Sunday, May 10, 2009

First posting for 2009! Happy new year!

Ok, so I missed the new year mark by a few days (weeks, months). That's still not a good enough reason to not celebrate, so pop the champagne and drink up!

Yes, I'm extremely lazy to update my blog. Penning (typing) down my thoughts are not exactly high in my list of priorities. Heck, I do this mainly so I can laugh about what I was thinking a few days (weeks, months, years) ago!

Hmm...how about some updates, eh?

Let's see...Japan trip was an utter snooze-fest. There I was, a highly-trained network consultant (ahem!) and as I went for my first meeting with the project team, they provided me the detailed network design, configuration script and acceptance document. All neatly typed and formatted. My role? To do acceptance testing for 2 new network nodes. Timeline? Oh, about 3 months! To be honest, all projects should have this sort of buffer and I have to say that I was quite lucky since no major problems were experienced during the project phase. It was still boring though.

Important Japanese words I learnt:
kyukei = break (ie. let's take a break)
omori = large (ie. gimme large portion of food)
okawari = refill (mainly used for whatever free refills they give at that place)
kawaii = female human with wonderful personality (used when complimenting a girl, focusing only on inner beauty and not touching on any physical aspect at all)

With those 4 words, my stay in Japan was made so much more pleasant. I also didn't die of boredom (lotsa kyukei, conflict in middle-east and an Israeli Jew colleague made for interesting discussions in between those rare moments where I actually do work) and safely returned to my motherland where the first thing I ate was nasi goreng and some bbq stuff while surprising my dad with my return on his birthday.

It was awesome. I finally got to say "My presence is your present!" in real-life. That's one less item in my list of things to do before I die. I'm still having trouble with "Have a threesome with identical twins". Anyone here knows anyone who can help me with this?

No rest for the wicked though. About 1 month later, I'm off to Hanoi, Vietnam for some actual design work (instead of losta kyukei where the common topic of discussion was conflict in middle-east). Fortunately, a colleague of mine got married and I managed to satisfy my cravings for a decent nasi minyak before I'm stuck for 2 months in a country where dogs are considered a delicacy and pork's the main source of protein. For those who've never tried nasi minyak tanam before, I pity you. You have no idea how heavenly the taste is when the dish is done well. That wedding didn't disappoint at all. Succulent beef cooked in special gravy and spiced hard-boiled egg buried in special rice, all cooked together in one pot. Ahh....the aroma...

Bloody hell! I'm getting hungry! I guess I'll continue writing when my stomach's not complaining.

Cheers!

Disclaimer: Due to past track record of the writer's amazing ability to procrastinate, do not expect a continuation anytime soon.

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