White Chinese New Year

While I am still hoping to experience a white Christmas after the white Easter last year, guess what? I am having a white Chinese New Year!! 

It is a complete chaos over this side of the world especially the London public transport! Trains, tubes, buses and even taxis are all affected. Took some people 4 hours to get to work, but we are wondering how are they going to get home? Thank goodness my manager let me stay in. 

Strangely enough, I am actually enjoying this (on top of staying at home). The streets are quiet, everything is white and it is beautiful!

London, we are here to stay!

It is all go go go now! Because Mas and I have both landed jobs this week!! WOOHOO!!! =))

The recruitment agents asked why I did not sound happy when he told me the good news, it is because all these things were processing in my head all at once:

1/. Where should we live? (Both of us are going to work in the city, so we can live anywhere, should we stay west, go north, maybe north west???)

2/. How much can we afford? Should we budget more on rent or travels or save as much as possible?

3/. How would I get to work if the tube staff go on with strike next week? (The latest news is the potential tube staff strike which was supposed to happen next Monday to Wednesday is now suspended! Yeah!!)

4/. What am I going to wear on my first day????!!! (This is very very important, because first impressions last... arrr, a lot of ironing to do!!)

Anyway, so it is all very exciting now, but flat hunting has been very tiring. We saw 5 flats within 4 hours. It does not sound too bad when you have it in writing, however, when you are in a car with an agent who thinks he is a race car driver AND does not know the way, after the third 3-point turn, I was ready to throw up. (By the way, the flats range from "NO WAY" to "Hmm... No", so no luck there - Yet)

Tomorrow, we are going to see 3 more flats in the North of London, hopefully we will have better luck with the agent's driving and the quality of the flats this time.

My friends and I at Trafalgar square after a yummy yum cha lunch last Sunday

Sweet?!

Kicking the after interview blues with...Waffles

The worst part of having an interview, is the day afterwards. I sat in front of the email and right next to my cellphone the whole morning hoping that the agent would call, email or text me telling me that I have either got the role or not. But, nothing, nothing at all.

So then I started second guessing myself, thinking about what I could have done better in the interview yesterday, how could I have presented myself better, things I should have said or should not have said etc. All these thoughts made me even more miserable.

This self distructive process quickly ended once I decided to visit the Belgium Chocolate Waffle shop just down the road. And this is what I got from the little shop at Ealing...

Belgium Chocolate Waffle and Maple Syrup Waffle from a small shop in Ealing

You can put chocolate, maple syrup, jam, caramel, peanut butter, banana, stawberry or any combination of that on top a waffle. It is so versatile that I can have one everyday! And today's waffle was just the best, after a bite, all the silly thoughts went away.

In London, a waffle can cost from around £2 to £6. However, I found that the more expensive it is, doesn't necessary mean it is better. I paid about £6 for the waffle in town.

Banana Caramel Waffle from a cafe near Regent St in the city

With it being almost three times the price, obviously, it looks much sophisticated. However, it was slightly warm, dry and light weight. In my opinion, it didn't qualify as a "waffle".

A waffle should be hot, but not too hot, slight crispy on the ouside but moist on the inside, also, it needs to be substantial, but not too heavy like a meal. In short, the one I bought from Ealing today was a perfect waffle.

Sweet?!

I love technical jargon (NOT)

After 105mins of torture, I have completed one of the hardest technical tests I have ever done! And now I am having a pounding headache with the technical jargon still spinning inside my head, let me give you a taste of it,... J2EE, EJB, XML, WSDL, JAAS, CCI, EIS, JAXB, MDB, JNDI, LADP, JMS, JAF, XA, JTA, HttpServletRespone, SQL 3 Types....

Sitting technical tests is one of many activities everyone in the IT world needs to do every so often. Sometimes you do it for work, or you take a certification so that you can add one extra line on your CV or most commonly you sit a technical test as part of the job hunting process.

That test was part my job interview process, the first page of the test stated that the test will progressively get harder if I am doing well, otherwise, it will get easier if I am doing badly. So, there you have it, I suppose I have done well, because it was just sooooo hard!!

The worst part of this whole test is I don't get to know the result!!!! It is because the company pays for the test, therefore the result is their asset, even though it was me who sat the test!!!! What is wrong with this world!

Mas made me lunch, Adiós! Sweet?!

Update: I passed!!! The company just sent me back the test results, which is very nice of them. I am going in for a face to face interview next week. Please pray for me! Sweet?!