Thursday, October 12, 2006

Pardon my absence...

It's just one of those hell-weeks at work. Been trying to complete a data analysis project for my boss but to no avail, simply because I do not spend 24 hours in the office. I am supposed to analyse 2.9 million items of data and check the destruction dates. Bringing the data up in the system already takes a couple of hours, sifting through the info will take me another couple of hours. That's 4 hours gone! Then, I'll have to sort the data according to account number... that will just take ages!

Oh well, soldiering on...

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I just found out that I'll be flying to Brisbane, Queensland on Monday for a conference. Talk about a very short notice! Thank goodness there are flights available or I'd probably wouldn't make it. Funny thing is that my boss was not aware of any conferences that require my attendance but he did say that the nature of the conference seems important for me to be involved. As far as I know, the attendees are mostly from Sales and Customer Care. I'm the only person from Operations! Oh well, it'll be a good chance to meet new people in the business. It's amazing that even with me being in the company for 6 years, I still meet new faces almost every week.

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I had a quick case of the flu over the weekend. To top that off, I also had hay fever. Tell you what, having a runny nose from the flu, itchy eyes and throat from the hay fever is definitely not a good combination. I just wanted to tear my nose off. It was so annoying! Thank God I'm over it now. I had to skip gym this week to make sure I'm completely healed. I don't want to spread my germs around.

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Melbourne has been experiencing bizarre warm weather these past few days. I expect summer to be an absolute scorcher if we're already getting 30 degree days mid-October. I'm kind of not looking forward to summer now. Too much heat is just unbearable. Oh well, at least I'll get to even out my tan quicker than usual.

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I bought a fantastic book last Tuesday. It's called "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture" by Ariel Levy. As part of my thesis proposal, I bought this book to further explore on what raunch culture is about. It's an excellent read. Levy argues convincingly that women of today may think that their actions are liberating and freeing but what they don't realize is that they are just perpetuating the images and ideals of a male dominated society. It seems rather harsh and conservative to think so, but feminists like Erica Jong even say that females today who brand themselves feminists have gone a bit too far.

To quote:

"If male chauvinist pigs were guys who treated women like pieces of meat, then female chauvinist pigs are women who make sex objects of other women, and of themselves, and think of this as empowerment."

Fantastic reading, girls. Go check it out!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW! hard work huh? everyone seems to be getting sick these past few days. our bodies are telling us to slow down noh? sigh.

good find re: book. i believe it was featured in Oprah as part of the analysis of girls participating in sex orgies and flashing their boobs on cam.

take care, mare!

Urban Warrior said...

"..women of today may think that their actions are liberating and freeing but what they don't realize is that they are just perpetuating the images and ideals of a male dominated society"

It's funny sometimes, I asked my gal pals what do they want when they say "Women Empowerment", they talk of things like "They want more women in the government, in high positions in society, etc." While back here (in Manila), we have those already, in some other progressive countries I guess this will take some time.