10 mins break...

So stress I was yesterday that I decided to attend combat though I was not feeling well. Well, combat kinda lift up my spirit actually, especially when I decided to wear the red wraps instead of the normal gloves. Standing in front so that I can see my movements in the mirror, looking at myself in the blak outfit n red wraps, I decided from now on - its gonna be wraps for combat. It looks sooo coool!

Works been crazy, I actually felt like crying twice due to the stress.
The software has problem and I have to look into it when we're supposed to be the user, well problem lies in the configuration and I don't know how this going to be solved. What stressed me is that I have to liase with the vendor when we're not the one purchasing it and the support there couldn't help solving the problem. I decided to install on few other machines to identify the cause - well, its the loadset!! Of course, I will still be the one US pointing to when this problem occurs.
This is not solved, come conversion. Luckily I have hp to work with for conversion. Oh, today I was told to come out with the interface plan and start looking into datafeeds as well, deadline Nov 4th! *hari raya*
HR still wanna go live by end of november and I haven't have the time to look into another dB from HK.

So, Im flying home tomorrow with piles of readings to read, documentation to complete, files to convert, and application to study.

Today I decided to take 10 mins away from all the things Im doing and blog instead. That is when I looked at my colleagues face and saw that they too are starting to feel the pressure. Welcome to the club guys!

I guess I complained now, but truth is Im kinda thrilled of the challenges ahead. This is why I agree on being the technical lead. I think the main problem is our lack or manpower and getting new ppl now will not be a good idea as well - let's see how it goes along the way.

Meanwhile, Im going back to my writeups and thinking of my journey tomorrow.

Im doom-ed

I came to office with the plan of completing the server set up and concentrate on conversion. By wednesday I hope I can touch some other part before flying home on Friday.

Boy oh boy, tears filled my eyes when I found out that the loadset upgrading on my notebook failed! Hence IT had to reformat my machine and Im left with nothing but to re-install every single thing on my machine...

PCAnywhere, PowerTerm, SQLServer is installed. Installing .NET now - boy there goes 1/2 of my day, there goes all my plan..
Gone are all my favourite links to all the health site, recipes and so on...

c'est absurd - c'est ma vie

There's a house need to be cleaned, toilet need to be brushed, 2 weeks of laundries need to be ironed - but I DON'T CARE!

I've been quite busy for the past 2 weeks - my friend was here n my sis is leaving tomorrow. Hence, been spending the weekend out with them. Im glad they're here - at least I got a very loooong weekend though I kinda have my weekend duty haywired ;).

Just came back from watching the 40 yr old virgin - quite a funny movie. And now, I couldn't sleep :\. So, I guess Im just gonna recap my life hehe..

I finally met one of my online friend. We've been chatting since she was still in the US and now the she n her hubby have move to Singapore we managed to meet offline. Well, a nice person indeed and one thing for sure is we have quite a number of things in common - our fond of outdoor activities and exercise. She used to be a professional body builder and she knows that I want to burn fat and gain a little bit more of muscle, she invites me to her house to see the way she cooks. Im totally excited about this!!

Back at the office - managed to find the way of generating the keypairs with Reflection, hope it's the right way. Well, lets see what US gonna say abt it. Decided not to go to Sydney as well. Kinda have confidence that we can handle everything by ourselves. I hope the offer is still valid when we're stuck along the way though. Plan to complete all things need to be done in the server and migrate everything there as well by Monday and proceed with the conversion part thoroughly. Hopefully I can touch some part of the interface before flying home.

Can't believe it - 5 more days to flying home!!

90 minutes

Im walking down the memory lane of the past 12 hours of my life - all I can say is I am gonna treasure the 90 minutes I had today for a very VERY long time

Dilemma ...

Boss called me this morning. Basically now she's asking my opinion on the conversion issue. Should we used oz's program or should we build from scratch. I can only tell her that I haven't look into all of it but there are some part that can be used if we decided not to use all of it.
She also talked abt the 2 interns that are supposed to come on 7th nov - apparently we might not be able to get it and she might need to get a contract programmer. But she's not sure if this is better. She actually was asking my commitment on the technical part of conversion, interface, and datafeeds part as she will only concentrate on the configuration and conversion process. Good boss that she is, she's aware how much works need to be done on my part and told me to get hp and kat involve to ease my jobs. But for now she wants an answer if we are ready to handle conversion alone or we want it to be outsourced to other office that has gone live. Especially that I'll be away for 3 days I need to come out with the timeline before going on leave as when Im back she'll be on training in KL.

So now, everything is up to me.
Can we handle it?
Do I want to go to sydney to get more from our oz's office?
Do I think outsourcing is better?
Truth is - I'd rather we do it on our side and going to sydney will be very helpful in understanding the process more. But do I dare make this commitment with the resource that we have?

I asked her to give me 2 days to come out with the answer - probably I'll share this with hp and kat 'cos I need their commitment as well.

Oh well, for now I guess I just have to figure out how to generate the key pairs in reflection. Hiks...

10 more days to flying home

Im bumped

I find myself gaining more n more fat everyday.
I don't care - Im going back to my old exercise regime.
Now that the training is on hold until hari raya, I can do whatever I want to do.
So what if I lost muscle mass ..
The last time I did my inbody - my body fat went up by 4% and my muscle mass went down 1%.
Okay if it might be due to the machine having problem but thinking of the figures make me more depress.
All this when I actually follow the advice to eat more (well, I've been eating more of the bad food as well, I have to admit)
Pants are getting loose around the thighs but getting tighter around the waist area.

I don't care - though Im not suppose to do cardio today, I'm going to do the cross trainer for an hour later.

Beginning of the week again.

Had a great weekend. It started on Friday after picking up juwi at the airport. Spent the entire day around city before heading back to the airport picking up alun this time. Had dinner at ananda bhavan and spent the nite walking ard serangoon before heading down to clarke quay n boat quay.
Spent saturday at sentosa n orchard. Supposed to go to the bird park yesterday, well actually we were there but it was raining heavily that we decided to head back to city and spent time there before going to break our fast at geylang n walk around the bazaar.
Poor juwi - she gotta walk n walk n walk .. I hope she didn't lose weight from the walking though :)

Managed to rushed to the gym this morning - not a bad idea of heading to the gym today as the instructor played my favourite track, he even said to me that the track he's gonna play is my favourite track. At the end of the class I asked him abt the rumours that he'd be seconded to another country for few months. He said yeah but I guess it's still not sure when will that be - I didn't really ask for details anyway. He said that I should visit when the time comes. Well, if he's teaching at the cali there, I might just visit for the sake of attending his class.

Sigh - been having insomnia for days now. Always woke up in the morning feeling bumped that I simply hailed a cab to rush to office. I dunno - could it be due to my late workout or the coke I have for my morning meal and breaking fast or even the stressful days at work.
Sneezing and running nose as well now. Geez, I can't afford to fall sick now! I really dunno.
I have myself to blame actually, feeling under the weather and still went for the combat class earlier. But I simply couldn't take it that I left halfway - even before the Muaythai track.

Work has been crazy. Finally I managed to get the Oz's conversion dB both on SQL and Unix up and now need to study them and understand the flow of it before deciding if it's better to build our own instead of using theirs.
Another server crashed - and what kinda pissed me off is that this should be handle by someone else. But everything's being pointed to me and Im always the one liasing with IT. I know my boss wants me to do it 'cos she wants it to be solve asap but then I also have a lot of other things to do. I was so stressed today that I told the person who's supposed to be handling it that I will deal with IT to get a replacement server and once it's done she must try to do the installation. She should know by now especially that she saw me doing it the other day.
One good thing is that my boss is a very good boss, she gives you credit when she feels that you deserve it. Few weeks ago she email-ed me and cc-ed the partner praising my work and thanking me for putting a lot of effort on it. Today in our discussion, she told everyone that I've been doing very well and that she wanted them to help me as well, especially that the HR is going live soon and the weekly technical call with US will be starting soon. I was quite surprise abt the weekly call, thought it won't be that soon - hell, my schedule's gonna be pretty messy. I hope they scheduled the call based on our working hours instead of theirs.

Hope the server problem can be settle before lunch tomorrow. Somehow I got the feeling that I'll still be the one installing the programs.
Sounds like Im complaining a lot huh? Well, the fact is - I AM complaining! Thinking of what I must do next really really stress me up - and this will continue 'til Oct next year.

Gonna be on 1/2 day leave tomorrow - yeay .. at least I have time to unwind since my friend n my sis is coming down.

Well, I think I'll have my morning meal now and try my best to fall asleep.

Didn't wake up for my morning meal for 2 days in a row - bugger!!

30 more minutes to going home
2 more hours to breaking fast...
vadai n indian style fried noodle for today

Gosh - I'm still wide awake when I'm supposed to be sound asleep if I want to wake up on time for my morning meal. Thinking of having it now but then I will not be awake for the morning prayer. Let's see if I can't sleep after this, I'll continue being online until 4.30.

Went to the gym earlier since I have nothing else to do, so I attended the 5 PM pilates class. Just nice, once I'm home I simply need to wait few more minutes before breaking my fast. I can't believe that after 6 years with cali, this is the 1st time I attended pilates! Well actually attended once before, but collin was more focusing on the breathing and the very very basic movements only.

BTW, managed to get the phone number of Grand Hyatt's StraitsKitchen. I really want to break my fast there one of these days. They even flew in a chef from Egypt for the ramadhan celebration. Now I only have to find someone to go there with. Guess I'll check on the pricing 1st before looking for the victim.

Im waiting for 5.30 PM - the time when my nephew goes downstairs so that I can call and speak to him. He's only 4, nothing much to talk to him about - its more like wasting money actually. But I feel that by having a regular talk with him, he's aware of my existence. It actually pays off - everytime I go home, he'll spend most of his time with me, he wants me to sleep with him, bath him, wash him after he does his business and all other stuff that wouldn't happen had I not call him often.

3rd day of ramadhan - boy how time flies. I just realised this is my 13th year of fasting on my own. After staying in the hostel back in 1992 I only spent ramadhan with my family during the weekend and 1 week before hari raya. Then in 1998, I worked in Batam - spent ramadhan with another friend of mine. In 1999, I started working in Singapore and been spending ramadhan by myself eversince. Actually there was one time (1999) when my sis was still working in Singapore n mom was around supervising the house upgrading that we had ramadhan together. After that, I only spend the last days of ramadhan with my family. Oh I think 2 years ago I even spent hari raya alone here 'cos I had exam the following day.
I wonder when will I be able to spend the whole month of ramadhan with my families.

Anyways, weekend is just 30 mins away. Going home to break fast before hitting the gym. I changed my gym schedule unlike the past 2 years where I broke my fast at the office or even in the gym itself. I want to get the best of both - so the only way is to attend the 8.50 classes.

I can't wait for next friday when juwi and alun will be in town. My sis definitely has a list of foods she's going to have and I will drag my friend to try it as well. Can't wait for that!

Who said having someone helping you is good.

The new staff is now my responsibility. I shoud assign jobs to her, something that has got to do with the project before bringing her in for the project. Problem is all the things I'm doing ties to each other hence difficult to assign part of it to someone who doesn't know the system as a whole. So then we came up with an idea of a simple application - a so called XML converter that's going to be used for the HR first, if it's fine we might use it for the financial system too.
She's almost done with this application, I guess early next week. I will then run through with her before showing it to the boss. I drag this moment, 'cos if she's done with that I have to come out with something else for her.
Thought she'll be helping hp on the conversion soon - apparently not that soon!

I've been nagging people in HK and OZ...
I remember when the NZ guys came, john was suprised to know the real me - he said that I was different from what they pictured based on the emails I sent them. Yeah, the nagging email is because I was told to send those email chasing after them. Eversince then everytime I sent email he will reply saying he knew who's nagging me hehe..

I'm done with chasing HK. Now I need to chase OZ.
Apparently the guy was on leave and my boss insisted me to send email to the CIO and chase him instead. I feel so bad - chasing them when we're the one who's in need of their help.

Everytime my boss sees me her 1st question will be 'have you got the reply from OZ?' If I said no she suggested that I send another email reminding them.

I guess the next time she ask me this question, I will jokingly answer that the only way for me to chase OZ now is by flying to sydney!

Today's closing so decided to concentrate on this and forget about the rest. Decided to have 1 round of game before doing the debtors ageing. That is when I realised how long I haven't play any games especially this one. It's kinda addictive but I love it!!

gonna play 'til level 10 before getting back to work.

1. server crashed
2. roll-out of system with lotsa teething problem
3. studying the ssh application
4. chasing oz for the sql-side conversion script

have to do all in one go - phew!
the server crashed was so devastating especially that it happened 1 DAY before closing. Like we had no things to do we had to reinstall enServe, enAdmin, n enTransfer. Decided to use the LIS server for the time being which means back to square one for the LIS.

Came in a bit late today that I attended the conference call halfway - lucky it's not my part yet. Sigh, had to lie to them saying the server is ready n it will be installed w the f-secure soon. I even said that we'd generate the key pair n send the public key to them before our next conference call. Such confidence when the server is now deployed for enTime!! Wonder when will we get the replacement - knowing how everything works here especially when it's involving new machine, ages will be the answer.

1st day of ramadhan - had my morning meal with a cousin of mine. Poor girl, she didn't intend to stay but had to when the project she did w/ her friend wasn't completed yet. She had to eat whatever available - I hope she didn't mind having a very light meal ;)
Talking abt ramadhan - one thing I miss most from fasting in my country is the sense of respect other people have. Back in my country, people will said 'sorry' whenever they eat in front of you - some even restrain eating in public out of respect. Even my flatmate close her door when she's having a meal at home while Im fasting. Not that I'm so particular or get tempted easily - I'm too old for that - but I just miss the sense of respect. Here, they just eat in front of you, even talk to you with their mouth full *something I totally hate.
Well, different culture different courtesy ya...

2 wakeboarding invitation during fasting month
*sigh gotta pass this invitation .. hopefully there's an invitation for november

at last I managed to find out abt the missing instructor *grin. He was assigned to work oversea for 6 mths - apparently the new office location is because it's a new office. Haiz, should've attended his friday class and bid him farewell.

*mudah2an aja tugas ke kl bikin dia kembali ke jalan yg benar n gak suka sesama jenis lagi .. kasian aja sih, orang baik tp dilaknat tuhan*

A sweet Pact

A friend of mine suggested that we made a pact - if we reach a certain age and still single, we'll stay together and take care of each other.
Such a sweet pact - but I hope this won't happen!

Its raining so looks like watching corpse bride is cancelled. Nothing to do n still lazy to clean the house here...

Oh ya, yesterday in the gym's locker I overheard (more like eavesdropped actually) 2 girls talking about the instructor. I really wanna know 'cos I didn't attend his class last friday so no chance of asking him. These girls are talking in a mix of mandarin n english so I didn't get the whole story but what I learned abt is nothing I haven't know. Basically his new office location made it difficult for him and that he's so busy n tired that last friday he was like dragging himself to class - I guess his taking a short break. I remember my other friend said that if he continue doing what he's been doing he's gonna end up bad.
Well, hope it's just a short break from teaching - I actually checked w the club n they said there's no news of him resigning. Thank God.
I know people are wondering about me enjoying his class a lot n thought I have some sort of feelings. Haha .. totally wrong. I simply enjoy his class 'cos he's so motivational n he made an effort to know each person better so we kinda like him for being caring. He's also the only instructor I dare to approach n request for songs.

Another good news - finally .. FINALLY! juwi is coming to town - after 6 years of living here I finally have one of my buddy visiting me! She was unsure when I suggested it since she's on leave n there's nothing can be done in Jakarta during fasting month. I think she feels bad visiting me during ramadhan, right ju? Well, not to worry - I think I'm way too old to be tempted by food here ;)
Can't wait for her arrival ...

its not even 9 AM sunday morning and Im wide awake - done with my ironing and laundry that Im only left with cleaning the house but Im not in the mood for that, so decided to blog instead.

Yesterday was not a bad weekend. Started by going to the gym, well the intro step class is better than last week. Maybe he started with the really basic moves and now he's upgraded it a bit. I might continue going to his class if it continues to be this way. After step I went down to have my lunch - Indonesian fried rice. Have been wanting to try this for weeks but always ended ordering ketoprak instead, so yesterday I tried it and finally I found a fried rice that is really authentic Indonesian style. Met eileen afterwards then we went up for combat.

From gym I headed back home 'cos tonite I'm meeting kimi and some other guys for the stand up comedy. The comedy was okay - can't understand some of it 'cos some of the jokes are too british. The 3rd guy really suck that he ended being boo-ed and left the stage looking annoyed. Apparently this was his 1st time being boo-ed, said the 1st guy who had to go back on stage replacing his place. Overall I think I enjoyed listening to kimi's laughter more than listening to the jokes.

After the gig was over, we stayed back listening to the in-house band performing. Great band I should say. We let our hair down and enjoy the music, well I for one was initially 'forced' to let my hair down. Im always like that with people I first met but that's not a good excuse last night - hell, I couldn't even cross my hand without being protested. That is when I decided to loosen up and simply enjoy the nite with everyone. All in all, it was a fun nite out - with friends from all around the globeI managed to stay on track of being healthy as well - a glass of coke n thats it! good girl...

Hoaahem, now dunno what to do - planning to go to city w/ my flatmate later - corpse bride looks like a great movie to watch, so we plan to watch that later. We'll c if it is as good as it looks.

Bad News?

I was browsing california fitness website to see next week's schedule. I noticed that none of the classes in all 3 branches has my favourite instructor name on it. Was he on leave? But I thought he just went for one last week.

I knew that his office is no longer ard city, hence he couldn't make for his normal 6.30 classes. I remember asking him abt this and he confirm saying that he must rushed like crazy to get to the classes that is why he kinda gave up teaching those classes. I also remember a friend of mine saying he has been having lots of problem with his back and knee joints due to overtraining.

Does this mean he gives up teaching? NOOOOO!
I guess I have to find out more abt this from the person itself