Black coffee ~~ Prepare Financial Statements

The time when I was told to take up this task. I was sure I wasn't ready. I can process by myself from AP/AR, Bank Reconciliation to Financial Analysis. In my practice, these jobs are all independent. As long as I can find the previous example. I can follow easily. However, Financial Statemnts, cash flow and notes to F.S. are in another level. I need to understand each item from inside out. There are connections between each account. A positive or negative sign error will screw up the whole statements. 

I make a plan to teach myself and set up the templates base on my co-worker's previous files and the auditor's feedback during that time. While waiting for the updated year end data, I used whatever data I have to build the initial template. The excle worksheet is an easy part. The most difficult is to test and exam the relationships between each number. It spent me two weeks to figure out these. Then I tackled the cash flow and notes. 

When the real year end data are posted. I can justed quickly loaded the data into the template and refreshed. At this time, it became less complecated to balance cash flow already. 

As my manager later told me. She was impressed that I could balance the cash flow, as in the past, this was the hard bone as always. 

Walked into new era ~~ Senior Financial Analysis

I walked into a new era. I joined this non-profit organization network as a senior financial analyst. Like in previous roles, I was almost drowning in the first 3 weeks' intensive training. Dozens of templates, calculations, files that I worked on and remembered the steps for the process. Then I also figured out the theories and knowledge behind them. Then I swallowed and updated. Sometimes worked out new templates with the help of my managers and co-workers. 

Wow, it's like a century! 

Summer of love ~ bread dough

This is so much fun! We received a bag of bread dough from our lovely neighbour. I didn't know how to make good use of them and through some of them directly into the oven. Yes, it was eatable and very tasteful. And then I realized they should be unfrozen and leave for yeast for a while. Um, thanks for sharing information from my neighbour as well. Learn from others. I also brushed a layer of egg on top. Success, I also developed my easy bread now 😁

Black coffee ~ a leadership thinking ~ vision

Honey told me that a co-worker recently came back to his team because he thought his previous team leader lacked leadership vision. 

I have a question here, how do you judge a leader if they have leadership thinking or has vision? I don't have a direct answer. Maybe if I were that team lead, I would tell my team to adjust the misleading data in the system, which were input by careless. It's human nature. When you work, you are sure to make mistakes. But the adjustment is essential since when I am working on the analysis, those incorrect data will cause me issues. It will rely on my controller to judge that we should skip that data or manual update. This action is reducing the efficiency of automation. 

Lemon Tea~~The investment house is finally leased out

We were happy about it. We partnered with a friend family and bought an investment house in Toronto. This individual double garage house is good for family rentees. Our friend posted the ad on MLS and Facebook. Finally, we settled the lease agreement with a family who happens to have a building project nearby and would like to live here for a while. 

Black coffee ~ Developer Challenge

This experience could be ranked as one of the top challenges in my life. Among those including mathematic competitions, solo performance, board report presentations and CPA exams etc. This developer interview and technique test were really sucked my bone.

Although I write many SQL scripts in my daily full-time work, it does not mean that I am a professional developer. In fact, I am a well-skilled Financial Analyst. I learned and practiced various programming languages, including Python, R and SQL, because these skills help me to improve my efficiency. I never think about moving my career into this area. 

There was a sweet opportunity. This banking giant is looking for a SQL developer. The main focus is to main the advanced Finance systems. Surprised that I passed the first round of behaviour interviews. Actually, I didn't think that I would go into the next technical test interview because I was not from the development field. 

Understand that I will not be a good fit for them. But I still spent a whole night refreshing my knowledge. I just did not want to show a terrible paper, hopefully at least 50. Of course, I wasn't picked. But the hiring manager gave me a call and told me that she was actually pretty impressed with my test. I was ranked No.2 on her shortlist. Wow! What great progress in my data analysis exploration! I am very appreciative of her for giving me this opportunity to see my thoughts too. 

Summer of love ~ 相遇老邻居

 Sometimes, only when lines come across by a trigger, we have opportunities to know each other. 

Appreciated by our neighbour's small backyard party, we were gathered together. Lisa and Joe just lived next 3 houses by ours. They joined this street about 4 years ago. Due to our busy life and work, we never meet each other face to face until this party. And I realized that I don't even know they are on our street. 

I grab this chance and chat with Lisa as much as possible. In compensation for the time that we missed, I showed her my garden, and we exchanged our interests. I admired her that she has two young kids, and she can take care of her green plants so well.