Getting stressed

Not because of too much work. In fact, the more the merrier~ Hahaha, but not too much to the extent I need to work overtime. Having difficulties understanding what my boss wants. He talks faster than I can understand each sentence. And I have problems expressing my views and telling him how much I understand. I’ve landed myself in a job with huge responsibilities which I did not expect. I didn’t have the chance to start from a lower position and slowly learn things. Need to get my mindset reprogrammed.


<geekStory>
I’ve given up the idea of running Linux OS on my Pentium2. Sure, I got RedHat up and running. Even found out how easy it was to compile Apache from source. But there’s too many incompatibilities and I can’t get used to it. Worse thing is I can’t get the display resolution up to 1152×864. If I force it in the config files, KDE would refuse to start. RedHat handled it well and I was able to easily resolve the problem and get everything back running again.


Instead, I installed Windows 2003 Web Edition Server on it. I’m surprised it ran well and didn’t take too much time to boot up compared to Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Seems like Win2K3 does not have the audio drivers for my antique Creative AWE64 ISA soundcard so I downloaded and installed WinNT drivers for it. The OS immediately auto rebooted 10 seconds after I logged in. Hah! I easily rendered a fresh installation of Win2K3 useless. Problem was easily solved by using the Repair option when I booted up using the installation CD. It basically reinstalled everything and my settings were preserved.
</geekStory>

What the hell is wrong with me!?

Had a bad night trying to sleep. Woke up a few times in the middle of the night. Then I had a dream about cockroaches and spiders. This was when I gave up sleeping and went to play Lineage2, watch anime and have a nice cup of tom yam instant noodles. Still managing well at work. Coffee was there to keep me going.


When I spend a lot of time in manga or anime, and I do mean a lot, I get myself so indulged into the world of whatever I was watching/reading that I feel depressed when I come to the last episode. Same goes for games. This feeling of depression comes mixed with a little bit of happiness if it was a happy ending. My first and worse case of such indulgence would be Neon Genesis Evangelion. I remembered skipping lectures one day just to go home and watch the anime. Various shocking scenes together with dramatic symphonic orchestra music put me into a state of moodiness for a few weeks.


The sunset scene with Kanon by Pachelbel playing in the background was burned into my memories.

Nervous nervous nervous nervous nervous nervous

Plans have been confirmed, boss is taking me to Paris with him on the 4th of April [:D]. I’m excited about the trip. It will be the first time travelling to an European country and my first time going to some place far away from home. Alas, this is not a vacation but a trip to meet the developers behind fastbooking.com, my company’s business partner. Boss has yet briefed me on what I will be doing there. I have a feeling I need to learn XML. Darn, I still have not started. My fears of meeting the developers would be the language barrier, they do speak english but I assume there will be a heavy french accent. Plus, with my slight hearing disability, it’s going to make communication a lot more difficult. Sigh… I hope I don’t irritate them. [:(]


Yesterday’s trip to Desaru was nice. The most enjoyable part was sitting in the car, chatting and laughing away with my friends and looking at the beautiful scenery. The beach we went to was deserted. The sand is fine and nice to walk on. The sea is clean and the view of the beach was spectacular. There was a constant strong wind blowing in from the South China Sea. I’m going to post pics as soon as my friend sets up an account for me to upload images to his webhosting server.


We only spent an hour exploring the place and taking pictures before we left back to Johor Bahru. There was a light drizzle. Had some seafood for dinner. The stingray was very cheap! Costs only around 4.50 Singapore dollars but in Singapore, it costs up to 11 SGD.

Not again…

Shits… I overslept again. Late for work by 30 minutes. It became a conversation topic between me and my boss during lunch today. He wasn’t angry but forgiving. Anyway, I mentioned I had a need for a second alarm clock. One that would be placed far away from me so I would have to crawl a distance to shut it off. My main alarm clock is my Nokia 6610. I set the time and place it beside my bed every night.


Then my boss mentions that he needs only 4 hours of sleep! [8|]. Something I wish I could do too. He’s able to wake up without an alarm clock because he believes he has his biological clock tuned well and what’s left is all in the mind. For me, my B-Clock is screwed.

MiniDisc

Today’s long entry will be entirely dedicated to my Sony MZ-R91 MiniDisc Player that has served me well for the past 4 years.


When I first saw a friend using a MiniDisc player, I thought it was cool. Something small and light and I can record audio from a variety of sources. At that time, a good MD player that can also record costs up to S$499. A 80min MiniDisc would cost S$3.90. I could not afford this luxury item being a student at that time and I would never ask my parents for money unless it was for something educational like books. So the thought of getting one gradually faded.


When I finished my GCE ‘O’ levels. I had about 6 months of free time till my next level of education starts. During that period, I started working part time at many places. I received my job assignments from a local job agency. Another friend had introduced me there. I was still a Malaysian at that time, holding a Student Pass which allows me to stay in Singapore for education. It turned out that foreign students are allowed to work only during vacation. I happily took up my first job, as a general worker at a cigarette factory located in Yishun area for 3 days.


What a sight it was. Cigarettes are produced and packed so fast, I think we produce enough a minute to kill a person. There were huge machines everywhere. The cigarette sticks flow smoothly though a semi-transparent pipe from the second floor. I could smell the herbs wherever I go (except the canteen). I liked the smell of those herbs actually. But not the smell of them on fire. The machines would pack them into small boxes with 24 sticks in it. Boxes which fail to be packed properly would be dropped into a tray at the back. That’s when we salvage whatever that can be recycled. Sticks that are still physically ok are fed back into the stream. Defective boxes where thrown.


The boxes that are packed nicely would be passed through a buffer drum, then to the packing machine that packs those 24 stick boxes into larger cartons. If the cardboard for those larger cartons run out, I would have to refill them. When it runs out, the packing machine stops. The incoming flow of 24 stick boxes will be fed into the drum which rotates to store more. It works like the name I gave suggests, a buffer.


My second assignment was at Philips factory down at Toa Payoh. There was a bunch of us part timers and the majority consists of delinquents. I managed to “survive”. Everyday would be a frustrating day when one of them would pick on me for no reason. Even though I put in 100% effort to avoid him. Everyday I would look forward to lunch time where I meet up with 2 pretty female friends who were also assigned to the customer service department from the same job agency.


My task at Philips factory was to assemble a demo kit from cardboard and pingpong balls. Yes! Pingpong balls! Hahaha. The kit, consists of a cylindrical tube made from transparent plastic cardboard. It was supposed to be fixed onto the speakers of Philips latest HiFi system I suppose. The ping pong balls would be inside those cylinders and I assume they were used to demonstrate the power of the bass of their new system. One of my task was to bend the box of the demo kits from cardboards. Darn, I can still remember how it felt. I had to do it for a few days till my fingers blistered and ached.


My work there lasted for about a month. I was paid S$50 a day. Soon, at the end of 2 weeks, I had enough to buy an MD player. I had already set my eyes on the MZ-R91 and so I bought it without much hesitation.


Today, my MD player still looks as new as it was. Just that it has lots of problems [:(]. The battery cover was loose and it gets unlatched easily. The result, it broke one day. The buttons on the player began to screw up one day. The stop button would increase the volume and the play button would pause. Now, all of them no longer work. I could only operate it using the forward button on my remote. The only buttons working fine on the remote are forward, back, volume + and -. Stop button no longer work and I had to stop the machine by opening the player, watch the MD disc pop out and then close it. Also, the unit cannot record anymore. Instead, it renders any MD disc that I try to record songs onto, useless.


3 options are available to me. 1, send it to Sony for repairs. Estimated cost would be $100. 2, buy an MP3 player. Good thing is I no longer need to record. But there would be a limit to the number of songs stored. With an MD player, I can just switch discs. 3, get a Pocket PC. Could do lots of stuff with a PDA. I could read news or manga scans with them during my 1 hour bus ride to work or home. But it’s a little bulky and heavy. If I use it entirely to just listen to music, it won’t outlast an MP3 or MD player.


What do you think? I might just send it for repairs…