HOME HOME HOME :)

hey guys!! I just wanted to let you all that I am home!! Here's what I did the last week. Even though its just work.
Monday: First, I corrected Horizon Wealth's Financial Services Guide and added to templates in Xplan and to the website. Next I added an adviser client into xplan. I checked that all of the email templates that I previously edited in xplan are in the font Tahoma. I synced Brian's blackberry by creating a spreadsheet with the individual clients and the clients in the wealth management category that included all of their contact information and category information.
Wednesday: I opened ING letters and sorted them. I uploaded Brian's new picture and later changed the size of it several time to make it look good on the website. I checked to make sure that the clients under Harmers had the correct product disclosure statement on the website. I combined files together to make ING's Product Disclosure Statement, which includes information about insurance, forms to fill out and many other FAQs. I opened more envelopes and ordered them. I changed someone's residential address. I scanned in items to Leanne's email. I made 2 calls to different product providers to see if you can send change of adviser letters through via email, which you could do.
Thursday: I came to work for two hours. I made some phone calls and checked some things on the website. After work, I spent the rest of my giftcard and went to paddy's market to buy gifts. Then, I came home and hung out with some people and then we went out. On friday, I came home.

That's the end of my blog! Congrats we made it! If you read my blog, thanks for taking the time and I hope you could live vicariously through me!

I just love hanging out with the crocs!

Saturday was a day full of events, rainforest events. We sat in the bus for a really long time and travelled all over the Cairns area. We met our bus driver at 7:30 am. He was a crazy aboriginal man that told us lots of stories, mostly about “the cane” or sugarcane. It looks a lot like corn and so it reminded me of Indiana except for the fact that there were mountains in the background. Serena and I were forced to sit in the front of the bus because there were only two seats left. We switched on and off who had to sit next to the bus driver and who sat right behind the one next to the bus driver. The bus was more like a van so it was one where you get to know the people you are sitting by. Therefore, we made friends with one of the guys from Minnesota and one from Clemson! Maybe he knows Mike. We hung out with them like all day because of it. Our first stop was at this lookout, which allowed us to see a river and a bunch of rocks. It was pretty much your standard river but the boys decided to go swimming in it. They said it was the best water they had been in, because it was fresh and it was deep. Our next stop was a wildlife zoo similar to the one we went to at the beginning of the trip. The coolest part about this stop was that we got to see a crocodile jump when you hit the water with a stick. It scared me. At our next stop, we stopped and took pictures at this beautiful sight but the pictures didn’t turn out nearly as great because it was so sunny. Our next stop involved a walk with the rainforest. But the coolest thing we saw were some pretty scary spiders. There was nothing special there except someone touched a tree with venom in it. Don’t worry he didn’t die. Our next stop was at cape tribulation, which had the most beautiful abandoned beach I have seen yet. I could have just stayed at that spot for hours. This is where we had lunch. Our next stop involved a river boat cruise and some tea and biscuits. On this cruise, we saw two crocodiles in the wild and a couple of snakes. The male croc is way bigger than the female. We also took a driving tour through Port Douglas, which is much prettier than Cairns and much nicer (as I previously stated). I think that was close to our last stop but I cannot remember since we made so many. At night, we ate subway and went out.
On Sunday morning, I woke up and went SKYDIVING. It was a little scary, but only because I went first. I had to sit near the door on the floor and it was not cool because they kept opening up the door and I kept thinking that I was going to fall out. To make matters worse, one of the guides was joking with me and pretending to pull me out. A picture will be posted soon. The rest of the day, we laid out on the invisible beach otherwise known as grass, ate pizzas for lunch, and just ventured around. Then we came back to Sydney all wearing shorts and froze. AND now I’m peeling. Peace out homeslices. Monday-Wednesday to be continued soon.

Swimming with the fishies

Thursday: First we had our last class in the apartments. Next I packed up my stuff for Cairns. Obviously, the first thing I packed was a swimsuit! We took a bus to the airport, got on a jetstar plane (which in case you were wondering is way better than ryanair), and then took another bus to our hostel. On the way from the airport to the hostel, our bus driver gave us a tour of Cairns. Port Douglas is much nicer and more expensive than Cairns. Cairns this weekend was just like Panama City. A big part and a big tourist area. We went to a restaurant where they bought us mass amounts of pizza and people told us about skydiving, bungy jumping, and white water rafting. I decided to do one of the three but you will have to read farther to find out which one. Then we went out to the nightclub that was conveniently located in our hostel. It was nice to not have to travel very far to go out and we could come back whenever we wanted. All weekend long we just met a bunch of marines and navy guys because they were docked there for a week.
Friday: We went snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef all day long. Serena and I woke up earlier and went back to the nightclub which was where our free breakfast was. It was weird to see it so quiet and empty. Then we walked to the Marina where we got on an Ocean Spirit boat. I think it was a company that I have never used before. I decided just to go snorkelling and not scuba diving because I felt that I could see everything that I wanted to see from the surface or from diving down. I saw a lot of really cool fish. Fish that you would never see in the US. The only really cool thing I saw was a sting ray. The reef was very much alive but parts of it were also dying. This makes sense because the people who went scuba diving said the scuba instructors made them touch stuff. Note: You are NOT supposed to touch the reef. It kills it. Way to go. We got back to shore at 5 and took showers. Then all of the Purdue people on the trip went to a Mexican place for dinner. I enjoyed it. It was really nice to have Mexican when you have not had it for 7 weeks. At night, three of us went to a place called Mad Cow. It was military night so I guess you could say we met a lot of military men. To be continued in next post. Note: I bought an underwater camera but have yet to get it developed.

holidayyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Happy 4th of July weekend everyone!! I'll be missing the cottage but atleast I will be in Cairns

I <3 Shia LaBeouf!

This little blog is going to be mostly about work since that is pretty much all I do on the weekdays!
Monday: On Monday I made a somewhat medium error because Vivian did not tell me otherwise. I had to group the rest of the RAG clients that I did not group the other day. Unfortunately, some of those clients were ones that had RAG as their previous employer. When they are the previous employer ones you are suppose to delink them from the company. I linked all of them and then had to go back and delink about three hundred names. Then I entered someone's responses to his risk profile questionnaire which helps them decide what to do his money. I like looking at these documents because it helps me figure out what they look at when trying to decide how his money should be invested. I filed more ING statements away into the ING binder. I also scanned and emailed Brian's assessment answer scantron, which was urgent because it was due the next day. I took files that were in separate PDF files and made them into one.
Tuesday: In the morning, I went to work. I finished fixing my mistake from the day before. Then I updated a client's insurance level by changing his plans and benefit numbers and premiums that he would have to pay. This was on one of the Insurance Schedule templates that I made earlier in the summer. Then I double checked my MLC Insurance Schedule Review Dates that I had entered the week before. So that project is done. The last thing of the day that I did was group clients to McIntosh of Mosman. After work, I went to the movie theater to get four tickets to Transformers. I got pretty good seats in the middle in the back. The only problem was the theater was HUGE. The biggest theater I have ever seen. In class we took a group test and got a 100%. I managed to convince four other people to go to the movies with us. After class we went to Burgerlicious which has a really good burger on a wrap. It was fabulous. After that, we still had about two hours to kill so we just sat around and talked until the movie was getting ready to start. I really liked transformers. It was all so graphic that I feel like I could never not like a movie like that, plus Shia LaBeouf is awesome and Megan Fox is really pretty. Good movie overall!
Wednesday: I added birthdays to xplan for the top people of companies. Then I added two new clients on Xplan, both of which were classified as advisers. I changed Kevin's clients categories and user groups because his last day was yesterday. I also got to take over his desk, which makes me feel like a real executive. I took Kevin off of Horizon's website and edited the financial services guide and put the new one on the website and on xplan. I then put together BT and CFS documents into a big PDF and put it on the website. I think they like when I do webwork because I'm pretty good at it and I can do it a lot faster than I can. Personally, I wouldn't consider me an allstar at it or anything. I mean at Home Team Golf that was always Justin, Eric, and Blair. I guess they rubbed off on me. Then I did the May and June petty cash for Brian. This made me decide that I should make one, because he had all the formulas sent up in a template so that it did it for you. Tonight, all I have done is write an extra credit paper, post pictures, and try to read the book. I'm trying to get an A! My dad would be so proud.

The Blue Mountains ARE actually Blue!

hey guys! now for an update on the weekend.
saturday: We woke up early on a saturday morning. That's a surprise. We took the bus to central station and got there probably about 7:45 or so. Problem: The train that we are supposed to take isn't running today because they are fixing the tracks from central station to penrith. Solution: They have an express bus to Penrith to make up for the trains. So first we take an hour long bus ride, then a little over an hour long train ride to Katoomba. Once we get to Katoomba we go to the Trolley Shoppe to confirm our caves tour for the next day. After that, we ate lunch at a little cafe that served Chinese food. It was probably one of the best meals I have had here. It just tasted so good. After that, we walked to the YHA (our hostel for the night) and checked in. Then we walked all the way to Echo Point. This time when we got to Echo Point, we could see the Blue Mountains and the Three Sisters. It was all very very pretty. We decided to do the 1000 steps down the Three Sisters. It was a lot of fun. Maria, Marissa, and I were walking faster than Blair and Jessi so we had to wait for them a lot. We took lots of pictures. Fortunately, we didn't see any snakes because Blair would have freaked out. We kind of met people on the walk that had proposed to each other 20 years earlier at a certain spot on the Blue Mountains. It was really cute because they brought their kids with them and kept telling them that this spot was famous and that the kids wouldn't be here if it weren't for that spot. When we got to the bottom of the really steep staircase, we walked the "rainforest" walk through the bush. We found streams and miniature waterfalls. We went off path down to the water and climbed around on the rocks. Since I'm the adventurous type, ofcourse that is something that I would do. At the end of our walk, we found this railway to take us back up. It was the fastest and steepest railway I have ever seen and there was nothing holding me in so I could have easily flown out. Before we got on it though, we found were the old railway was. It was interesting to learn a little bit about it, because it was something that we were not expecting to be there. After that, we took a bus back to Katoomba and went out for dinner at the Carrington Inn. The Carrington Inn is a pub right next to the Carrington Hotel. The Carrington Hotel is this really famous and expensive hotel of Katoomba. They used to have balls there and stuff. On Saturday night we did not really do too much. Katoomba is not a city for four college students to roam around.
Sunday: On Sunday, we woke up and went to this really cute little cafe that reminded me of the Oregon Trail called Common Ground. I felt like we were out in the west somewhere in like the 1800s. It was adorable. I ordered the maple pancakes. They were probably the best pancakes I have ever had. They were wheat pancakes! After that, we went back to our hotel and caught our bus that we were suppose to take out to the caves. When we got to the caves we found out we had two hours until our adventure began. Instead of buying a pass to check out another cave, we went and walked around this really pretty lake and river and through the brush. Blair was freaking out the entire time because the path kept giving us warning signs about snakes. So we did not fully complete the path and took the short one. The lake was a bright turquoise blue which is something that I have never seen before in a lake. From a sign, we discovered that it has to do with the limestone in the water. Sometimes you can see platypus in there but we did not see any. At the end of our walk, we found a cave that you could walk through for free. It was huge. I loved the rock formations and all the designs in them. Then 1:00 came around. We bought the boys that went last week their Plug Hole shirts and then we each bought one too. It had a map of the tour that we went caving through. It really isn't a very cute shirt but it is more about the experience. We signed the waiver and got into our gear. This included a suit, a harness, and a helmet. We took a bus to the top of the mountain and repelled down 9 meters. It was a lot of fun but harder than I was expecting. Then we went into the caves. There were small holes to climb through, things to climb around, and more. I loved doing that. In the "chapel" of the cave, the guides made us turn our lights off. It was so dark that I felt like I was blind. It was really freaky. One fun fact about the cave. The first person to discover this cave was a woman, Jane Falls. She signed her name in the cave as J. Falls because she did not want men to think a woman had discovered the cave and her name probably would have been rubbed off. It was wrong for a woman to be out of the kitchen. On the way back, there were two guys on the train causing chaos because they were swinging knives. It was kind of scary because they were right below us and we could hear them arguing. The train was probably stopped for 30 minutes at a stop. The police came. Then they could not find the knives. It was a mess but eventually we made it home safely. Ill update you on my week later tonight.

I'm just going to leave you with a photo for now...leave you on edge.