

Err.. so I failed to make this posting the shortest ever, huh?

Labels: University Life

• So it's true.. my beloved digital camera broke down. A few days ago I brought it to a Fujifilm store and they said it's damaged on the inside. There's no way they could manually fix it themselves. They said that the camera has to be sent to the Fuji manufacturer in Auckland, and with that kind of internal damage it would cost around NZ$300-NZ$400, and I instantly thought oh goodie goodie goodie.. what will I tell daddy?? (cos he was the one who bought the cam and he expected me to take good care of it). Oh well, the camera's pretty old anyway (my dad bought it in 2003), and with that much cost of repairing it I might as well purchase a new one (with my own money of course -- since the damage was partly my fault).
• Mom's gonna come here for my graduation ceremony this December. Yay!! Aah, I miss eating lotsa delicious food everyday, tee hee hee. But the excitement's here already!! I can't wait to see my mommy, elle me manque tellement!
  

• I'm gonna start working part-time in Sony on Monday. Luckily the pay's pretty decent too!

• Since last Monday, I've already known that some of my final grades have come up on my online student records, yet it was only last afternoon that I had the courage to access my records. Two of my marks were there (SPAN112 and COML303), and considering the circumstances that I'd been through (eg. lecture timetable clashes) I'm pretty satisfied with them although they weren't straight A's. I won't tell you what I got -- at least for now. I'll do so when I have obtained all four grades, so in the mean time.. wish me luck!

Labels: Daily Ramblings, University Life

Is the world turning upside-down on me or what? It's just that I saw my test results for Commercial Law (COML303) and Spanish (SPAN112) today, and I thought I was gonna get a good mark in ComLaw and a not-so-good mark in Spanish, but it turned out to be the exact opposite! I couldn't believe that I got a really high mark for my Spanish tests (alhamdulillah), but unfortunately I got an unsatisfying mark for ComLaw .. Oh well, perhaps I shouldn't be so optimistic after all, and that I should just expect the unexpected.

Anyway today is Sophie's 1st birthday *yaay!! happy birthday little darling!* Sophie is Mila's and Mas Dwi's first child. I'm usually not that keen on babies and little kids. However Sophie's an exception. She's got that extra appeal that makes me drawn towards her. Damn, I don't even have a pic of her on my computer and digicam. Once I do, I'll definitely attach one to this entry .

Labels: University Life

Today I decided to catch up with my studies and do any assignments that are due after the break. I previously thought that my second Auditing presentation will be held in week 8, but luckily it's in week 9, so I can begin working on that later.

Early in the morning I was going to submit another application for the IRD job, but then I thought I should just call the recruitment officer to verify whether they've received my application that I submitted on the 14th of August. The person said that they've already got my application, and currently they're shortlisting them and will contact the successful candidates in a few days. Inshallah I'll go through to the next stage.

I've just realised that Pohlen Kean (the HR company that's recruiting accounting graduates to be sent on a secondment to Deloitte in London) is located in Auckland. Ohh, what a pain! I thought it was in Wellington! *sigh*

Anyway, it's been 8 years since I last spoke to Maysa. A few days ago I found her on MySpace, and yesterday afternoon I finally talked to her on MSN!! Maysa's an old friend of mine, and we used to be classmates 'til 7th grade in Jordan. I'm so glad that she's still the witty, fun-loving girl I used to know back then :)

Labels: University Life