Don’t Forget To Greet The Stranger On The Road

You never know, you just might have made the acquaintance of an angel without knowing it.  Call it a hunch, or an intuition or the sixth sense.  Call it what ever you like.

Come to think of it there was something about this stranger yet somehow, at that very moment it just did not dawn on me, until sometime some where down the road I faced another near encounter and THEN another stranger approached in the distance and I stopped in my tracks.  Should I greet this person again?  Is this the same person or are there many like them?

I recalled some of the many instances where someone came along in the other direction of the road.  Someone good always does!  Often in times of distress.  And I sat by the side of the road and reminisced and I wondered of those encounters where I had met a remarkable person who should not have been there in any other ordinary circumstance. 

Some of these folks we may have met only once, and then they are gone forever.  Never to be seen again in our life time. Maybe it was so long ago yet the scene still plays out on the grey screen like it was just yesterday. 

Often times we do not see them again because they have fulfilled a purpose at a particular moment in our life and their job is done and because we have probably moved away from where it all began, in the end we simply remember them as ordinary folks. Nothing more nothing less.  Just ordinary people. Or were they really?

Others, believe it or not, we still meet every other day in this present time in different circumstances. Think about it! Different scenarios for different people and in the bustle of life, in our busyness, we don’t realise the plans that are in store for us that slowly but surely unravel before us in ordinary circumstances that, most times we take for granted as just normal events.

What about you?  Do you ever wonder about the good folks you have met along the way, folks you have met in different situations in your life whether it was positive or it was negative? Folks who for some reason were not there by mistake, and whether you liked it or not and whether directly or indirectly they had left a lasting impression or made an impact on your life that many times their stories don’t ever make the the blank pages of your  personal diary because its already written forever in your heart.

Just Over Broke

Sitting here looking out this office window every day for the last decade at distant sprawling hills and blue skies beyond. Hoping things would get better doing the same thing over and over. Unless I get out of this comfort zone I am just another statistic walking on thin ice.

But during those office hours while the body is only reacting and the mind is drifting far away out there beyond these four walls. Somewhere beyond those hills far away from the city life is more refreshing to the human mind and soul, then this shrinking cubicle with all its work load pressures and dead line schedules with no incentives to motivate but drive one insane.  It has all been a lie.

Who came up with this idea of a job in the first place?  Wake up in the mornings and splash water to your face. Skip breakfast because you are running late again and head out into the day like the rest of the zombies in the public transport stuck in the morning traffic that's become the norm in this city.

You clock in.  Switch on your computer .  Log into the network. Open your office applications.   Open your virtual work queue.  Start processing for the next 8 hours or more.  Then the phone starts ringing off the hook, emails are coming, faxes are coming, more paper work is coming.  Finally its time to go home.   You close your applications.  Shut down and clock out.  You travel home, have dinner and go to bed and have a strange dream about cubicles closing in on you in a psychiatric ward.   You wake up screaming and morning has just broken. You are tired you want to sleep further but you have to wake up to earn your bread and butter. So you rinse and repeat what you did yesterday...to be continued. 

It Is Never Too Late

Happy weekend to you all.

It's been like more than 14 weeks of study, burning the midnight oil, for all the tests, and assignments.

The final exam this week was a relief to say the least.

I have got two weeks to wait for the results to come out.

School is out now for a month or so and I am back to my usual route to the office in the mornings.

A bit of back ground about the course I am taking at the IBS.

I am studying for my Diploma in Business (DIB) at the Institute of Business Studies a tertiary college in PNG that is affiliated with the Southern Cross University of Australia.

The IBS also offers an MBA program through its affiliation with the Deaken University.

The diploma program offered is the foundation in a career path that leads towards a bachelors degree.

After the diploma program, the next step in the career path is the associate degree and finally the bachelor degree program.

You can obtain a diploma with the IBS in a year and in three years get your bachelors degree majoring in accounting, marketing, information systems or information technology.

What I like best about the IBS is that you can obtain an international qualification right here at home which means you get to be close to your loved ones while you take up studies.

This year (2011) the IBS saw the highest number of student intake ever recorded as a result of clever marketing and recommendations from past students.

The average student per class this at the IBS was around 90 students compared to an average of 30 students per class in the previous years.

The IBS has a unit research centre to ensure that the curriculums they offer are up to date each year.

For those who are working you can always take up studies part time and complete your diploma in two years and in four years you can get your degree. 

So far I have completed 4 units out of the 8 units in the diploma program and have 2 more semesters to complete before I can get my diploma.

To interested persons living in PNG or Port Moresby I would highly recommend studying at the IBS to further your academic education.

Image source: Ports.com

Burning The Midnight Oil

Since taking up part-time studies at the IBS I have been staying up late to do my school work. I find it peaceful at these odd hours of the morning.

After midnight the streets are empty except for the occasional night riders speeding down the road. Outside my window dogs can also be heard rummaging through my next door neighbors garbage left beside the road for pick up the rubbish truck. The city is asleep and I am usually along with my thoughts at these early hours of the morning.

Currently I am working on a management assignment.  Its a team work assignment and we are to address several questions based on a hypothetical case study.  The assignment is due midnight next week Wednesday 11 May 2011.

However, I am not pleased with the effort of our team.  As we have not had an official meeting to discuss the questions. This assignment is crucial if we are to pass the unit at and it is the last week. Crucial to me especially since the condition of my continued sponsorship is that I get C and above in all the 8 units I study under this diploma program.

I am not one to give up that easily so I have attempted most of the questions and will hunt down my my team this week to collaborate on a draft.  This is now a crisis and since this is a management cost it must be managed at all costs. That also means burning the midnight oil to get it done.

Image source Midnightcomm