A week and a half in and the new shiny job smell still hasn't worn off! I'd say it's a record, but I'd be lying.

I'm finally doing a programming job. I've been waiting for a while to do it (although I have no one else to blame for my tardiness except myself). Sure, I might be doing User Interface stuff, but its still programming. I still find it satisfying to be able to release something that solves a problem (bug fixes, new features, new systems entirely, whatever). While the work is challenging, it's still good fun.

It's funny that however much you try to separate your work life and own time, they still impact each other heavily. No matter how hard you try to leave your work stuff at work, the good and bad feelings bubble over into your personal time. Since the beginning of this new job I've been feeling happier than I have been for a long time. Although I'm sure it depends from person to person, it goes to show that job satisfaction does have a significant impact on your overall mental well-being. In my experience, it takes hindsight to realise how much of an effect it does have.

I think that job satisfaction is a measure of reaching your personal goals. Everyone is different, and everyone wants a different thing from their jobs. Personally it feels like a job has to allow me to be "productive", "creative", "challenged", "purposeful", and maybe just "busy" too. It doesn't have to be easy. It can be bloody hard. It can be frustrating. But if I can do something and feel like I've achieved something, then that seems good enough. I didn't have that at Curtin. I didn't even have that when I was working in Network Services. Previously, the only times I've felt that way was when I was programming. Funny that.

I don't think it's specifically programming that does it for me, but that I can achieve those goals through programming. I could very well feel the same way about another occupation entirely, such as teaching, or driving a bus. If you can find the things in the job that allow you to reach those goals of yours, then you should be able to be satisfied. Same goes for everything.

Jarrah was celebrating her change of job at the Belgian Beer Cafe. It was good to catch up with her and her better other half, Brettski (as well as Sven, but more on that later). Its not often I get to catch up with those guys, and I always wish it could be longer. Seeing her in "business attire" was kinda funny too :P

The problem with the infrequent catch-ups is that you lose common ground for conversation, and once you've done the usual "so what have you been up to then?" type pleasantries I'm sorta lost for anything to talk about (I don't have what people would call 'good social skills'). Except the common ground that we all have - work. Sure, the purpose of tonight's celebration was work (Jarrah is celebrating a change of job), but still, as we were leaving Brett mentioned that I should update my blog more often so he could read about me bitching about work :P And it's true, I do bitch about work a lot. I don't mind that, but I sometimes worry that I'm being seen as someone who's always bitching about it - a thin line sometimes.

I think that bitching about work is not a bad thing, if you have the right frame of mind about it. I use this space as a place to let people know what I think of things. If something is on my mind and is pissing me off, I will probably say something about it here. Usually, if work is going well, or I've vented in some other forum, or nothing much is really happening, then I won't mention anything. It's kinda cathartic to put it all down on the digital landscape, and it gives you an opportunity to come back later and see how your perception of things changes over time. Sometimes the things I write here are more for myself than for other people, but I don't mind others seeing my thoughts: I am what I am, and what I think is a big part of what makes up me. (Whether or not it's just a bunch of pretentious wank is another story).

But for now, I can stop my bitching about Curtin. I've had my rants and tantrums, bitched about it, etc etc. But I handed in my resignation today. iiNet invited me to apply for a programming position in the Applications department, and after going through the interview process offered me a job.

Over the past year and a half I've had a lot of time to reflect over my previous employment at iiNet, and the things that caused me to leave. I think that the problem was two fold: I didn't fit with the way that iiNet worked (in my area, at least); and I couldn't handle not fitting with iiNet. No matter how I want to put it (the technical aspects of my reasoning at the time, the project work what wasn't proceeding, etc), that's all it boils down to. It doesn't mean that either one of us is more right or wrong than the other, but we're just different (although I still have opinions about that for some things).

People don't normally change much over a year and a half, or even up to 5 years. But I feel that I have, at least a significant amount for me. I worry that I'm not making the right choice to move back to iiNet, but I'm still going to. I want to. I've regretted not taking the opportunity to move into that team when I had the chance, and I feel that I'm in a much better position, mentally and emotionally, to approach the problems that really bugged me last time I was there. I reckon I'll still bitch about "My Crap Job" - that's just what I do. I think it helps me sort out what I feel about the situation. It helps me be more honest with myself, in turn allowing me to be critical of myself with a view to improving things. And even though I'll probably end up bitching about stuff, I'm looking forward to the challenges, both personal and professional, that are going to come from this job.

So yes, the Bitching Will Continue Until Morale Improves. You don't have to worry, Brett, I'll still be bitching about my job once the New Shiny Job Smell wears off :)

Don't you love it when two blog posts you were going to write come together nicely as one?

Sunday saw Michele and I do something a little different for a change. We went for a nice breakfast slash lunch at the Mt Street Cafe. I love a place that has a good all-day breakfast menu. It's one of the few places that I keep on coming back to.

I'd mentioned it to Michele before, but there's an cool worldwide exhibition that recently came to Perth that I want to follow: it's called Space Invaders. The basic gist of it is that they go around and put these tile (or other) mosaics in obscure but public places. Space Invader Spotting is apparently something that's fun to do. I know where two of them are in Perth, but once the weather clears up I want to go out and find the rest. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to show Michele one of them, as it was right near the cafe.

Despite what you might think, there's always cool stuff like that happenning around Perth, you just need to keep an eye out for it. I just wish I was better at finding out about these things...

I haven't been to the markets in years, but lacking any better ideas, Michele and I decided to head for the Subi markets. For probably the first time ever, I actually enjoyed it, even to the point where I was able to cope with the crowds! (I have issues with crowds - or rather the rudeness of people in crowds - that makes me rather jittery). After picking up a few more things I decided that maybe the markets weren't so bad after all.

Sure, this doesn't look like much, but it took us an hour to finish. Actually, Michele couldn't finish hers - she had to call Jono and ask him to finish it. We had that for dessert after a meal I Cooked All By Myself: a beef salad dish. Daniel wanted to catch up for dinner, and lacking any better ideas on where to go and what to have we decided to just cook something at home. It's about the only time I've had to even think about cooking something nice this year - I normally never have the time.

When he came over to finish Michele's Hot Chocolate, Jono brought his PS2 and a copy of Katamari Damacy. I've been hanging out to just see this game for ages, and he brought it over to play. Not only that, he left it here so I could play it some more! He's so generous. I wonder how long I can keep it for. The game itself is as whacked out as it's made out to be. It's surprisingly challenging, but awesomely fun.

I'm gunna play it 'till the controller breaks. Sorry Jono.

Bloody hell - if I'd known the car was gunna cost that much to get fixed, then I woulda got it fixed weeks ago... And to think I was gunna get my rage on when the mechanic guy told me they only replaced one core plug, not all three. Turns out the other two didn't need it. Saved me a bundle in labour...

So the other day I played with HTML::Tree, a perl library that does decent job of parsing HTML and building a DOM tree. It differs from XML::Parser because it's actually tolerant of bad HTML, where XML::Parser will barf on any errors. So a little code here, a search function there, and I've got a decent parsing library set up that I can use for all sorts of things. Hmm, I 'spose I should actually convert the DOM it generates into XML, to consolidate...

So that was fun.

No really, that's scary. Scary that it was fun. Hold me.

Lower.

This rant has deliberate grammar and spelling errors because Michele is reading "Eats, shoots and leaves". This is different because usually all the grammar and spelling errors are entirely acidental. Go Team Me!

In other news, I miss the Powerbook. I have Mac Envy. It's kinda like Penis Envy, but I suffer from it. Mac Envy, not Penis Envy. I'm quite happy with my todger. The scourge of Windows plagues me once again. I don't know what scourge really means, but it sounds good. Ah, dictionary.com to the rescue. mmm. That sounds about what I thought it meant, so I Am A Winnar! I'm even contemplating installing Teh Loonix on the desktop again, but that's probably just Crazy Talk again. There are certain apps that I need to use for work (and at home) that plain and simple _aren't_ available except under linux. VMWare licenses cost too much, and Bochs buggers up too. Hell, I even tried installing PearPC, but something buggerred up and stuffed if I'm gunna wait the 3 hours it takes to install OS X each time to fiddle around with it. It's too slow anyway.

Woe.

Today is the second day of the seminar that I'm missing out on. Damn you car and credit card bill! 'Spose I've only got myself to blame - and indeed I turned down an offer for a loan for the fees to get there - so it really is my fault I'm not there. Still sucks though. They'll all progress in Iaido and Jodo much faster than I will now. OMG I'll be lining up at the other end of the dojo because they'll all grade! Actually, it's probably a good thing, because I'll get to re-learn and hone the first few kata and build a solid foundation to progress from ^_^

Thought for the day: If you like random violence, turn on the TV and flick through the channels.

Michele and I started Wing Chun yesterday. After an hour and a half session, I can't really comment, but it does sound interesting. The instructor is really good at explaining things, but I feel that he was trying too hard to justify the various differences in techniques between Wing Chun and other martial arts. Punches, for example. I just think the point was a little laboured, especially when I can understand and agree with the reasoning. It was still a good training session, and the isometric exercises that form the first ... form ... are really good. I'm gunna have to try and work them into a daily routine. Hell, I really need a daily routine.

It occurs to me occasionally - when I rise from the slumber that is my daily life - that Perth is boring. Really boring. Or maybe I'm just out of the loop. There's some secret club that all the cool kids are in - where they hand out the flyers to all the cool stuff that happens, and everyone has a good and interesting time. I mean, life must go on, right? People need to do things, right? But unless you like the pubbing and clubbing, or you like the telly, there doesn't seem much to actually *do*. You hear of other places where there's stuff to do, but you don't hear or see any of that here. You need to be in the loop. In the club. Down with it.

I reckon it's partly due to the lifestyle 'choices' that you 'make'. Here I am, working a 9-to-5. I get home in the arvo, relax in front of some email (HAH), get some food, and contemplate what's going on. My job doesn't really encourage the sort of social interaction that might lead to anything interesting, and after hours there doesn't seem to be anything going on around the place. You look around the place, and people just seem to be inside. I don't know what they do any more than I know what I do. So what kind of things do people do when they get out? Play some organised sport - sure. Wander around the river or the beach, sure. Go out for a meal - sure. See a movie - sure. What else? I don't know. Myself, I train 3 nights a week - and I like it. But the other 4... Maybe I just want some more options - that interest me (ie: no movies, pubs, clubs, etc - even aimless wandering gets boring after a while). More importantly, something that I can share with Michele.

I think I like the idea of new cultural experiences, where I can learn and understand new things about other people and myself. But I don't like the rehashing of typical Australian culture, which I find bland and uninteresting. It seems that there's only the later available. Maybe that's why Perth is so boring - the fun and interesting things that people get up to are the things that I don't like :P

That got way too serious for a moment there. Allow me to retort with ... uh ... a distraction! Look! Look over there! No, there. Shiny stuff!

I'm hungry. I should eat.

On irc earlier: