2016 achievements and 2017 resolutions

With 2016 coming to the end, I am writing this post to remind myself again. 

So in 2016

1. Buy a house. Finally manage to get one house. Hopefully more to come soon. 

2. Reduce my weight to 75kg. Failed. Didnt even get to 80kg. 

3. Run 4 marathons. Failed. Registered for one but didnt manage to go. 

4. Promotion to Team lead. Failed this one too because the company that I was working at before shutted down. 

5. Have at least 25k savings. Failed this one. Not that it is very far away. 

6. Make a few more website or a php library file for sale in some web site. Completed this one with 2 more websites actually. 

7. Vacation to 1 foreign country. Yeah. To Korea. In fact, this post is written in Busan. And also a working trip to Canada for 2 months which is really amazing. 

8. Vacation to one of the place in Malaysia. Yeah. Had been to Melaka, Ipoh and a relaxing hotspring. 

So it is 4/8


I already set few resolution for 2017. Hopefully I can achieve more than 80% this time. 

1. Saving more than 50k
2. Go to one foreign country for vacation
3. Made at least 2 local trips
4. Learn one more foreign language (Japanese or Korean will do)
5. Reduce weight to 80kg. 10kg to go. 
6. Make one more website. 
7. Learn to cook better and more healthy
8. Get a freelance project once every 4 months

Time to make myself busier in 2017. Hahahaha

When the people that you love and love you left you.

Back in secondary school, I am quite close with this one girl in my class. Coincidentally, we stayed in the same taman, so sometimes I will cycle pass her house to see if she is around. Sometimes she is outside, so I can have some chat with her. She is a girl that I really care about. 

I remember there is once, we need to write an English essay with computer and print it out. Basically we just need to type something and print. When I reach her house by cycling, she told me she had no idea what essay to write. However, next day is the due date already. So I cycle back home, finish typing something from an essay book that I got from my elder brother, basically I just copy everything word by word from the book to computer, save it to diskette and then pass it to her. She is shocked that it was done in such a short time.

When we finish form 5, we didnt contact each other anymore. It is because the last time I met her, I knew she already had a boyfriend. Few months after SPM, I got a news that she passed away. I am quite shocked but the tears didn't come immediately. It only came when I am thinking about it at night time.

If she didn't pass away, we might be going to form 6 together, we might be even together....

Thinking back, when I stayed in hospital with my mom, I texted her using sms that I am in hospital. She called me immediately to ask what happened.... I felt a bit touched at that time. 


I became kinda moody after she passed away, but life goes on.


There is this one person in church, an advisor, that really take good care of my brothers and me. He sees us like his own son, taking good care of us, teach us how to play harmonica and so on. We are also very close with his eldest son.

One day, he got caught in an accident and hospitalized. We felt shocked and visited in hospital but he is in coma state. After few weeks of treatment, there is no improvement because he is fully depending on machine to survive. So the doctor told the family, they have to take off the machine and let him survive on his own. The chances to live on is slim. He then passed away leaving his 3 sons that is still very young. 

I tried to comfort his eldest son because we are very close.


Few months if not a years later, my mom is the one who passed away. She is having a hard time breathing. Dad got back from work, saw mom is suffering, called pastor, pastor came, we prayed, we sang some peaceful song, we realized my mom's blood vein at her neck is pumping slower, I looked at my elder brother and he looked at me at the same time, we are scared, she slowly stopped breathing. We cried. 

It felt sucks when all the people that you love and the people that love you left earlier. I wonder who else will have this kind of sad experience. 

Nightmare when I was a kid.

I always have this nightmare when I was a kid.

Something like someone is shouting inside my head, loudly, fiercely and made me a bit scared every time that happened. It hasn't happened for quite some time but it appeared again just now. Now it's gone again. Usually it happens when I am resting or sleeping but just now it happened when I am wide awake, playing games. 

I guess I am just too tired. And maybe a bit emotional too because I remembered that 3 persons that really care about me when I was studying, all 3 of them passed away in 1 year. 

I will write about them ... maybe in my next post, just to remember them.

My First Dota 2 MMR

I had play Dota 2 since its release. But I never really play a ranked to a point that I got MMR. The first time I played MMR game is with Luke when I was in Bintulu with him. He told me MMR game won't have leaver for sure. Surprisingly, he is quite a good dota 2 player.

So recently, I went to cyber cafe to play Dota 2, sometimes play up to 6 hours. Sometimes play other game too. However,  Dota 2 MMR only appear if you play ranked game.

Solo MMR can be gotten if you search for ranked game alone.

Party MMR can be gotten if you party with someone and searched for ranked game in party. 

Both type of ranked game need 10 games to start evaluating your MMR. So I finished my first 10 games of ranked match and got 3.2k MMR. Not sure if that is below or above average start.

When luck turn into sorrows.

When I was a kid, my family and I stayed with my relatives. So when I was playing about 20 meter away from my parents, who are talking to my relative, I found RM5 on the ground and picked it up. I am so happy and ran towards my parent shouting "I found RM5!". RM5 is a big value for me at that time because it was about 20 years back. Unfortunately for me, my relative who is talking to my parent straight say "Oh, you found my RM5. That day I lost my RM5". I have no choice but to return it to her...... 

My elder brother's colleague, found RM5 in the office and she didnt ask the colleague whether anyone lost their RM5 or not. She used the money and buy food. Next day, she had stomach ache.

My younger brother's friend, found a wallet with RM500 inside. His friend is just a kid at that time. With such a big amount of money, of course he will tell his parent. So his mom kept the wallet and say "I will apply astro with this". A bit funny too because astro is recurring payment every month and how long can the RM500 last.

Some benefactor in my life in KL/PJ

Long post ahead~

When I started my life in KL/PJ, there are a few people who helped me out in my life, personal and career growth. I remember everything that they had done for me and I will help them out if they need any.

First person is Jeremy Tay. He helped me when I just reach KL. He asked a friend, Daniel Nguoi (my current house owner) to fetch me from KL Sentral to Jeremy's house. We did eat at Burger King in KL Sentral first before we depart. Jeremy taught me the basic thing I need to know to survive in KL. 
On the 5th or 6th day, I went to Bukit Jalil on my own using LRT and I got scammed RM800 by some random scratch and win people. When I got back, I felt so emotional and Jeremy is the one who motivate me, push me back up and borrow me the RM800 that I really need to survive the next month. So I promised to pay him back bit by bit when I got my salary. After 4 months, I settled the debt and I managed to survive with less than RM1400 per month (RM1800 salary - 200 epf - 200 pay to Jeremy). 


Next is the team lead of one of my job. His name is Benjamin See. During the job interview with him, I didn't manage to impress him, but I told him I really hope to get this job. So he gave me an assignment, something that need to use twitter API to integrate to my localhost. I do it at night time because I still have to work at day time. So after 2 nights, I completed the assignment and showed it to him in his office after work. So I got the offer on the spot. 

After working for half year, Benjamin find out that I am doing Amway aggresively. He advised me not to do it anymore by telling me Web Developer can easily earn the money that I get extra from Amway. The truth is I only earn about 200-300 from Amway that time. I dont believe it at first but after the first increment as much as RM700, then I believed it. Slowly, I left Amway's life and I am now on my right track. 


Third benefactor in my life is Wong Kien Wai. Benjamin See hired Wong to replace him. So after Benjamin left the company, I had some arguments with Wong because of work. However, Wong reminded me nicely that working is only to earn money and live peacefully. No need to argue so strongly about something small. We don't need to think so far ahead in a small company because there are only 3 people in the whole IT team. That makes me realize I am actually still very narrow minded. To tell the truth, I don't take advise from anyone. I only take from those I really respect. So being able to make me taking advise from him and make myself realize that I need to widen my view, he is really a great person.


Next and maybe the last for this post is Hikmat Iskandar. I worked under him in Bemalas. Bemalas got a good starter funding from some investor and hired a few of us to help in the web development. Hikmat joined in as CTO and had many awesome project planned ahead. I joined in to help mainly on payment gateway of the website, but in the end, I do most of the backend.  I have no complain on that too.
So in the first few months, we worked hard together, sometimes until night time, but the other few other people that he hired, always go back home on time and rarely commit enough to work. I always complained it to him and he sometimes try to protect other people that he hired. But most of the time, he is unable to protect them because it's really their mistake. 
He told me, his most regretted decision is to hire 2 fresh and expensive staff. That 2 fresh graduates salary should be around my pay or maybe even more and demand the salary of the CTO after they got confirmed. Their technical skill is ok but logic and flow wise seems a bit weird. We used Laravel framework in my web development. So whenever we have some request on certain feature, they will said it can be easily done in CakePHP. Well, it can be easily done in CakePHP because they had done it before. And it doesn't mean that it cant be easily done with Laravel. 

So that's the people that had helped me a lot in my life in KL/PJ. I still met with some of them recently. Even if I don't, I will still chat with them once in a while. I appreciate them so much and I don't take things for granted, so if they need help someday, I will try my best to do what I can to help them.

Worst fever in 2016

It had been quite some time since I got ill..... Last week, I started my meatless meal and after less than a week, I got sick. Not sure if it is because my body cannot adjust to it or it's just pure coincidence. 

I started to feel bad on Tuesday, went to see doctor and get an MC on Wednesday, continue to work on Thursday and went to camp on Friday. I ate all the medicine that doctor give because I want to recover quickly. 

The first day in camp, I feel bad. Really bad to a point that I don't feel like moving. My friends asked me to go to hotspring and fish spa but I really dont feel good. So during the dinner that serve meat, I ate them. Maybe it's just an excuse for me to eat meat. Hahaha.

That night, I cant sleep early. I only fall asleep after 3.30am. Surprisingly, my fever is gone the next day. What's left is just cough. I cough a lot but it's slowly fading too. By third day, I feel that I am completely recover. Of course, only then I am energetic enough to plan to go to fish spa with friends. 

I would say this camp really comes at the right time as a good retreat for someone sick like me. I escaped from a busy life in big city and hide in a small resort to refresh my body and mind. With the refreshing and clean air, my sick recover even faster. I feel so good now. 

A bad day for my housemate.

Today is quite a bad day for my housemate......actually he is the house owner.

Long story short, we decided to go for dinner together. We invited another housemate, a female young girl, who just moved in for half month because she is still quite new to PJ. We also invited Sing Juon, our church friend to the dinner.

So knowing Daniel, the house owner, had already fixed his car air conditioner with RM650, we decided to sit in his car to go for the dinner. When we are on the way, his car temperature meter go up a lot steadily.... when we are stuck in traffic jam, the car is not moving but the temperature is still going up. We are really shocked. We quickly look around to see if there is any place to park. 

We saw one safe place but we are stuck in the jam. So he turn off his car engine and wait for green light before turn on the car engine again. By that time, the temperature is already at the highest. We saw some smoke coming out from the front bonnet. 

We got no choice but to continue to drive to a safe car park. After that, we called Sing Juon to fetch us for dinner. Luckily he haven't sit down and order the food at the place we mentioned to him. He picked us up and we went to Piccadilly.

At Piccadilly, we choose a table and sit down. After all of us take our seat, Daniel try to sit down but the chair is broken.... he got no choice but to take the chair and switch with the chair from the other table that has no one sitting there. We all agreed that Daniel's luck is quite bad today. This reminds me a post that I made 7 years back...also related to smoke coming out from car... lol

http://choozin.blogspot.my/2009/05/little-update-of-last-week-activity.html

Romance of 3 kingdoms stories.

The urge of reading this stories came from after watching drama "Three Kingdoms RPG". After watching a bit, I thought might as well read the whole story. But reading novel is too long and bored because there are too many poems in it. So I thought of reading the manga.

http://mangapark.me/manga/sangokushi

This manga is 95% accurate to real story from the novel. The stories in this manga start with Liu Bei as a peasant and straw shoes maker, waiting for a trader ship to buy tea for his mother. 

The story continued and later on introduced the future ruler of Wei province which is known by many, Cao Cao. He is known as a genius in almost everything and expanded his influence in a very short period. The emperor at that time become his puppet and the imperial also listened to him in everything he said. By that time, only another province that can match up with his influence is Wu province lead by Sun Jian, who died in an ambush, then lead by his son Sun Ce, died of illness and then lead by Sun Quan.

As for Liu Bei, he is only ruling a small city but he had a lot of strong general and retainer that is loyal to him. The sworn brother Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are fearsome to many people. Both of them made their name famous and then Liu Bei found another loyal retainer Zhao Yun. All 3 of them are famous in their own way. 

Guan Yu is the single person who protected Liu Bei's wife and slayed 6 generals to go back to Liu Bei. 

Zhang Fei is the one who single handedly hold of Cao Cao's army in one bridge and then Cao Cao retreated because it seems like an ambush but it's not.

Zhao Yun is the one who marched alone into Cao Cao's army to save Liu Bei's wife and son (known as Adou and then as Liu Shan) and then come out safely.

With those loyal and brave warrior, Liu Bei just need a capable military commander who can read the enemy movement to win in war. First, he acquired Xu Shu and managed to win a war easily with Xu Shu help. 

However, knowing that Liu Bei had Xu Shu, Cao Cao ordered his men to invite Xu Shu's mother to the capital and asked her to write a letter to Xu Shu to ask him to work for Cao Cao. Xu Shu's mother declined but Cao Cao managed to get one of his underling to get close to Xu Shu's mother by giving her a lot of gifts. She started to write letter to Cao Cao's underling to thank him. 

In the end, Cao Cao's underling managed to imitate Xu Shu's mother's writing to send a fake letter to Xu Shu. Xu Shu believed the fake letter and resigned from his position. Before he left Liu Bei, he told him that Liu Bei should go to recruit Zhuge Liang as his advisor.

From there onward, the story gets even more interesting demonstrating Zhuge Liang's wits. They win numerous war without any big casualties. The borrow arrow strategy, the win at red cliff, the alliance with Sun Quan from Wu all made them become more and more well known. The number of loyal retainer and general working for Liu Bei increased day by day. 

Soon, Liu Bei expanded his influence to Shu territory, and hence, the real war between the 3 kingdoms begin. Liu Bei of Shu, Sun Quan of Wu and Cao Cao of Wei. If you are reading this and are a big fans of 3 kingdoms, I suggest you read the story on your own.

I will stop here. Maybe I will continue writing this again someday. 

Back to Malaysia after 2 months in Montreal

So this is how I feel after I come back to Malaysia from 2 months in Montreal, Canada.

• Weather is still very hot here in Malaysia. Night or early morning, it's still hot. Can't even jog for too long because getting out of breath easily.
• The air here is bad. With haze and humid air, my eyes feel itchy very often. Don't even feel like going out even at night time.
• The food in Malaysia is still nice. Cheap, delicious, oily and unhealthy.
• As usual, I get hungry faster in Malaysia... no matter how much I eat. Hahah.
• I get to do exercise that I like anytime I want to. Badminton at least twice or sometimes more in a week.
• I drink less coffee compare to when I was in Montreal. But drinking coffee might made me less hungry. So I gonna try to drink some coffee soon.
• Finally I get to speak some chinese with my friends, unlike when I was in Montreal, my colleagues talk in English, strangers talk in French and I only sing or talk to myself in Chinese. 

The feeling to get a job in foreign country that has 4 seasons grow stronger. I suddenly hope that I can get a job in Korea or Japan, like how I wish back earlier this year. After I come back from South Korea end of this year, maybe I can start building up my portfolio and learn some Korean language so I can prepare myself to go there after my bonding ends in my current company..... Well... let see how it goes.

Industry affected by bad economy in Malaysia for year 2016

When I went to BBQ Plaza with my friends yesterday, it was bad. They are having free refill type of promotion with a flat price. Usually, there will be tons of people queuing up outside BBQ Plaza, waiting in line for their turn to eat but it's really different yesterday. When I reached, there are only less than 10 tables occupied. 

Immediately I thought of the bad economy in Malaysia that cause a lot of people cannot secure a job. Some of the shops in shopping mall is closing down, doing warehouse sales, stopped operating and so on. I am now feeling very lucky, to get a decent job and pay in this new MNC company. 

Since the economy is getting worse, some of the field of business is getting affected such as food industry, automotive, entertainment, furniture and so on.

Food industry is being affected when many people cannot afford to eat out as often as they used to be. More people who have no job, will think of a way to do business and usually the first thing that  comes to their mind is food industry. They assume that no matter how bad is the economy, human still need to eat. However, when more and more people thinking this way, it only means the supply of food increased. In the morning, people might be able to find nasi lemak stall in every 100-500 meters. With so many supply and the demand stays the same, or should I say, the demand actually decreased because people find alternative way to cut cost such as cook their own food, buy some bread from groceries or they even become food business owner as well, do you really think it is good to start a food business? Good thing about this for consumer is, the price might stay the same or even drop a little because of the competitive industry.

For automotive industry, I always heard people complained or even some video in facebook saying that their business had declined tremendously in the past half year to one year. This is especially to second hand car business owner. They used to be able to sell 1 car a day, to become 1 or 2 in a week, or 1 or 2 in a month. I can't say this is 100% true throughout the whole Malaysia because usually the review comes from a big city where the famous car brand as Honda, Toyota and so on monopolized the whole industry. However, for rural and suburb area, the business for second hand car should still be good because they usually don't need new car to drive around and they don't want to have a 5-9 years loan with bank to buy a car. For this industry, I personally think that it is still doable but it will be risky because no one can accurately predict what will in future. 

As for other fields such as entertainment, furniture and so on, it's even worse because it is not necessity for life. You can survive without entertainment but of course, it had become a necessity for people who stays in big city where stress and pressure accumulate. That's why entertainment won't really be affected in big city but overall, I believer less people will go as often as they used to be. For example, people might go to sing k or drink in a pub or bar every week or months but maybe they will only go once every few months. I used to sing k very often like once a month but in this year, it had been decreased to once every 3-5 months. The rate of me going to watch movie had decreased as well.

But of course, there are some industry that won't be greatly impacted by bad economy. Let's see if I can squeeze enough time to write that out next. 

Working for 2 months in Montreal, Canada.

I really miss Malaysia. Even if a lot of things in Malaysia is getting worse, but I really miss it. 2 months in Montreal is too short to try to make new friends. And it's too long to stay without friends. Pokemon Go is bored to be played alone. 

The next exciting thing is only Niagara Falls. Then when I come back, it will be 8 more working days, then I can go back to Malaysia. The food, the movie in cinema, the badminton and so on, so many fun things I missed. 

I gonna stay positive, be happy while I am here. Continue to build my body abs. It's coming out soon....soon....

Why is it so hard to save money in KL/PJ in Malaysia.

After reading a lot of post in facebook and some articles, I realized there is a lot of saving guide. But it is really hard to save money in KL / PJ. The capital of Malaysia has too much hidden cost that always exceeding the budget.
  
1. Parking and petrol. Once you have car, parking is one of the hidden expense. You feel like it's nothing but a month can cost you to around 100 or even more if you travel a lot. Anywhere you park, it costs money. Your rented condo, your office, shopping mall and so on. For petrol, this is another biggest expenses that comes together when you have car. Even though you might say you just use your car to work, it will still cost you at least RM150 and above. And usually when you have car, you don't stay at home at weekend. 

2. Car maintenance and insurance. If you drive your car less, you still need to maintain it at least once in 3 months. Sometimes it is just coincidence that the big maintenance that usually cost at least RM300 is timed together with car insurance. You will feel like stabbing yourself in the heart why you get the car at the first place. Not to mention if your car tyres burst when you are driving with no reason, it will cost about RM150 per tyre. Imagine this month the car tyre burst, next month fix the air cond, third month maintenance, 4th month car insurance due...... how are we gonna save money. 

3. Gym and sports. If you subscribed to gym membership, it feels like it's only RM150/month, or maybe even lesser, but it is still money. How many times you need to go to make it worth your money if you subscribed to gym monthly. The trainer told me at least 3 times a week. I subscribed once when there is a haze because I can't go jogging at the nearby park. When the weather is better, I straight cancel off my membership. 
For other sports, some of them will cost a lot too especially sports like badminton and futsal. Badminton is costly because of the shuttlecock. Futsal is because of the court rental.

4. Entertainment. Maybe you said "I will not go clubbing or pub, so entertainment is not a cost to me." Not really. Even movie, karaoke, cyber cafe, bowling, pool, bird park, escape room and so on is cost. It's just that sometimes it is a bit small and we don't put them in our budget list. Don't even mention those who drinks at bar or club once in a while (month maybe?), that will cost even more.

5.  Food and drinks. No! I am not saying you cannot eat or drink. You can eat and drink of course. But do you see that sometimes drinks are not so necessary. Drinks in restaurants is just overpriced. For example, a meal of Nasi Lemak Chicken Berempah maybe cost about RM12, the drinks of Limau Ice might cost RM5, which is about 40% of the food price. Save it up 3 times, you can eat another meal. You can try to bring your own drinks for a month, you will feel that you saved up a lot in that month.

In short, saving is really hard in Malaysia but I believe there is still many ways to do it. Get part time job or second job or freelance job so you need more time to work instead of spend, or find some cheapskate way to live in KL/PJ, I believe there is a lot of articles like that. I also just start saving more from this year. How many people who in their 30s have more than 10k in their bank account?

张碧晨 白芍花开 lyrics meaning and pinyin

Verse 1:

总梦见那年白芍花开 

 zǒng mèng jiàn nā nián bái sháo huā kāi

 Always dream of peony flower blooming

我们牵着手走在白色花海

wǒ men qiān zhuó shǒu zǒu zài bái sè huā hǎi

We holding hand walk in the sea of white flower

那时天空那么蓝 

nà shí tiān kōng nà me lán  

At that time, the sky is so blue

时间那么慢

 shí jiān nà me màn

The time is so slow

记忆中的味道那么甜

jì yì zhòng dì wèi dao nà me tián
The taste from the memory is so sweet

Verse 2:

再次梦见那片白色海洋

zài cì mèng jiàn nā piān bái sè hǎi yáng

Again dreamed of the piece of white ocean 

仿佛一切停止在那瞬间

fǎng fú yī qiè tíng zhǐ zài nā shùn jiān

As if everything stopped at that moment

刻着你我的青春 

kè zhāo nǐ wǒ de qīng chūn

Engrave your and my youth

白色的约定

bái sè de yuē dìng 

White promises

我不愿醒过来 

 wǒ bú yuàn xǐng guò lái

 I don't want to wake up

这是最美丽的永远

zhè shì zuì měi lì de yǒng yuǎn
 This is the prettiest forever

Chorus:
转眼多年青涩渐远 

 zhuǎn yǎn duō nián qīng sè jiān yuǎn

 Instantly, many years of sentimental has passed

一切恍如昨天

yī qiè huǎng rú zuó tiān 

Everything seems like yesterday

转过身去依然清晰的笑脸

zhuǎn guò shēn qù yī rán qīng xī de xiào liǎn

Turned around and still can see the clear smile

就像那白色的约定 

jiù xiàng nā bái sè de yuē dìng 

Just like the white promises

纯洁而美丽

chún jié ér měi lì

Pure and beautiful

牵挂著彼此之间  不变的誓言

qiān guà zhe bǐ cǐ zhī jiān  bú biàn de shì yán

Worry about each other   the never changing oath
 

再次相遇白色花海 

 zài cì xiāng yù bái sè huā hǎi
Meet again in the sea of white flower

拥抱纯洁的爱

yōng bào chún jié de ài 

Embrace the pure love

淡淡的绽放在初恋的地点

dàn dàn de zhàn fàng zài chū liàn de dì diǎn

Lightly blossom at the place of first love

思念落在纯净之源   不变的誓言

 sī niàn luò zài chún jìng zhī yuán  bú biàn de shì yán

Missing because pure source of never changing oath

再次回头发现  身后的人是你

zài cì huí tóu fā xiàn  shēn hòu de rén shì nǐ
Turn the head around and realize the person behind is you.

 Verse 2

Chorus 

 

Dad had passed away for 3 years.

Emo post ahead!

Well, not totally emotional. Everytime my brothers and I talk about my dad, we will have not much good things to talk about. We remember that our dad likes to farm so much at the back of the house. To farm, you need a good soil. So he always ordered us to go carry good soil from some place. 

There is once,  he ordered us to do so, but the place with good soil, is quite deep to a forest. There is a lot of mosquitoes and insects. We got no choice but to spray the mosquitoes repellent on our body just to avoid being bitten by it.... Bad memory huh...

Do we have good memory???
....
..

I am thinking hard.

Yeah, found one. 
I came to KL and I need car. I don't have enough money for down payment. So I called dad and he said he can borrow money to me. "Borrow"... means I need to pay back....No idea why dad and son need to be so calculative.. haha. 

Any other good memory???
.....
...

Still thinking....

I think my dad also "borrowed" me 2k when I first come to KL to settle down. We don't having saving since kid. Well, actually we do but when my dad is jobless, it's finished in just few months. We have a lot of sad story with our dad bad habit. And we all had decided not to follow his footstep. Thanks to him, we are now so independent. Somehow, it ends up pretty good too. Haha.

Alright, enough with ranting. 3 years had passed since my dad passed away. We are still doing alright. And maybe getting better.

Searching through the downtown in Montreal

I had went to several souvenir stores in downtown Montreal, Canada, just to find the suitable size of souvenir that I am going to buy. After been to 6 or 7 different stores, I finally found a suitable one. 

It is quite fun, to shop for all these items. I will probably buy some for myself too. 

The most exciting event next is to go Toronto. I will be there for 2 days 1 night. I really want to visit their Ripley's aquarium and Toronto Zoo. The journey will take about 6-7 hours probably. Hopefully the bus is comfortable enough for me to sleep.

Weird Dream

I am still in Montreal, Canada. And will still be here for the next 6 weeks. 

Last night I had a very scary dream. I dreamed that I went back to Malaysia. I forgot what's the reason behind it, but I actually consider that as scary. Hahaha. It's because I haven't been to Toronto and Niagara Fall. I told one of my friend and he say "so now Malaysia is nightmare la?". Hahaha.

Halfway through the dream, I woke up and felt relieved because I am still in Montreal. 

Started to miss home.

It has only been 15 days. I started to miss home.

Started to look at my flight ticket going back on September. Started to look closely what exactly is my flight time. What exactly is the date and time that I will reach PJ. What should I do and how should I adapt to the timezone back in PJ. 

I should just enjoy here first before all that. After all, there is still a lot of place that I haven't been to. :)

How to handle jet lag?

I just reached Montreal yesterday. So I had been here for about 12 hours. Since it's a long distance flight which is more than 24 hours, the time in flight is so important. My flight depart at 2am and will reach Doha in 6 hours. After that, i will need to wait for 4 hours, to take another flight to Montreal. That flight will be 13 hours. I will reach Canada at 2pm Canada time. 

So I thought, I must sleep a little when I am in the flight to Canada, then when I reach, I must stay awake until night time only I can sleep.

So I sleep for about 3 hours in that flight. When I reached, I am very hyper because I drank coffee in the flight before it landed. So I reached my hotel and unpacked my luggage. Take a long shower after a long 24 hours flight, buy some groceries and food, rest up a bit and when I try to update my blog, I fall asleep at the sofa. I force myself to my bed and fall asleep immediately. That sleep lasted for 7 hours. I woke at 2.30am and try to sleep again. Woke again at 4am and this time it's really hard to sleep. Since it's 4pm Malaysia time, I thought I should just see what's the update on facebook.

After checking for a bit, i thought, maybe I should just wake up and do a bit of research on where to go later. So yeah, I am awake, and my next sleep should be 18 hours later. Then my jet lag problem will be solved.

Trick is to sleep at the right time. Just need to get tired for once and sleep at the right time. But since I can't do it at once, because I am getting too sleepy at 7pm, I think doing it twice is ok too.

I met a guy at the airport. He said, he traveled a lot to Malaysia, UK and he is a Canadian. So I asked him how he handle his jetlag. He said, the way to handle it is not to think about it. If you keep on thinking you are 12 hours behind, you will get very tired just for thinking about it. 

Born poor

Warning - Long post ahead. 

These few days of gathering with my brothers, made me think back a lot of things from the old time.

My grandparent is rich. They have quite a lot of land and property. However, they sold off quite of them to pay for my dad studies and business. My dad business never succeed because of his attitude. He is a terrible boss and never go to the field to monitor the business progress. In the end, he still ends up working for people.

With RM1800 per month, he needs to feed my mom, and 3 of us. We never have enough every month. We know the feeling of being poor. We don't get to join Uniform Club in school because each uniform cost more than RM100. We sometimes can't buy books to be used in school because we don't have money. When teacher asked where is your book, we can only answer, we haven't buy because don't have money. Feeling sympathy to us, sometimes the teacher will just give us the book for free.

We also never had a car at home. We rarely sit in car when we were a kid. We owe money to some mini markets because we don't have enough to pay them. We only have 1 motorcycle until I was in form 3. Situation forced my dad to buy another motorcycle so my elder brother who had the motor license can fetch my younger bro and me to school. It's actually a way to cut cost so my dad don't need to pay for our school bus fee anymore.

Situation got worse when my dad retired and my mom passed away. I was in Methodist Pilley Institute then. My elder brother stops studying and starts working so the house can have some income. I try not to stay at home because no one is cleaning it until I started my new life in KL.

First 2 years in KL is not easy. With RM1800 earning per month as a starting pay, I am struggling to live a normal life. There are a few months I need to borrow RM50 or RM100 from my elder brother just to have my meal. At that state, I cant even send money back to my dad. 

While my bad situation in KL, my elder brother is not having a too much of good life too. He is struggling to make the ends meet. My dad who is not providing to the family anymore, need to be taken care by my brother. In the end, my elder brother quitted his job to take care of my dad. 

My younger brother who started his new job, faced financial stress. He started his job with good pay but got stressed by dad to provide some money to family. Yeah, it's normal to send money back to parents at home but considering how much we earn and we are not stabling down yet, sometimes, it's really stressful to provide too much.

That is all what happened at the past few years. We are all born poor. But we don't want to die poor too. That's why my brothers and I are working so hard to earn more. Being cheapskate is what we always do to cut cost. But cheapskate is one thing, we also look at efficiency. For example, we went to Jogoya Starhill on last Friday. Driving there is definitely cheap. However, the stress on the road, the parking, petrol, time taken, totaling all of that together, plus Starhill is in Bukit Bintang area, we decided to just take Uber. It's more efficient and not really much more expensive than driving too.

Born poor is not our mistake.... but dying poor is not a mistake too. Some people don't even had a chance to become rich. Or even a chance to live a normal life. Sometimes life needs a bit of luck. 

I heard of a story before, a real one, there is a girl who is good in her studies and thought she will live a good life when she graduates by getting a good job. Her parent owned some land, a house and a few big fishing boat. One unfortunate event happened where the girl's mom fell down. She got taken to hospital and need to be hospitalized for around 5 months. Her parent sold off everything because they need the money to pay to hospital. House, fishing boat and land too. She ends up has no enough money to finish her study. Miserable life.

Syok Sendiri cell group

I had a great dinner with my cell group members last Tuesday. We went to Bulgogi BBQ, eat all you can type. Even though it is Korean food, it's quite cheap. However, the choice is quite limited.

 

The gathering is really happy and exciting. Some of us came late because of the traffic and work. Although the mood at the first half of the dinner is a bit down (I believe is because everyone is hungry), we became the loudest group at the second half of the dinner.

 

We talked about going to New Zealand for a vacation, maybe at 2018. After a bit of discussion, we change our mind. 2018 is too far ahead and the cost for New Zealand trip is too high. So we planned for other country. In the end, we found out that we are really the type of planning but no one will really join the vacation or activity.

 

Original plan: New Zealand (RM8000)
Second plan: Taiwan (RM4000 - 50% of the original cost)
Third plan: Pulau Redang (RM800 - 10% of the original cost)
Next plan: Sunway Lagoon (RM80 - 1% of the original cost)
Next next plan: Watch movie (RM8 - 0.1% of the original cost)

 

And guess what, even our watch movie plan failed.

 

So when we want to head back home, suddenly everyone had the urge to sing. So we thought maybe can randomly organize one sudden karaoke session....
After a few minutes of discussion, some people don't sing, some people have other plan, even the karaoke session doesn't work out.

 

We also had one experience where we tried to organize an ATV session. We planned for 2 or 3 months ahead and even combine it with other cell group to have enough people.
In the end, the plan failed too.....

 

That is why we label ourselves as syok sendiri cell group. Haha.

 

 

Meet the member of syok sendiri cell group.

Clock wise from the left

-Ng Dick Tern (Segi Uni Course Consultant)

-Christopher James Wong (Optometrist)

-Eddie Wong (Senior QA)

-CZ (Application Developer)

-Joshua Lim (Mega CMC Staff)

-Shirly Lee (Mega CMC Staff)

-Evelyn Pua (Finance Audit)

-Ting Seng Gine (Project Engineer)

-Pou Hung Nguong (Instrument Engineer)

 

Preparation update to Montreal

Confirmed the date that I will fly to Montreal is 2am, 15th July 2016. So I need to go to airport at 14th July night time.


Since my brothers will come here on 6th July and the vacation end on 11th July, I will only need to work on 12th and 13th before going to Montreal. PSL Group had approved my request on getting a MacBook for work. Company had bought a custom model of MacBook Pro with i7 intel core processor and 16GB Ram. It will be useful especially when I run a script that goes through a several hundred thousands of data. I hope I can get the MacBook before I fly off.


I had decided to get a second hand bicycle in Montreal too. I will sell it off before I come back to Malaysia. It ease my travel everyday and I also can get to know how does it feel to cycle to work.


I am given quite a big capacity for luggage. 2 baggage and each maximum limit is 23kg. I don't need that much when I go there. However, I will need all those kgs when I come back. I will buy a lot of things from there, maybe some sport shoes, or maybe even a hoverboard.


I am just getting more and more excited. Pray that everything went well when I am there.

Counting down for Canada on job training....and also my relationship status.

I had this opportunity to work travel to Montreal, Canada. It's really once in a life time opportunity. I felt I am a very blessed kid.

The exact flying date is either 14, 15 or 16 July 2016 depend on the flight availability. It will probably stop at Qatar for 4 hours. I had an advise from my colleague to not buy anything in Qatar using credit card because the fraud level there is very high.

I had done some research of where to go in Canada. The office is in Montreal, so I might take bus or their train to Toronto if the train or bus is available at Friday night so that I can spend the weekend there. Ripley's aquarium of Canada in Toronto and Toronto Zoo are the places that I want to visit. My colleague had already asked me to bring some instant food from here to colleagues in Montreal. Their relationship are really close... from what I had seen so far. 

I am really excited now. No words can describe my feeling. I can only thank God for such a wonderful opportunity. This working trip alone, can offset my emptiness of no vacation for at least 1 year. Furthermore, my brothers are coming to KL soon. They will come during Raya time and I had planned a series of events and places to go. Basically most of the events are eating. 

Other than that, a lot of things had happened recently. Not about work or vacation only. It's more about relationship. Do I ever consider a serious relationship? The answer is yes. Then why am I still single? Because the right one has not appear yet. At least that's what I think. I do hope that I can get rid of my "single" status this year but rushing is not the right way. I will prefer to spend my time and look around slowly. 

My new colleagues asked me what type of girl I like. They are all married, so they are trying to help me out. But everytime they ask me this question, I don't know how to answer. It's not that I don't have any requirements but usually it's not so realistic. In the end, it depends on your impression of the girl. I can say I like a girl who is smart, can sing, do sports, not the pushy type, attractive, financially independent, can cook, Christian, and many many more but it's like finding a unicorn if I said all that. So I will just say "as long as we click, then it's fine", general enough. Hahaha.

More updates coming soon, especially when my brothers are here and when I go to Canada.

Weird planning by my cell group.

We have a planning session every 3 months to discuss about our cell group weekly gathering topic. So for the last discussion, I didn't join them because I need to work.


So they planned to have a gathering on Thursday this week instead of the usual Tuesday. I am not sure who is the one suggested that because Thursday is Duan Wu festival. Today is that Thursday. Seems to me like not much people can make it. Probably too many people is not good too but until now, there are only 2 people who RSVP, one is the organizer (not the one who suggested) and another one is me.


5 people had already confirmed that they cannot make it. Let see how it goest la.

First week in PeerHealth Malaysia Sdn Bhd

I started my new job as Application Developer in PeerHealth Malaysia Sdn Bhd last Wednesday. I have had a 1 on 1 online conference with my superior Anand Balachandran. He is a very nice and considerate guy. I felt really good to be on his team. I felt I am really lucky. 

First day on the job, I received a great welcome. My name is printed on a paper and arranged nicely on the table where I am sitting. On first day, it is basically just briefing about everything, about the company rules and regulation, about company people, office and even had a welcoming lunch with the team. The boss of KL office also came for the welcoming lunch. It has been a long time since I felt so appreciated.

I can feel the people in the team is really nice. Basically they are really focused on the work and delivering product only. Happy to be in the team.

Last day in Bemalas

When I was given the option to leave Bemalas earlier, I kinda shocked. I can still work until 5th July and get paid as what had been agreed but getting in to new company 1 month earlier seems a bit more worthy. So I did asked my superior how early I can leave. He said anytime, next week also can.

So I checked with my new employer, and they mentioned I can join anytime I want, the earlier the better. So I confirmed with my superior and they agreed to let me serve 2 more days from the day I know that I am given the option, and then using my annual leave to offset everything and I will still get paid until end of next week but today is my last day. 

I will start my new job on 1st of June 2016, which is next Wednesday. I got a 2 days rest on Monday and Tuesday which I think is enough to adjust my mood.

Words can't express my feeling now. It's kinda mixed. But more to excitement of new job. A little bit of sadness because leaving the team and everything that I had worked on. Excitement because I will be able to be on job training in Canada for 2 months. I will be on shopping spree and sight seeing for sure. More research needed to be done before I go there.

Wahoo!!!!