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the otnaicus daily

Edition 246 – Back To My Second Home

It was a fantastic and busy week back in Singapore. Really thank God that the timing was such that I could be back in Singapore for Easter. And thank God for the time off to recharge.

Easter was great. Two separate dramas for Jurong West and Expo. I was involved in the Expo drama with the freshest set of drama crew I’ve seen in a very long while. By fresh I meant that a lot of the crew was doing a drama production for the first time since joining TV ministry. One crew was even placed on a camera that he had never been on before. I’m just proud to say that everybody performed admirably. Even though we didn’t have a lot of rehearsal runs, the crew remembered most of their shots after a run or two. Simply fantastic. Concept of the drama was fresh and good and enjoyed every single moment of it.

So right now, I’m back in Taipei. Flew Eva and I was surprised at the load of the flight. The flight was practically empty and you could get a whole row to yourself if you wanted. Boarding was completed in 15 minutes, and in-flight service was quick and efficient. Simply enjoyed the extra space that was afforded by the low-load flight.

Back to the battle zone tomorrow. As of now, I feel a lot of changes coming up that I would need to implement, judging from the emails that I’m reading. But we’ll see what the PM has to say. Going to take a little time catching up over the next few days. Been totally out of the picture the past week and I’ll have to get up to speed before the PM heads back to Singapore.

As for now, I’m going to relax a bit. Watch some TV, surf a bit and sleep. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 245 – Time for Recharge

It’s nice feeling to sit in a Starbucks at the airport on the way home to Singapore. Finally, this trip to Taipei is over. Time to go end this “tour of duty”, go home and recharge.

Yesterday evening, I felt most of the pressure lift off me. I say most because I still have deadlines to meet when I’m back in Singapore. But at the very least, I’ll be away from the frontline where the battle is happening. Feels good to be able to get away and recharge my batteries after a tiring two weeks. Two weeks of ranting, early mornings, late nights and generally long days. Two weeks of facing the customer head on during test sessions. Two weeks of finding surprises after surprises. But I’m glad that I can leave that behind for now. For at least one week.

I thank God that this trip is over. It has been the toughest trip to Taipei but I am thankful to have the favour and the strength of God during this time. Challenging? Definitely. Stretched? Of course. I feel that because of this experience, my capacity has been enlarged somewhat. Learnt a lot of new things. Picked up some people skills. Grown a bit. Like the Bible says, God never puts us in situations that we can’t come out of. So looking at this trip from the positive side, I have indeed learnt a lot.

During the last two weeks, I found myself applying the stuff that I learnt while leading the a team in the TV Ministry. Often times I catch myself chasing people for answers to questions that I have asked but received no assurance of getting a response. I found myself asking this question a lot: “Why like that???”. Sounds familiar? Think what I’m trying to say is this; that whatever we picked up in the course of serving the Lord, those valuable lessons do come in handy in the real world. I have come to realize that applying those lessons and principles really do help me get my job done. And putting God at the head of the project and the job at hand is definitely something that you shouldn’t forget to do. Because ultimately, it’s His strength through us that works the wonders. And at the end of the day, all glory goes to Him.

Easter is coming up. I’m slated to AD for the drama at Expo. At the same time, feel a bit in a dilemma because my dearest won’t be involved. So that means I won’t get to see her as much during my one week back. But I hope that I’ll be able to find time to spend together even through the busyness of Easter.

A side note. For those of you who found my blog inaccessible in the previous few days, fret not for I’m still here. My hosting provider got some unannounced “scheduled” power cut to their data centre and as a result they had a lot of damaged equipment. But all should be well now.

So I have finished a tall latte while blogging. Time for me to head through immigration and security and onto the gate. So until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 244 – Quote of the Day

Saw this in a friend’s MSN nickname…

Before promotion comes trials of faith. Question: what is your faith level today?

Definitely spoke a lot to me. It comes as quite a bit of an encouragement even as I walk through the “valleys”. Do I have faith that God will provide a good ending to this mess? Do I have faith that God has put me in this situation for my good? Do I have faith to trust God to provide me the strength and wisdom to face this situation?

Even if the answer to the above question is a resounding “yes”, how confident am I of that faith? And if the answer is “no”, then shouldn’t I start to do something about it? To stop wallowing in this situation and start looking at the bright side of what I’m going through?

Thanks my friend, for speaking this word into my life. You have no idea how much I needed that at this moment in time….

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Edition 243 – Sink… Or Swim… Your Choice…

How many times have we felt like just throwing in the towel when faced with an infavourable situation? How often do we feel like we’re carrying a load so heavy that we just to toss it to one side and give up? How about feeling so tired and demoralized?

Well, that just about sums up my entire week. And the thing that brought it on was a bout of miscommunication. Which moves me to another point -Communication. The thing that is most important thing in society and the thing that is most often put on the back-burner. I say “A” and you deduce “B”. I tell you “C” and you go do “A”. Sounds familiar?

I think in my entire life, I’ve not experienced such a bad case of miscommunication before. Here we are going into the last lap of this project. The systems integration test (SIT) is almost complete. And the lonely ol’ me that’s holding the fort here in Taipei while my PM is back in Singapore, finds out that a critical component of the system is NOT ready. My heart literally fell to the depths. To exaggerate, my heart has been to hell and back. And so, I’m going to be burning my third consecutive weekend in Taiwan.

But looking back at this week, I thank God that He has been there every single step of the way. I feel that the favour of God has been with me every step. The people from the client’s side hasn’t exactly blown up at me, although they show their disappointment. And overall, I think we have made a good impression of ourselves here that they tend to be slightly more forgiving. But most of all, I have to thank God for the strength. Late nights and early mornings. I’ve been averaging 5-6 hours of sleep per night. And I’ve been working from 9am all the way to 9pm everyday. Tiring? You bet. But God’s strength was always there. And because of Him, the towel hasn’t been tossed.

Next week the PM is back. So perhaps a little less heat will be directed towards me? Bad hor? It’s going to be another long week ahead. So do keep me in prayers. And pray that this will all be over soon.

Headed off to place a deposit into the sleep bank and to meet my dear old friend “Zhou Gong” for a game of chess. And I haven’t forgotten about the pictures. Please be patient yah… Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 242 – Another Week Gone By

Looks like I have to break a promise that I made during the last post. Yes, there are no pictures yet. I don’t know how I managed to get myself to be so busy the past two weeks. SIT (Systems Integration Test) is a killer and I’m burning my second weekend in a row to do work that I can’t do because of the SIT.

SIT is a very time consuming process of testing out almost every aspect of the system that has been developed. It doesn’t help to have a very “C” client who keeps on adding test cases by the day even as the tests are being conducted. In an ideal world, these test cases should have been reviewed and finalized even before the SIT phase began. But we don’t live in an ideal world. And so we have to face these kinds of situations in our daily lives.

I almost lost my cool with the client at the end of Friday. It was late, coming to 8pm. Hungry and tired, and since testing was winding down for the day, I was hoping to get out of the office by around 7pm to come home to rest. But that was not to be. The client came in, started looking through the test cases, and started typing on my computer the new test cases to be added in. Tried hard to convince her to get it done on her own time and then send it to us. We’ll be glad to add those test cases in. But she just kept on and on and on. Even my subtle actions of packing up didn’t deter her. Because of that I almost lost my cool with yet another person.

I really got to keep my patience in check. Half a day of waiting around doesn’t help the mood. God help me. And now that my PM is headed back to Singapore for a week, I just feel a nightmarish week coming on. Really need the strength of God to pull me through next week. Hopefully, I don’t have to burn another weekend next week finishing up work.

Going off to bed now. Another day of work awaits me tomorrow. I really hope that I’ll get the time to process the pictures from CNY. It’s getting way overdue for some airtime on this blog. So until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 241 – Back!!

Yes, I’m back. But not for a post-CNY posting but just to rant. Still editing photos for the CNY post so I shall rant for now.

The past week has been crazy. First day back at work in Taipei I stayed till 8pm. A lot of small little things to clean up and working hard to clean those things up. Why clean up? Because this week, we start what we in the profession call SIT. That stands for Systems Integration Testing. One of the last few stages of the project before the project closes. So that’s good news, being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, there’s another tunnel at the end of this tunnel and it’s known as Phase 2. I shall rant about that when I get more details.

The whole of last week’s experiences made me wonder about why some people work the way they work. Why would someone want to make things difficult for himself, drag things out, and in the process also drag another party down together with him? Wouldn’t it be more beneficial for that person to cooperate and work to solve things ASAP? Well, that’s what I’ve been facing the whole of last week and to say it has been frustrating may be too little. And just because another project A is relying on project B doesn’t mean that project A has to do project B’s testing. But then again, this is the case and that’s another frustrating point. And the “best” part? Me getting “kan chiong” over their problem. Sigh…

What can I say? It’s all in a good learning experience huh? Meeting people, seeing the way they work, getting frustrated, learning how to work with them, getting over it and gleaning a lesson from the experience. And thanks be to God for the strength and perseverance.

Pray that this week will be better. Maybe I’ll get frustrated over other things but at least it’s a change in the things I get frustrated over. Haha. But whatever it is, the project is coming to an end. Well, at least this part of the project.

Enough ranting. Time for me to get back to work now. I promise to get the photos for the post-CNY post ready and hopefully, the next post will be about that. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 240 – Holiday Mood

gathering_food_20080204

A picture to set the Chinese New Year mood for this year. Anyway, it’s amazing how one can slip into a holiday mood in the span of one day. Yesterday, I was still hard at work trying to troubleshoot some problems that I’m facing while integrating with another system and getting pretty frustrated at it. And today, when I stepped into the office, it was pretty empty and the holiday mood sank in. Nevertheless, the fight has begun against that holiday mood…

gathering_20080204 Had a fun time at a Michelle’s place yesterday night. We had our traditional yearly gathering over steamboat and chit-chat. Yesterday’s included screenings and some fun with the Wii. It was great catching up, enjoyed in the company of friends unwinding after a long day. The evening even stretched till almost 1am for some of us. Why? The Wii is simple too addictive. Want to see how ridiculous one can look while playing “Boxing”? Check out the video below. Simply fun and fascinating.

Headed back to Penang tomorrow for CNY. Will be there for about a week and I hope that I don’t have to touch work much. I just want to rest and relax, enjoy a few laps in the pool, and get as far away from work as I can. And of course to spend precious time with my family, this time with my sister included in the mix. I think she missed the last two Chinese New Years. And Debbie is joining me as well. So it’s shaping up to be a fun getaway.

Got to go jump back into work now. Will update again when I’m back in Penang. And yes, I have broadband there now. Although 512Kbps, it’s still better than nothing. So until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 239 – Home!

Feels great to be back. Touched down yesterday afternoon at around 11.45am and was home by around 1pm. Got a haircut to get ready for Chinese New Year, spent some time with Debbie and came home to, wait for it, WORK! Thought I could get some rest in but made the mistake of powering up my work laptop and checking the email. Ended up with a tonne of email that required my attention.

I’m looking forward to Chinese New Year. Headed back to Penang for about a week to spend time with my family and to get away from work for a while. Taiwan has their CNY holiday from 6 Feb till 11 Feb. So at least for those days, emails should be kept to a minimum. Work or no work, emails or no emails, I am determined get some rest in and to just relax in Penang.

If you’re wondering why I’m up so early in the morning blogging, trust me, I would rather be still sleeping at the moment, or be on my way to Expo for the rehearsal for a drama that’s happening this weekend. I’m up early trying to get some work in, to show our “commitment” (as my PM put it) and try to get problems solved. But here’s the catch. I have no clue as to what else I can do and I need to communicate with some engineers in Taiwan, whom might have a clue to what is happening, but we’re doing it via email which can get frustrating. Want to call them, but they don’t seem to want to give me a phone number. But to be fair, maybe I did send out the email yesterday night a tad late. Nevertheless, I shall wait around for a bit till around 1pm. Then I’ll just report back to my PM and go off to church. Hence I’m playing the waiting game.

I’m going to stop here for now. If I don’t blog again before Chinese New Year, here’s wishing everybody a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year!! Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 236 – Week Over!

I’m kinda glad that the week is over. It marks the end of my two weeks acting as PM for the project. Challenging but I feel that I’ve come out of it learning something and one step closer towards realizing my dream of being a project manager. At the end of the day, I think I can say that I’ve learnt to swim fast enough to keep me from drowning. While I thank God for the opportunity, I also thank God that it’s over. Heh…

Had a pretty good dinner earlier. It was the appreciation dinner for the local company that my company has partnered with for this project. So the vendors working on site were invited too. Felt very awkward in the beginning because nobody talked and was very quiet. Thank God that things loosened as the evening progressed. But even as we enjoyed ourselves talking to each other, I noticed that almost nobody talked to the boss. Made me wonder exactly how lonely can leadership be. Because in the eyes of most employees, the boss is just that, a boss. No matter how outgoing or friendly a boss can be, employees may think that the boss has ulterior motives somehow. Or maybe they’re scared of what the boss might think of them if they loosened up too much. Oh well….

I realised today that it’s 11 months exactly to Christmas. Not that I miss Christmas but it just simply means that January is OVER!!! My goodness, that’s just fast. Pretty soon, you’ll start the new Chinese year and February will be half gone before you know it. It’s scary how time flies.

One more week before I head back to Singapore. It’ll be great to be back in Singapore, even though it’s only for a few days before heading to Penang. I think the few days back will be a busy one for me. Gotta run around getting stuff and gotta meet up with a good friend because that’s the only chance I get. Can’t wait…

So I’m headed off to bed. It’s the weekend but I’m tired out from the week. Gotta get my beauty sleep. So until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 235 – Yet Another Object Of Desire

macbookair

Yes, yes… I’ve said that I definitely would not splash money to get the MacBook Air but it still looks great doesn’t it? Nice and thin, and light enough to be carried around every day. And a 5-hour battery life. Just fantastic.

Now, would a sponsor please stand up and identify yourself?

Cheers… :Þ