I work here. Doing stuff. Stuff that keeps me awake at night.

lj-mood: tired

lj-music: Prodigy: Firestarter

So it turns out that I am supposed to
go to Helsinki tomorrow, but I am having a problem to find a hotel room.
 Every room in Helsinki appears to be booked and I am not sure why.
 It is not that Helsinki is not a fun place.  It is that it is
not so much fun that it should be operating at such a capacity that the
nearest open hotel room is in Estonia.  Really strange indeed.  I
have to go next week anyway, but there were some meetings and engagements
that I wanted to keep, so I am little pissed that I might not be able to
find a room in time.

On another note, I found this picture
of me, my best friend Markus, and the owner of Storstad (where we were
having dinner) on the internet.  Actually, there is a website called
www.stockholmsfinest.com that takes pictures at several clubs of people
they deem cool.  And then the next day you can go and see if your
picture made it.  Our picture made it on 21 January 2006.

I am also very tired, but I am not sure
why I am awake.  I think with all of the new workload and things on
my mind, I can’t even relax and fall asleep.  Which is a shame really
because I could use the sleep.  And maybe listening to Prodigy isn’t
helping too much either.

On a different note, I decided to e-mail
this post into my livejournal to test out whether it will post as I have
formatted it and as expected.  If so, that will be cool.  Especially
when I have something on my mind that I want to post, but I can’t go and
open up LiveJournal at work without feeling like a total slack-ass cow
pie.  At least now I will be able to look like I am typing something
official-looking.

Peace. Rodney

(let’s discount the fact for the moment that I also work unofficially over the weekends)

This week has been one of ups and downs.

The plusses this week include:

• the fact that for volunteering to take a later flight on an overbooked plan, I got a €300 travel voucher. That brings it up to €600. So SAS has just paid for most if not all of my flight to a vacation destination in Europe or a trip back home.
• The dry cleaners managed to do a terrific job dry cleaning the sofa cushion covers. And all for like $200. Could have been worse. They are great and comfy sofas!:-)
• My landlord will let me stay through September. So a break on the pressure to find an apartment
• The first weeks of my new job are going well. So much to do and learn

The negatives are:

• That my mind hurts. Actually my brain. Like there is alot of pressure on it.
• My body is telling me that I need to relax, but I don’t know how. I have so much to do and I don’t want to disappoint. I keep telling myself the 80 hour weeks will get better soon.
• The stress-induced nosebleeds have started to return. But that only happens when the stress is at a severe level. Nothing else that I can notice physiologically about me changes (not a higher heart rate of anything).

I can’t seem to unplug now. It is making me nervous. I have been running at continuous high-octane for months now. If I don’t get ina decent vacation, it might become bad. I can handle it now because the situation calls for sustained performance at least through July. But I will need some time to chill out wuthin the next 12 weeks.

Does anyone know the way to Santa Fe? 😉

I passed my CISSP examination!  I am sooooo happy 🙂  You have no idea.  I actually felt like I had passed the exam right after passing.  And by the weekend, I knew I had passed it, and was just waiting for confirmation.

And then there was the pleading for them to give me my score already so that I could finish the certification activities.

I have people to thank.  Obviously the instructors of the different courses that I took got me to focus.  And a huge thanks goes to sjneedham, who when I was thinking of going to Berlin and partying the weekend before my exam, grounded me in reality and forced me to realise just how important studying was to get my certification in terms of the opportunities it can hold (e.g. an addition US$10,000 if I decide to leave IBM for another company).

And the weather is beautiful in Copenhagen this week!

Topday I opened my french windows to let some air into the apartment. Badly needed air into the apartment. I have been isolating myself most weekends and I am not too sure why. Well actually I have a pretty good idea why, but I don’t want to share it just now.

So anyway, 2 bees came in during the course of the day. They seemed to be fighting with each other, and then they decided to gang up on me. But then, the song I am listening to now came on (see my ‘Current Music’ section) and it managed to send them flying out the window.

Now I think that was a little bit excessive of the bees, don’t you? It’s not that bad of a song.

Listening to the Rent soundtrack makes me happy and sad.

It sapped my energy to go out. But I am too fat to go out for the next few weeks anyway, so it’s just as well.

I feel so blah today!

That is all…

I think I have a good chance of passing. We’ll see.

But for right now, the 4 weeks of focused studying means I get to reward myself with some gin & tonics and some good dance music and some much needed relaxation!