Industrial Attachment / ITP = Legalised Exploitation.

I'm frustrated at how things are turning out at NCS. I am not frustrated at NCS, but rather Singapore Polytechnic for failing to protect us students from being exploited and treated unfairly at the companies we work at.

And sadly, I'm one of those who have been treated unfairly. Firstly, I am not unhappy with the colleagues or bosses there at all. They are really nice people. Again, its Singapore Poly or even MOE that I am unhappy with.

What I am unhappy with. The allowances we recieve as attachment students at these company. I fail to see any reason why we don't recieve the equivalent of Temp Staff pay as an O'level certificate holder while being on attachment. Allow me to explain my situation.

I am an attachment student from Singapore Poly, YEAR 2 to NCS. I recieve an attachment student allowance from NCS of $500 and NO OVERTIME PAY. My work revolves around IT services and networks. The attachment is part of my course, Diploma in INFORMATION COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY, an IT-course. I'm 25 yrs old, and have completed NS.

A temp staff recently came in, but NOT on attachment. He too is from Singapore poly, but YEAR 1. He is enrolled in the Diploma in MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, and has NO FORMAL IT TRAINING. He is payed $7 an hour, and contracted til mid APRIL, same as me. With the amount of OT we are doing, he'll be getting approximately $1000 a month.

The situation is this. He's a new guy, with no IT experience. And I'm the one who has to TEACH him the basics to our work there.

Can you see the point of my frustration?

Singapore Polytechnic has failed to prevent me from being exploited as an IA student. listening to the rain... 1:02 AM 0 comments

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Chinese New Year: Refueling

If there was something I felt good about this Chinese New Year, is that I've mastered the art of in flight refueling on the sim. Of course, this would not have been the case if not for pointers and valuable lessons given to me by my dearest uncle.

So the end result was:


Taught by an RSAF Colonel. How's that? =D

Don't know what this is all about? Basically, most military aircraft can top up their gas in mid air in order to travel further. Its not like driving up to the gas station, where all you gotta do is stop the car, get out, start the pump, wait and meanwhile look for your credit card.

The gas station is basically a flying 737, or in this case, a KC-10, loaded with fuel. You rendezvous in mid air, 20 000ft (8000 meters or so) above the ground, traveling at more than 300 nautical miles an hour, and fly less than 60 ft (20m) apart from each other. One wrong move, and its a short funeral.


Doesn't look too scary? Look closer.


See the yellow, green and red straw?


Yeap, its connected to THAT.

Man, I gotta show him these pictures. Haha. I'm a good student, what can I say? listening to the rain... 12:00 AM 0 comments

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bleah

Its not that I want to die. Its that I'm not interested in life.

There's so many things about life. But I'm just not interested. Don't worry, I'm not gonna do anything stupid. I Just need to get things out. Everyday, I wake up... hoping that I'd encounter something or someone that would grab my attention, my focus. Something that would be interesting...

But everyday, every week, every month.. its just the routines. In Church, i'm going around in circles... step up, step down... Build relations, get bored of them. In school, just semester after semester of study. Then exams, then the cycle repeats it self.

Damn sian lar. I'm just not interested anymore. listening to the rain... 11:23 PM 0 comments

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Fish on my hand.

Why the title?

Cos I really had fish on my hand. No, it didn't jump out of my colleagues fish tank. No, I wasn't playing a fool with his fish tank either.

The office had a little "Yu-Sheng" session today. This siao-on uncle beside me lou the yusheng so high up that a piece of it fell on my hand. Along with all the other colored veggies and nonsense.

Doing nothing new in office yet as usual. Still providing mundane task support to the Wireless@SG team. Installing OS for laptop, installing driver, configuring test settings, drawing wireless coverage plans... But at least I'm learning something new about wireless infrastructures everyday.

Yes, today is Valentine's day. No, no one asked me out, I didn't ask anyone out. So there. Worked late in the office, came back and sat in front of my laptop again. Listening to Ray Charle's version of "You Don't know Me."

You think you know me well.
Well You don't know me.
Who dreams of you at night;
And longs to kiss your lips
And longs to hold you tight.

How inappropriate.


Damn it! I wish they'd just stop comparing me with him. Yes, I'm not as charming as he is, I'm not as sociable as he is. So shut it already! ARGHH!!! I'm just not a showy like he is OKAY?! AND NO! I AM NOT EVEN 1/10th AS "GOOD" AS HE IS. SO THERE!

I refuse to live up to expectations that are based one someone else's achievement! Stop asking me to BE MORE LIKE THIS, BE MORE LIKE THAT, BE MORE LIKE HIM. ARGHH! listening to the rain... 11:42 PM 0 comments

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Laugh, Cry or Curse?

2nd day of work an I am at a loss for words. Of course, they are not all caused by work also lar. Cannot be unfair. Still, its frustrating when I don't know how to react.

The colleagues are nice folks lar. Though I can tell that they are a bit disappointed that I wasn't very well network trained. I tried my best to help them in their tasks already, no matter how menial. Unfortunately, the amount of "higher" level work they have to do seems to be overwhelming, and I can't do much to assist them. I'm pretty frustrated at my own inadequacies...

I'm not sure if its me or they are on a different frequency. I can't seem to communicate too well with them. They are friendly, but I'm too quiet. Me quiet = Strange.

These guys are good at what they do. Seems to me like they really know their stuff. Unfortunately, whenever I ask some of them questions, its hard to get an answer. I don't think its them being anti social. I guess they are too overworked? Haiz.

I'm glad I got this attachment. I've already learned so much in a short span of 2 days. But I'm not sure if I can really contribute sufficiently.

Someone brought to my attention a particular proposition that I didn't put to heart before. I didn't think much of it cos I pretty much didn't want to. And for whatever reason, this proposition, this question kept floating around in my head for the past few days. I don't know why... somebody tell me why? listening to the rain... 10:22 PM 0 comments

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First day at NCS

Felt like a 废物 there. I realized how under equipped I was to work with networking with what SP has taught. There was hardly anything I could do except ask questions, and listen. Okay, did a bit of software testing, and some plan drawings. Thats about it.

The day started with me waking up late and taking a cab down. Had to go thru some briefing thing, and get my photo taken for security pass. Had to sign a whole stack of papers and forms, swearing that I'd not disclose secret information blah blah blah.

Met my reporting officer again, and the guy I'd be working with most of the time. After that, spent the rest of the day working with some software thats used to test throughput of networks. Oh, then there was this meeting to decide if using 4 pcs to simulate 10 pcs would provide an accurate gauge of network congestion. I'd figured all along that they should have just gotten 10 laptops to test... and eventually thats what they decided.

Otherwise, I've been pretty useless for the rest of the day. listening to the rain... 10:02 PM 0 comments

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Saturday's entry

I realized I've been posting the day's entry past midnight. Boy that its gonna cause some confusion should I ever try to read my past entries in future.

Finally got to touch my bow after 3 weeks. And yes, after a long break from archery, it does feel a little unfamiliar. Naturally, I didn't shoot very well either. I'm not satisfied, but not totally frustrated by it either. Expected it already. Fortunately, I was able to recover some of my form and season my finger tab a lil by the end of the training. SHARKS!!! I should have brought my finger tab back to season!! DOh!

Went to Bern's place with BK to pass her some anime and stuff after training. I have to admit, her place is bigger than mine. Ha! Spent a little time trying to figure out why her desktop hates my portable hard drive so much. Stupid machines, fussy objects that don't like to be touched by anyone besides their owners.

Oh collected the pineapple tarts I ordered too. Got to sample a bit there too. Its kinda different from the ones my momma used to bake though. Got a very interesting texture to the crust. The kind that melts in the mouth.... That does give me a lil bit of a cotton mouth though.

Pineapple tarts, the nostalgic pastry. When I was a little younger, and still living with my momma. She'd bake Pineapple tarts around this time of the year as well, and I'd be trying to be of some help in the kitchen. For a good reason of course... to steal those slightly over baked tarts! Used to help "print" out those pieces of crust from the dough with a strange pattern thing, and add the additional final touches (egg yolk and a bit of red coloring) to crust to make it look nicer. Or, either that I'd be playing with that wave-y shaped knife, cutting patterns for the tarts.

I still remember perching on a stool while she'd stir at the stupid pineapple paste thing. Adding sugar made the paste taste nicer, but harder to stir as well... Of course, my fav part was scraping the pot once she was done with it. Ho! Thats why I always put on weight before Chinese New Year!

I suppose its nice, that a good portion of my fond memories are closely associated with a popular pastry every CNY. No telling what I'd forget in the years to come.

Living too long. listening to the rain... 1:13 AM 0 comments

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Buffet, 不肥。。。

Shiok leh. Went to Hotel Rendezvous for buffet with Sze, Huixian, Bern, and BK. Really eat until song song. I can't say so for the rest tho, some of them had stomach problems. Poor things. The food good, and the desserts... thinking of them still makes my mouth water. And... theres the smoked salmon... Love that! Just needs a bit of tangy sauce to go with it.

Most of us are archers, and being very healthy folks, like all archers are... heh, we decided to go work out a bit of what we ate. Took them on a 10 min walk down to my favorite, "fitness center." Haven't been there for quite some time already, and it seems they changed a new counter girl. Spent the next 1 or 2 hours play pool! Really athletic sport huh? =D

After an exhaustive work out, the remnants decided to head down to Kbox. Bern and Jessica must have foreseen it, and fled early. Cowards! It was time to test our auditory perception of tones and tunes. Okay lar, I think sze, and huixian being KBOX veterans sang quite alright. BK and I were like... erm... still new to it. Ha!

Quite a fun day, eating, playing, singing, taking stupid photos. A day well spent. If only everyday was like that... HO! Its the last day of my holidays btw. I start work on Monday..., arrrrrhhhhhhhh. DAMN! SP I HATE YOU! listening to the rain... 2:41 AM 0 comments

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Nightmares and missed lunches.

I always get this kinda strange sleepless nights during holidays. Hmmm... its not exactly holidays yet, but yeah, I'm treating this exam period as one.

Been getting some of these horrid nightmares with weird twists to it. Especially the one that I was getting chased by hordes of aliens. No... not AH Lians... ALIENs.


These nasty buggers.

And true to the movies, I wasn't alone and which a whole bunch of people I don't know, called friends. Fortunately, for us, I was armed... with my favorite M4/M203 combination.


My one true love.

Yet, I had this strange habit of misplacing my weapon every time I needed to shoot one of those damned alien things. ARGH. Strangely, we were actually brought to this infestation via an underground shaft from a recently constructed building. In the dream, we were told they accidentally found that connection to an underground building when they were trying to expand their basement.

So happily, for no rhyme or reason I was there with a whole bunch of others, going in to "explore." In the end, we found ourselves being chased by those things, and we were running from one "lift" device to another trying to escape from those blasted things. We'd shoot them, but they just won't die. Argh.

I remember I got cornered by one of those buggers and got ripped to shreds once in the nightmare. Can't describe the feeling of conscious fear... Fortunately, the team I was with had enough data on me to reconstruct me out of this "rebirth" machines. Reminds me of Zegapain... anyways. Ya, I was still alive.

A stroke of luck, or subconscious will, we were somewhat rescued by some people (a la starship trooper?) from the future. They were well armed but still finding these nasty critters a handful. We were picked up onto their ship of some sort that floated above a city. And that was where things got really strange. I was out of bullets, and tried to load color pencils into my magazine... yes color pencils. Some were too long, some just weren't the colors I liked...


Color pencils!

A snap decision was made that I'd go down to the city below... with those alien things running around, raid a few houses and hopefully they'd carry some 5.56 ammo. Fat hope... found nothing and eventually I had to suggest to those future ppl that I borrow one of their weapons for the time being. Which strangely resembles this...


The now-cancelled XM-8.

It was a really really odd dream that felt quite real until the ridiculous color pencil part... =/ I can't remember what happened at the end of the nightmare... All I remember was a lot of fighting and 2 ppl got their heads ripped off, and I had the pleasure of giving the Aliens a taste of "lead poisoning." listening to the rain... 12:39 AM 0 comments

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Self-control and Financial Freedom.

After some deliberation, I've come to the conclusion that the words, "Self-control", and "financial freedom" are oxymorons.

According to wikipedia,
Self control is the exertion of one's own will on their personal self - their behaviors, actions, thought processes. Much of this comes from the perception of self and the ability to set up boundaries for that self. Self-control can be expanded into several different areas, ranging from respect to willpower.

Seriously, does self control truly exist? And is it truly an exercise of one's own will? I do not think so. We live our daily lives under influence of everyone and everything around us. It is the will of others; system, society or people, thats imposed upon our lives. Our desire to exercise "self-control" or "OUR own" will is more than often to curb ourselves and to bend over to the impositions upon us.

For example, a person has been told he talks too much tries to exert his own will to not blabber as much. Is that an exercise of self-control? Is it his own free will and desire? No. It is the will of others imposed upon him, and he is just executing the WILL of OTHERS or risk being rejected. "I shan't eat so much ice cream or i'll grow fat." Isn't it society's picture of slim beauty thats imposed into Your thought?

Hence, self-control is but a process of assimilation into society, the people around you. So what is true self control? True self-control is when you decide what the rules are, and make others bend over backwards to your rules. Either by influence or by force. So you truly think YOU are in control of YOUR life?


Financial Freedom: by popular definition, Financial freedom describes a well-planned lifestyle where one no longer is required to work for income to cover their expenses.

Another cleverly crafted new world idea. That one can be truly free from the reigns of currency. Even if you are rich, even if your lifestyle is such that you don't need to work for income to cover expense, you are still living a limited lifestyle to ensure you do not "over" spend your passive income. And thats just materialistically speaking.

True financial freedom comes only under 2 circumstances. Abolishment of currency. Nobody needs to pay for anything anymore... we do as we please, take as we please as resources would be unlimited in such a situation. That would be like.... erm maybe when Jesus returns.

The other circumstance is financial freedom in your mind. That you, whole heartedly can't give a hoot to much money you have or do not have. In your ideal ways, everything's fine even if you have no cash, things will work out. You spend when needed, and don't matter how much you spend as long as you feel is worth it. Congratulations, u're either not of this planet or a nutjob. Bottom line, everybody cares about money.

Of course, there is financial freedom in becoming a monk, and giving up all your belongings. You would be FREE OF FINANCES. No more financial burdens! However, please contact me when you do intend to become a monk. I would selflessly shoulder the burden of whats left of your bank account.

OH, and the last way of financial freedom that we ALL CAN ATTAIN!!! Die and be buried 6ft under. You'll have financial freedom for all of eternity!

Moral of the story: At the end of the day, you're still gonna be somebody's bitch (unless you intend to start a revolution and overwhelm popular culture, laws and ethos). And you'd still have money problems.

Blimey, I should be studying. listening to the rain... 9:07 PM 0 comments

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