Piece of Mind

quite a good exercise it was... hiking halfway up penang hill... through the jungle trail... and descending by the road... the steep downhill slope taxed my already tired legs... it was a fight against gravity all the way down... i normally would be too lazy to wake up and exercise... what more going all the way to youth park to start the hike... but it was my supervisor's suggestion so... :)

what have i done in the past week of work? oh well... i finished my first perl script... went for a lecture on processor packaging... and attended an employee forum with intel's ceo... yup... the man himself was in town... it was a good experience to be able to follow the proceedings ... not too mention a rare opportunity... unless of course i work here in the future :)

i went to cherry blossom... a thai restaurant... for lunch with the colleagues from my department today... the food was simply delicious... and unlike anythin' i've tasted before... probably because i can't remember having thai food before anyway haha... definitely worth another visit sometime soon...

too many dvds to watch... too little time... ;)

the one thing i like most about penang is the fact that it's an island... haha... sounds lame but anyway... it's nice to hang out at beach cafes and places overlooking the waters... well... even my workplace is just by the straits... and e-gate not only has a nice alfresco atmosphere but is also near the seaside which makes it all the nicer...

was at flix for a couple of hours to watch yet another acoustic performance... she sings and plays really well i must say... mesmerizing indeed...

it kinda sucks havin' to live in the apartment and not have a parkin' space in the compound... hence the daily competing-to-get-a-space routine... well... i've kinda gotten used to it anyway... so... but when it's rainin' heavily like it did yesterday... it's a hassle to walk out and alomost impossible to do so without getting drenched... even with an umbrella in hand... the blowing winds will sprinkle you with raindrops... and try to pull your umbrella away... and i haven't used an umbrella in a long while cos i normally dash in and out of the car in situations like these... but i can't really dash over such a distance... hehe...

rice by the sea is quite a nice place... decor and facilities could be better but i think they just shifted to this new location... or maybe not... my friend has a weekly acoustic performance there so i went to check it out... oh well... she's a pretty good singer i must say... and i haven't got the chance to listen to her sing and play guitar before... it was really nice... :)

the garage and the surrounding area were packed and happenin'... well... i wouldn't expect less as it was a saturday night... and before u ask... no... no raids... i didn't even enter any of the clubs in the first place... just had supper at the mamak across the street...

perl is what i need to brush up on as i've had my first assignment already... some script writing... i thought i would be able to get much work done this weekend but since i'm out like practically the whole day... i guess i'll try to get it done during the course of the coming week...

beach?... i haven't been there yet... much as i would like to... thought of goin' there today but i guess i'll be somewhere else... well... that's about all for now...

115 degrees celsius... that's the temp of my overheated amd when all of a sudden my cpu fan stopped for some mysterious reason... luckily i could start it again after waiting for it to cool down... if it had really burnt then i guess i would be shopping for a dual-core now... haha... luckily for me my pocket is still intact... on the other hand... after a few hours of shredding two days back... my korg switched off by itself and i couldn't get it to work again... i still haven't sent it for repair... and i'm not sure if it's the adapter problem or not... hopefully it isn't the stompbox itself as it will be quite a hassle to have it fixed... or worse still... it can't be fixed...

three days of orientation... at least the chairs in the lecture room were high-backed so i could lean and doze off... ;) i did sleep a few hours in total i think... not to sure... well anyway it's back to work tomorrow... actual work... probably start some hands-on programming or somethin'... i dunno... but it's time to shift gears...

even though the hours are long and i don't have enough sleep... i kinda like it here... haha... like i said... a change in environment is much welcome... and the blues are slowly drifting away... :)

i just couldn't resist a good bargain...a half-price 517... haha ;) well... my parents left around noon today... after the usual visits to various shopping malls, restaurants and hawker stalls... a nice weekend... one of the few precious moments of late that i have with my family... well it's back to work tomorrow so... i'd better not stay up... probably watch an episode of some show first... yet undecided ;)

my parents and eldest bro came up for a visit today... so i'd be spendin' the weekend with 'em obviously... it's really great to have 'em around especially since we can celebrate mother's day together on sunday... and also take some time off from our busy routines... besides chinese new year and christmas i don't really recall any other ocassion whereby all of us are together... even now the lineup is incomplete... such is our schedule... so anyway... i guess it will be a weekend well-spent...

i had trouble staying up late last night although i wanted to since today's a holiday... but i ended up dozing off while my friend was havin' supper... guess i'm just used to goin' early to bed nowadays... :)

oh... i have yet to go to the beach... haha... probably next weekend will be a good time... to sink my feet in the sand and hear the crashing waves... :)

i actually don't have many tasks to carry out at work... besides readin' up a little and learnin' the processes involved in the production of chipsets particularly the validation part... so anyway... i attended a staff meeting today... it was more of a briefing and update session by the manager actually regarding the latest reshuffling in some parts of the management... and some other stuff... took a tour of the production floor where the action happens... the actual manufacturing, inspection, validation and sorting of the chips... whole lot of high-tech equipment and precise robots in motion... i'll spare the details cos not everyone will be interested anyway ;)

after work... the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak... eyes are tired from barely enough sleep... still managed to hang out a little though... but i think i'd rather rest in most of the time... :)

and i'm already at the office... seems like i'm online for most of the day... there's nothin' much to do yet and besides it's not even working hours officially so... :) went to eat at a couple of places when i reached on sunday... great food... pig's innards porridge at new lane pretty alright... i was pretty reluctant to try it at first but since a couple of my friends were havin' it so i decided i should try for myself too... :) i'm tempted to take snapshots around the plant but i guess i'll reserve that for another time... or ask somebody with a more discreet camera to do so... well... goin' off to do some reading on chipsets... microprocessor architecture and the sort... and learn some linux and perl as well i think... not too sure :P

or rather... inside intel... yup... it's the first day of my internship and i'm here bloggin' away with so much time on my hands... no they haven't assigned me any tasks... all i have is a powerful ibm server at my disposal... it's a 3ghz xeon with 3.5gb of ram... well... it's pretty cool here so far... :) that's all for the moment... it's not like i actually have WORK to get back to anyway... haha... just msn n surfin'... what a life...

after a struggle to the very end... we lost to the danes... only the doubles delivered... contrary to the prediction i read in nst... seems like even their coach didn't know them too well after all... so... i'll be drivin' up on sunday... lookin' forward to it... it feels so good not to be stuck down south with everythin' cloudin' my mind... well anyway... hope i don't relapse... haha... i sound like i'm tryin to abstain from drugs or booze or somethin'... :) well i think love is pretty intoxicating too... the past week's been pretty peaceful... catchin' up with some friends... eatin' at the various fave places... watched a movie... and one more episode of grey's anatomy to finish... ;) a tranquil break is all i need...

did anyone actually manage to finish their thousand-sms bulk yesterday? well... maxis' sms networks were pretty jammed from evening onwards in ipoh... or at least in the areas that i were in... cos i couldn't get a single message through from five onwards or so... all in all... i managed to send 150 throughout the day... most of it were sent during the first few hours after i woke up to discover that all my friends were in an sms frenzy already... well... it was still worth it anyway... nevertheless... the inability of maxis to handle such heavy traffic totally defeats the purpose of connectivity... however i heard that in jb the network was pretty alright... lookin' forward to the next manic monday anyone? ;)

it was a real hectic final day in jb... but anyway... at least i had a nice dinner at george & dragon to finish the semester with :) more pix for u guys to drool over...