I have been slack on blogging the last few months, a sign of the stress I have been under, but I should keep it up, after all - the main purpose of this was to document my journey to living permanently in Singapore and I am not there yet.
Okay, first up, I get a new contract, great rate and a long project. It stalls. It is still out there, but lagging a few months. I get another contract offer, it hangs for a couple of weeks whilst people are off sick, then it goes belly up. It is a month and a half now. Then I get a new contract, the rate sucks, it is a tad over half what I got before the GFC but anything to pay the rent right now. It gets delayed, first by two weeks, which I don't mind as I have exams, then by another weeks. Then on the day that I get the call delaying it I get another offering a short one to fill this week.
So I spent today at a radio station. Office to myself off in some quiet corner, only five minutes walk from home. And the rate is a little better.
Originally it was because they couldn't roll their financial reporting model over for their new year. They have a UK owner so their year is different. I look at it with the Financial Controller, "seems like ten, maybe fifteen minutes work" after all, wrapping a formula inside an IF statement to deal with there being no 'previous period' data at the start of the year would do it. I get to work, I uncover that once this problem is resolved there are others that will become visible, previously hidden by the lack of data flowing through the model. I have a good look at this, at least for fifteen to twenty minutes, I undo the previous work and I make one change to one formula in one cell on one sheet. Problem solved.
Fun
But then I ask the philosophical question; you have previous period data, it is from the previous year but it could be shown, so why not? They like the sound of this, so I do it. Then I correct a few formulae errors through the model, simplify things, cut out some redundancy. Take it a lot further in one day then they thought that they would get in a week. But a chat reveals that there is a lot more work that they would like if I am willing to stay the rest of the week. Who am I to say no?
But the repeated false starts of this were echoed at uni. I have received three different course schedules for next semester, each time the reception ask me not to enrol as it will change again. I get told that it is finalised and that the last one I received is right to go, but the next day I get another one. I ask reception to enrol me in the two evening courses, whatever they may be. It doesn't happen. I meet the IT guy at the desk on my last day there last semester, he promises to do this. It doesn't happen. So I am using the printed form method.
Paul and Cheng fly off to Singapore this week. They will spend a month there, one week will be in MY seeing Cheng's family. The last two weeks staying with Jaz, Cheng's sister in SG. I was thinking of flying over for their last weekend there but I suspect that I will be too busy and so will drop that idea.
Have only been half watching the post-election games; Gillard seems to be lying and conniving at every chance. But the main thing was that I have noticed several times that the text stories on Foxtel's news multichoice have been very strongly, indeed outright aggressively, worded pro-Labor, pro-Gillard and anti-liberal, anti-Abbott.
So much for fair, balanced reporting.
People try and engage me in political debates and I respond only partially. I always come back to "I really don't care anymore, the country is going down the gurgler and I have made the decision to leave". This even happened with my step-mother at the agricultural show when she was getting upset at most of the orchids being foreign and I made some comment about non-Australian not worrying me and she responded with "you're already half in Singapore though". So true. I admired the beauty of those that I like without any consideration for their botanical political correctness.
Oh, yeah, exams last week. I expect to come top in both my subjects. The economics exam was outright FUN! The management accounting was, true to form, all cost accounting but not as bad as it could have been and my decision to actually revise paid off. I won't know the actual results for a while, but I am confident enough to judge that I can take on a heavier load and undertake three subjects next semester.
Tuesday, October 12
Friday, October 1
Keyboards
I surrender, I give in, I give up.
Microsoft wins.
I can no longer tolerate having to constantly change the fracken keyboard setting because Microsoft Vista cannot understand that just because I speak English English, as opposed to American English, that I do still us a US keyboard, and not what Microsoft seems to think is an English keyboard - which Microsoft is adamant has the '@' and '"' signs transposed, so my email addresses always turn out someone"somewhere.
So I have turned the language back to US English since that is the ONLY way to get Vista to keep the keyboard setting as 'US'. Seriously, if my language is set to English (UK, Australian, or Singaporean) the keyboard reading goes stupid. Thank you morons at Redmond. Now I will have to constantly be resetting the dictionary when I use Word.
ACCA v CPA
Google it, see what you get.
I get either English people considering their options 'cos they are moving to Australia, Asian students chatting amongst themselves with no idea of the facts, or USers not understanding how the world works outside their own small universe.
I have been pondering it for a few days and have come to some conclusions.
1) ACCA is a British organisation. Yeah, I know, they 'claim' to be the biggest international accounting association, but that is because they are the only one that accepts international membership per se. ACCA is not recognised anywhere but Britain, if you come to Australia then you will have to join either CPA Australia or ICA Australia. The latter has a relationship with ACCA but is less than half the size of CPA Australia.
2) ACCA offers no real benefits for me vis-a-vis working in the Orient. CPA Australia has a joint membership arrangement with CPA Singapore, and the legislatively mandated body in both Singapore and Hong Kong is called 'CPA'.
3) The total world membership of ACCA is less than the combined memberships of CPA Australia and ICA Australia, so they aren't that big after all.
All of which totals up to ACCA being an irrelevance.
With regards to the snob value. There is a tradition in Australia of CAs thinking that they are better than CPAs. It is based on their requirement for one or two extra subjects when studying, so it limits your choice of electives in your degree, but other than that, no diff. In my experience, having had to clean up after both for twenty years, I find them, in the main, equally incompetent.
ACCA also requires one more subject; the MPA I am doing qualifies for both CPA and CA, but not for ACCA - for that I need to do advanced management accounting. Now given that 'management accounting' in Australia is actually not management accounting, rather it is cost accounting, and given that I do work in that area, I am considering doing that extra subject anyhow. But having done that, I then see no reason to apply for ACCA membership. As I have said, it seems irrelevant, meaningless, of no benefit.
Some of the English lecturers speak highly of it, and say that it is big in Asia, but I cannot find any proof of that, and I strongly suspect their prejudices are due to it being and English body. All I can find is that membership will work for you in Britain, but in any other country you will still need to join the local body.
It is my birthday next week, the day is sandwiched between two exams so I will be spending my birthday studying said management accounting. Not that my birthdays mean anything to me, I gave up on that back in my mid twenties.
I have postponed starting my next contract until after this exam week. They did want me to start earlier, but were having trouble with line managers all going on leave (long weekend coming) and so I pointed out that I had exams and would not mind postponing the start - my consultant at the employment agency called back within ten minutes to say the offer had been accepted.
I just got three assignments back. A distinction for one, a high distinction (well, 100%) for the other economics one, but a strangely low mark for management accounting. Even though the lecturer could only point out one error when we went through it (I did find a second later on my own), still I only got a credit.
Now why is that?
I was checking SG blogs the other day, ones that I have had bookmarked for years and used to regularly check, and noticed that several have gone quite stale, as in the authors are no longer posting. Big names in the SG blogsphere too. I guess people grow, change, and move on.
One of my best friends and his Chinese Malaysian wife and their two children will be visiting SG later this month. I was pondering flying over for a weekend whilst they are there. I have enough points in my KrisFlier account for one leg of the trip. It would be a chance to catch up with friends (my SG friends that is). Funny thing; I have more friends in SG than in AU.
Microsoft wins.
I can no longer tolerate having to constantly change the fracken keyboard setting because Microsoft Vista cannot understand that just because I speak English English, as opposed to American English, that I do still us a US keyboard, and not what Microsoft seems to think is an English keyboard - which Microsoft is adamant has the '@' and '"' signs transposed, so my email addresses always turn out someone"somewhere.
So I have turned the language back to US English since that is the ONLY way to get Vista to keep the keyboard setting as 'US'. Seriously, if my language is set to English (UK, Australian, or Singaporean) the keyboard reading goes stupid. Thank you morons at Redmond. Now I will have to constantly be resetting the dictionary when I use Word.
ACCA v CPA
Google it, see what you get.
I get either English people considering their options 'cos they are moving to Australia, Asian students chatting amongst themselves with no idea of the facts, or USers not understanding how the world works outside their own small universe.
I have been pondering it for a few days and have come to some conclusions.
1) ACCA is a British organisation. Yeah, I know, they 'claim' to be the biggest international accounting association, but that is because they are the only one that accepts international membership per se. ACCA is not recognised anywhere but Britain, if you come to Australia then you will have to join either CPA Australia or ICA Australia. The latter has a relationship with ACCA but is less than half the size of CPA Australia.
2) ACCA offers no real benefits for me vis-a-vis working in the Orient. CPA Australia has a joint membership arrangement with CPA Singapore, and the legislatively mandated body in both Singapore and Hong Kong is called 'CPA'.
3) The total world membership of ACCA is less than the combined memberships of CPA Australia and ICA Australia, so they aren't that big after all.
All of which totals up to ACCA being an irrelevance.
With regards to the snob value. There is a tradition in Australia of CAs thinking that they are better than CPAs. It is based on their requirement for one or two extra subjects when studying, so it limits your choice of electives in your degree, but other than that, no diff. In my experience, having had to clean up after both for twenty years, I find them, in the main, equally incompetent.
ACCA also requires one more subject; the MPA I am doing qualifies for both CPA and CA, but not for ACCA - for that I need to do advanced management accounting. Now given that 'management accounting' in Australia is actually not management accounting, rather it is cost accounting, and given that I do work in that area, I am considering doing that extra subject anyhow. But having done that, I then see no reason to apply for ACCA membership. As I have said, it seems irrelevant, meaningless, of no benefit.
Some of the English lecturers speak highly of it, and say that it is big in Asia, but I cannot find any proof of that, and I strongly suspect their prejudices are due to it being and English body. All I can find is that membership will work for you in Britain, but in any other country you will still need to join the local body.
It is my birthday next week, the day is sandwiched between two exams so I will be spending my birthday studying said management accounting. Not that my birthdays mean anything to me, I gave up on that back in my mid twenties.
I have postponed starting my next contract until after this exam week. They did want me to start earlier, but were having trouble with line managers all going on leave (long weekend coming) and so I pointed out that I had exams and would not mind postponing the start - my consultant at the employment agency called back within ten minutes to say the offer had been accepted.
I just got three assignments back. A distinction for one, a high distinction (well, 100%) for the other economics one, but a strangely low mark for management accounting. Even though the lecturer could only point out one error when we went through it (I did find a second later on my own), still I only got a credit.
Now why is that?
I was checking SG blogs the other day, ones that I have had bookmarked for years and used to regularly check, and noticed that several have gone quite stale, as in the authors are no longer posting. Big names in the SG blogsphere too. I guess people grow, change, and move on.
One of my best friends and his Chinese Malaysian wife and their two children will be visiting SG later this month. I was pondering flying over for a weekend whilst they are there. I have enough points in my KrisFlier account for one leg of the trip. It would be a chance to catch up with friends (my SG friends that is). Funny thing; I have more friends in SG than in AU.
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