doth i'm a little blah

gosh it's already february.

it's not my fault this is my first blog of 2008. i swear the world spins faster nowadays. it's like i'm playing catch and run with time.

before i knew it, there are dark circles under my eyes. must be from staying up late and staring at the computer monitor all the times. daytime for work, and nighttime for facebook.

i must remember to get me a new screen filter.

the year has not started that great. the celebration was a quite blast though. we had fun at esplanade on the eve.

ok we should have chosen to hang out at the merlion but still, not every year that we got to watch the fireworks from behind the outlines of construction crane at the esplanade.

and don't say being led together with the mass crowd to exit the city area after that by the police through lots of closed road not a bit irritatingly fun. i felt just like a mouse in a maze box trying to find my cheese.

well at least better than the year before when i was on bed instead being the most boring person on earth.








we went to the singapore national museum on Jan-1st.

weird choice to start the new year huh? my friends from malaysia wanted to go there so we went. to our surprise, it was a free entrance that day, and the singapore history section was very entertaining.

i never thought of saying this, but i really do feel like going there again.






despite all that, the year has not been fully on my life track. yet. i'm still struggling at work, trying to find my worth and purpose in this new device group.

the problem is, the lead pretty much did all the things herself, making me feel very much redundant. which is ok until my boss asked me what have i been working on and i started perspiring.

last week he offered me to go to our US headquarters in idaho for the next coming device that i'm going to handle.

idaho. that boring all-desert-and-nothing-else place again. i'm so over that town. i was there in 2006, and was mesmerized by the big land, flowing rives and bald hills for 5 minutes, and then i long for the after work rush hour in singapore again.

i must have the city DNA in my blood. putting me there is like putting a fresh water fish into the ocean.

plus, the company took most of the out-station benefits away for cost cutting. no more business class flight, only 15% pay bonus and limited petrol allowance that only get us to work and nowhere else.

i'm tired of being in this industry you know. semiconductor memory industry sucks. do you notice how cheap the price is in the market? i mean, is there even any meaning of going up and down the lab anymore? the memory price and company stock market still go down anyway.


i attend the wedding dinner of this friend last week at marina mandarin hotel. nothing much to write about the wedding. after awhile, you can used to all the tricks on their sleeves. replace the face of the bride and groom and it could be anybody's wedding.

on our table, there was this ex-colleague who quit on 2006. she furthered her study in financial engineering and voila, she's with the citigroup now looking so glowingly elegant and succefsful.


i wish i had the courage to do something drastic like that. the problem with me is that i tend to panic for 10 minutes, then keep on living my old live. i wish there were signs, you know, like a dream or something, when an old man with a white long beard and a stick told me out of nowhere what to do.

meanwhile the time passed quickly. next week it's already the new lunar rat year. as usual, my parents will come over.

i hope the clock will still be ticking then.



looking for a better 2008


...ed

my december

it's a few more hours before new year 2008.

it's easy to get sentimental on time like this. this is the time when people reflect back on what they have done for the passing year, and plan what to do for the coming year.

as for me, the past year has been, well.. normal. i don't think of it as something significant.

ok except i bought a car in february 2007.

but other than that, everything has been stagnant. in fact, i could easily erased the whole year and it never changed my whole perception of life that i had lived.

does that sound normal? or is that bad?

i just think i'm a person who don't really plan far ahead. if people asked where i see myself in 5 years time, i don't know how to answer them.

i'm not totally ignorant though. i do the basic stuff you know, like save money for the future, take life insurans, get a house, things like that. but those are all. no plan to take over the world.

at work, i just try to get better each and every day. i learn new stuff to equipt my self with changing technologies but i don't really put a target. ok i'll try to become a principle engineer next year but that's it.

putting targets just put me in unnecessary stress. life is a journey anyway, and why should we obsess on getting to our destination when we can enjoy the ride along the way?

is this why my year had been ordinary? because i did't put target?

ok let's try to plan ahead for 2008 shall we? in 2008, i would like to

- become a principle engineer. this should be my main aim.
- learn guitar
- swim better
- have toner abs
- travel again
- contact my friends more often while keep making new ones
- do charity works
- get into stock markets
- know more about car rather than just driving and washing
- be motivated and focused enough to do all of the above

ok those are what on top of my head right now. 10-points. i shall call them my 10-commandments for 2008.

Happy New Year everyone!!



...ed

let down your hair not your guard

it's christmas eve.

so it was a short day at work. there were tons of mails to clear since i just came back from my kl trip break. easily 100 mails.

we had to leave office by 11am, so that gave me like what? 1.5 minutes per mail. to read the chains of events, work out the technical consequences, to plan action etc etc.

not enough time. so i just sorted them out to appropriate folders based on issues. kiv.

barely able to clear half, there was request for the weekly report. damn. it normally takes me almost a day to complete but today i had (looked at watch) less than 1.5 hours.

i'm not boasting or anything but in the end i managed to complete it anyway. i was actually proud of myself. it just showed that if we put our mind to it, our potential is limitless.

only that i'm not sure i could use last week's remarks on this week's report like that everytime.

oh well. the point is, i managed to pack and leave on time for our christmas lunch celebration.

the grand copthorne waterfront

this year our bosses selected the grand copthorne waterfront hotel.

it's traditionally the bosses' treat. they should, considering how we were enslaved the whole year.

assuming $50 per head for this lunch, it's only like 19 cents per person per day for each day they sit on the throne holding the whip. pretty good deal i must say.




as usual, we had our buffet spread. i think i ate like one whole salmon, both sushi and sashimi. i just love salmon. if i had my ways, the salmon population could go extinct before 2010.

then there were games that the hired MC asked us to do in groups. you know those games that they always do in team building activities to promote better teamworks. it sounded lame when i write it down here but it was still fun doing it. more fun than normal working days that's for sure.

here's the christmas gift that i got from the 5 dollars gift exchange.

honestly i don't think that's 5 dollars. i checked the expiry date but there wasn't any. neither were there any sign of fraud, shoplifting or even abnormal radition.

it was a genuinely over-the-value gift. wow nice people do exist!

at night, i went down to orchard road. i always think orchard road is the place to be on christmas eve, or even the nights leading to the eve. apart from the light-ups, there were street stunts, elegant choirs, harmonic acapella groups and bands on every corner making strolling along the walkway a totally different experience. love is thick in the air.

nothing beats the eve night though. even if it means expressing your love by harassing strangers with party snow spray. in a place like singapore where even a 2-seconds glance could imprint 'stalker' on your forehead, gesture like this at the very least shows acceptance to other people's presence. which is totally a good thing it's almost a culture revolution.

....

people started fooling around even an hour before midnight. because we don't have any weapon yet for defense, we walked carefully to avoid unwanted confrontation, snapping photos once in awhile because god forbid, we didn't want to look like tourist. they were already almost half the crowd.

this lady on the left was obviously in full party mode.


well i am too once i got my cans...





this guy had the answer for those assaults coming his way.

or so we thought, and i bet he thought so as well at first. because this apparently even prompted the crowd to attack him even more.

wrong move man.

lost in wonderland

it's officially christmas season once again.

i don't celebrate christmas, you know in religious terms, but i do parade along orchard road from plaza singapura up to tanglin mall sucking up all the festive atmosphere like everybody else.

call it our annual pilgrimage route if you will.

this year the decoration theme is fairy tale wonderland. hmm.. i don't see any fairy tale characters anywhere but having waded through throngs of people that filled every inches of the place, i did feel a bit like alice lost in wonderland sometimes.

above is the gorgeous entrance to orchard shopping district. what i called it though, the gorgeous entrance to orchard's ERP.

it's kinda cool you know. one second you're admiring the entrance with the word 'merry christmas' on it, the next second you pass through the gantry with 'ERP in operation' and voila, you're about 2 dollars poorer. such an adrenalin-filled ride!

my suggestion for next year, consider decorating the ERP gantry instead.



bel


if there is any indication of magical creatures, they are above. the one inside the glass box i mean. the one outside is me. no not the one gloriously flocking in white lights though.



temporary retail stores in front of tangs shopping center.

it's not christmas in orchard road until this tree in front of the paragon erected up. of all the christmas trees in orchard vicinity, this is my favourite. there's something about the tree, or maybe the paragon backdrop, making it just elegantly magical.

not only at the outside, christmas trees grow indoor too. this one is inside takashimaya sc. it's a bit tired actually, looking the same years after years but it's one of the biggest, so who cares?



























the one below was taken while waiting for golden compass midnight show at plaza singapura. the christmas tree photo i mean.

which later turned out to be the highlight of the night considering how boring the movie was. seriously, what on earth was nicole kidman thinking? i'd rather spend time admiring the tree below rather than wasting 2 hours of my life watching that uninspired movie.

ok 1 and a half hour of my life. i'm sure i didn't sleep longer than that.





the tanglin area in comparison is very much less crowded. even the fake soap bubble snow could not attract much people. so apparently it was the wet bikini girls and skimpy trunks guys that attracted the crowd everytime in sentosa beach soap bubble party, you know, not the bubbles.

ok maybe that was obvious.

i like strolling from borders to tanglin mall along those gorgeous but quiet western style shophouses. chances are you gonna see lots of caucasians along the way, making you feel every much like in some european country. i guess this must be how europe feels like during christmas in 50 years time when global warming hits its peak.








the christmas theme in tanglin mall this year is, well, i don't know exactly what it is. instead of big toy-laden christmas tree like last year, they put few cute european style houses and a stable with replica horses in front of the mall.

my guess is this has something to do with baby-jesus-in-the-stable scene. except i don't see any human replica inside. instead, they blow fake snow in the stable on few pre-arranged timing per day when people can go in and play with.

doesn't make any sense if you ask me.






another thing that doesn't make sense as well was having turkey for christmas gathering. i mean, turkey is for thanksgiving, right? but i guess someone needed to use up those un-sold thanksgiving turkeys one way or another.

i'm not complaining. i always see people having whole stuffed turkey in the middle of dinner table on tv so i had always wanted to do that once. so we ordered american chestnut-stuffed honey-coated turkey, chicken ham and log cake for the event, last saturday noon at our ex-colleague's house in hougang. two of our current colleagues are gonna fly to the states for training, so this is kinda the last get together too.



..


i must say i prefer chicken over turkey. anytime anyplace. first, the turkey was hard and tasteless. and secondly, do you know what they eat the turkey with? cranberry sauce.

cranberry sauce! isn't that the same like eating white meat with fruit jam? totally didn't go.

the log cake wasn't that great either. it was dry and forgettable. totally not worth the calories and extra gym hours it was gonna incur. if i wasn't paying 14 dollars for those, i would have thought santa was punishing me with those for being a bad boy all year. honestly.

we had fun there though, and that's all that matters.






it took 4 takes to get the group photo on the right because we kept sticking out candy sticks to the people in front.




if i haven't said so, merry 'Xmas everyone!



...ed

Back to the Traphouse

there was a line of people waiting for the condo gym treadmill when i went there just now, making me feel like i had entered some crowded female toilet by mistake.

damn it. you have no idea how hard it was to finally managed to drag my butt outta my house, and for what? just to face this parade of sweaty people.

seriously, don't they have anything better to do? like cook dinner, walk their dogs or something.

i definitely didn't wish to be there if i could help it. it's just that when i looked at my photo backgrounded by this year's lighted-up orchard's christmas tree, i wished i could be toner.

i could do with feeling a fresher a little bit longer too. nowadays when i got back from work, i just felt like lying down lazying on bed and watch heroes. i swear that's all i wanna do.

i don't even know what i did that could drained all my energy. it's not like i work in the field under the blistering sun the whole day digging earth or anything of that sort. i just sit in my air-conditioned cubicle and type.

well except today. today was a bit extraordinary. we had our last intra-departmental game at the office. by 3.45pm, we stopped work and headed for free refreshment in the seminar room.

the things we did though, were as far away than seminar as it possibly could. instead of notes and papers, there were balloons, hulla-hoops and giant dices.

who says engineers don't know how to have fun? we tied our legs together with balloons at our ankles, then assaulted our fellow opponents trying to burst theirs. we raced using chairs as our stepping stones. we threw dice and acrobated our bodies through hulla-hoops. even our managers played musical chair.

we normally have our technical seminar here but today we just got technical on how to tie balloons on our legs effectively

i haven't done this since.. i think the last century or so....



i can tell you it wasn't all pretty, but those were as far as we could go. there won't be any stripping or poll dancing or anything like that. heck, most of them don't even manage to have as much fun as having proper dinners most of the times.

call it lame. most of my fellow department colleagues are just bunch of all-work-and-no-play-dull-jack type. i wonder how i ended up with these group of people in the first place.

i'm lucky that i befriend some fun ones though, my lunch kakis. they really made my working life worth living.


my super cool lunch buddies during our usual coffee breaktime


i mean, not that work is bad, but must we sell our soul away and be the most boring person on earth for it?

my mum called when i was working just now. she said she managed to get a bus ticket for me for next week's holiday weekend.

that settled my problem then. i was so frustated going from counter to counter in golden mile complex trying to find tickets few days ago. this thursday is eid-adha holiday so most people take leave on friday to have long weekend break. there was just ain't no ticket from kl to singapore on sunday when i plan to return, totally extinct from this face of the earth.

you know, i don't know why i still have to go through this holiday ticket rush madness anymore, considering i already paid a thousand bucks every month to own and maintain a car.

not that i don't wanna drive back, i totally do but everytime when i brought up the idea, i was being made to sound like someone who would hit the toll-post the moment i cross the causeway.

i mean, ok i don't really know the road, and the weather is kinda crazy too nowadays. who knows when it will eventually flood the highway as well? the last thing i want to do is get my car stuck in the water during my virgin trip to malaysia.

so i guess next time then. after all, my mum already got the ticket in kl for me. and to tell you the truth, i wasn't all in a hurry to drive my car through the narrow, branches-protruded cow-dung-filled-earth pathway to my grandfather's village anyway.

it's friday tomorrow, thank god. i still have one more weekend to enjoy before going for car-trip-no-it's-now-bus trip back to kl end of next week. we organized a christmas gathering on saturday at this friend's house who already quit our company. there will be chestnut-stuffed turkey, chicken ham and log cake.

i must remember to find santa hat tomorrow. we're gonna have fun, although i can assure there'll be no strip-tease and poll dancing kind of fun. really.


..ed

tales cautionary

it has been rough weeks recently workwise.

i don't know why, i felt a bit like struggling to cope with everything but in the end i didn't seem to accomplish anything.

it's frustating. but i told myself i should take it light. it's end of the year anyway, which means lunch treats, annual bonus, shoppings and christmas illumination.

i'll start work again after new year.

so few of my goldfishes died mysteriously. big deal. maybe they had heart attack from the thunder or something.

and i don't even remember that bowling match that we lost last week. the lanes condition were horrible, and it's not like there were trophies to win anyway. i'm sure it was just a blip.

the important thing is, to just look ahead.

especially after i browsed through facebook discussion board just now. there was this post asking us to name one good thing that we did today.

think about it, and i thought really hard, i didn't do anything good at all. ok i gave the report that the boss wanted at work, but i was paid to do that.

is letting a car overtook me at the highway considered a good deed?

i'm hooked with facebook recently. i'm not a person who has online profiles in every community net groups imaginable, but this time i'm addicted.

facebook is just fun. i mean, even when you have no constructive or intelligent things to say, you can chop off a good 20 years of your age and just splash someone with water.

virtually of course.

not that it can't get serious. i'm even in that 'save the monks save burma' group (it's not the real group name, i just have too much 'heroes' in my head right now).

out of the facebook addiction for while, i went to jb last weekend. one of my dear friend got married.

the thing about a close friend's wedding is that you'd always ended up staying longer than planned, with most of that time spent sitting around doing nothing.

i'm not complaining. it's her one of a lifetime event anyway so that was the least i could do. to be fair, i was well-fed and it's not like i have to help-out or anything.

plus, it was a good chance to catch up with friends. we managed to catch beowulf in tebrau city jusco. i wanted to watch '30 days of nights' but it wasn't shown there that day.

at least i got the chance to see anthony hopkins and angelina jolie naked. one thing scratched from my must-do list before the new year.




...ed

My Acid Rain (when Abel look at Cain)

so i don't get the work transfer.

which is ok. honestly. the thing is, i could argue the pros and cons all day but in the end when the interviewer asked one basic question why i wanted to go, i could not answer.

i really could not. can you believe that? after all this huhu-haha and i still don't know why i put myself in that place. that moment when the room felt silent waiting for my response while i racked my brains finding reasons, i realized there was none.

nada.

none that matters anyway. i mean, there's only that far that 'want a new challenge' could go. it's not like something i really wanted to do but rather just because it's new, interesting and full of possibility. i mean, everybody loves changes once in awhile but is it wise change for the sake of changing?

i realized then that i was just following popular sentiments. everybody expected me to go so i figured i have to go. don't we all normally? we always go with the flow. if the majority says so, then it must be so. that's what living in democratic society teaches us.

but apparently i cannot lie to my own heart deep inside.

so i'm staying still at the moment. i'm not gonna kill myself over this, but i'm not without dissappointment either.

because i hate rejections. and i hate to admit defeats.

that's why i never take the first step if there's no signal at all. that's why i give reasons on all outcomes, having all the sour grapes because i can never say i lost fair and square. it's just not in my DNA.

so you see, it kills me to know that this other girl got the spot instead of me. my only consolation is that the decision was not based on technical expertise blah-blah but only on sheer determination to work 12-14 hrs a day for the next 3 years with zero guarantee it will stop after that.

oh that sounds so so inviting.

well i wish them luck. you know, probably i'll wish them luck from a land far far away. maybe from some beach resort sun-tanning while sipping cold drinks with slices of lemon and rose, blurbing to them on the phone 'oh sorry i forgot you're still working'.

coz u see, unlike them, i can take holidays whenever i want.

and after awhile i'm sure this knife on my back won't hurt me anymore too.

i had a talk with my boss that fateful morning, when he said it's good that i'm staying put because the new place will have people blow fire all around and i will have to accommodate so much that there will be no time to go deep technically.

the way he spelt it more or less like i had just escaped a transfer to the dungeon and i should be happy.

i love what i do right now. i always think what i'm doing now is the same as the CSI, you know, that tv show. just that instead of dead bodies, i had disfunctional circuits. instead of looking for traces of blood and fingerprints, i look for abnormal electrical characteristics. instead of recreating murder scenes, i create a fail-model. instead of finding the killer, i find production defects.

imagine how i felt when barely an hour later he announced that he will leave the company for that new place. he, the judas who applauded my dungeon-avoiding act.

you f-bet i will give him a phone call from that beach too. NOT wishing him luck.



...ed