Gone are the greens and pinks of the old site. They were from a different era. The new colour scheme of grey-on-grey reflects the recessionary days that we live in. A lot of the content has been updated:

• Articles – The longer writings
• Photos – I have a new camera, so expect some better photos in the future
• Activities – What I do with my time
• About – Who I am and where my background

What will I write about? I want to tap the under-represented market of London accountants.

Old sleeping habits – Means staying up way past midnight; sleeping for more than 8 hours; sleeping in and afternoon naps. Bliss. However, I remember a journal a health economics journal which said that over-sleep was worse than sleep-deprivation for life expectancy.

Revision for an accountancy exam in two weeks. Actually, most of the course is self-study, so technically revision has not started yet. The recommended study guide is spread over three days, but assumes that you work for 10 hours a day.

Wii Mario Kart – This is the 4th iteration of Mario Kart that I have played (SNES, Gameboy Advance, Gamecube and Wii). A motion-sensing steering wheel is now the method of control. It takes time to learn how to use it after years of using a standard controller. Funnily enough when I first played Mario Kart on the SNES, I tried to tilt the controller in order to control the kart. (I wasn’t a smart 9 year old). Now technology has caught up with my childish intuition.

More time has been spent on Mario Kart than revision.

Snow isn’t fun anymore – Returning to Liverpool means I don’t have to use public transport and get to drive everywhere. However, it has been ridiculously cold and the roads have been frozen. Not being able to stop while going at 5mph is terrifying. Driving through snow for 20 miles is horrible. You trudge at 20mph without and sudden movements. You’re not sure if you or the car behind you can stop.

Snow isn’t fun anymore, but snowmen still are:

I’ve had two weekends without needing to study. It’s been great to spend the time reading, playing computer games and cooking proper meals. I spend time in some very esteemed company – five junior doctors shooting zombies at the arcade. This is why no-one makes shows about auditors.

I’m already looking towards the next milestone. I’m relearning the website building skills that I never actually had. Once again, I feel like I have to squeeze every productive second out of the day.

 
I’ve displayed a photo of the Sequoia tree at the Natural History Museum because it is 1500+ yeas old. Our lives are horribly slight in comparison. All that we aim for will not last and probably won’t deserve a place in the Natural History Museum.

However, please forget the trees because each day is important. With every second that passes we loose the chance to practice our audit skills by counting the tree rings.

A note for the Phones4u salesmen/women/robot, don’t offer me a completely different phone when negotiating a deal. Although top marks for listening to the convoluted explanation of my requirements.

I’m trying to write the blog post from the phone itself on a fast, tilting train without the safety of the Firefox spell checker.

Some thoughts:

• The phone has a pleasing form factor. The keyboard is easy to use. The side buttons are useless.
• Mobile Facebook is as addictive as it sounds.
• The organisational satisfaction of synchronising contacts and calendar to the cloud.
• I’m now a social networking demon. Although it feels like I’ve sold out to someone.
• I don’t have to carry around a bible anymore.
• Could this be the end of my Moleskin diary?
• It’s like an iPhone, but less cool and more geeky. Perfect.

I spend close to 8 hours a day in front of a computer. 4 of those hours are in front of Excel spreadsheets. This is what my world looks like. This is my ideal desktop setup.

1. Black desktop – Utilitarian, plain, simple and no distractions. The main reason for this is that Windows loads up 2 seconds faster. This saves 32.4 minutes over an average lifetime. Staring at such a boring and demoralising desktop takes 32.4 hours off your life expectancy.
2. No crap on the desktop – Utilitarian, plain, simple. Desktop crap is distracting and unproductive. I keep a "current" folder off the desktop for that purpose.
3. Lots of quicklaunch icons – One-click access to the 16 most-used programs/folders. That includes one-click shutdown. The seconds seem trivial, but it is also easier and less frustrating.
4. The sidebar – The most striking feature of my desktop setup. When I’m working, I usually have 20+ windows open. I need to see them all at once. With a sidebar, I can see all the windows and select them easily. Also, there is plenty of horizontal space on today’s widescreen monitors, vertical space is at a premium*.

*Thanks to Andy Liu for this insight

I’m off to find a new hobby so I can write about something else.

Believe it or not, I don’t write this blog because I’m a typical-narcissistic-Generation-Y-auditor. I’m actually in it for the money. To this end, website traffic is monitored using Google Analytics. The big spike was caused by a colleague emailing my site to select friends at the firm.

Thanks (I think).

I’m currently got two laptops set up side-by-side. One is used for watching the re-run of the Chinese Grand Prix. The other is used for email and writing this blog. My phone and my (sister’s) pink iPod is not too far away. I’ve spent the weekend setting up a beta version of the Windows 7 operating system. I now have three operating systems on one computer. I’ve also set up Twitter. I don’t usually follow the latest fads – except for technology.

Google

I’m a slave to the Google corporate machine. I use the following services regularly:

• Gmail – all my email and (nicely alphabetised) contacts are up here.
• Calendar
• Documents – used for the online spreadsheets for my challenges
• Reader
• Maps
• and Google search – of course

Other tech stuff

• Blog (obviously) – how much longer before I run out of stuff to write about? Not before any readers leave.
• Facebook – I don’t use anymore, but contemplating rejoining
• Twitter – I’ve not made up my mind about Twitter. Clever communication method or self-indulgent Generation Y crap?
• Phone – still use a bog standard phone because I’m too stingy to pay for a smartphone
• Windows XP – still better than Linux / Vista / Windows 7
• Camera – none, both my previous cameras are still lost somewhere in China

Was life easier when I didn’t spend ages dealing with email every day?

If you have come from the Tianjin Directory site, then I welcome you to a blog about an ex-expat going through reverse culture shock after leaving Tianjin in July 2008.

I have spent the evening marking my student’s homework. I always appreciated the teachers take marked my homework promptly and gave me good feedback so I try to do the same for my students. Sitting on the other side of the desk has given me a greater appreciation of how utterly boring this is. Actually, I don’t sit behind a desk during my lessons because I normally stand. All my students scored As, so I must be doing something right as a teacher.