Chan's Personal Blog

So I came across this interesting personality quiz called the Johari Window. From the quiz: "[The Johari Window was] invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up."

I've setup a Johari Window, and I've picked six adjactives that I think best describe me. So it's your turn.

1. Go to my Johari Window and pick six adjactives that you think best describes me, and submit the information.
2. Once you're done, you can see the results of the quiz.

It's that simple. It should be interesting how this thing turns out, and to see what kind of vibe I give off to people. The site also lets you setup your own window for free, so if you do, leave a comment and I'll fill yours out as well.

Well, the title speaks for itself. My exams were completely done so I had no more school work to do. I go home and do absolutely nothing, and there were no consequences because I didn't have to study any more. That is some sweet action right there, although, I guess for all of you out of university, it seems rather unexciting.

To start off the week, I got my tax return on Tuesday which was great! It was perfect timing because I wanted to invest part of my return in an American oil company. Once the return came in, I converted it to American dollars which took about two days. By the time Thursday hit, the oil company's stock price had dropped $8; the stock market was throwing a sale, so I picked up a few shares for a great price. By Friday, the stock was starting to bounce back up and recover. Sweet.

On the academia front, I got all my exam marks back. I bagged an A+ in Computer Graphics, and an A in Artificial Intelligence (AI). The computer graphics final, I scored the third highest mark. The AI course was kind of funny. The prof sent out an e-mail telling us that the exam marks were out; however, just because you got full marks on a question, it doesn't mean you got it right. The prof was VERY generous in his marking, otherwise a lot of people would have failed the course. To illustrate how bad it was, the final exam was an open book exam, and it was supposed to last 3 hours. He gave us extra time, so I stayed for a total of 3.5 hours. When I left, 70% of the class was still writing. Some people took up to 5 hours to finish. Yikes.

At work on Friday, we had our end of term lunch at Japanese Village. Yum. Consequently, this week marked the fourth year that I've been working with the company I'm with.

Friday got better as it was floor hockey night at church. There were a LOT of people there that night. They had enough people for 4 teams; normally we have 3 teams. I bagged 3 points and 3 assists for the night, and no sticks to the face, so it was pretty good. Sarah also played and she was the enforcer as usual. One of the kid's mom decided to play floor hockey as well, and lets just say Sarah asserted herself as the alpha-female. I think the mom was scared of Sarah after being checked a few times . By my count, I think Sarah scored at least 4 points for the night, could be more. Adam as usual bagged a crapload of points, and I lost count.

All in all, it has been a great week off from school. It all starts back up on Monday, and we will be doing battle with the last, final term. Bring it on!

So with only one academic school term left in my masters program, a lot of people have been asking, Chan, what are you going to do after you're done? Honestly, I haven't really thought it through. A lot of people have 5 year plans that they prepare, ie, where do you see yourself in 5 years. Those plans kind of went down the drain when I started my masters because I didn't anticipated going into graduate school. It was kind of spontaneous, and mostly Myron's fault .

Anyway, with one term left, there are two options on the table, and I'm split between the two. Option A is to graduate and find a permanent job somewhere in town. Option B is to extend my program by going into co-op and going after my dream job which is half way across the country. Why on earth would I do a co-op term? Well, co-op has several benefits. For one, I don't have many contacts in my industry these days because I've been out of the industry for so long. A lot of people use co-op to get their foot in the door with a company, and gain a permanent job after the term is over.

Here's the breakdown of the options.


The two are somewhat mutually exclusive at the moment. Part of me thinks that I'll regret not taking a chance and seeing what life is like at the dream job. Even if I don't like it, the certification that I'll be getting would be extremely valuable for the resume. In addition, being able to travel sounds pretty good because I haven't done any travelling at all. It's also nice to get paid to travel. The farthest that I've been away in the last 6 years has probably been only as far as Kamloops.

On the other hand, I have friends that are out there in the industry, and they tell me that I'm already packing some serious academic firepower, and I should get out there and find a permanent job because I already have everything that's needed. They wonder why I would take a lower paying job to get a certification and work experience that I don't really need. They say a master's degree is enough to blow away a lot of competition in the job market. On top of that, I'm not some theoretical student that hasn't worked a day in my life. I've got 6 years of related professional work experience under my belt as well. That's better than quite a few of my peers. I know one guy who's doing his master's, and he has only worked 4 months as a programmer, and that's it.

In either case, this is what's on my mind these days. I have to reach some sort of conclusion by the end of the month. I've been hesistant to commit to anything because I have no clue where I'm going to end up. I'm going to give it more thought after I finish all my exams and my head is clear. Both paths sound good but both have time sensitive aspects that make them mutually exclusive.

If you have any thoughts or comments, I'd love to hear them.