Workaholic Me!

Let me start by saying, I love you all for being such faithful readers! :D

So a lot of exciting things have happened since the last time I wrote about my life, and I can't wait to share it all with you! :D

Let's start where we left off, shall we? If you are not up-to-date, read this to catch up! xD

Last time, I told you guys what I had to do in week 6.Week 7 was pretty eventful because Thursday was ANZAC day. On Wednesday, Sue, our Maths teacher gave us ANZAC biscuits which were delicious AND nutritious. I should totally buy it the next time I go shopping! :D

So Thursday was ANZAC day. I had starved myself the past week by having just lunch and nothing else- mostly because I didn't have anything cooked before hand. My take on food these days is cooking all the food I need for the whole week in the weekend and refrigerate it. I am waay too tired at the end of the day to come home and cook! So on Thursday, I went on full cooking mode and cooked a lot! It was so tiring because I always make everything from scratch, except for bread!

Baked Beans and cheese sandwich with home-made lemonade

That Saturday we had Horse Riding at AAA Horse Riding. It was organised by TKD club. It was so much fun! And  we passed these gorgeous meadows. The whole place was so magical and riding a horse through it felt even more magical, like I was in a fairy tale! :D I even got to spend time with the cutest girls, Ruby and Lauren, Darrel's daughters. They were so adorable! <3

On the way to AAA Horse Riding

The two pretty ladies giving a smile for the camera! :D

In Week 8, my weekend was even better, with much more exciting things. But before telling you about that, here are some pictures form week 8. :D

On Saturday, I went to the city and while exploring the place, I found out that they had set up an ice-skating rink at Wheeler's Place. I've never been Ice Skating, so I rushed in to the place and tried it! It was so amazing! Sure, it took me some time to learn to balance and I even fell on my butt once, but when I finally got the hang of it, it was such a thrill! :D

The Sunday that followed, there was the most awesome colour run! It was 5Km and I was the most unfit person on Earth, but my friends who ran with me, they let me stop to catch my breath, which was really nice of them. I met many new people there, mostly friends of Liv and Bri! 

The best part wasn't the running, it was the getting splashed with different colours at the end of each Km, and the after party where we got so much colour on us. I looked like an alien with the green and yellow all over me! 

With all that colour, I have to say Bye for now! I have to go to the city again, to play Ingress. :D Not to worry, a post about Ingress is on the way! :D

The Workaholic Me- 4!

I know I promised more posts during Easter Break, but again, I went to too many places and was too tired to write any posts. It's not that I don't have things to write about. In fact, I have around 5 drafts already, just waiting for me to publish them, after adding some pictures and stuff of course!

Let me tell you how last week went. So on Good Friday, we had the Potluck at Richard and Andy's place! (Read about it here!)
On Saturday and Sunday, I went to Newcastle City- to the shops and the museum ( which had 4 different parts).
 On Monday it was the Jesmond Park, remember the rose overdose? (Ifyou don't, get updated or refresh your memory here!
On Tuesday it was the Hunter Valley Botanic Gardens.
I caught up on the chores and weekly grocery shopping on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Friday, I went to Sydney with Elia, the French  housemate from the place I was staying at before. We went to a magic shop, an opal museum and spent the rest of the day trying to find Sydney Wildlife Zoo. Since we arrived in Sydney after 2pm, we didn't have  much time and it was almost 6  when we finally reached Darling Harbour and went to Wildlife Sydney. So Elia booked a room for me at Hote Ibis, which was across the bridge from Wildlife Zoo (so I wouldn't get lost ;)) and he left for Newcastle.
I stayed the night in Sydney and got up early the following morning. I went to Wildlife Sydney Zoo, Sydney Aquarium and Madam Tussauds and had lunch before rushing off to my massage appointment. I took the Thai massage, which focuses on the pressure points- I NEEDED it! My back was killing me and my shoulder felt like it was about to drop off!!! After the massage, I went to see the Opera House andby the time I was finished there,it was almost 6, so I started my journey to come back to Newcastle. After 3 whole hours, I finally reached the City and caught a bus to Jesmond!
Sunday was just a lazing around day.

And then, this week, since I had neglected all my homework during the holidays, I had to catch up on them. So on Monday I was doing a lot of Maths!
Yesterday we had a Chem test, and today we have a Maths test.
Our English articles (2 of them!) are due on Friday, but I can't get started on them before the Maths test is over.
Health SOLT essay (1000-1500, easy, I know~! But it requires a lot of research!! Like a lot, a lot~!) is due coming Monday, so I have to work on it this weekend. Also, I have to prepare my IT presentation this weekend. *sigh* So much work to do and so little time!

Aand now, I am going to be late for class, so see you guys later! (I wrote this post at 8 in the morning because I was feeling too guilty that I was neglecting my blog! And I have  a class at 9. So I'm gone!)
Toodles!
xoxox

Workaholic Me- 3!

Well, you are probably tired of hearing how I always have soo much to do! So a round of applause for those who keep reading my blog any way! ;) *Applause*

I noticed that a lot of people liked my last post under the heading Workaholic Me and since I have been as busy this month as well, I thought I should write another post.

So like I have already headlined here, at the beginning of this month I was getting ready to come to Male'.  But ofcourse, before I could leave, I had to make sure that all the projects that were my responsibilities had to be completed.

To start with, last you heard, I had finished data entry for 6 districts, right? (If you have no idea what I am talking about, first read this post and then read this one!) Well, Potayto and I worked so hard (yes, for once, we were serious (well, he was! Didn't even say a word till we were done! Seriously dude, it was VERYunsettling!) and so focused on finishing it soon!) and finally we finished it! Finally!

I also compiled the key indicator list and sent it to the appropriate division. :D

I completed the map updation as well. Jojo was so busy and we finally decided to send out the map which was previously divided into 27 blocks and the updated map of each district. I felt so relieved afterwards.

Regrettably, I simply did not have enough time to finish the CPI so I taught Chefrex how to do it and let him handle it.

Oh and yeah, and there was a dinner, that I had promised to so many people a long time ago, just when I got 1st place in national Top ten. Mom and family members cooked so many different delicious dishes and everyone who came to the dinner (them being, all my friends who were in Fuvahmulah, family members, relatives, teachers of my old school, colleagues at the Atoll Council and Mom's colleagues at the Hospital! Yes, a lot of people!!) liked the dishes! :) (Mind you, it was a lot of work, getting all of it ready!)

Then I said goodbye to everyone in Fuvahmulah and came to Male'.

There was so much to do! I had to get the CoE from my university and trust me, I was calling them Monday through Friday, every single day and they informed me that they haven't started issuing CoEs of semester students just yet, that they would start on 4th February, Monday.

Meanwhile, Raid and I went to IGMH to see if they did medicals for Australian visa. They said they had some Australian approved doctors, but that they had left and so IGMH no longer made medicals for Australian Visa.
So we then went to AMDC (a private clinic) and asked them if they made Australian medicals and they said that they do. They asked me to bring a certain form. We went home, got the form and came back in the evening. The girl at the recpetion wasn't sure whether that was the right form. So she sent us upstairs.
We went upstairs to the girl who is incharge of medicals. She informed that there should be some other form as well. I went home and searched and searched, but couldn't find the form. Then Zeeniyahtha called and I told her that I couldn't find the form. She gave me a link to the form and I downloaded it and printed it.
We took that form the next morning and the girl said everything was in order and that I should pay up and go and do the investigations. It cost around Rf1400. They took my blood sample and urine sample and asked me to come back for the reports that night.
Raid and I were having lunch at King's Corner (this awesome restaurant that Raid frequents!) when a girlfrom AMDC called and told me that their physicians weren't Australian approved and that there was no way their medical could be accepted by the Visa Office!

I then called Zyniahtha and told her what happened. She said she'd check which doctors in Maldives were Asutralian approved. She told me about Dr.Usama, a friend of hers in ADK (Private hospital).
There I had to get some more forms and get my tests done. Since they didn't collect my blood sample that day, I went to Dr Usama the following day and it turned out that there was some mix up. I finally gave my blood sample and got the reports. It was on 9th February, Saturday that I finally got my medicals all ready and sealed by Dr Usama! Phew!

I went to the Scolarship Division on 5th Februray, Tuesday, (Dad called some friends and it was kind of a chain reaction, I finally had an appointment with the state minister of Ministry of Education, Anth, who was really nice, and helpful btw!) and requested that they send a letter to the university as my sponsor, to let me have my CoE soon because it takes around 3 weeks or something for my visa to get processed (I don't have 3 weeks! I had to be there in Australia on 19th February at the latest! *out of options!*). Anth also told me that they would arrange everything for me to go to Colombo myself and lodge the visa application (once I had the CoE ofcourse!) and track the progress of it myself!

I finally received my CoE on Wednesday and I sent a letter to Scholarship Division to arrange my Colombo trip. The financial statement they gave me detailing the terms of my scholarship had some mistakes in it and I had to take it twice to the Schol Div before I finally received the document that I could handover with my visa application. On 10th February, Sunday, they gave me tickets and pocket money along with a letter to the Australian High Commission in Colombo, asking them to speed up my visa processing.

Then I had to get my police report done. When I went to fetch it it  Sunday morning, they had made some mistakes and I had to go there again in the afternoon to get it!

I then had to make a bank draft for the visa application fee, which was worth LKR 74,400/ US $600 from Bank Of Ceylon to the Australian High Commission in Colombo. We had to take several trips to Bank Of Ceylon and Bank Of Maldives to get the US $600 and make a bank draft of it.

In all these trips back and forth, to ADK, AMDC, Schol Div, Foreign Ministry, Maldives Police Service and the banks, I was accompanied by Raid. I couldn't have done it without him and for that I am eternally grateful to him. He proved to me that he would be there for me whenever I needed. The sweetest part was, whenever I started listing out the things to be done, he would say, "Don't you worry about them. Leave them to me! I'll take care of them!" *much love*

And I am too exhausted to write any more! But I will update you with what happened later! PS I got my visa and I would be leaving to Australia hopefully on Monday!
Bed! I am coming to you!
Schyna Out!

The Workaholic Me! - 2

Firstly, let me start by apologising humbly for disappointing all of you who were expecting weekly posts. I already mentioned that I am almost upto my nose with work and deadlines! I know it's not an excuse, but let's look at the bright side, because I have been so busy, I have so much to tell you all ;)

When I first wrote a post under The Workaholic Me, it was to be a one time post.. No recurrences. However, there is just so much to write that I thought, Hey, why not make it a weekly thing? But please be warned, I get into these moods where I will be a total workaholic for a week and then a total slacker in the other week- be it slacking or working, rest assured, I give it my 100% ;) My point here being, I might not be able to write The Workahoilic Me every week if it's a slow week, but you can be sure that it will appear every now and then! 

So, on to the me who can't rest if she gets started with some work until she finishes it! You might already know about my House listing for Economic Survey and Census, and if you don't, get enlightened right now by following this link!. And before you get your hopes up, I still haven't finished the data entry! The good news is, DNP hasn't asked about it yet, maybe becasue they understand the enormity of the work and that it wouldn't be completed so soon. But not to worry, with the help of my faithful Potayto, I hope to be done with it by today!  

 Last you heard, Jojo (my colleague at The Secretariat of The Fuvahmulah Atoll Council) was dividing the 8 districts into 27 blocks right? So after he divided them, I marked the blocks on each district map and started entering the data. This is where you see the real workaholic in me, because I entered the data at the office everyday, from 8 to 3, with the help of a cousin who volunteers there, Shafu, and after I come home, I call Potayto and we enter the data together from 4 to 7! I do not get paid for the overtime, but here I am, bringing work home and trying to finish it within the deadline! But alas, the workload is too much!

Even Shiakko, my younger sister, helped me once. But mostly it's been Shafu and Potayto, Potayto, more so! Looking on the bright side, I have finished 6 WHOLE DISTRICTS-yeah, that includes the BIGGER 4, hence, the excitement ;)) and half of one district. That was a really slow district because I had to find the names from the map and then search for the data for that house from the 20 or so pages of information (In other districts, the enumerators had written a reference number for each household so when I read off the number from the map, Potayto could look up the number in the list and read off the information almost instantaneously!) Nevertheless, I am determined to finish the remaining ones today, yes, working on a Friday, can I get any more obsessed with work? :P (And for those of you who are accustomed to Friday being the last day of the week, Friday for us, in Maldives is the weekend, Friday and Saturday, with the new week starting on Sunday!)

Here I mention guiltily, that my CPI work for the past two weeks are at a halt, because I was so busy with data entry. I did send December's CPI list on 6th January, just in time for the deadline (Deadline is 5th of each month, but 5th January was a Saturday so I got the extra day!). And I am sure I can send CPI of January by 5th February, but that is no small task either. Taking prices of over 200 products from more than 40 outlets is no small feat I tell you! 

Update on collecting the Key Indicator's list for MaldivInfo is, I have received the information from all the 8 Island Councils, last receipt was from Miskimmagu Council last night! You wouldn't believe how many times I had to call each council to get ALL the information. I called almost twice everyday since 14th January. Some councils were very cooperative and they sent it right before the deadline of 15th, but others needed more reminding and more bothering them to send me the data. Now that I have all the data, I have till 23rd to compile them, fill in any missing information from Fuvahmulah Atoll Council's database, and leave comments for each Indicator!

I had mentioned that the deadline for sending an updated map of Fuvahmulah as a whole for Census 2014 was 14th January. But Anys, a colleague at DNP, the one who is supervising the Map Updation extended my deadline to 20th January, after hearing my story. The thing was, I was so involved with House Listing and data entry (since it had a deadline for last Thursday), that I misread the letter DNP sent to me regarding the updation of maps. DNP had actually asked me to get the maps from the Island Councils, not update the maps myself! So ofcourse it was a huge workload off of me, but then I had to send the letters to the island Councils (I have to Thank Waheedhahtha for that, she prepared the letters for me,) giving them a deadline of 17th January, yes, yesterday. But even when I started calling them on 16th and after calling them several times yesterday, I'm still missing maps of 3 districts., 4 actually, the one sent by one dsitrict was in pdf format and I was unable to convert it to the required Corel Draw format (actually Jojo converted the autocade versions to Corel Draw format! Thank you Jojo!). So tomorrow I have to go to the office, on a Saturday, yes, AGAIN, call the people who are responsible for sending me the maps (I got their cell phone numbers, since I knew their work numbers wouldn't work on a weekend ;) ), get all the 8 maps, merge them into one, call Jojo, ask him to divide the whole of Fuvahmulah into 27 blocks (wouldn't be hard I hope, since he already did it for the House Listing! ;) ) and send them to Anys on Sunday! 

Well, those are my deadlines and targets for this week! Catch ya later! :D

The workaholic me! :D

It's been a  hectic week for me at the job. I am supervising 3 major projects that are underway, all due before the 3rd week of January! ;)

So the first project is House Listing for economic survey and  Census 2014. Every single building and household is listed during the process, and I am supposed to make sure everything gets done on time. So first I had to find enumerators ( 1 for each district of Fuvahmulah, which has 8!). The catch was, the one person had to be the enumerator for the whole district, and I know how people feel about going alone on surveys and stuff ;) So, my selling point was that they can take some one with them, but they would have to split the allowance! :D  

So I called some people who were already a part of Maldives Red Crescent, because I knew that they had experience in surveying and all, and some people who I knew for a fact to be totally bored at home with  nothing to do and would be glad to earn some money! :D So I called Shafu (my cousin who volunteers here at the Atoll council), Ahthu, Shamy, Sheeth, Mashiq, Shahyd, Aamal and Sir-Rim and they were really enthusiastic about it!

Next was calling them to a meeting and explaining to them how it worked. I brought them here to the Atoll Council, and we discussed the questionnaire together, making sure they understood all the questions and how the form should be filled. They asked their doubts and I tried my best to clarify them. All the while, I treated them more like my friends (they ARE my friends, all of them ,yeah! :D) more than people I hired for the job ;) I hope they liked it that way! :D 

So, after the explanations, they were given the forms, files, pens and maps of their district and they went off.

It went on for three days, starting on the 2nd January and ending yesterday. Yesterday, after so much hard work, everyone brought me their files which had completed forms and the serial number of each building listed,  marked on the map where the building was supposed to be. I should mention that they were all very dedicated and they did their very best, and for that I thank them from the bottom of my heart! 

Next is entering the data. But before that, the 8 districts need to be divided into 27 blocks and the data should be entered block-wise. Jojo is already working on the map and hopefully, would have them ready by tomorrow! I am trying not to think about how I am going to enter the data of 8 whole districts, me all alone! :P lol!

But for now, I have to worry about CPI too. That it Consumer Price Index. I have taken all the prices of products from all the outlets, (there are about 50 outlets in Fuvahmulah!). I have around 5 outlets' data to be entered and 10 outlets' data to be verified. I have to do all that by tomorrow and send the forms to DNP tomorrow at the latest! So here I am, working on a Saturday, even when I do not get paid for the Over Time! Talk about a workaholic! ;)

The 2nd project is the map updating for Census 2014. The most updated map DNP has of Fuvahmulah is from Census 2006, and since that was 6 years ago, you can imagine how outdated it would be! ;) So we need an updated map as a reference for the Census next year. It is my job to make sure that the planning unit of the Secretariat of the Fuvahmulah Atol Council sends it to DNP by 14th January 2013. Thoriq, my supervisor and head of Planning unit, said that we could use the data we gather from house listing to update the map, so that hasn't started yet, but I'm hoping this project would start soon! :D

The last project that I'm responsible for is getting the information regarding the key indicators of development from each island council. Since we have 8 island councils, each of them as slow in delivering any data we require from them as the other, I have to constantly bug them about it, until they complete the related forms and send the data to me. I then have to put all of hem together in one place, verify them and send them to DNP. I can't start checking the progress of the island councils since I haven't received the official letter sent by DNP to the councils. So once I receive the letter, I have to remind the secretariat of the 8 island councils to deliver the information before the deadline!

I feel so overwhelmed, but here I am, relaxing with a HUGE packet of Cheese Balls, slowly working on the CPI work! Because if I panic and freak out, none of the work would get done! :P So, catch you later! I'm going  back to my work! The prices are calling me! :D