Of work and off work

As of last Friday, I'm officially 'jobless' again...hahaha :P ...I've finally finished my 12 weeks period of industrial training with Express ICT...We've (me and my fellow interns) been waiting for this day for a long time but for me, but when I was walking out of the office door for the last time...I have mixed feelings bout leaving.

Firstly, my boss is one awesome guy, we couldn't have asked for a better supervisor...then there's the job scope, which I actually really like. I have probably mentioned before that I've always wanted to learn about PHP and etc, but never know where to start...doing my internship here in ExpressICT, is like hitting 2 birds with 1 stone....and yes, I've picked up a lot on PHP and web hosting...and I'm really glad that I've been assigned there.

The only 'ugh' part about this job, is the unfamiliarity with new 'stuffs' and not knowing how to use them, best example being OSCommerce. OSC is a shopping cart system that many of our clients use in their website...so obviously, we had to deal with a lot of OSC related issues. Not only were we not familiar with OSC (we've each trashed at least 2 fresh installation of OSC before finally getting it to stay 'error-free' for further testing purposes), OSC has their own 'language' in their scripting which is not very easily understandable so modifying/customizing them is SUCH A PAIN...royally! I did get a few stuff my superior wanted me to do using OSC but evertime we had to do it, we all dread it. I wish my junior interns luck in taking over our place....they WILL need it.

We all thought it would be easier on us on the last week, since we needed to hand over our jobs to the newer interns. They're both not familiar with PHP (but one of them know html and the other knows mysql so its fine i guess :P ) and we didn't want them to 'langgar dinding' as much as we all did....but noooooooo....clients have to all call in at the same time and 2 of us were rushing to finish the minor changes here and there as per requested by our clients. The 2 interns either get to just 'lepak'....or they might have to do some script writing on the other leftover PC..but yeah...both me and my colleague agreed that our last week, was the worst, busiest one. Meh.

But well...all was well...and my big boss even treated us to this 8 course lunch (meant for CNY menu I'm sure) which cost a bomb (we joked that it was enuff to hire another one of us for a month) and stuffed ourselves silly....but too bad that my direct supervisor couldn't join us. Heck, he wasn't even around when we left on the last day so no pics of him :( ...meh. Ah well...

That's about work...now off work:

I've been surprisingly excited and curious over the upcoming expansion for Magic: The Gathering's Alara set (Nicol Bolas...woooo) and a conversation with Quj during my last trip back Melaka kinda made me wanna work on a mini-project of sort: a deck proxy generator. The first parts were quite easy. The form interface made me think awhile, as I'd want it to be user friendly, easy to use, and yet still flexible if you decide to write down your own card type. The database structure had to be modified a few times...random aprostrophes gave me quite a headache and wrong placement of while loop made me go Aaaaaaa....but as of last night.........I think I've gotten the whole thing up and running...only 2 things left to do now: fix the page printing (now it overlaps to the next page and the deck is sorta....cut off halfway) and fill the database with MTG's many many many cards ...that...is gonna take awhile....

I surprise myself getting so interested in Magic.... (no Quj, I'm still not playing for Nats >.<)

Nuffnang gave me 2 free movie tickets for tonight's show: Rise of the Lycans...yay...hope its good :P

Now back to my drama....~ Laters!

A little simple surprise

It took quite a bit of planning...and bits of risk here and there...and slight discomfort to lie to QJ just to keep the surprise a surprise. Well letting him know would have made things much easier but meh....don't want every single surprise I have for him to turn out to not be a surprise anymore just because its more practical and safe.

Last Friday after work, I made a surprise trip back to Melaka to pay QJ an extremely short visit. Tho it was short and a bit rush...and we didn't exactly do anything much...it made us feel extremely happy. He didn't expect me to be back in Melaka until after CNY, so when I reach the house he was really shocked. Especially when he thought I was in MPO with my sis at that time...sowie dear~ :P

Leaving the house to guys...I kinda expected it to be kinda messy. Thankfully the front was still quite neat but the kitchen... ^^; ...lets just say I got busy right after I came back (funny that I didn't mind a bit XP )...what surprised me was that the money-plant that QJ told me had died...actually survived! True, 2 of the stalks had kinda rotten off, but one of it was still quite healthy! I quickly changed its water, cleaned the vase and rinsed off the rotten leftovers, and added some wellgro into the water. Hang in there till I get back after CNY! I'll give u some proper nice direct sunlight then :D

The weather there felt nicer, the wind chillier and the water in the tanki (for shower) felt warmer...bed felt good :3 ...aaaa so syok. What was even nicer was the stroll along the quite road late at night (or rather very early morning) for supper-something I hadn't done in a very long time. And I missed the yong tau fu near our place. The 'rat tail' noodle here tasted so much better than the stall opposite my office...hmph! I can't wait to be back there again...somehow...eventho it means start of another semester...>.<

Was it worth the trouble to be back there for just a little more than 12 hours? Totally. :3

p/s: Currently working on a lil PHP project of my own. Kinda excited about it...hope it works out how it's supposed to :D

The Last 10 Days

As much as the bunch of us are looking forward to the end of our industrial training, I just have to say that the last 10 days wun be as easy as we thought it would be.

To begin with, our company seem to have gotten a new guy (another branch) and has been emailing us everyday asking us to change this and that and rushing us to finish our projects. As much as I'd like to finish them all fast, all of us are just interns. Not only are we kinda short at manpower, our lack of experience with php coding as well as OSCommerce really doesn't help.

Starting this Monday, each of us interns will be assigned another new intern to be guided to take over our place, for both UG and Express. From what I heard, none of them are 'well versed' in php either (at least one of them that I've met last Friday knows photoshop and html so I guess she'll catch up pretty fast)...well...at least they know programming so that helps I guess.

Most of my friends have (and will) told me "New slaves!" but really...I don't really see that coming. As of last (shitty) Friday, my mailbox is trashed by my boss with urgent tasks, as well as tasks that is to be followed up as soon as I finish the urgent ones...I kinda think he forgot the other 2 interns existed just because they took the day off the other day...meh. So...how exactly are we gonna let them do some hands on training, if we ourself (being the blur and 'trial-and-error' us) need to rush those other tasks first? I'm talking bout 6 interns on 3 PCs...when you're supposed to be doing something that heavily (if not fully) depend on PCs and internet connection....well..I guess some ppl would say "Well at least u get to chill a little in betweens...."

The worst part of all this, having to share computer, also means I don't think I'll get to chat and surf as freely as I used to anymore for these last 10 days...well not that I do that very often either but... Pft...heck I haven't even had the chance to open my facebook last week...

Well I guess all this doesn't come without a brighter side of things:- at least after these 10 days, we won't have to be the ones dealing with the crap our current projects are throwing at us. Heh. All that being said tho, I actually do enjoy what I'm working on....well...minus the crap and the awful-toned emails and the bus waiting...and my boss is actually a very nice person.

Well...Happy Monday, people.

Petrol down, price up?

Yesterday, most Malaysians greeted the news of the further 10cent/litre 'discount' of petrol and diesel. I wasn't directly affected but hey, my sis' is happy she gets more petrol for the amount she pays for so yay!

Usually I'd pack lunch to the office, or tapau sumthing from the train station but these days we either wake up too late to make breakfast or sis will directly to the station. Anyways, the usual stall I buy from seems to have gone for a long holiday since Raya Haji the other day :P ....so I took the chance to go out makan with my colleagues.

The last time I ordered from that particular stall, I remember the noodle dishes being RM4.50 but when my order of hokkien fried noodle came, the lady asked for RM5. WAT THE FUCK! A bit celaka isn't it? The price goes up 50cents/plate the same day petrol and diesel price went down by 10cents/litre. Diu la....RM5 fried noodles at home can feed a family of 3 liao ok? Lucky it tastes good...else damn celaka mannnn...

Thank goodness we cook our own meal at night ;)

About: Work

Its been a month (or rather, 6 weeks...yay halfway there!) since I started work and I don't think I've talked much about work yet. Actually I haven't blogged much at all. Hahaha...Weekdays I'll either be tired shit when I come back from work, or have other things I rather do, or the 'free' wireless decides to not be so kind....so yeah.

My working hours is from 9 to 6, Mondays to Fridays. Eventho it says 9, I usually 'start' work only at 9.30 or 10 because...well...'tauke' only clocks in at 9.30 onwards (that and the fact that my brain's not awake yet sometimes :P ) so...here I am. Slacking. Shaddup bro, I know you're reading. Bluekk....

MMU assigned 5 interns to work here, 4 of them from cyber, and are very nice people. They all speak mandrin so...yeah...thankfully I'm not all banana..haha!

Oh about my boss. Mr Leong is a great guy to have as an employer. So glad I didn't have to deal with a headache type of a boss. He's very casual, always smiley smiley, sends email to us sometimes at 3am in the morning and still comes to work at 9.30am...and doesn't mind if we're all pretty clueless about PHP and those stuff. And he's not bad at teaching us stuff too so yeah. I'm glad. No he's not the type to buddy buddy with us (yet), and no he hasn't asked us to go lunch together nor belanja us makan but he's good :D

My work. 2 of us were assigned to work under another department, or rather, company (in the same office). They had to do accounting stuff. I dunno if FET minds...but it's still a working experience for them. Me and 2 other were assigned to the IT Dept, and this branch...we're pretty much the main working force. Most of the permanent workers are in the other branch...so you can imagine when the 2 bosses are not around...its basically just..us. Hahaha :P

My job scope mostly covers client's webpage maintenance as well as finding and modifying script to be used on future projects. Sometimes clients will ask us to fix some problems with their site (cant display flash, this and that not alligned, missing pic, broken link, shopping cart not working etc etc) or to add content or features to their site. Random mish mash of stuff basically.

Another project which I did was to 'move' our company's US team's old website and give it a newer, fresher touch. Certainly looks much much better now but there's still things to fix, most of which I'm not familiar with. Will need to check the site one last time before passing the whole thing back to my boss...nyehehe..


One other project I'm supposed to be doing is this community site for Setapak. Initially I was really....bleh about it because the site I was supposed to update was very 'clunky' and unfriendly, and not very pleasant to the eye...In other words, I didn't like it at all. After having so much trouble manually tweak the site template to look like what my boss would want it to look like, he told me one day "Try out this template and let me know the result"....I did it, and in the end I had to change the template of the community site to the new template. Practically throwing my previous week's work into the dumpster. Pfttt...but I suppose I'm glad he asked me to. Site looks so much better now...although initially I had a shitty time trying to figure out how to modify the template, not knowing I was not given super administator authorization and that it was needed for template change. HAIYO!

Learnt a lot of stuff. PHP, mysql....and a bit of flash. Hate it when I can't edit my pictures using Photoshop (because our office only has license for 1 PC and that PC lags x.x ) but I suppose I can survive with Fireworks.

Food, has been an issue. Food around that area is either expensive, or tak sedap. Blek. Our first day there, we had kwan lou yee mee. Even my maggi mee tasted better than dat. After a week of eating out and spending a lot of money eating stuff that were highly overpriced and not so sedap, I got fed up and packed lunch from home since then. Sis would either cook, or I'll cook (rarely tho..haha!), or I'll just tapau nasi lemak, noodle or sumthing from the malay stall at Kelana Jaya train station. Cost me RM1.50 to maximum of RM4.50 for a filling meal of Nasi lemak and curry chicken drumstick but usually it'll cost me around RM2. I know, not very social but I was too bloody broke to care, and we all spend the whole day in the office to social anyway. And its not like we can go far to have lunch either. Parking's per entry so we usually dun go out far.

Lately, both bosses have been out of office pretty often so....yay! Like all my friends say, "When the cat is away, the mouse comes out to play" .....stealing chicken...yes.... :P

Traffic jam is something that's quite numb already. Funny thing is, it won't jam on mondays after work...but if it rains...even if its only a drizzle....ZOMGWTF mannnn...I think I cycle oso sampai rumah ade.

Well...that's about all I can think of now. Overall....yeah I think I'm quite happy working here... :D


Cheers~~ and Happy Friday!

Good Morning :3

Yes, Good Morning...I'm in quite a good mood this morn. Dunno why. Maybe its cuz I drove my sis' car today (and going to tmr..and the day after)...maybe it was last nite's conversation :3 ...or the wonderful dinner...or maybe it was the encouraging email I got the moment I log on to outlook..ha!

So before the bosses strut in, lets splash some pics in this blog. Its totally dried up of pics lately.

My station at sis' place. Mah lovely little corner :P.
Yeah free wireless woot~



My table and PC at work :P
Yeah, that's the DS there



Office, where boss sits (left) and meeting room (that we never use, top left)
Fellow intern with almost the same name as mine, sits behind me (right)


Other interns that are with me, working on UG's stuff



My table again...working on Joomla



Things I hate bout working=public transport.
The people of Malaysia simply dunno how to queue.
4 lines for a pathetically small door on the bus? (they only open one side)...wow...



They all need this bars to tell them how to line up...sheesh..



View from watchtower when sis took me running (in the woods...sorta... x.x ) in Gasing



Same as above

Ok ok I better start working on my work stuff now...wakakaka...Ciao!~

p/s: I came to work yday with 7 incoming emails. Today...there was only 1 and it sez "keep up the good work" XD

Aih~

At first...I wanted to post sumthing else...but after copying songs to my 6300, then copying images down, touch up with photoshop, and etc etc....I forgot wat I wanted to say liao...aih. So freakin tired la....its not really the work that tires me....its the travel and the hours and the fact that my mum came down these past 2 days.....bleh...at least I get to sleep on the bed again tonite...comfy bed :3

Aaaaanywaysssss.......

I sayang you... <3

I'll try post from office tmr...kekeke!

Ta~

First weekend :P

It's only when you start working that you start REALLY appreciating your weekends. Thank God my office only works 5 day week. Haha!

I got my first paycheck last Friday (wtf so fast rite? Well its only paycheck worth of 4 working days :P but its STILL paycheck!). Mum and dad gave me a fat 'first day of work' ang pau to buy a bit more working clothes....and...they even gave me my monthly allowance (THANK YOU!!!) for November :D So yeah. Happy happy me! :D

So what did I do on my first weekend of my 'working life' ? ...Obviously...SHOPPING LA! Hahahaha!

Made plans with QJ to meet up in Mid Valley...planned to leave earlier but this being the first day in 4 days I haven't had the need to jump out of bed at 7-ish in the morning....I (over)slept till 10-ish...If it wasn't QJ ringing me up....I'd prolly sleep till noon... /sheepish...had light breakfast before I get to MV but by the time I got there I was already starving! So...Carl's Junior for lunch! I had Super Star (i think) and QJ had his favourite: Bacon Swiss Crispy Chicken Sandwich (too bad no porky bacon..haha!)....I know I know I should have ordered Portobello Mushroom Burger...well I WOULD if I have plenty of money to throw! Besides...just had that last week... :P

After lunch, we went walking around a bit before I dragged him into a series of shops........... :P .....I'm so lucky to have a boyfriend who actually doesn't mind me dragging him to all these clothing shops all the time...and not to mention very helpful in fashion opinions too (I can see him sniggering at the corner there reading this line....yes sayang and for that I thank you... :3)....

Got myself another pair of skirt and 2 more tops. They didn't have the shade of brown I wanted for my pants (either that or the rack is full of size S =.= )....so after what seemed like forever...I was done with my shopping for today....and we head off to Big Apple for tea...(coffee actually...and donuts :P )...resting the poor feet.....then lepak abit around Gardens....and head to the ATM....yeah I was dry XD ....by that time it was around 5 and we both have our own dinner plans. I was supposed to meet up with my sis around 5.30pm and him back home for dinner...

5 hours zoomed by so quickly (ok maybe not so much for the times QJ had to wait for me to try out the clothes...sorry! >.< ). But felt so happy... :3 Next week: Lepak+Quantum of Solace! :D

So...on with dinner on my part... :D Sis and I met up with her friends, Ken and Josephine at Old Town, Jaya One. Had dinner...chatted awhile...and head off to PJEFC, just around the corner of the area. What were we doing there? Actually at the point of time, I had no idea. I just didn't feel like alone at home with the possibility of having sucky net and not able to chat/surf properly anyway...

Turns out, there was a play going on at the place. "Crazy little thing called love" - collection of sketches pertaining to the themes of love, courtship, marriage and family relationships (description taken from their site), a play by Footstool Players . I really really enjoyed the show :D It was funny at parts, touching at some, and some parts really just made me cry. Thing is, some parts of the story really so reflect ourselves...so yeah.... Good job, Footstool Players.

Ok here's a lil free pimping for them (because they're just that darn good). Apparantly they've been doing quite a number of free performances for the past 2 months (on weekends) and today (Sunday) will be the last free performance they're having...here's the details:-

2 November 2008
Petaling Jaya Gospel Hall, Petaling Jaya, Selangor
8:00 pm
1A Jalan Gasing, Petaling Jaya
Tel: 7781-2327; Website: www.pjgh.net

Not to worry if you can't make it. After this, they will be performing at KLPAC. Much better sound and lighting at RM30 per person, but RM20 for students, senior citizens and disabled. Details as follows:-

Performing Arts Centre (KLPac) Pentas 2
6-16 November 2008
Thu-Sat 8:30 pm
Sat-Sun 3:00 pm
Mon-Wed (no show)

Tickets: RM30 adults | RM20 students, senior citizens and disabled

Tickets available at KLPac Box Office Tel 03 4047 9000 or Actors Studio @ Bangsar Shopping Center Tel 03 2094 9400

Click here for map to KLPac.

So if you have nothing to do on those days and wouldn't mind spending 20/30 bucks...do go watch it. It's really good. It's not exactly just a lover's film or anything, more like Love in general...so bring ur family along :D

TGIF

Thank God its Friday(s)....

No, not the food chain.


I mean...friday friday....hell yeah.


/plop

First day of work...tmr

It kinda makes me feel like a kid who's having 'first day of school' jitters...aih. Dunno what I should bring...don't know if I'm dressed properly...etc etc....

Hope it'll be smooth sailing tmr.

Happy working to those of you starting tmr too! :P

p/s: I hope I'll have a PC at work
pp/s: I hope I'll have net to go with it.. (but then again at this age...if u have a PC in a company you WOULD have net...esp in an ICT company... :P)

Online from PJ

Just got to my sister's place from Melaka (thanks for the ride Amran >.< ....totally stuffed ur car to the brim)...brought my PC here :D since I'll be bored stiff w/o a PC and I don't wanna rely too much on my sister's laptop...didn't bring speaker tho so... /stares at earphones...that will have to do for now.

Currently stealing someone's wireless to get online...kekekeke...rather annoying how my MSN and Yahoo keeps DCing tho ...but ah well...beggers cant be choosers...need to find a better spot sometime later...mmmmm....lets hope this fella keeps his line unsecured until the end of my ITP :D

Starting my ITP this Tuesday. Mix feelings about it. Kinda excited to try something new, meet new people, do some work and actually get money out of it (to fund my small wishlist :P and for Christmas... XD ) and looking forward for the times I get to visit QJ in Melaka...Not exactly sure yet what we're expected to do in our company but I'm glad I'm not the only MMU intern in the company. Hope they'll provide a PC with net to work with (so that I can gtalk and facebook in between...um...nvm) What I'm definately not looking forward to is waking up super damn early and having to take bus to work... -.- ...meh....well at least I have a sister around to make sure I really DO wake up (don't worry bout that, Dearie :P) and she can send me to Kelana Jaya station..I just need to take the feeder bus to my work place.....which...I still have no idea where. I'll need to check it out tmr :P

Quite a number of my friends are in KL....wonder if we'll actually have time to go out meet up and have a drink or two...Amran's here in PJ too now that he's graduated (get a job soon! ...then treat us to a meal XD)

Sis stocked up the fridge before she left to go home(SP) so...I won't starve for these few days.... (heck I won't starve even if she didn't make the effort to go stock it up...her fridge is forever well stocked XD)

Dinner calls! Laters~