Spent the last two days of 2013 running about government offices to complete my annual chores, stuck in traffic for the past two days...
So, in less than 6 hours, we are going to kiss 2013 bye-bye. I realised I didn't put up my 2013 targets, but I set some at the beginning of this year. Instead of writing it on the blog, I wrote it on my wardrobe mirror.
3 out of 5 was achieved, so I guess my target for 2013 was may be too easy.
I started 2013 by queuing in Maxis Center in KLCC getting myself an iPhone 5, that was 5 Jan 2013.
I traveled to Philippines Mindanao island a couple of times with my ex-colleague to commission the project. I recalled I received the travel to Philippines on a Friday afternoon in early February 203. After the tickets were sorted, I found that my passport was less than 6 months validity and I spent the Saturday queuing in the Home Office to renew my passport. I was the last one getting the passport before they closed for the day.
I managed to see some real pretty nature in Mindanao island, but felt sad that these pretty natures are swallowing by the factories building there. Despite the political situations, I felt extremely peaceful there, no mobile phones, no internet, limited water and electricity, I was showering in ice-cold water from the well. Chickens and dogs running wild, frogs and lizards roaming all over the porch in front of the home stay preying on mosquitoes and insects. Dry bulb temperature 25degC, relative humidity 98%. I was cuddling in a heavy wood couch, with the ceiling fan creaking at no. 1 speed, staring beyond the high concrete perimeter walls, watching the clouds turned red and purple lining with gold, immersing myself in the smell of wet soil, drizzling rain and evening breeze, sucking on the tooth pick, chatting with my ex-colleague and calibrating the instruments. I will always remember that peaceful moment.
Met up with a lot of old friends in February Chinese New Year, one of they gave birth to a handsome baby boy.
I also went back to my secondary school in February, the whole school has turned into HDB building-look-alike. My hiding spot during my school days is still there, the dog's footprint on the cement staircase became blur, but everything will be demolished soon together with the library. People always yearning for larger and newer buildings. I couldn't find those century old books anymore, even the cupboard was taken away.
I went to Taiwan for a week in March 2013 with my relatives. It was quite an experience, but I guess I prefer the free and easy style better. I spent most of the time sleeping on the bus while we were fetched from one place to another. I guess I caught up with the lack of sleeps that I had been accumulated over the months in that trip.
I have been travelling to Korea very often since the end of 2012, I traveled to Korea almost once a month on until August 2013, tried almost all the Korean traditional clothes in the Incheon Airport Korea Cultural Heritage Foundation. I traveled there too often until one point that the lady in the cultural shop and the bus driver from airport to hotel, even the chef at the hotel had recognized me.
I am happy that all the trip to Korea paid off by securing a huge job, of course with the help of many colleagues across the global offices. It was the first time the technology being implemented outside US, and no one in the local office dare to take it up when I handed over the project. I have to say I was very happy to get Mr. Decamouth openly declared to the global team that he doesn't understand the engineering drawings and that he is not capable to take up this project. To me, he was never a qualified engineer, despite his engineering degree and memberships in various engineering organisations. He obtained the engineering manager position by snatching credits from all the colleagues in the office and pulling his monkey shows in front of the higher management who sits far away and remotely controls the local office.
While I was in charged of Korea market, I also enrolled to Korean Language course in 2013, and completed 2 levels in 2013. The entire course takes 2 years, but I decided to stop the lesson for a semester, as I have joined a new company since September 2013, and find it hard to cope with two new things at once.
My highlight of the year is the change of career. Despite all the effort placed in my ex-company, I didn't feel appreciated, the office politics was dragging the whole company down to swamp, I was lucky to find another job and sad to quit.
My travel schedule has not reduced since joining the new company. The learning step is too steep and gap is too big. I was given some brochures to read a few days before joining them, and was scolded by my boss on the second day of work, that I should have known all the products when I come to work.
There were many times I doubted myself, if I have taken one step too big/too far, I felt I should give up and regretted to leave my comfort zone from the ex-company. I was one of the technical experts in the ex-company that not many could challenge me, but I left that comfort zone and become a new baby in a new field, enduring some pretty direct comments regarding my knowledge in the field, while sitting in a regional product manager position. The pride that was fed big over the years in the ex-company was like a balloon, poked by needles now and shrunk inevitably.
Nonetheless, I am very blessed to have a group of very helpful colleagues, and am very happy to receive some encouragement from my ex-colleagues. I am now in the 3rd month in the new company, although it is very tough to change field, to have an extremely demanding boss, and I still have a lot to catch up to speed, but I feel I need these challenges to grow. In fact, now that the pride balloon is depleted and gets smaller, I felt it didn't impact me that much anyway. I am praying and working hard hoping to pass my 6 months probation - due April 2014. That's my main target in 2014.
The rest of the targets are:
1. Exercise 150 mins a week.
2. Have 3 portions of vegetables, 2 portions of fruits everyday.
3. Visit my parents once a month with my husband and stay back for dinner.
4. Do not work overtime more than 2 days a week, max. 1.5 hours each time.
5. Get in touch with my friends once a week.
6. Spend 30 mins everyday with myself.
7. Spend 30 mins - 1 hour everyday with my husband. - I realized I spent less than 15 mins with him everyday over the past two years of marriage.
8. Finish 2 books in a year.
9. Treat myself once a month.
Happy New Year 2014!
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Summary of 2012
There are only a few more days before the end of this year. I realised I have been very busy trying to cope with marriage life and have not been updating my blog frequently. It is difficult to balance work and marriage.
There is less than a week's time before 2013, I didn't take time to reflect what I have done this year during my birthday, so I am going to do it now and give myself a few days time to think of my new target for 2013.
I have been travelling a lot this year, visited 6 countries this year and revisited half of them again within a year. The travelling schedule was especially hectic over the past two months. I visited 5 countries over the past two months, spent 3 weeks of November in 3 countries. It may sound odd to many, but I really don't want to board a plane to anywhere now, not in the near future, neither work nor leisure.
Other things I did this year:
... Started picking up readings again, and found a few good books. (刘墉 《我不是教你诈》系列、禤素莱 《战地情书》、Clayton Christensen "How will you measure your life?")
... Went to Siem Reap and was amazed by the life of history. It was my first time to Cambodia.
... Visited Korea for the first time, and managed to visit again late this year, which I managed to spend a good day in a palace in Seoul by myself.
... Went to Bangkok shopping trip for the first time.
... Conducted product commissioning for the first time in Philippines. It was my first time to Philippines too.
... Conducted vibration diagnostic on a finished product for the first time on my own in Taiwan.
... Attended government organised marriage workshop, it was pretty informative but too bad my husband couldn't enjoy it due to the language barrier.
... Got my father an iPhone.
... Brought my mother to remove her cataract.
... Secured over USD 1.3mil sales in my first year involvement in sales activities.
... Received silver star award for my contribution to the company sales.
... Celebrated Chinese New Year the first time as someone's wife, and was shocked by my husband's extended family members that visited them on the first day of the new year.
... Called a stranger for the first time to chase for money.
... Was tailed by a road bully in a morning due to protesting his reckless and unsafe driving. I saw him again later this year on my way to work.
... Discard the use of handbag and changed to a small purse to avoid unnecessary attention from snatch thieves.
... Experienced the longest traffic jam (3 hours) in my life so far, due to the rainy Ramadan after work rush hour.
... Late for work for the first time, thanks to the flash flood. It took me over 2 hours to get to work as I was stuck at less than 2km away from the office for over 1 hour.
... Late for flight for the first time, due to the lousy traffic planning for the Sepang International Grand Prix. The traffic craw started right after the toll house and it made me craw for over an hour to the airport, it was about 10km distance. The traffic police did nothing to ease the scenario.
... Argue in public for the first time with the AirAsia ground crew due to their rude attitude. I was not allowed to board the flight after my luggage was checked in. (I arrived at the gate just when the the gate was closed). The ground crew manager, who dare not even show his name, told me, "In here, you listen to me, not I listen to you!"
... Faced a difficult "Mat Saleh" customer in Taiwan.
... Challenged the management and fought for my rights when bullied by the managers.
... Got my company phone upgraded from Nokia monochrome GSM candybar to Samsung Galaxy Y.
... Finished paying my car loan.
... Fell down on the tar road when walking a dog.
... Re-organised my messy bank accounts.
... Enrolled into a Korean Language class which starts next year.
I think I have completed or almost completed the things I planned to do in 2012:
1. Finish moving and unpacking my stuff.
I have bought a cupboard from IKEA in August and unpacked most of the stuff. There are still some minor things in boxes, which I was thinking if I should just throw them away or find space for them. It is hard to throw your memories away.
2. Find a new career.
I am still struggling on this, the newspaper job adverts are getting thinner and thinner these days.
I applied to a few companies, one of them was pretty interesting but their 3rd party recruitment agent kicked me out because I couldn't fit in all their check boxes.
I went for an interview with another company this year, it was a second interview with that company. There was no response from them after that meeting. I called their HR to follow up, but their HR avoided my call. I thought that was pretty rude, as one should at least give the two finalists an update call or email. After all, we took our day off to participate in the interview, and they even knew I cancelled my honeymoon flight to attend the interview.
I need to find harder in this new year. If you heard to two-factor theory or motivation theory by Frederick Herzberg, the hygiene factor in the office is getting worse by day. The MD's contract will come to an end soon, he has been getting very desperate hygiene factor is the least of his care now. He may get his extension, but he has gotten into the dynamics of pointing the fingers to others.
3. Take care of my own donation accounts.
I have took care of them, and wonder if I should increase a few more donations.
4. Participation in charity work.
Well, I have not been participating over the past few months due to all the travelling.
5. Exercise 3 times a week.
Hard to keep it, I don't get to leave the office sharp 5pm everyday in order to arrive home at 6pm to exercise. Leaving the office 5.30pm means I arrived home around 7pm, which would be too dark to jog around.
I can't exercise in the morning, because I leave home around 6.15am in order to avoid the traffic. There isn't much time for me in the morning.
I wasted a lot of time in the traffic jam, a normal single journey takes 1 hour. It would extend to 2 hours if it rains. If it were the Ramadan month, the day before and after the long weekends, first day of school, a single journey would need twice the amount of time.
6. Keep in touch with my friends.
I met them a few times this year, but mainly organized by one of my old friends. I didn't take initiatives in calling them up.
7. Visit my family once a month.
Have not been visiting enough due to the travelling schedule and works at home.
8. Rewarding myself once a month.
I took a few days off work in November to rest from the hectic travel, and made use of my replacement holidays in December to do nothing but stay at home.
I saved some amount over the months and blown all of them in the shopping trip with my friends in Bangkok in October. Not to mention that I have bought a few polo-shirts that shrunk 2 size after washing.... *frustration*
9. Start growing my own vegetables.
My baby leeks weren't doing well, I transferred them to a pot and put them under the sun. They are growing ok now, but the quantities are not enough to make a meal for the family.
The passion fruit plant was badly damaged when the residential contractor installed the barbed wires along the fences a few months ago. We were forced to cut away majority of the plant to let it grow again. It is still recovering, it produced one fruit since then.
My sugar cane was chopped away recently by the residential contractor too, when they came by to cut the grass in the neighbourhood. They mistook the sugar cane buds as wild grass, it was about 1m tall when it was chopped away.
In fact, they cut away my baby leeks previously too, they seemed to mistake everything as wild grass.
I brought two more branches of sugar cane from my parents' house to grow them here, and put little fences around them this time. Hopefully they won't get chopped away again.
I would like to grow some aloe vera and papayas in 2013.
10. Went for Siem Reap for honeymoon, it was a great place.
11. My world map project has yet to start. My fridge magnets continue piling up.
I need to think of some better targets for 2013.
There is less than a week's time before 2013, I didn't take time to reflect what I have done this year during my birthday, so I am going to do it now and give myself a few days time to think of my new target for 2013.
I have been travelling a lot this year, visited 6 countries this year and revisited half of them again within a year. The travelling schedule was especially hectic over the past two months. I visited 5 countries over the past two months, spent 3 weeks of November in 3 countries. It may sound odd to many, but I really don't want to board a plane to anywhere now, not in the near future, neither work nor leisure.
Other things I did this year:
... Started picking up readings again, and found a few good books. (刘墉 《我不是教你诈》系列、禤素莱 《战地情书》、Clayton Christensen "How will you measure your life?")
... Went to Siem Reap and was amazed by the life of history. It was my first time to Cambodia.
... Visited Korea for the first time, and managed to visit again late this year, which I managed to spend a good day in a palace in Seoul by myself.
... Went to Bangkok shopping trip for the first time.
... Conducted product commissioning for the first time in Philippines. It was my first time to Philippines too.
... Conducted vibration diagnostic on a finished product for the first time on my own in Taiwan.
... Attended government organised marriage workshop, it was pretty informative but too bad my husband couldn't enjoy it due to the language barrier.
... Got my father an iPhone.
... Brought my mother to remove her cataract.
... Secured over USD 1.3mil sales in my first year involvement in sales activities.
... Received silver star award for my contribution to the company sales.
... Celebrated Chinese New Year the first time as someone's wife, and was shocked by my husband's extended family members that visited them on the first day of the new year.
... Called a stranger for the first time to chase for money.
... Was tailed by a road bully in a morning due to protesting his reckless and unsafe driving. I saw him again later this year on my way to work.
... Discard the use of handbag and changed to a small purse to avoid unnecessary attention from snatch thieves.
... Experienced the longest traffic jam (3 hours) in my life so far, due to the rainy Ramadan after work rush hour.
... Late for work for the first time, thanks to the flash flood. It took me over 2 hours to get to work as I was stuck at less than 2km away from the office for over 1 hour.
... Late for flight for the first time, due to the lousy traffic planning for the Sepang International Grand Prix. The traffic craw started right after the toll house and it made me craw for over an hour to the airport, it was about 10km distance. The traffic police did nothing to ease the scenario.
... Argue in public for the first time with the AirAsia ground crew due to their rude attitude. I was not allowed to board the flight after my luggage was checked in. (I arrived at the gate just when the the gate was closed). The ground crew manager, who dare not even show his name, told me, "In here, you listen to me, not I listen to you!"
... Faced a difficult "Mat Saleh" customer in Taiwan.
... Challenged the management and fought for my rights when bullied by the managers.
... Got my company phone upgraded from Nokia monochrome GSM candybar to Samsung Galaxy Y.
... Finished paying my car loan.
... Fell down on the tar road when walking a dog.
... Re-organised my messy bank accounts.
... Enrolled into a Korean Language class which starts next year.
I think I have completed or almost completed the things I planned to do in 2012:
1. Finish moving and unpacking my stuff.
I have bought a cupboard from IKEA in August and unpacked most of the stuff. There are still some minor things in boxes, which I was thinking if I should just throw them away or find space for them. It is hard to throw your memories away.
2. Find a new career.
I am still struggling on this, the newspaper job adverts are getting thinner and thinner these days.
I applied to a few companies, one of them was pretty interesting but their 3rd party recruitment agent kicked me out because I couldn't fit in all their check boxes.
I went for an interview with another company this year, it was a second interview with that company. There was no response from them after that meeting. I called their HR to follow up, but their HR avoided my call. I thought that was pretty rude, as one should at least give the two finalists an update call or email. After all, we took our day off to participate in the interview, and they even knew I cancelled my honeymoon flight to attend the interview.
I need to find harder in this new year. If you heard to two-factor theory or motivation theory by Frederick Herzberg, the hygiene factor in the office is getting worse by day. The MD's contract will come to an end soon, he has been getting very desperate hygiene factor is the least of his care now. He may get his extension, but he has gotten into the dynamics of pointing the fingers to others.
3. Take care of my own donation accounts.
I have took care of them, and wonder if I should increase a few more donations.
4. Participation in charity work.
Well, I have not been participating over the past few months due to all the travelling.
5. Exercise 3 times a week.
Hard to keep it, I don't get to leave the office sharp 5pm everyday in order to arrive home at 6pm to exercise. Leaving the office 5.30pm means I arrived home around 7pm, which would be too dark to jog around.
I can't exercise in the morning, because I leave home around 6.15am in order to avoid the traffic. There isn't much time for me in the morning.
I wasted a lot of time in the traffic jam, a normal single journey takes 1 hour. It would extend to 2 hours if it rains. If it were the Ramadan month, the day before and after the long weekends, first day of school, a single journey would need twice the amount of time.
6. Keep in touch with my friends.
I met them a few times this year, but mainly organized by one of my old friends. I didn't take initiatives in calling them up.
7. Visit my family once a month.
Have not been visiting enough due to the travelling schedule and works at home.
8. Rewarding myself once a month.
I took a few days off work in November to rest from the hectic travel, and made use of my replacement holidays in December to do nothing but stay at home.
I saved some amount over the months and blown all of them in the shopping trip with my friends in Bangkok in October. Not to mention that I have bought a few polo-shirts that shrunk 2 size after washing.... *frustration*
9. Start growing my own vegetables.
My baby leeks weren't doing well, I transferred them to a pot and put them under the sun. They are growing ok now, but the quantities are not enough to make a meal for the family.
The passion fruit plant was badly damaged when the residential contractor installed the barbed wires along the fences a few months ago. We were forced to cut away majority of the plant to let it grow again. It is still recovering, it produced one fruit since then.
My sugar cane was chopped away recently by the residential contractor too, when they came by to cut the grass in the neighbourhood. They mistook the sugar cane buds as wild grass, it was about 1m tall when it was chopped away.
In fact, they cut away my baby leeks previously too, they seemed to mistake everything as wild grass.
I brought two more branches of sugar cane from my parents' house to grow them here, and put little fences around them this time. Hopefully they won't get chopped away again.
I would like to grow some aloe vera and papayas in 2013.
10. Went for Siem Reap for honeymoon, it was a great place.
11. My world map project has yet to start. My fridge magnets continue piling up.
I need to think of some better targets for 2013.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Safety Personal Protective Equipment
There was some stories before my month long trip begins.
I requested a new pair of boots since over two months ago, and Ms. Azreal mentioned to Ms England that Decamouth did not approve it as he thinks we are spending too much on safety boots, when we could just purchase some other brands off the local hardware shops like what he does, in order to save money for the company.
England and myself were pretty mad at this, but MD seemed to agree with Decamouth, so we kept quiet.
When Decamouth wanted me to come to Philippines to commission the products, and I told him my safety boots are worn out, and need a new pair. He asked me to buy it from local hardware shop, I told him I couldn't find my size. I also asked him for the budget, he said there is none, just buy whichever that suits me. I then challenged him why not then let me buy the one that I requested two months ago, since I know for sure that model suits my feet?
He said he didn't know about the request. I was really pissed by his lies, I referred Azreal's words on the request was not approved by management, so if he doesn't know about it, could it mean that he is not a member of the management? I enjoyed seeing his face turning black. He pushed it back to Azreal, since she hasn't been back from maternity leave, and said it would be done when Azreal is back. I just enjoyed the moment and told him it would be too late, as I would be walking around in the China factories and Philippines construction sites risking my safety, would the company take responsibilities if anything occurred? I also told him a couple of near miss incidents I encountered due to the disintegrating boots and other safety equipments.
He asked me to log these incidents so that the company knows it. But our office doesn't have any safety policies or channels for us to log our incidents all these years, we have always been solving things on our own. But I think it is a good start, so when he raised it to the HR, I wrote a detail report. With that, he managed to get himself a pair of new boots, by saying that his technical department members must all obtained updated personal protective equipments (PPE).
Eventually, he got Azreal to arrange for the PPE supplier bringing some shoe samples to the office and purchased them. But I still visited China and Philippines with that disintegrating boots and risking my safety as the PPE supplier couldn't give us the products in short period of time. Especially the female boots sizes are pretty rare and they don't keep the stock.
I requested a new pair of boots since over two months ago, and Ms. Azreal mentioned to Ms England that Decamouth did not approve it as he thinks we are spending too much on safety boots, when we could just purchase some other brands off the local hardware shops like what he does, in order to save money for the company.
England and myself were pretty mad at this, but MD seemed to agree with Decamouth, so we kept quiet.
When Decamouth wanted me to come to Philippines to commission the products, and I told him my safety boots are worn out, and need a new pair. He asked me to buy it from local hardware shop, I told him I couldn't find my size. I also asked him for the budget, he said there is none, just buy whichever that suits me. I then challenged him why not then let me buy the one that I requested two months ago, since I know for sure that model suits my feet?
He said he didn't know about the request. I was really pissed by his lies, I referred Azreal's words on the request was not approved by management, so if he doesn't know about it, could it mean that he is not a member of the management? I enjoyed seeing his face turning black. He pushed it back to Azreal, since she hasn't been back from maternity leave, and said it would be done when Azreal is back. I just enjoyed the moment and told him it would be too late, as I would be walking around in the China factories and Philippines construction sites risking my safety, would the company take responsibilities if anything occurred? I also told him a couple of near miss incidents I encountered due to the disintegrating boots and other safety equipments.
He asked me to log these incidents so that the company knows it. But our office doesn't have any safety policies or channels for us to log our incidents all these years, we have always been solving things on our own. But I think it is a good start, so when he raised it to the HR, I wrote a detail report. With that, he managed to get himself a pair of new boots, by saying that his technical department members must all obtained updated personal protective equipments (PPE).
Eventually, he got Azreal to arrange for the PPE supplier bringing some shoe samples to the office and purchased them. But I still visited China and Philippines with that disintegrating boots and risking my safety as the PPE supplier couldn't give us the products in short period of time. Especially the female boots sizes are pretty rare and they don't keep the stock.
Travelling November
Just noticed that I haven't been updating this blog for almost 3 months.
Life have been pretty hectic coming towards the end of the year.
I have been travelling a lot since end of October.
It started with a trip to Bangkok with my high school friend and her family in October, which I planned since early this year. It was more like a revenge to my husband's active night life/social life, because I hardly get to see him earlier this year due to his frequent mamak time with his friends. So I thought I should give myself some time off too. But I guess things somehow turned out quite too much...
After returning from the 4 days shopping trip in Bangkok, I was told by the MD to go to South Korea, and was also asked by the US colleague if I could join him in his visit to China. So, I headed off to South Korea and jumped to China.
This trip to South Korea gave me some chance to look around, as my flight to China was over the weekend. I went to the Changdeokgong palace, and had some peaceful moment on my own inside the king's secret garden.
Seoul is a very vibrant city, and Gangnam is especially high-tech. I was lost in Gangnam, and came to realize that the huge black pillars that served like the street lights, are also multipurpose interactive tourist boards that have maps etc.
In my China trip, I saw some living history in one of the China factories, see below.
This image looks exactly like one of those we seen in our history text books, talking about industrial revolutions. But the picture was taken when these people were working right before my eyes. I guess only engineers could appreciate this? The manual labour involved in this is enormous.
Of course, there were also some real kick-ass state-of-art Aluminium foundry we saw, but I couldn't take any pictures. China reminded me a little of USA -- everything is big.
Right after returning from China, my trip to Philippines has been arranged. The trip was meant for two weeks travelling from North to South of Philippines, but the job site in the South had some demonstrations, so our trip to Philippines was shortened to only a week. (I travelled with Mr. Experience in Philippines.)
I was extremely tired when returning from China, and was secretly feeling glad that this trip to Philippines is only a week instead of two. Although I still have to return again early next year to the South.
This trip to Philippines also coincide with my birthday, it falls on a Saturday. I spent my birthday in the job site climbing 60 ft above the ground, walking on thin structures and frames. Although I like engineering, but kinda feeling sad that I have to work over the weekend and my birthday, while the office politicians have been shooting arrows at my back.
I met our representative in the birthday evening, we celebrated in the hotel restaurant with half a coconut cake and a bouquet of lilies. I doubt I could bring the flowers back to Malaysia -- It wouldn't worth quarantine it in the airport.
The plants are in some remote places in Philippines. On our way to the plants, I saw a river was entirely filled by the volcano sludge and turned into very unique grey/black stripes of land, stretching miles and miles.
I saw large sugarcane fields and padi fields along the highway that has no ends, the large stretch of light purple sugarcane flowers under the huge dead volcano was giving a oddly peaceful aura.
I also saw mountainful of coconut trees with huge underground geothermal steam pipes snake around it and around the villages to get into the plant. Coconut trees were sweeping as the wind blows, and the geothermal steam merged with the moving white clouds, everything is so dreamy and serene. If it weren't the hot sun, the sweat, the machine and construction sounds we made, it would be a heaven.
Back to reality, one thing I find common in all these 3 countries, is the horrible traffic jam.
Life have been pretty hectic coming towards the end of the year.
I have been travelling a lot since end of October.
It started with a trip to Bangkok with my high school friend and her family in October, which I planned since early this year. It was more like a revenge to my husband's active night life/social life, because I hardly get to see him earlier this year due to his frequent mamak time with his friends. So I thought I should give myself some time off too. But I guess things somehow turned out quite too much...
After returning from the 4 days shopping trip in Bangkok, I was told by the MD to go to South Korea, and was also asked by the US colleague if I could join him in his visit to China. So, I headed off to South Korea and jumped to China.
This trip to South Korea gave me some chance to look around, as my flight to China was over the weekend. I went to the Changdeokgong palace, and had some peaceful moment on my own inside the king's secret garden.
Seoul is a very vibrant city, and Gangnam is especially high-tech. I was lost in Gangnam, and came to realize that the huge black pillars that served like the street lights, are also multipurpose interactive tourist boards that have maps etc.
In my China trip, I saw some living history in one of the China factories, see below.
This image looks exactly like one of those we seen in our history text books, talking about industrial revolutions. But the picture was taken when these people were working right before my eyes. I guess only engineers could appreciate this? The manual labour involved in this is enormous.
Of course, there were also some real kick-ass state-of-art Aluminium foundry we saw, but I couldn't take any pictures. China reminded me a little of USA -- everything is big.
Right after returning from China, my trip to Philippines has been arranged. The trip was meant for two weeks travelling from North to South of Philippines, but the job site in the South had some demonstrations, so our trip to Philippines was shortened to only a week. (I travelled with Mr. Experience in Philippines.)
I was extremely tired when returning from China, and was secretly feeling glad that this trip to Philippines is only a week instead of two. Although I still have to return again early next year to the South.
This trip to Philippines also coincide with my birthday, it falls on a Saturday. I spent my birthday in the job site climbing 60 ft above the ground, walking on thin structures and frames. Although I like engineering, but kinda feeling sad that I have to work over the weekend and my birthday, while the office politicians have been shooting arrows at my back.
I met our representative in the birthday evening, we celebrated in the hotel restaurant with half a coconut cake and a bouquet of lilies. I doubt I could bring the flowers back to Malaysia -- It wouldn't worth quarantine it in the airport.
I saw large sugarcane fields and padi fields along the highway that has no ends, the large stretch of light purple sugarcane flowers under the huge dead volcano was giving a oddly peaceful aura.
I also saw mountainful of coconut trees with huge underground geothermal steam pipes snake around it and around the villages to get into the plant. Coconut trees were sweeping as the wind blows, and the geothermal steam merged with the moving white clouds, everything is so dreamy and serene. If it weren't the hot sun, the sweat, the machine and construction sounds we made, it would be a heaven.
Back to reality, one thing I find common in all these 3 countries, is the horrible traffic jam.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Mushroom rice needs attention
I came across an article that made reference to Dr. Emoto's rice experiment:
Three bowl of rice were capped and put together.
The person speak good words to first bowl of rice for a week, ignore the second bowl of rice and scold the third bowl of rice.
At the end of the week, the first bowl of rice turned brownish but kept it's fragrance, the third bowl of rice turned black. The second bowl of rice turned black and grew moldy.
The result was regarding positive thinking and its energy. It seems that ignoring someone is the worst of all.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have a new girl came into the office, she is a relative of Ms. Sulky, she is replacing Ms. Azreal during her maternity leave.
She sits next to Ms. England.
Decamouth was very eager yesterday, showing his concern to Ms. England on her messy working desk.
"Your desk is pretty messy er?"
England was pretty slack about it, "Yeah, I don't have any place to store things."
Decamouth seized the chance! "Well, you need a cupboard, I have one in my old seat in the sales department!"
England continued to slack, "Oh yeah?"
Decamouth continued, "... I can clear it for you."
The next thing I saw, Decamouth was using a trolley bringing that empty cabinet over to this side of the office for England. He even carried that cabinet down from the trolley by himself.
I am not sure about others, but it is obvious to me that he is showing off to this new girl.
This new girl also noticed that Decamouth had been looking at her very frequently from his office.
This made me want to vomit, because Decamouth doesn't even carry the water refill cartridge to the kitchen water cooler!
And today, he is walking around as if he forgot to wipe his bottom after taking a dump, trying to claim that it was due to carrying heavy weight. What an arse!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Decamouth has always been an arse, and I found out that he does this to crave for attention and appraisals.
I sometimes wonder if he had a mountainful of moldy rice harvest in his heart...
Three bowl of rice were capped and put together.
The person speak good words to first bowl of rice for a week, ignore the second bowl of rice and scold the third bowl of rice.
At the end of the week, the first bowl of rice turned brownish but kept it's fragrance, the third bowl of rice turned black. The second bowl of rice turned black and grew moldy.
The result was regarding positive thinking and its energy. It seems that ignoring someone is the worst of all.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have a new girl came into the office, she is a relative of Ms. Sulky, she is replacing Ms. Azreal during her maternity leave.
She sits next to Ms. England.
Decamouth was very eager yesterday, showing his concern to Ms. England on her messy working desk.
"Your desk is pretty messy er?"
England was pretty slack about it, "Yeah, I don't have any place to store things."
Decamouth seized the chance! "Well, you need a cupboard, I have one in my old seat in the sales department!"
England continued to slack, "Oh yeah?"
Decamouth continued, "... I can clear it for you."
The next thing I saw, Decamouth was using a trolley bringing that empty cabinet over to this side of the office for England. He even carried that cabinet down from the trolley by himself.
I am not sure about others, but it is obvious to me that he is showing off to this new girl.
This new girl also noticed that Decamouth had been looking at her very frequently from his office.
This made me want to vomit, because Decamouth doesn't even carry the water refill cartridge to the kitchen water cooler!
And today, he is walking around as if he forgot to wipe his bottom after taking a dump, trying to claim that it was due to carrying heavy weight. What an arse!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Decamouth has always been an arse, and I found out that he does this to crave for attention and appraisals.
I sometimes wonder if he had a mountainful of moldy rice harvest in his heart...
Monday, July 2, 2012
What is your true colour?
We have surely met some people in our lives, who are good at very specific things, but do not know how to do most other trivial things in life.
Our finance manager is on of them.
She is same age as me, but have been living a pretty easy life to most of us. She owned a driving license, but don't know how to drive. Her mother fetch her to the office and fetch her home. She brings lunch from home, prepared by her mother. She doesn't know the basic ethics when meeting clients, very blunt but very sharp when it comes to figures.
She can split the bills accurately to the cents between 14 people. She can calculate things so accurately that you won't pay one cent more to the government or any party. She is very precise in her share and not her share, especially when it comes to job scope and hierarchy rights.
She insisted that managers should have the priority to choose the company allocated car park space, over the executives, despite the MD prohibiting choosing carparks.
There is no grey area like, "you scrub my back, I scrub your back."
She lives entirely in her own world.
The MD brought in five fat mangoes today to the office, this finance manager likes food, and she will take any free food without hessitation, and own it entirely to herself.
To have 5 mangoes among 14 person in the office, we need to cut all the mangoes and share it among the group.
I didn't realise she took one mango to herself, and was commenting to the other colleague that the person who took the mango to his/herself is very selfish. She over heard it and offered to share with me. I was like "Oups, I said the right stuff at the wrong time and place." Anyway, since she offered it, I said ok, and asked her to cut it, since she was having the mango and the knife. I felt that, if I rejected it, it would only make me looked like a guilty party.
So she took the knife, and slice a tiny portion out with the skin, and said to me ''There is no peeler in the kitchen, I don't know how to peel. So you take this, I will take the rest."
I wasn't sure it was because of her lack of living skills or she really wanted to have the entire mango to herself, but I felt pity for her.
I saw her digging away the large portion of the mango, with the core still attached, dripping the mango everywhere, I believe she really never cut a mango before, with a knife.
I mean, you really don't need a peeler to prepare a mango. Anyway, I wasn't really into the mango, but was only curious to know how this person is... and I think her true colour is the mango yellow.
Our finance manager is on of them.
She is same age as me, but have been living a pretty easy life to most of us. She owned a driving license, but don't know how to drive. Her mother fetch her to the office and fetch her home. She brings lunch from home, prepared by her mother. She doesn't know the basic ethics when meeting clients, very blunt but very sharp when it comes to figures.
She can split the bills accurately to the cents between 14 people. She can calculate things so accurately that you won't pay one cent more to the government or any party. She is very precise in her share and not her share, especially when it comes to job scope and hierarchy rights.
She insisted that managers should have the priority to choose the company allocated car park space, over the executives, despite the MD prohibiting choosing carparks.
There is no grey area like, "you scrub my back, I scrub your back."
She lives entirely in her own world.
The MD brought in five fat mangoes today to the office, this finance manager likes food, and she will take any free food without hessitation, and own it entirely to herself.
To have 5 mangoes among 14 person in the office, we need to cut all the mangoes and share it among the group.
I didn't realise she took one mango to herself, and was commenting to the other colleague that the person who took the mango to his/herself is very selfish. She over heard it and offered to share with me. I was like "Oups, I said the right stuff at the wrong time and place." Anyway, since she offered it, I said ok, and asked her to cut it, since she was having the mango and the knife. I felt that, if I rejected it, it would only make me looked like a guilty party.
So she took the knife, and slice a tiny portion out with the skin, and said to me ''There is no peeler in the kitchen, I don't know how to peel. So you take this, I will take the rest."
I wasn't sure it was because of her lack of living skills or she really wanted to have the entire mango to herself, but I felt pity for her.
I saw her digging away the large portion of the mango, with the core still attached, dripping the mango everywhere, I believe she really never cut a mango before, with a knife.
I mean, you really don't need a peeler to prepare a mango. Anyway, I wasn't really into the mango, but was only curious to know how this person is... and I think her true colour is the mango yellow.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Good anime
It has been a long time since I last watched something good... Came across The Secret World of Arrietty just now and spent some time on it. It was simple and sweet.
Life have been very busy and targetless. Anime like this reminded me of those research days. Things are so simple and I only need to focus on the research, my mind was clear as the water, my life was satisfying and fulfilling as the ripen fruits.
Never had I felt so empty and busy like now, yet feeling tired and having my mind fogged up so badly. I couldn't see my future.
I was awarded a silver star the other day. The face of it was for my contribution to the South Korea market, but the fact was for the MD to shut my mouth and to make me sound stupid complaining about the unfair stuffs going on in the office, and about his bias thoughts on me.
I helped the IT consultant recently in the Windows 7 system upgrade and came across a confidential document from the MD's backup files. It was an evaluation and 5 years plan for this office. I was unfortunately identified as the most problematic employee, least chance for career advancement. I was also identified as emotional when taking up multiple tasks, which was an unfair claim without taking into consideration of the scenario for saying the truth under the threat of losing my job.
I don't come to work fighting for names and power, I work for self improvements and professional growth. I raised questions to things that doesn't sound right, and make noise to get things done. I guess I learned my lesson seeing the dirty tricks from these people not wanting to do their jobs, yet yearning for credits and attentions.
I know I shouldn't have read that document, but I also start to feel that honesty and sincerity is merely a relative term. It is only worthwhile in front of people who can appreciate it.
The dark vinegar is brewing... I hope I won't loose myself in this strange world.
Life have been very busy and targetless. Anime like this reminded me of those research days. Things are so simple and I only need to focus on the research, my mind was clear as the water, my life was satisfying and fulfilling as the ripen fruits.
Never had I felt so empty and busy like now, yet feeling tired and having my mind fogged up so badly. I couldn't see my future.
I was awarded a silver star the other day. The face of it was for my contribution to the South Korea market, but the fact was for the MD to shut my mouth and to make me sound stupid complaining about the unfair stuffs going on in the office, and about his bias thoughts on me.
I helped the IT consultant recently in the Windows 7 system upgrade and came across a confidential document from the MD's backup files. It was an evaluation and 5 years plan for this office. I was unfortunately identified as the most problematic employee, least chance for career advancement. I was also identified as emotional when taking up multiple tasks, which was an unfair claim without taking into consideration of the scenario for saying the truth under the threat of losing my job.
I don't come to work fighting for names and power, I work for self improvements and professional growth. I raised questions to things that doesn't sound right, and make noise to get things done. I guess I learned my lesson seeing the dirty tricks from these people not wanting to do their jobs, yet yearning for credits and attentions.
I know I shouldn't have read that document, but I also start to feel that honesty and sincerity is merely a relative term. It is only worthwhile in front of people who can appreciate it.
The dark vinegar is brewing... I hope I won't loose myself in this strange world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
