Gas Tank empty!

Sigh, must rant about work!

I feel like the Go-To person for every single thing in my projects lately. And all projects are very critical, very stressful and very rushed.

Help, my gas tank is empty! Getting sick so often nowadays too. Need to recharge, need to be motivated, need to destress!

I wanted to kick some of my colleagues' asses because I felt that they were not doing the right thing. But my boss said, don't rock the boat and I should crack my head to think about how we can all work together according to our strengths. Sigh, sometimes I wish the bosses would crack their heads and just give us some specific instructions to follow. It's so tiring to keep doing the thinking and managing in my own head. I am tired of leading, and I long to be a follower for a change!

Rant, rant, rant!

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Ok.... it's out of my system. Back to the tough and trying daily grind. Put on my happy face, try to be look more mature than I really am, try to sound smarter than I really am, and become the Go-To guy again.

Definitely need to ask for more advice from friends and family on how to refill my gas tank.

Grr... Angry! Tank Empty! Grr!

Going to London and coming back to Malaysia

Just returned from a 4 week work stint in London, England. I had a really rough and frantic time preparing for the trip. After 4 years of doing this, I had hoped rushed arrangements like these would be a thing of the past ^.^ which just goes to show how much further there is to grow ho ho ho. Left Malaysia on Jan 21st

This is my first trip to this particular client's locale in London. My company had rented an apartment unit in Borough, which is 15 mins walk from London Bridge. There is a well equipped kitchen with 2 ovens, toaster, stove, cooker hood, rice cooker and a gigantic fridge. So this translates to lots of spaghetti cooking for myself. Fresh foodstuffs are quite cheap (with company allowance... don't convert! don't convert!). So it is not surprising to find myself at the Sainsbury's or grocery shop every other day of the week. There is also a TV with some cable channels. Mostly british programs though, with some american ones.

Spent CNY in London. The main festivities happen on the first saturday of CNY. So me and my colleague walked to the Strand to watch the CNY parade. It was quite lively, with a lot of costumes. There were some good music and dances. Some were just people dressed in chinese costumes that just walked past in ho-hum fashion. There were so many people coming down to watch the parade. Mostly whites. And here's where you a get the real feeling of just how populous London is. Everywhere as far as the eye can see, thousands and thousands of people.

The parade procession down The Strand. They had lion dancing too!

Happy CNY from Kung Fu Panda movie

Some locals dressed up their pets. Ain't this one adorable?

On the other weekends, I did manage to get around town. Looked up all the touristy places once more. St Paul's cathedral, Tower of London, Buckingha Palace, Oxford and Regent street, Westminster, London Eye, took a cruise down River Thames, visited some museums... All in all, took in a lot of sights. Went for Lion King theatre musical at Lyceum Theatre too. Thanks Liz for arranging this. Really enjoyed the creative show. Anyone who has a chance to catch it, make sure you do. You should not miss the oppurtunity no matter what!

St Jack at St Paul's. Just kidding :P




Big Ben and Skinny Jack

Even took a trip to Kent one weekend. This was to visit Leeds Castle. Took a train from London Victoria to Bearsted station, then took the shuttle. It was bitterly cold the day I did the trip, and I really felt it. Here, the castle's resident dragon attempts to warm me up with its fiery breath.

Oh mighty dragon, I'm not as tasty as you think

Met up with my old schoolmate Ruth one weekend. Had lunch together, and also went to Hillsong church together at Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court road. It is my first visit to Hillsong, and it was fantastic. They were going to do a DVD recording of the worship session the week after I went. Unfortunate that I missed my 2 seconds of fame moment. The worship was so lively and the message was very relevant to the youth audience.

Met my cousin Joseph, wife Maki and brother Andrew for dinner this week too. Had an amazing meal at Galvin, Baker Street which serves frech food. They told me of their Great Atlantic Race. adventures. They are greatly tanned and sport lots of facial hair now. But they seemed to have a great time, and I salute their achievement. It is quite an amazing feat if you think of it. Go see the site I linked above to understand the enormity of the race. Wish you guys best of luck for the next great adventure.

On my journey back to Malaysia on Feb 20, the worst of worst things happened. I got sick. Developed a fever on the plane. If that's not enough, I had the noisiest fellow passenger in the world. He was having a coughing fit, and he was so loud. He coughed every 5 minutes. I took 6 panadols during the flight to control my fever and chills.

When I thoughr my nightmare was over, things got spicier. The captain of Malaysia Airlnes flight MH001 on Feb 20 from London Heathrow to KLIA decided that for the last 10 minutes of the flight, he would do something really cheeky. He descended the aircraft and changed the cabin presure so fast that I had a migraine. Not a headache, but a migraine. The kind where you hurt so much, you puke and you can't stand up. I felt like I was going to have a stroke due to the pressure in my head. I needed a wheelchair when we landed. And 3 other passengers too needed wheelchair assistance.

So what's the first thing I did when I arrived? On my taxi ride back to my house, I puked.

Then after collapsing into my bed in my house, I developed my fever again. And the icing on the cake is I developed a cough too, which I'm certain was courtesy of my fellow flight mate in MH001.

Besides the very uncomfrotable return to Malaysia, I am glad to have had the chance to visit London again. Goodbye London, I had a great time. It would be great to see London in a season other than winter, which is the only season I've seen from all my visits so far!

2007 Dinner and Dance

So year 2007 is drawing to a close. Only 7 more days till it's over! In December especially, my place of employment has been truly busy. With resource management to take care of, announcements to make, events to attend, employee appraisals to do, myself to be appraised -.-"

December was also a month of many firsts. E.g:

First annual dinner event that was organised by a committee.

Previous dinners was planned by my manager mainly. Had the do at this little hideout called Rahsia, near Jalan Tun Razak in KL.

First dinner event with a dress code

Besides the dinner event planning by a committee, another first was that there was a dress code for the night. Whites for gents, and ladies in red. They were even giving out some prizes for best dressed and best hairstyle.

First time Jack made any effort to dress up

I actually went around Sunway Pyramid one weekend to look for white pants. Settled on a pair of Lois jeans. Another weekend was spent looking for a shirt. Found a nice one in Key NG. The design was simple, but it had some cool details like seams sewn with multicolored threads. Also found a cheap (RM40+) but nice pair of Bata brown shoes.

I quite liked the color and simple design. Bargain price too!

Besides clothes, I also attempted to change my hair. Read somewhere that the spikey look is simple to do with a hair dryer. So I borrowed my mom's and experimented. Below is a sample of where I got to.

Experimenting, experimenting!

I thought it looked quite ok actually. Unfortunately I didn't understand that to maintain this spiky look with hair that is as long as mine, you need industrial strength hairspray or gel to fix it. After about 30 mins, the hair dried, and became frizzy. I couldn't be bothered to try and salvage it. I'm such a fashion disaster ^.^

Can you see my fluffy hair?

Anyway, I need not have bothered with dress or hair. I didn't win anything. Best dressed went to my friend below instead.

Spence (far right), I salute your fashion

Dinner was okay. Had higher expectations on the food though. Service was not as quick and food portions not of the size I was expecting. But we had a great time anyway. Alcohol makes pretty of many things, so they say.

To many more happy times ahead!

Some of the gang decided that the night was still young. So we dropped by at Aloha after the dinner event concluded. Group of 12 went to "attempt dancing", and drink more alcohol. I think I gotta really go learn some dance steps. Been to clubs few times already, and all I can do is bop my head around, and do the hand movements for YMCA. Ordered 2 small bottles of JW Black, and between 12 people, we finished 1 and a half bottles.

Quite abit of JW went to Shoon's stomach? :)

Around 2:30am, I had to get out of the club hall to get a breather. Haven't drank much whisky lately, so I was feeling the effects. Have to admit that age is catching up maybe? At 3am, we left Aloha to get something to eat at a nearby mamak, which served the worst fried kuay teow I have ever tried in my life. But I downed it anyway because I was so hungry. Witnessed one my junior colleagues puke at the mamak. I however commend him on doing it in such a calm and cool manner ho ho ho....

Reached home at 4am. Woke up at 8 am. Why? Because MPSJ decided that 8am that day was a good day to cut grass at the field in front of my home. So I awoke, whether I was ready to or not, to the sound of grass cutter machines in all their entusiastic glory. Felt poorly the whole day. At night, at 8pm, crawled back into bed, and slept all the way for 12 hours till the next morning.

Ahhh... 2007 company annual dinner was quite fun wasn't it?

Finding your feet, finding yourself

For a long while now, I've come to question whether or not I'm cut out for the software industry. There is a desire in me to excel and be prominent in a field of my choosing. But tracing back the history of my actions, I'm perplexed by decisions I made:

peer pressure

• Went into IT studies - no direction
• Did IT projects during university summer holidays - practical experience
• Studied hard to get good grades - report card mentality

money pressure

• Jumped straight into a programmer job after graduation - You must heard these lines before if you're from an Asian family. "When are you going to get a job?", "You can start looking already even before you graduate, don't you know?". But usually this one takes the cake, "Do you know that [insert name of family member/friend here... best if chosen person is a genius or alpha male/female] has already started new job at [insert name of glorious multinational company here] with [insert generous salary amount here]. "

society pressure

• Stuck with the same company for 2 years - don't hop too soon, bad on your resume
• Self study new skill (.NET platform, SQL Server) - More skill, more valuable

And yet here I am now

• Currently in a technology consulting firm of 30+ people.
• Been in the industry for almost 5 years now in development and support lines
• Worked with local Malaysians and other nationalities
• Given travel oppurtunity for work assignments
• And sometimes, people actually like what I've worked on!

Sometimes it just blows my mind about what has happened in these 5 years. Kind of makes you wonder what would have happened if I had truly focused my effort and willpower into making an IT career an obession. Case in point, my dad's cousin left me a violin. Without attending any classes, I managed to play well enough to do small time performances. This was at a late age of 16/17.

Bottomline? I should've picked up the violin earlier! *snicker* But IT ain't all bad either *wink wink*