Books, deja Vu

I don't know when and why i started to like reading books. I think it was because of my elder brother. He was 3 years older than me, and he went to US to study when i was still in secondary school. Once when he came back, he brought home a book, the title is "The Color Purple". I read it. Then he brought back another book, "Angela's Ashes". I read it. My mum also likes to read, she brought a book, "Falling leaves", i read it. And many many more, soon enough, i also started to like reading.

Anyway, here's a list of the books that i have read (Mainly novels, i do read other books, just don't put them here)

Frank McCourt - Angela's Ashes

Frank McCourt - 'Tis

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi - Totto Chan

Alice Walker - The Color Purple

Cynthia Kadohata - Kira-kira

Mark Haddon - The Curios Incident of the Dob in the Night Time
Adeline Yen Mah - Falling Leaves

My first Minesweeper game

Done my first minesweeper game after numerous attemps to sit down and listen to "how to play" by my friends. A game this size should normally be done in 15 to 20 seconds while i did it in 227 seconds...

Some say it's a stupid game, but it's in fact a very mathematical game. In mathematics, it's a NP-complete problem to solve. Have a look at the full details of the game here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minesweeper_(computer_game)

Triplets Part 2

Where were we? Oh ya... we were talking about how these words combine..and how familiar they are...

众人。。lots of people
掱手。。是什么？是小偷！小偷是什么？小偷就是我们常骂的“三只手”！

毳（cuì）：会意。从三毛。本义：鸟兽的细毛。
毳毛。。医学上指人体表面除头发、阴毛、腋毛外，其他部位生的细毛。俗称“寒毛

And here's a list of the rest. Seriously, you might need to magnify the text size to see them.

飝(fēi) ： 刕(lí) ： 厽(lěi) ： 叒(ruò) ： 壵(zhuàng) ： 尛(mó) ： 孨(zhuǎn) ： 歮(sè) ： 惢(suǒ) ： 皛(xiǎo) ： 畾(léi) ： 嚞(zhé) ： 舙(qì) ： 譶(tà) ： 雥(zá) ： 灥(xún) ： 飍(xiū) ： 馫(xīn) ： 飝(fēi) ： 厵(yuán) ： 靐(bìng) ： 龘(dá) ：

See we have 皛(xiǎo) 。。how come。。皛白。。小白。。哈。。

These words are not really used that much now. Mostly in names. Can you imagine a boy with the name 龍龘, and his friend 丁一? What will happen when their teacher punishes them to write their name 100 times?

anyways, it's been fun. See if i can post more such things.

triple the power

Ok, some complained that i'm too pessimistic. So yeah, maybe i'm a bit depressed? Haha, well, as long as don't want to stay that way.

Ok, to have a change, let me blog about something interesting (to some people). Nothing personal, nothing out of the heart, just some interesting facts that i found.

Was with Jingjing one fine day in a hawker centre when we found the name of a stall to be something 淼 (miǎo), so we tried to think of all the chinese words that is made up of 3 simple words stacked together. but could only think of a few. I compiled a list of them...hahah.... enjoy. I'll highlight the ones i think cool

金木水火土（五行名称)
⑴鑫，读xīn，财富兴盛（多用于人名或字号）。
⑵森，读sēn,形容树林多。
⑶淼，读miǎo, <书>形容水大。用于渺茫，浩淼等词语。
⑷焱，读yａn，<书>火花，火焰。多用于人名。
⑸垚，读yａo，<书>山高。多用于人名。

动物
犇（bēn），“奔”的异体字，意思是急走、跑；急着去做。最牛的汉字当属“犇”，美中不足的是“犇”的字义不是特别牛。
羴，读shān，同“膻”。像羊肉的气味
猋，读biāo , ①迅速。②同“飙”，暴风
骉，读biāo，<书>许多马跑的样子
麤，读chū，同“粗”
鱻（xiān），“鲜”的异体。
赑（bì）。赑屃（bìxì）：传说中的一种动物，像龟。 This is one word where MinNan still uses. This is the tail-less tortoise. 车笑赑无尾。Tortoise laugh at the Tail-less tortoise.

人手口耳毛（人体五件)
众，读zhｏng，许多人。
掱，读pａ, 俗语三只手，即扒手。
品，读pǐn，物品，等级，种类等义。
聂，读niｅ，“聂”的繁体字。
毳，读cuｉ，<书>鸟兽的细毛。

A closer look at 口
15 品（pǐn），本义是众多。“品”从三口。口代表人，三个表多数，意即众多的人。
两个口，吕，甲骨文字形，象脊骨形，是“膂”的本字。本义：脊梁骨
三个口，品
四个口，█（该字实在是打不出来）（jí），众口。

of course, we have this one
晶（jīng）：甲骨文字形，从三日，表示光亮之意。本义：光亮，明亮

Note also how these words combine, and we have some very sensible words:
... (to be continued...)

Days of nothingness

It's been the third week in a row now. The thrid week where work slows down to a crawl. And it's not an easy thing to do. For those who think i'm a total "choe boe" person, "choe boe" your pig head lah.

Well, basically, i have 3 jobs given to me by my boss. Firstly, there is a programming job, which i have to liaise with a PhD student to do it. It's basically to create a web site that accesses his computer programme. But the problem is, this person (by the name of Colin) has gone back to his home country and is only contactable via email. So whenever i bump into a problem which i cannot solve, i have to email him, wait, and wait, for him to reply. If he's merciful enough, he'll reply within that day, normally it takes him one day to reply. I'm still waiting for his reply since last friday. At the mean time i can only try blindly.

Secondly, i am supposed to promote my project's website. The main aim, is of course to be on top of google's list, so that many many people may come by and visit. But this task is given to me, without any budget. So i have to do it the "free" way. Which is not entirely possible since people do pay google to be on their list and so on, or at least that page must be highly referenced.

Thirdly, i am supposed to continue development on a game that i created some time back. This game, offers the player no reward, no sense of tension whatsoever, who's going to play?

So most often i sit in front of the computer, blank, doing useless things like watching drama, checking email, and yeah, looking busy.

This have to change, i actually have to motivate myself, and somehow make myself useful i guess. These days of nothingness ain't fun at all. It's like standing in line, at the death row, wondering when will my boss come and wallop me up.

Mario Vs Sonic

Hmm.... interesting

...

This is a post from the lady who passed away because of overworking. It's sad. And the thing that saddens me more is the bunch of insensitive idiots that pass judgement and comments on her blog site. Can't you just say some words of comfort and let her soul rest? Do the talking in parliment, in MOM, in any other place, not on her blog site. for goodness sake.

I'm not going to comment on this one. It's really quite sad.

Worked Up, Stressed Up, Crashed Down

Apr 21, '07 10:08 AMfor everyone

I never know my limits til now... Getting a job was never ever easy and having something good sure have a sacrifice for something else. Coming a long line of different jobs and doing different things have got me realise just 1 thing - I could never stay too long in a job now. The longest would be in LTA for 7.5 yrs, that was my 1st job as a clerical officer. After that, it was all sorts of different jobs in different industry facing all sorts of difficulties. I came to HP started as an Admin Executive in Sep last year & changing to a Partner Support Manager in Mar just this year.

Just after getting this recent position, I was thrilled to finally have the chance to "fly high" in a Fortune 500 MNC. It's ok for me to wake at 3.30am to start work @ 4.30am everyday in the morning. But never did I realise what kind of stuff were coming towards me... What I face everyday as a partner support manager is having more than 100 emails per day (I'm not joking, they're no good ones), partners from New Zealand practically "screaming" to be served first, getting their orders delivered ASAP, wanting everything, complaining of everything. Month end was the most "exciting" part, you get to go on concalls almost everyday, prepare backlog reports for each concall session which consists of 500 over orders remaining undelivered, investigating item by item. That's just the qty. What abt the amount in $$? Millions of NZ dollars involved. I've got 6 large partners and these are what I have to handle. Besides, I've got to work at home during non-working hours including weekends, just doing my best to clear my work. Did I mention my team is really short-handed? Only 3 of us managers handling the whole of NZ. All for the sake of a salary just enough to keep myself alive for a month. I'm not earning like the other managers are cos I'm only a contract staff.

Taking over the duties of a colleague who just left on Thu made me realise that she was indeed a supergirl. The amount of workload she handled was a complete hell. I cannot imagine how she could handle all these for 1 year. She was so bloody happy to be able to quit this job. All her stress has been relieved & put on me. Well, great huh! My colleagues including me, dislike my boss. By the way, he just gave me more work to do, on top of other things! I don't know how to voice out to him that I'm so stressed up right now.

I've got myself sick these few days. Had diarrhea last Thu, hurt my knee and was limping badly since last Sunday, had breathlessness since Wed & fainted after work on that day at my office lift lobby, knocked my head against the wall when I fainted, collapsed again last night at home. Now my chest feels really tight & breathing is really tough. Getting up & walk, I just feel like I'm carrying a heavy baggage of few hundred kilos & I'll start to feel really weak & dizzy. Doc just said I'm really stressed out. sigh..... what should I do? Quit? or continue this ultra-super stressful job? I've got a contract of 6 mths to fulfill... 3 months to commit. If I quit now, I've got to pay back 1 mth's salary. Not worth it. If i quit after May, it won't be so bad. But I don't know if my health can tolerate til then. My mom's really worried & I can't do much to get less worried. Cos my focus was to earn lots of $. I really thought I was able to do everything, that I can be supergirl as well, but my health is worsening at a fast rate. Vitamin M(oney) isn't gonna cure my health. Just yesterday, I received an email from my job agency saying that a contract staff who's working in HP as well, passed away from heart attack, leaving his wife & kids... deja vu? coincidental? a warning sign? I dunno. I don't wanna end up dead for the sake of dough. The moral of the story is don't ever fall in love with your company or your job.

The Heart of Greed

Recently i've been watching this Hong Kong drama serial, and i must say, that it is very very disturbing. I don't know the word to describe such drama, but it seems that this genre originated from Taiwan. It's the 家无宁日 kind of film.

This type of film, is a bit different from 琼瑶. In her novels, you'll focus on the "lover pair" and feel sorry for them. But in these Taiwan and current HK one i'm watching, it's one 家无宁日after another 家无宁日scene. Very disturbing. At times i just cannot continue watching.

Anyway, the poster of the film. The cast is quite good actually.