Author: Andrew

Yup… Am gonna be heading back to Penang for the first time in more than a year. Why do I have so much free time? Not free time lah, just wanted to take good advantage of the double holiday within the first week of November. You see, in Singapore, Tuesday, 1st November is Deepavali, the Indian Festival of Lights (something like a New Year’s Celebrations for the Indians). Then, Thursday, 3rd November is Hari Raya, the Malay New Year. So, I’ve decided to take leave on 31st October (a Monday) and 2nd November (a Wednesday) and make a week long trip back to Penang. When I told my mom, she was quite thrilled at the prospect that I could go home and visit. Was contemplating taking 4th November off as well to extend my trip till Sunday but I decided against that cuz I’d be out of the office for too long. My project has pretty tight deadlines and I don’t want to neglect it for too long.

The downside of the trip… Cuz I’m flying, it’s gonna set me back about $350. Guess I have to put off my high-end earphones for another month. And I’ll need to purchase another ticket for Chinese New Year next year, which will set me back another $350. You see, this is gonna be my first time paying for my own air tickets. So it’s gonna be a pinch. But then again, I’m not really feeling it maybe cuz I really wanna go back and take a short break and also to see my parents. Miss Penang food as well. Top item when I get there is the local fried carrot cake. Very, very superlative when compared to the local version. Then of course, the Hokkien Mee, the char kuay teow, the wanton mee, the kuay teow in soup…. The list goes on and on and on…. Hahaha….

Well, just a nice little temptation for all of you readers… Hahaah… I’m off to bed…. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

I just had to post this… My hard drive has been resurrected. Well, actually, I think there was nothing wrong with the drive itself. I think it might be because of a cooling fan that I use specifically for the hard drive. Well, whether the drive is alright or not, I’m still going to buy a large capacity drive for backup purposes. At least, I don’t have to dig out cash for 2 drives.

Okay… Time for bed… Good night and sweetest dreams… Cheers… :Þ

And can I just state for the record that the month has been quite crappy so far. Yesterday night, my desktop’s second hard drive died. What’s on it? Oh, nothing much. Just most of my photos, my entire movie and music collection and the downloads I’ve amassed over the years. ARGH!!!!! *pulls hair*

From now on, I’m gonna buy a large dedicated hard drive for backup purposes and mount it in an external casing. And large meaning 250GB and above so that I can have enough backup storage for my notebook and desktop. And hopefully, the dead hard drive is still under warranty so that I can just get it replaced an dnot buy a new one. Two hard disks can cause quite a large hole in my pocket.

The end of September wasn’t all that great either. Got involved in a car accident (I was the passenger). It’s surprising how much damage was done to my friend’s car and very minimal damage was done to the car he hit. Oh well. Thank God that no major injuries. My other friend who was in the front seat had a sprained neck and my left arm’s triceps and collar bone hurt for a bit. But other than that, the only victim of the accident was a stray dog which was the cause of the accident in the first place.

Sigh… I just hope that the rest of the month will be a fantastic one. I pray to God and confess it right now that it’s gonna be better!!!! AMEN!!!!

Time to get back to work…. Drop me a line in my tag board… Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

Mid-week. Wednesday. 21 September 2005. What does this all describe? In one short word, TODAY!

Haha. Yes, I’m crapping again. But who can blame me? I’ve just had the most productive day of this week, although not as productive as I like it to be. Got another portion of the program working, so now just have to expand it to encompass other things.

It has been a rather frustrating week for me so far. Have been feeling restless but I don’t know why I’m feeling this way. Maybe it’s just my nerves getting to me, but what nerves? Nothing major is coming up in my agenda. Sigh, guess it’s just one of those weeks that you just feel the way you do for no particular reason. What can I do but to leave it to God and pray that the week will end better than the way it started.

Another blog entry that sounds disconnected. Well, I guess I’ll just end it here and get ready to leave the office. Have Bible study tonight and meeting my cell before hand for dinner. Yoshinoya has this promotion on some of their meals. $1.80 only!!! And tonight’s the last night.

And I’ve gotta finish my friend’s wedding video… It has been two months already!! Thank God he’s been patient with me so far but I wouldn’t want to test the limits of that patience. Target to get it to him by end of this month. Praying for inspiration to do a good job and not just a cut-and-paste job.

Right, signing off now. Gotta go do the knock-off rituals. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

Was bored, and reading a blog when I came across this thingie done by my friend. Thought I’d tried it out and here’s the results…

You Are 24 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view – and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what’s to come… love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You’ve had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You’ve been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

Hehehe… It’s the end of my first official day of work. And it has neither been very productive nor very unproductive. I don’t know how to describe. I guess it’s just another Monday.

Sigh. I’m feeling a bit stressed up about my dire straits. Praying to God that the monies due to me will come in soon. I catch myself logging in to my Internet Banking accounts to check the status of my accounts, which is not helping me out with my stress levels.

It’s week 4 of our initial 6-week phase of things. And we’re not that much closer in meeting the targets. Gotta really start cracking else we suffer!!! Progress on my side is painfully slow as I have to explore and experiment. Can’t just sit and code through. But things are getting better. Now I’m facing implementation issues. God, help me through this!

Yeah, this post seems a bit here and there. Not connected right? Neither are my thoughts right now. Anyway, until the next time, cheers… :Þ

Finally!! After going down to ICA for the third time this week, I managed to submit my application for Singapore Permanent Residency. They told me it’ll take 3 months to process and in the mean time they granted me a temporary employment pass that is valid for 3 months. So now, I can legally work in Singapore. And I shall officially start work on Monday, 12 September 2005. Now just keep me in prayer that I’ll get the PR.

Today was surprisingly productive. My code, which initially didn’t work, miraculously worked without me doing much to the code. So now I can open and save images on the handphone although it seems to be only working on the emulator on the PC. So come Monday, I’ll need to tweak the code a bit more to make sure it’ll work on a physical phone and on other vendor’s emulators.

Leaving the office soon. Got to find a way to make up for the hours. Think I owe the lab one full day’s worth of work. Nobody’s tracking but it’s eating my conscience. Going for service as soon as I finish this entry. On duty actually.

Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

Wow… It’s been almost a week since I last blogged! Oh well, got excuse this time. And it’s not that I’m lazy. Just that I’m BUSY!!!! Yes, busy and not slacking off at work.

Let’s pick up where I last left off. So I got my job offer letter, which I accepted and will be going to apply for PR tomorrow or latest by Friday. My contract starts effective Monday 12 September. And they’ve upped my pay a bit since they gotta pay me for the 3 weeks I’ve already been working. So all in all, my 6-month contract has become a 6.75-month contract. Hehe… God is good!

On top of that, had an interview on Monday at ITE for a lecturer’s position. Think the interview went fairly well, but I might have given some very contradictory answers. Guess I have to work more on that department. Seems like I’ve been giving some contradicting answers when I go for interviews. But this job, if I’m offered, I can only take from next February onwards. And I’m also not very sure if I really want a job in teaching; not that I despise it or anything. I show great appreciation towards teachers who really are serious about moulding lives and shaping it for the things to come.

And a catastrophe happened at work yesterday. Power outage to the server and the RAID array. Thankfully, most of the important data are still around, although we lost one array totally. Sigh…

Enough rambling for now. Gotta get back to work, or rather, start working. Plus, I might have to take a Bible study quiz tonight, so gotta find time to study for that. Until next time, cheers… :Þ

Sigh… Another restless day for me. Ever since I came back from lunch, have been feeling super restless. I don’t know why but I think a little prayer to God has worked. Feeling much better now although I still feel a bit the restless. Hope it’ll just get better as I trust in Him to guide me through my work.

Finally got a call from NTU’s Office of Human Resources just now. The lady on the phone asked me to go over to pick up my offer letter as well as to settle my SPR stuff. I just have to thank God for this. Have been waiting ages to finally try to get this done. And I was just griping about it to Lifang yesterday night on the way home from Bible study. God works wonders, amen? So tomorrow going to get the administrative stuff settled, including a health check-up at the NTU Medical Centre. Now to start praying to God that I’ll actually get the SPR. Please do keep me in your prayers.

Well, that’s a piece of good news that I thought I wanted to share with everyone. And also to get away from typing my paper for a while; not that I’ve done much the whole day anyway. But have to plough through and get it done. God, please arm me with a fresh supply of smoke bombs!!! Hahaha… In other words, God, please tell me what to write. Suffering from a bit of writer’s block also.

Time for me to get back to work. A teeny weenie update from the story that’s my life. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

This deserved a posting on its own so here it is…

While walking back from lunch, we were talking about Apple (the company, not the fruit). We started to come up with fruit-based names that we could call our would-be companies. My friend, Jimmy said, “Banana”. His girlfriend said cannot have more than two syllables so he decided to call his company “Nana”. The first product he introduces will be named “Ba”. And so it’ll end up being “BaNana”. Hahaha… Geddit? No? Oh well…

Cheers… :Þ