cos Im an idiot that can't post on my own tag board. =(

Hey pawsie, come down and shop with me! Have you thought of where to go thanksgiving?? =) It's too expensive to fly anywhere during thanksgiving! =(

BIG S! Are you fighting ZZzz monsters, or your little kiddy monsters in Toa Payoh?? =) how's your working schedule like now?

Liyan, hope you're having fun in Switzerland. S'pore doesn't have such hightech systems yet but I bet it's going to be introduced in singapore soon! I just don't know if S'poreans are ready for or even want such a system.

ZQ, hey, hope you are doing well. =) yeah, as u probably can tell, I miss those days when we were touring around in sweden and europe too! The sense of adventure in us then. During then, u always suggested places, organised and figured out the routes. I'm sorry, but I'm only really really appreciating it now!

random nonsense and thoughts on a friday

Time spent in front of the tv and online has decreased substantially this week because I have launched onto the Korean vcds that I brought along with me. Full house accompanied me through every night this week. Thanks HUIMEI!!!!!!!=) =) Though I've fallen asleep during the show during the last 2 days cos I've been just so tired. Have been coming home pretty late every day this week. Yesterday, we only left the office at 8.45 pm, leaving me to miss my grey's anatomy!! =( I made it home just in time at 7.02 pm today to watch the rerun. The guys were joking that I was racing the car home like a mad woman I guess, but nah.. I was very good. Still kept to the speed limit, or barely over and watched for the cars.. Anyway, the speed limit is 40 miles/hour, barely over 60km/h, so it's really slow.

Well, it's the weekend again, and I don't think we'll do too much sightseeing, because I went to check on the weather online and they predict light showers tomorrow and thunder storms on sunday. I don't wanna be caught outside in the rain. When it rains, texas is veeery cold!! So maybe we will go visit one of the malls this weekend, and yes.. I will bore everyone to death again.. hmmm.. hope there's enough to entertain everyone at the mall....

Last weekend, we went to the Dallas Farmers Market and the Dallas Zoo. Neither was exceptionaly exciting. In fact, the zoo didn't have anything really interesting and had very few animals indeed. I enjoyed myself more only probably because it was halloween, and there was an event at the zoo. Hundreds of kids in cute costumes roaming the zoo. I'm really glad that I experienced halloween at least once when I was young and actually remember. I think I was 5 or 6 at shanghai american school and I dressed up as a princess and I coloured my own crown. And I also remember being scared stiff, like seriously scared mad, cos I went to see the halloween feature done up by the 6th grade kids. I think every grade comes up with something. I remember asking my mom if it was going to be scary and she said no, and the next thing i knew, I went into a room where a guy was lying on the operating table screaming like mad and he had his stomach being operated on and his guts and blood were spilling out. ARGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was seriously scared man.. Came out bawling and I think I kept thinking of that scene over and over again. And I remembered it all the way to secondary school, and I keep thinking, if they were 6th grade, how the hell did they come up with some set up that looked so gruesome and realistic. And then oneday, I actually saw a photo of the 6th grade room, or was it in my dreams, I'm not sure again now, but as I looked as the picture, it's so comical and it's really super fake. And now when I think back, I guess I didn't ever remember the scene exactly, I just remember that it was super scary and I adjusted the super scary scene in my brain as I grew up. But yeah.. if I can remember it till now, u can see just how scared I was. I also went to a gypsy hut, and the lady gave me a ring, which I had all the way to I was in secondary school. I don't know where it is now though. now that I'm here at halloween, I can appreciate all the kids dressed up, going trick a treating, but I'm too old for it already. I guess if I had a kid, I'd want her/him to experience it. Haha. shit.. I don't have bf, I think of kids already. But the kids are really seriously super cute!!!!!! See a little baby in a lion suit sitting in its pram and another 2 kids, dressed as monkeys, with tails which end up as the daddy's leash to pull them back as the 2 try to run astray in the zoo.

Work's been pretty great so far. I read sam's blog, he seems pretty down that he's not learning much this week. well, everyone's been assigned to different mentors as I said earlier, and I guess sometimes it really depends on luck. I think I have been really really lucky that I have been assigned to mike, because he is seriously very knowledgeable, and although he's always so busy that I have to constantly wait for him or keep track of where he is, I try to gain as much as I can when I get to see him in action. And I think he is more used to having me around, he does automatically fill me in on what he is doing for that day when he sees me. He still disappears suddenly when he gets a call or when someone comes in and asks him for help. But that day, once, he actually asked me to go along, well... I actually made it very obvious I was interested in following along, and well, I ended up learning some extra stuff. But that still doesn't happen very often, I mean... it's another departments problem, I can't reaally go along, if he doesn't invite me along.

Well, the problem with someone who is too capable is that well.. and it actually is not a problem, it's only natural, is that he will look for greener pastures. Mike's going to be transferring to another lab in the next week or so. In a way, it's a promotion, because he's going to be a system's engineer, which is involved in the design of the system, rather then the implementation which we are doing in our lab. I guess my boss is going to be sorry to lose him. I feel the real problem is that with Mike around, he ends up doing most of the jobs, that he just gets more and more experienced, while the others are just very free and end up less experienced. But i guess, with mike leaving, boss seems to be trying to get everyone to pick up the skills, and make sure that everyone has a chance to learn, and it doesn't end up like previously, where mike ends up doing everything.

Bryan knows it himself. He says he wants to give people chances to learn, but when something needs to get done urgently, he's just tempted to go to mike. It shows me how important it is to have a well-balanced team. I've seen this team become too relient on just a few people. Some people are too busy, while others, not us trainees, but other engineers who have already been around for a few months seem to have a lot less to do. Minh told me she has been following one of her mentors the last 2 days and observed that she has nothing to do!! But yeah, as for me, I think I have been pampered by a great teacher, who knows concepts really clear and does everything efficiently. Everytime I have short periods of times working with this other mentor, I feel rather impatient, because when I ask him a question, he always give me SMOKED answers. "WELL... i supposed it MIGHT do that, But I'm not sure.. I'd have to check.. " " ooh.. I think it works like that, but I may be wrong. I guess it may not work everytime.." I guess you cannot blame people for not knowing. But maybe I'm juat a very competitive person. I'd start thinking.. hey, you and he came in at the same time, and how come u everything also duno, still do all those very mechanical stuff, while he is doing everything. In the first place, you didn't bother to get your basics right, no wonder you everything also duno. ha.. i am damn evil and unforgiving i know, but I am like dat.. . When mike troubleshoots, he reads the error msgs and understands the system, so he can pinpoint the source of error and correct it immediately in 15 minutes, yesterday mike was on leave, and I was working with another guy, I end up watching him open window after window, and trying out commands here and there and you could end up troubleshooting for a few hours. You also don't want to watch cos u're not learning from that guy's blind digging. I went to dig on my own and pointed out a damn obvious problem to my boss. Sighh.. Better to go digging urself. But seriously this never happens, because if an error can't get solved, they will start looking for mike. Haha.. but cannot laugh at others, cos at this moment in time, until I learn even more, I think I will also be one of those digging blindly. I guess digging around is also how you learn, and the skill is picked up with experience. btw, this morning, mike fixed the problem in a hour. by 10am.. I told him, I think you did enough for today, can go home le, which in a way he did. He went on leave in the afternoon and me and the other guy worked out doing the remaining patch installations.

I also duno what i'm trying to say. I'm not a cohesive writer. But this chuck has let me processed my thoughts. It's just well... Here I observed to myself

1. a talented person will always have doors opened to him
2. Distribution of skill is crucial in a team. the team is a serious case of 2 or 3 main guys holding up the whole team and its just a vicious cycle. They are more skilled so even people from outside the lab start asking them for help and they also do the core work for the team, and they just keep getting better and they just keep getting more work. and the more busy they are, the less time they have to teach the others, and the gaps expand between the 2, cause the pros to have more work to do... and so on... Oh course, the others should also be more proactive, and start observing them at work and try to pick up the skills. well.. shit, I duno man.. I think.. just be SMART! be proactive. else u'd be stuck doing all the monotonous, repetitive work cos u don't know how to do anything else and u'd just get stuck in the dump and not learn a thing.

I see our boss. He's so desperately busy. He has a hell lot to do, and there are others who are just so free. Maybe he doesn't trust them to do the work for him. He's so busy he needs someone who can do the job quick, he's so busy, he can't teach you, unless its something really straight forward. or shit.. seriously, it's not just that.. It's also just the person. you don't trust the person to be smart enough. Some skills just can't be taught in a 30 minute session, that's why they are skills not knowledge. The guy's brain has just got to be opened and has been absorbing all that essence as he goes about his daily work. THere's no way you can baby sit and make sure someone has the skills. cos u can give 2 guys the same job, and one can do it and in the process, understand that one small part and try to use it to help build a bigger picture of the system for himself and add it to his knowledge. Or the guy can just end up clicking at the buttons, ta da! it's done, cos the manual said it can be done this way. If u think like that, you're an operator not an engineer. but then again, u gotta give the guy some working chance in the first place. Seriously, these things work both sides. If one side doesn't fulfill his part of the bargain, the working relationship just breaks down.