I am contemplating doing the ACCA while doing my PhD. Sounds a bit heavy, and perhaps it is. But I was thinking.. if I were to take one paper at a time, assuming that the minimum number of exemptions I will get is around 6 papers; that leaves another 8, three of which I need to take all in one go so I will need to do that in Malaysia. That leaves 5 papers and if I take one paper at a time for every sitting; and there are 2 sittings every year... well.. it WOULD be possible, wouldn't it, to get the required 5 papers in 3 years? An ACCA registration lasts 10 years, so it IS do-able.

There are other constraints I have to think of, however. One is, for every paper I need exemption for, I need to pay an exemption fee. Then there are the exam fees. No way will I be able to attend classes, so I will need to get material and stuff via home-correspondence or self-study - duit lagi. So it's all contingent on how much money I can save the first few years.

Yesterday went slowly downhill after I figured out that I had the record keeping capabilities of a three year old. There was a meeting that we were 'invited' to attend that turned out to be compulsory. Had to sit in the room for two and a half hours ; freezing cold and no one bothered to turn the air-conditioning down. Came out at half past six, only to be told that a certain item that was not yet due became due; hence a frantic rush to print and prepare all. Only managed to crawl out of the office at 2130 hours.

Feet dragging with hunger, we drove to the nearby rest house to eat at its restaurant.. only to be told.. 'Restaurant dah tutup dik.. tukar contract". So had to drive out to the only place left in Muadzam that served food post 8pm - the highway rest area. My usual stall was closed, so we went to this other stall - two of my friends ordered air barli only to be served with air bandung.. do'oh.. One of use ordered nasi ayam which was pre-cooked, but took an hour to reach us. Two others ordered mee hoon bandung but were served with with something that remotely resembled mee hoon in kuah kacang. When we got round to paying, we asked for separate bills, to which the response was - everyone scurried into the kitchen. Finally, the cashier took about 2 minutes to calculate the the change from RM20 for a charge of RM19.60.

Right. So the weekend. Took a rest from taking to the town. Fisz was over at Shick's in KL, so there was no Sunday morning movie run. Plus I'm flat broke. But I did manage to hop down to Warta to get a few VCDs. As always, only managed to watch one CD of Stuart Little from the three I bought. I made one futile attempt to watch it later in the afternoon; of course I lost out to abah and his Hindustani collection. Way back in the days when our VCD player was the PS1 console, I practically had it all to myself because no one could figure out the intricacies of switching the thing on.. now that we've modernised and are using one of those Hi-Fi cum VCD player thingis.. well.. the mechanics got easier and I got no chance to watch anything no more

Did catch Miss Congeniality on HBO however.. laughed my head off.. ha ha ha ha boink.. if anyone still knows that (lame) joke. And then watched the England vs Slovenia match.. played on a surface that reminded me of Woodstock'94 post rain. At least we won. England are playing Macedonia in a few days.. hope I don't wake the whole house watching that; as I have perfected the art of screaming after a goal to perfection.

And like millions in the country, also tuned in to watch Anugerah Bintang Popular Berita Harian. Great job to Rosyam Nor.. not only do I respect him as an actor of class; he also managed to topple Siti from the top. Woo haa! I usually don't pay much heed to these 'audience' voting award ceremonies because there is a strong hint of bias - I mean, what's to stop from an artist sending heaps and heaps of entries under pseudonyms to make sure he gets the Waja? - but this time I think Rosyam Nor's win is justified. He is the actor of the moment; and unlike someone who plays a police officer that was nominated in the same category as him, our Rosyam can actually act.