Tales of the minority

Note: This post is an attempt at humour.

Note 2: Since it is only an attempt, you may not sue me if you do not laugh.

Now that the terms and conditions are out of the way, let's get started.

You see, at work I am part of the Accessory Software team. We are a sub-group of the software team, and at the same time a sub-group of the Accessory team. And when we move to Innoplex (the new building), these two teams are not moving at the same time.

So who do we follow? Initially we were supposed to follow the Accessory team, and move a week earlier than the rest of the software team. But due to some delays, we were informed that the Accessory team would not move till the 1st of August. So far, so good... everyone's happy with the delay because it means we can keep working close to food outlets, rather than close to other factories. (and that's very important! ;) )

But now the rest of the software team is set to stick to its original move date, the 11th of July. And they are taking the software servers with them. What?! And how about us? We need those servers too!

So for three weeks until our move with the Accessory team, we don't have to work? Nope, no such luck. The thought was to move together with the software team instead. But...turns out that our desks in the Accessory department will not be ready yet. Again, ... What?! Are we going to sit on the floor beside a LAN outlet, with our laptops on our laps? (by the way, we're not even sure whether the LAN outlets would be there yet)

As of now, the plans are either to squat in someone else's (furnished) cubicle, or hijack a meeting room in which to conduct our operations. I kinda prefer the latter. It sounds more classy and we can complain to everyone we meet about our mistreatment. :P

To be honest, there is also the plan to stay put in Cyberplex till the Accessory move date. But that sounds kinda boring, so I didn't include it above... even though it would be our first choice (remember the "very important" thing I mentioned above?)

Letter to the depressed

What can I say to you? What can I say when you are feeling down? What can I say that is not a lie, but which will not depress you further?

I know that you do not want to hear that things will be okay. How would I know that, anyway? You don't want me to tell you that things could be worse, or that some other people have it worse. That would be trivializing your pain. You don't want me to tell you that I know how you feel. How could I?

I guess what I can say is that this is not your fault. And that you are not alone. That this could have happened to anyone in the world, and there are other people in the world who have this kind of problem, even if they are few and far between. That I am lucky that it did not happen to me, for I would not know what to do if I were in your place. That I understand that it is a bad situation to be in, even though I cannot know how it really feels like.

And I guess I can say that this shall pass. Who knows whether what comes next will be better or worse. We hope it will be better. Who knows how long it will take for sorrow to pass. But it will, although we have no way of knowing what will replace it. Or what will dilute it, perhaps, for it will not disappear overnight.

And allowing it time to pass, even though not the most comforting of ideas, is something you can do. Sometimes maybe the only thing.

And I am here for you, if you need me. You just have to ask, for I do not want to intrude.

A short trip to SP and Bedong

So, as promised, here is the curry mee I mentioned in the previous post.

We went all the way to SP (Sungai Petani) for this!

Frankie had told us about this curry mee stall before...about how everyone would line up to buy it. He told us that the stall uses fish freshly caught from the sea (not even refrigerated, though I'm not sure how true that is... don't they refrigerate the fish on the boat when they catch them?) When we reached the food court (Eupe food court, if you want to know) at 9am, he said, "Eh? The stall isn't open?" because there was no queue. But it turned out that they were doing the preparations and just hadn't started selling the noodles yet. When we asked, they said that they would begin selling in 15 minutes. So Frankie and Philips lined up (and a queue formed later behind them) while Doris and I went to take a look at the other stalls.

After that we found a place to sit while waiting for the guys to bring our curry mee (this is the life, huh? lol) As they brought six bowls, the other two latecomers appeared (you'll see them below). What perfect timing!

The curry mee was good... and for RM5 you get plenty of slices of fish! You also get a slice of egg (with the yolk fallen out and needing to be fished out from the soup -_- ), a slice of tomato and a few chunks of lady's fingers. Basically I felt that it was a little like noodles added into a curry fish dish. But it was still good :) (though I'm not sure I would go specially to SP for it)

After the curry mee, we went to a durian farm owned by a friend of Frankie's. The farm is actually in Bedong, close to SP. It was quite a winding road to get to the farm...I wouldn't know how to go there again. This part of the trip is all theirs...as I am no durian-lover.

So I became the photographer as they ate their durians.

A stealthy hand plucking out the first piece of durian

Come have a taste!

I did eat a few pieces (three, to be exact), after checking with the others that they weren't bitter. They told me, "They're all sweet!" All of them preferred the bitter kind, so after that they asked the owner for a bitter durian. Even then, they said it wasn't that bitter... but I still said no, I didn't want any. lol 

Posing with the requested bitter durian

A change in colour

Buying breakfast this morning, I handed over a five-ringgit note and got a five-ringgit note plus a fifty-sen coin in return. When I said "Eh?" the seller said, "Three-fifty ma..."

"But I gave you five ringgit wor..."

He didn't even realise it when I first said "Eh?" Now that would have been a cheap hokkien mee. Buy one large hokkien mee and we will give you fifty sen!

Note: The hokkien mee was a big one, for WW, not for me. I had my curry mee! (Totally different from yesterday's curry mee... which I will post about later)

Edit: Oh yeah, the "colour" in the title refers to the green five-ringgit note and the blue one-ringgit note.

Of kindness

I came across this article today: The Critical Importance of Kindness

It's rather long, with descriptions of the studies that were carried out to arrive at their conclusions. But I wanted to save these bits here, some general truths, we could say.

Extract 1:

There are two ways to think about kindness. You can think about it as a fixed trait: either you have it or you don’t. Or you could think of kindness as a muscle. In some people, that muscle is naturally stronger than in others, but it can grow stronger in everyone with exercise.

Extract 2:

[...] in general, couples responded to each other’s good news in four different ways that they called: passive destructive, active destructive, passive constructive, and active constructive.

Let’s say that one partner had recently received the excellent news that she got into medical school. She would say something like “I got into my top choice med school!”

If her partner responded in a passive destructive manner, he would ignore the event. For example, he might say something like: “You wouldn’t believe the great news I got yesterday! I won a free t-shirt!”

If her partner responded in a passive constructive way, he would acknowledge the good news, but in a half-hearted, understated way. A typical passive constructive response is saying “That’s great, babe” as he texts his buddy on his phone.

In the third kind of response, active destructive, the partner would diminish the good news his partner just got: “Are you sure you can handle all the studying? And what about the cost? Med school is so expensive!”

Finally, there’s active constructive responding. If her partner responded in this way, he stopped what he was doing and engaged wholeheartedly with her: “That’s great! Congratulations! When did you find out? Did they call you? What classes will you take first semester?”

Among the four response styles, active constructive responding is the kindest. While the other response styles are joy-killers, active constructive responding allows the partner to savor her joy and gives the couple an opportunity to bond over the good news.

¡Tengo un nivel medio!

I found a vocabulary test through Vocabat. (Links to the tests are at the bottom of the post)

I first tried out the Spanish test, and ended up with 17%.

The result said "Este es el nivel de una persona no nativa con un nivel medio." This means that I have an intermediate level for a non-native Spanish speaker. Not bad, I would say...but I didn't exactly know those words...it went more like this: "Oh, I think I've seen this word before, it looks similar to this word in French/English, it should mean the same thing!" followed by pressing "J" for yes. (no, I don't call that cheating :P )

I next tried out the English test. Vocabat had mentioned that there was an English test, but I couldn't find it at first. Then I read through the result more carefully and found this line: "Si quieres participar en nuestro estudio en Inglés pincha aqui". (If you would like to participate in our study in English please click here. Or something to that effect.)

As I filled in my details for the English test, I realized that I might have been better off taking this one first. Because when I was filling in the Spanish form, I had to read each question slowly, trying to figure out what it meant! (but the silver lining is that I found out I could understand, albeit foggily :) )

Then on to the words. Unsurprisingly, I scored a lot better than in the Spanish test.

80%, and it says "You are at the top level!" So...what if I get higher than that? :P

I'm glad that I didn't get tricked by any of the fake words, be it in English or in Spanish. Yay! But I did get tricked in the opposite way... as in, I answered that "rememberable" was a non-word because I was afraid that it was a trap. :s The same goes for a few other words that sounded okay, but weren't widely used.

I wish they had a French test too. That would be interesting to take and compare against my English and my Spanish.

If you would like to try out the test, here are the links:
English: http://vocabulary.ugent.be/

Spanish: http://vocabulario.bcbl.eu/


Note: The title translates to "I have a medium level!" I decided not to take too many risks and keep it simple, reusing the words in the test result. And the inverted exclamation mark is used in Spanish; every exclamation (or question) starts with an inverted exclamation (or question) mark, and ends with a "normal" one. ¿Entendido? Understood?

A box tent can save your pizza

Some time ago, I said I was a logophile.

Today I received an e-mail from MentalFloss (which I have written about before) asking, "Fancy yourself a logophile ... and didn't have to look up "logophile"?" Thanks to Andrea, I didn't need to look it up! :)

The topic of the day was "enjoyable names for relatively common things". And from that e-mail, I found out what a "box tent" was.

The plastic table-like item found in pizza boxes is called a box tent and was patented in 1983. Most people in the biz now call it a pizza saver.

Sure, I had seen this thing in pizza boxes before, and the first time I saw it, I thought it was a great idea. But I had no idea it was patented!

Some other interesting words:

The string of typographical symbols comic strips use to indicate profanity ("$%@!") is called a grawlix.

It is likely that I will forget this word soon.

An agraffe is the wire cage that keeps the cork in a bottle of champagne.

The same with this one.

A single slice of bacon is called a rasher.

Now, a rasher of bacon is something I have heard of before. :) Did they come from an Enid Blyton book?

And now the last one I want to share:

The web between your thumb and forefinger is called the purlicue (and is pronounced just like "curlicue"). Acupuncturists say pinching it will make headaches go away.

I doubt I will remember what a purlicue is, but I sure hope I remember to pinch it when I have a headache. Do remind me if I've forgotten and am complaining about a headache!

And in case you don't know (I didn't), a curlicue is

a decorative curl or twist in calligraphy or in the design of an object.

Now that I see the definition, I think I've looked up this word before. :P

So there you go. Did you learn a few new words today?

How Running Man put my blog into a coma

Because Running Man is strong, really strong.

I don't think I've mentioned Running Man here before. It is a Korean variety show where the members go through different challenges each week, sometimes together with a few guests. Not sure when was the first time I watched it, but after WW introduced me to a few "better" episodes, I decided to watch it from the beginning, so that I could "get" all the inside jokes.

If you look at the archives on the sidebar you will see that I blogged only seven times in 2013. I had noticed that earlier this year, but I figured that I just didn't have much to write about, or that I was just feeling lazy. But the other day I was just telling someone that I had caught up on the Running Man episodes at the end of last year (or beginning of this year, I'm not really sure), and it suddenly hit me - this could be the actual reason for my lack of blog posts!

You see, I don't force myself to write here. I try to find interesting things to write about, or more accurately, I try to find interesting ways to write mundane stuff ('cause my life is mundane... :P ). But I never tell myself, "Hey, you have to sit down and write something to post, it's way overdue!" No, I don't... because then the post quality would go down. (as if the post quality were very good to begin with...but at least it isn't trash - not by my standards anyway - and I intend to keep it that way ;) ) But despite not forcing myself to write, I do find that I do get ideas to write now. And I do feel the motivation to write, as in "Hey, I want to tell this story!" Which brings me back to the reason why that didn't happen in 2013.

I believe that I started watching Running Man (from the first episode) towards the end of 2012. Because it was at the end of that year that Lai Shin came to visit me, and I remember showing her the second episode. And it took me a little more than a year (up to the end of 2013) to view three and a half years' worth of episodes (sounds impressive but not really, since it is a weekly show and I could watch it any day of the week).

So before I caught up to the current episodes, I filled up almost all my free time with Running Man. Each time I had about one and a half to two hours to spare, I would start watching the next episode. Some days I would spend the whole day watching several episodes back to back; it was easy since I could pause the video any time I wanted, go and do something (such as defrost food, marinate food, cook food, eat food...yup, that's the weekend routine :P ) then come back and continue watching between tasks. I guess that was more appealing than typing on my blog (sorry, blog, I love you but I think I love Running Man more).

Another side effect of this Running Man addiction is that I stopped reading so much. I had a subscription at the local library (we pay the subscription and it's valid for a year), but my book-borrowing slowed down to a trickle a few months before my subscription ended (which was sometime in April-June 2013). This was partly because I had bought a number of books from the Big Bad Wolf book sale, and I was alternating reading those and reading the ones from the library. But now that I think of it, Running Man was also a factor. If I hadn't been watching all those episodes, I would probably have read a lot more.

And as a result, I have not visited the library since my previous subscription ended. And this is a huge irony because in June 2013 I started working in the same building where the library is situated. One of the reasons I was happy about moving there was that I could visit the library really easily during lunch break. Guess what? It didn't happen. Not once! And we're moving to another office in July. Darn it!

So, back to Running Man. Since the beginning of this year, I am up-to-date and only have an episode a week to watch. Sometimes it is a pity, and I miss those days when I could have a new episode to watch any time I wanted.

As a consolation, at least my blog is revived now.

Shall we bring this to Charmander?

As part of the office-moving process to Innoplex (currently we are in Cyberplex), we have been asked to suggest names for the meeting rooms in the new building.

Unsurprisingly, this one-track mind of mine has come up with a - perfect? - solution: Use Pokemon names. Seeing how many different Pokemon there are, there is no shortage of names to use.

(With me in the picture, both WW and a colleague came up with the exactly same idea when I brought up the subject.)

So here you go, the idea all fleshed out:

Proposal for meeting room names in Innoplex

This is a proposal to use Pokemon names for the meeting rooms. As the number of meeting rooms is less than 150, the names of first generation Pokemon will suffice.

There are seven (7) floors in all, we therefore propose using a sub-theme for each floor, namely Pokemon types. Below we will assign a theme to each floor, followed by a few examples of names.

1st (ground) floor: Ground/Rock type - Sandshrew Room, Diglett Room, Onix Room, ...

2nd floor: Water type - Squirtle Room, Staryu Room, Lapras Room, ...

3rd floor: Electric type - Pikachu Room, Magnemite Room, Voltorb room, ...

4th floor: Grass type - Bulbasaur Room, Oddish Room, Bellsprout Room, ...

5th floor: Fire type - Charmander Room, Vulpix Room, Magmar Room, ...

6th floor: Flying type - Pidgey Room, Spearow Room, Zubat Room, ...

7th floor: Legendary/Fossil type - Articuno Room, Zapdos Room, Kabuto Room, ...

I have thought this over, you see...my place will be on the third floor, so naturally Pikachu room should be on the third floor. :P

Well, one can dream... So now excuse me while I go to Pikachu.

Who's more scared here?

I saw a couple of puppies in the parking area today. When I first walked up to them, they took a step towards me (put their paws on the divider, actually). I got scared and backed a few steps away...then took out my phone to snap a photo. As I inched nearer again to take the photo, they in turn got scared... and ended up hiding their faces like this:

Aiyak...

Then I went out to buy my breakfast, and when I came back, I tried again:

Cute ^_^