Pray hard for me!
Lets gather together... and pray hard for me! For good luck for the exams, for my FYP presentation after it, and my applications for M.Eng.! This time round I am going for 2 M.Eng. applications, hope can get at least 1! I have in mind another Prof to find to see if there are anymore openings around!
Wish me plenty of luck everyone!
Surrealism - War has began
“It’s the time of the year again TS…”
It is grim moments again at this time of the year again. It seems like yesterday when TS and I had been working so hard on our research report. It was hell of a rollercoaster ride. Two months ago when we met our boss on our progress, he was saying how good we were, how much progress we made and how high we were standing in his eyes. But as the days goes by, things just started changing. First was the technical report that he had written. The weird thing that boss did was he written stuff that completely contradicted what we had always agreed upon. Both Patrick and I were completely baffled. He even had the cheek to asked us, “Are you sure this is correct? How can you be so sure?” momentarily both of us are stunned. It was definitely not a valid question weeks or months ago. Just because he written the paper, then he started asking this kind of question. So we reckoned he was trying to cover his ass. That was the first crack in the good picture of him in our minds. Then he started demanding little stuff from us, like proper grammar and vocabulary in our reports. Oh come on… when we are analyzing the results and typing the damn report, how much of grammar and vocabulary can we really look into? I had such a hard time squeezing out every ounce of ideas and insights for the damn report, writing in the most technically inclined manner as far as possible. The remark from him is, and not directly to us is, “These two guys did not put in effort and heart into their work… this is so disappointing…” my goodness… what did he mean by that? Ok… it was pretty obvious what he meant. But both TS and I definitely won’t agree with him. He must have not seen us staying in the freaking research lab over winter time… cold and freezing. Had not seen us in the half dead form during that time. Did not see us sitting in front of the 4156 14 hours straight. Oh well… he is the boss, he has a lot of work to do also huh? Well… we are not impressed. Mine wasn’t that bad, TS was simply furious over another remark our boss made. “Are all this work done by TS?” he asked Patrick. My goodness… wonders how he can doubt TS in such a manner. It’s definitely tough not to get mad over such remarks. Now TS simply hates him to the core, of course after someone added firewood to the fire. From someone who dislikes him as much as TS. Ha… I simply just shrugged my shoulders. Our performance bonuses aren’t going to be that high after all…
After the report fracas, we had to prepare for a demo to a so-call moderator from another department. This manager is one hell of an expert. He simply questioned our research like it’s done by primary school kids. And yes, when he asked, we kept keeping stumped like kindergarden kids. Hell he asked tough questions… tough but valid though. Frankly he isn’t too impressed with the initial work that was done by the people above us. That is the model of research that was handed over to us to use. Actually both TS and I had the same queries when we took over the model, but our side indeed just report that this is an infant model, and there are I think hundreds of assumptions that came with it. Well… after that, the manager realized that the two of us wasn’t responsible for the modeling and said, “Well, research associates are not responsible for modeling. It’s the research fellows and senior associates who are. So you two had all your results based on this model?” he ended those comments with that question. We had our usual, “Yup”. Then he smiled and said, “Good!” Now that’s a consolation after all the nonsense we received over this report. At least someone appreciates our work.
After that we all thought that things are going to be better. Better rest and stuff… well, not for me. I am beginning to wake up in the middle of the night. I have stomach issues almost every week. My right knee is hurting everyday. I have my weekly bruises and scratches on the left knee every Sunday. I have problems understanding what has been taught in school. In fact, I have no idea what is going wrong with my mind. Frankly there is a possibility that I have been doing wrong things all these while. TS will tell me, you better consider what you do and the consequences. Some things are better let untouched. If you have touched, better stop doing whatever you did. Yesh, I’ve thought about it whenever I realized that I have done something wrong. And I believe it is time that I put a stop to it, right from this moment on. And I hope, whatever I have done wrong will be fixed, and eventually come to a full stop in the future. I have better keep track of what the hell I have been doing and what I have done.
Indeed, TS and I will be preparing for a major project that is going to span for three weeks, two weeks from now. We have a lot to prepare for, given that all the time had been taken up by the freaking research that we did on for the past ten months. Indeed, what we had put in had really squeezed the brains out of our skulls. I am wondering how to prepare for this project because I haven’t been keeping up with the current affairs in the company. I heard some general ideas for parts of the project from some managers from each individual department. It’s going to be interesting indeed this time round. Of course I am going to put in much effort for this project. I always put in effort for projects, but of course sometimes the effort was found wanting. Two weeks left, I better prepare myself well this round. It’s going to affect my performance bonus too for this round. Going to be real important in shaping what’s my future in my job scope and the satisfaction that I am going to derive from the project results too.
Before the battle starts, I went on a relaxation phase to prepare myself for the final thrust through enemy ranks. I slept throughout for the last Saturday, after preparing some work for a little task that was assigned to us some time back. On Sunday I went off to my usual soccer game with the rest of the soccer chums. It’s always good to have a game of soccer to work off those fats that accumulated over the days in office, where you sit in the cubicle and stagnate. It has to be one of the worst games I have ever played, though our team won 4-0. We played against a bunch of youngsters, probably 19-20s, conscripts I suppose. And man… they are a rough/dirty/ugly bunch. I see double leg tackles flying, arms swinging, elbows nudging… rough/dirty. They fly to the ground at the slightest body contact; they shout for every damn time someone hits the ground, they start giving snide remarks about our teammates. What a bunch of kids… we started to show them some class but shooting at their goals, freewill. And soon they have to resort to all sorts of nonsense to get back at us. We scored and we laughed… we did our talking with our game. There was once when this little fellow swing his arm at one of our players, and one of our subs dash right into the field, wanting to clobber the small idiot. Obviously those kids aren’t going to be a real fight for the rest of us. If we start the fighting, they probably will go back with more broken ribs then us with bruises. Those puny kids… don’t know how to control their tempo, their airs, their egos, their game, their temper and lastly, their sanity. They just have to learn things, the hard way. They are lucky they managed to escape my studs and knees. Anyway… those kids, not worth any more of my mentioning.
In the afternoon we went for a mahjong game at my captain’s place. We managed to squeeze in ten big men into one small room. Some were playing x-box, some are lying around, and the rest playing mahjong. There was once when someone requested for some cake or snacks when we were a tiny winy bit hungry. I, like everyone else, took a piece as well. I managed to finish it up in three mouthfuls, and was pretty fast. Darien just went, “Wah! You finished it in one mouthful!” “No leh… three mouthfuls. I playing mahjong leh… trying to be fast…” I said. “Don’t geh xiao la… last time eat strudel at my place, you also one mouthful finished. Five minutes you finished two pizzas…” he continued, trying to come up with more instances where I managed to gobble food up faster than Speedy Gonzales. “Two pieces of pizza, not two pizzas...” and that’s all I managed. No point talking too much with him, if not he is going to hammer more nonsense. He probably can say about the same amount of instances where he felt I have eaten like a hippo as compared to guojun’s classic bloopers. Anyway… what else did I do but play mahjong. I won a little… after a late burst of luck. And ended up home at 12am. Slept real soon after… the fighting is going to start real soon…
Now…
