Thursday, July 31, 2008

1 Year Mark of Service with my company

The day, 31 July 08 marked my 1 yr service with my current company PPS. Lots of things learnt throughout this 1 yr. Thanks PPS for giving me this opportunity to work with all the great people!! Thanks to those who teach me, guide me the way of getting things done in a corporate working world.

Many thanks....that's what i have to say...more pictures related to working life will be uploaded soon ..

What a Happening Week....

Lots of thing to update here in this post..please bear with me...
Firstly need to start with Pei's Convo..hmm finally she graduated lo...no more complains about assignment, no more become her specimen for her FYP project..haha ofcourse not forgotten my newly bought FZ18..took not less than 1000 photos attending 2 days convocation.crazy with my new gadget !!



See her nervous look while waiting for her turn....anyway she got a gold medal !! Not able to take photo of Pei's receiving the medal from the Provost because we were sitting too far from the stage and the angle where to take photo was not a good one..Felt so useless (myself n camera) because i was there test shoot for more than 1 to 200 photos in order to shoot a best stage photo but to no avail..part n parcel of life....no matter how hard u try..u might still not getting what u want to...luckily pei's friend KK got shot a video with his Sony camera..if not i dont even remember the moment pei was on stage receiving the price..so cham ..never under so much pressure b4 le...LOL!! Anyway, the ceremony ends well...and i gonna help pei n her gang to take photos again this saturday morning.



Only manage to find this photo taken with the busy gal on 24 July08



Group Photos Taken in after the morning convo session. Taking photos with friends is a must do thing during Convo..after the session dont know when can all the friends gather again..cherish the precious moments !!

25 July
I am not sure whether it was planned or just happen by coincident...I was so happy to see a bunch of old guys n gals returning to school for the FOC finale..The feeling was so great to see familier faces instate of facing about 130 new faces ( freshmen). Guys, i want to tell u all that im so glad to see u all back !! Until today the feeling of coming back for FOC is still so great...may be by returning to the places, looking at innocent faces help me to recall my sweet memories when i first came to NTU, as well as the feeling of becoming the organising chairman, then the programmer, then senior attached (SA)....too many fond memories to be cherish from....that's why i always said that FOC is the event that i like most after joining so many clubs, attending so many activities and events. 3x Cheers for FOC!! Thanks to FOC, i managed to recall my memories...one thing to note is that i like the closing of this year FOC very much...this is the closing ceremony that i was looking for ...ending with time machine..help the freshmen n the camp participants to recall what had happened for the past 5 days...bring back all the memory...the days spent together for the past days.. then end with singing of the FOC theme song n dance. Ofcourse for the old bird...supper is not to be missed out !!

26 July (Sat)
It was still a happening day...slept at about 4am on friday night didnt stop me from having a fully activity day on Sat...woke up at 10+ am ,i went swimming with Cheong n BK & KV in SRC.It was 1 yr ago when i last swam in campus...huh long ya..needless to say my staminal drop drastically....i was gasping for air after 1 round of 50m swim..but we didnt give up..haha guess what, we swam for 2 1/2 hrs.
Oya, 1 thing to highlight is that Cheong finally start to swim ( haha with the goggle n swimming trunk that i bought for him as gift 2 yrs ago during his birthday..walao eh...thanks to Bk and KV ...only 2 of u got the power to pursuit him to take up swimming after a bad experience during our yr 2 orientation camp in Sentosa..Hamen, I Welcome u to the water world!!! In the afternoon we attended KL convo..we took photo with MP from Batu Gajah (her sis) ofcourse the main character is KL la...so nicely dress n beautiful...but as usual vy busy taking photos with friends, professors n family members...huh every graduates will go through this.
Will upload the photos when i receive them from BK. Wait..haven end yet...at night i went to MSA appreciation night at hall 3 function hall..



How come last yr there isnt any farewell / appreciation event for us huh ?? sopsop ...hehe ...

27 July (Sun)
Having a hectic life for the past 3 days, i hardly want to move out of my room..just feel like sleeping for whole day..but my stomach didnt allow me to do so..gotto look out for food at 1pm...Hm..having the Nasi Lemak that i love opposite cheong's house is something not to be missed...As usual, one get high i couldnt cold down so fast..continue to prepare for our dinner in Cheong's house...



& ..Look nice ? But the taste really nice..except the egg..as commented by them..so sad ahaha ...walao wat you guys expect...long time never cook liao la..


Not forgotten the Penang Rojak as well from QX. Really Hot..haha after eating that we had ice cream..really enjoying that night.

28 July (Mon)
What an important day man...see the photo for yourself..


Brazil in Town playing with Spore team ..yeah..paid SGD60 for the ticket..went down with Patrick n Erol to the Bar to grap some food after work n have some beer b4 the match start at a bar around Kalang stadium....spend SGD50 for a cowboy berger set ( wit fries)n 2 cups of special beer...my wallet got burned a big hole on that night..

I manage to take some good photos that night...for sharing and feel free to comment.


Photo 1: Supporter



Photo 2: She is my model. I like her innocent smilling face and she is very photogenic as well.



Photo 3: This is my photo of the night..i name it as: Hey i am watching u..and i use it as my desktop background for my company computer...i like this photo very much



Photo 4: I like the feel...but i dont know what feel...this photo has a very special feel



Photo 5: U will Never Walk Alone.....Special feel n strong contrast , 2 small gal in a huge stadium full of crowds..



Photo 6: NC..another LengCai


Photo 7: Last but not the least..Paying so much just to see this guy in no 10 jersey...none other than Ronaldinho who cost more than the whole Spore team..(Used to play for Barcelona & now playing for AC Milan)...no 8 Anderson (playing for Man Uni)...this is the moment he scored the 2nd goal for Brazil. The match end with brazil 3, Spore 0.

Lots more to update ..stay tune to be continue...tomorrow gotto work le..

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Untitled

Endless bad news and problems since the past 2 months. Every day there are news of this abc will be leaving in Aug, then the bcd will also be leaving in end of Aug...bla bla bla...and today i heard that my Eng Man ar resigned ( hope this is not true)....i wonder what the XX the management is doing? Pondering.
Our vessel is set to sail off in mid of Sept after one round of postphoning. Now, which is the most critical time ( 3rd week of July), whereby everybody should be very busy clearing all their rubbish (lots of paper work, documentation to follow up...engineer hate documentation) prior to the sailing of the vessel..however thing seems to be working the other way round....talking to each other, answering to phone calls, coming in late leaving the office early...everything that you can think of which are not suppose to happen in a well manage organisation....yes, you can find them all in my office..OMG!!

What's wrong with the company ? I only want to quickly finish the project (1st project + 1 company)and move on to think about my future....

I met with our engineering Director Mr R on Monday afternoon. It was 3 to 4 months after he joined our company. Very strange, i am not nervous at all..from my project office, i went up to Mr R office. I was in formal attire...in red ( my favourite color). When i went to the outside of his office, there were a bunch of people waiting outside...my common sense told me that these people were there to meet with Mr R...most and almost all of them are from my project ( though i dont recognise most of them..this is the scenario working in a big project team).

Me: Hi R
R : Hi Siw (I like the firm hand shake with Mr R),
Me: I think this is the 1st time i meet you for discussion
R : Yes, i hope this is not the last time..( Joking while looking into my eye..)
Me: Ofcourse, i hope not ( both smilling )

xxxx That's how we started our communication....

The session didnt last long...only for about 15 to 20 mins. Just enough for him to get to know me, for me to update my progress to him and also i managed to tell him my plan in the company after this current project....He is a nice guy. Though aged about 55 to 60 (i guess), tall and serious looking, but once you getting closer to him, knowing him better, he is really a good guy, nice and friendly.

During the meeting with Mr R,i almost asked him what does the management trying to do....trying to tell him the exact situation in our project (as though he didnt know anything) but then he mentioned that he knew there are a lot of thing happening in our project...he wanted me to do whatever i can for this moment and waiting for his email to get me transfer to other department ( which is supposed to happen if the program is properly planned in the 1st place)...anyway at this moment i tell myself to wait for his instruction and give him 1 week time to talk to the manager of other department...patiently and not affected by the negative atmosphere in the
office...I tried but i failed this evening...i choose to leave at 545pm which i normally will stay back later..went to IMM to treat myself a good meal hoping that i will bounce back tomorrow morning..and i believe i will..though im still wring my blog at this hour...i will sure wake up at 6am and reach the office by 730am...

Again i remind myself, this is the time i need to stay calm, not affected by the environment and for sure the bad things will end one day....

Looking forward for tomorrow....By the way, i thin the Choco freeze Moca blended with Ice cream did help in calming down my mood..LOL!!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Bought New Camera- Pana FZ18

After 1 to 2 months of thinking, the day that i was waiting for finally came. I had the intention of getting a better camera since we started planning for our cambodia trip. But not manage to get as there was too little time to do research on the model that i really need and affort to own and also one that suitable for someone who just started to try to improve on the other half of his brain ( art ).

After the cambodia trip, the desire of owning a better camera become more firm as i felt there is a need to capture all the precious moment in the best possible way as it was for future recall.( much better than my compact samsung )which allow me to take sharp and clear picture regardless of the condition(dark or bright). I was all the time looking for Nikon P80 which i consider very good for me and started to research online,tried at shops to have a better feel of the camera. Haha i tried at least 4 times at Harvey Norman and a few times at Court....trying to convince myself that im buying something worth and suitable for myself i guess as not used to hold back to make any decision that long....but not this time, undecided for more than 2 months.

After much thinking, i felt i am ready to buying the Nikon P80. So Sat afternoon i went down to Funan tower to look for the shop named Alan Photo as recomended by the forum kaki in the forum (club snap.com). Hm i went down with Peipei with the plan of just grap and go with the P80 as i had already tried so many times in other outlet as the main intension to go to Funan is because i got to know in the forum that i can get the camera at a much cheaper price. The grap and go intension did not work as after about 10 min looking for the shop, when we reached that shop we were told that the camera is out of stock and will only available next week onwards. What the...We came all the way down from Boon Lay and im sure do not want to go back empty handed this time as it happed once where we went to Aljunied to look for the P80 but didnt manage to get it too...

So much disappointed with the news i decided to look for other shop next to Alan Photo...my logic thinking tell me that, if Alan Photo really sell at a much cheaper price than the other shop...so will be the shop beside / next to it (apportunity of cost to walk to the next shop almost Zero). So we went to the shop opposite it. Opps i forgot the name n now too lazy to get the name card from my camera box.

We went in asking for P80 and yes...there is still stock in the shop....ofcourse what come next in my mind is the cost..hm..selling at SGD575 with 1 4Gb SD card as compare to SGD545 in Alan photo ( didnt ask for detail as we were told that there is no stock available...so only ask for the price n didnt know if it come with any other gift/s) Hm...not bad ( our 1st thinking as there is always room of negotiation...and we believe we can get at a cheaper price)...What come next is another one hour of marketing and lecturing from the saleman uncle...LOL!! But sincerely the uncle is a nice person...For almost 1 hour we stuck in the shop... because of trying to negotiate for the price of other accesories like camera bag ( as P80 didnt come with bag so stupid which cost $20 (canon bag) ), additional Litium battery ($45), screen protector ($8 but at the end we managed to get for free) , tripod ( $28), and some additional free gift like card reader and memory card... that was not the end..

When we were about to buy...uncle then recomend Panasonic FZ18, which is having about the same spec as the Nikon P80...haha but cost SGD595 ( $20 more expensive than P80 but come with panasonic bag so end up even more cheaper than the P80)...so since the uncle saw that we were interested in the FZ18, he started promoting the camera..that's the beginning of 45 min presentation and lecture..haha..

The uncle demo the FZ18, showing the power of leica len by shooting the 2 dollar note in macro mode to show us how fine and close the camera can shoot in macro mode..then the uncle start promoting the other 2 lens ( one of the extra advantage of FZ18 over P80 is that you can add lens on it...haha semi pro camere as compare to totally dull P80). FZ18 enable additional tele len and wide angle & HD len ( the uncle still never gave up to sell the 2 lens at $200 the time we paid for the camera. We ( should be i was) were never thought of getting FZ18..actually not even gone through my mind b4..Zero research. So, dont need to say it required much testing of the camera....try to shoot from normal len to adding the 2 lenses...we spent amost 20 mins there trying the camera that we were not familier with...It was almost 5pm and we had finally made up our mind to just go for the camera ( Fz18) but trying to keep the gifts that the uncle was promoting if we get the camera together with the 2 additional lenses....lots of barganing with the uncle...uncle tying his best from telling us they never charge 7% GST to absorbing the 1% nets charges in order not to give any other extra gifts...At the end, see what i get :

Panasonic FZ 18 --------SGD595 ( come with case and 2x 2GB SD card)
Tri Pod (not mini)------SGD28
46" UV Filter ----------SGD25
Addit Litium Battery----SGD45
Total ------------------SGD693 (2 card readers and 1 screen protector for free)

Paid $690....and went for shooting at Esplanade n Melion in the evening till about 1030 pm..super tiring day but feel satisfy...haha i believe for the next 5 days i will be spending most of my free time playing with my camera...hoping that on Peipei Convo day (24th July)...i can shoot a better picture