Am I back?

Time to get the blog rolling!

Still working in the bank I was contracted with last May. The job is interesting with quite a lot of challenges but the paperwork in this global bank is horrendous! There are definitely a lot problems when a bank at the global level is trying to “standardise”! The ratio to get something done here is 5:1 i.e. 5 times the paper work for 1 amount of work!

People are really nice and work culture quite different from the ones I have been used to in Canada. E.g. in my first job in Canada at an insurance company, I got the opportunity to learn from experienced people at that company. I not only gained access to a great network of professionals but also made great friends. (I also made and lost a best friend from that company). The bank I work at has a hybrid work culture. It is a chaotic mix of Canadian, Far-East Asian and South Asian cultures. I don’t want give the
impression that it’s bad or I dislike it. I quite like it but it’s different from what I expected. The best way to describe working at the bank is that it’s organised chaos!

Life at home has changed dramatically as well. The wife finished her course in NYC and is back in Canada which caused a lot of problems initially. Things are calm in the home front now :) and we are basically looking forward to the summer now. I think being locked up in the house during winter also caused a lot of friction!

Rhea, my daughter, continues to be the light in my life. She has become quite opinionated over the last few months and everything thing we ask her to do is an argument in the making! She is quite shy with other people initially but she warms up in a few minutes which I think is a good thing. Her activities (martial arts, Kumon, piano and swimming) keep me quite busy but as long as she is learning I have no complaints.

My running is going well too (or at least I think it is!). I am training for a full marathon on the 15th of May 2011. I will be running the good life marathon (I had already signed up for the good life and then realised that Mississauga marathon is on the same day! Aaaargh!). I am trying to put in as my KMs per week but obligations at home and work keep getting in the way. And when the wife is not supportive of your running, then the training becomes really hard!

I hope I will be able to maintain a regular update on this blog. I will aim lower and try and update once a week with mini updates every now and then.