A New Beginning

My first week at DSTA! I can't show you any photos cos I'm not allowed to bring any photo capturing devices in. :P

Contrary to my beliefs, things moved pretty fast here on my first day. Guess they've had so many new recruitments that they've really streamlined the process. I had my staff photo taken in the morning, along with a stationery pack, wind-breaker, polo tee, then issued with a table, and a few cabinets. Collected my staff pass in the afternoon and my own laptop too! It's a dual Core 2, 2GHz machine with 1GB RAM. Woohoo! Cool stuff! :)

Met a lot of people on my first day (about 50 I think), and I only remembered a couple of names. :P

Initially I thought they had taken in the wrong person as I was supposed to do system design and hardware procurement on top of development. In fact, development was more like a side task. I later realised that the job scope of a senior software engineer here and back at my old company's quite different.

Well, it's kinda stressful here, doing things I'm foreign to, but I guess it's a good learning experience. :) There's a lot of specialised stuff here, so that means a sharper learning curve I guess. :)

At the end of the day, it's a brand new beginning! Time to do well and excel here, and avoid making the same mistakes that I've commited. :)

Farewell My Friends

This has been one of the most difficult blog entry to write for me perhaps. This is the final goodbye from me, to my old company and everyone there. Thanks for the memories, and everything I've learnt. Here's the photos from our farewell dinner at Nirai-Kanai Okinawan Restaurant on the 15th of July. :)




I know my departure would mean a shortage of manpower, to the already very short pool. As much as I would have loved to help, I can't. I now have a family to feed, and I cannot do as I like when I was single. Even if I have to go hungry, my wife cannot go hungry.

Moving on wasn't as easy as everyone probably would have thought. This is, after all, the place I grew up in. I've had many memories here, memories of every shape and size...

I know I might not have lived up to everyone's expectations, but I did give it my best shot. I kinda screwed up the sales position that I took up, but I take comfort in the fact that I stepped up to the position at a time they needed it. The sales position was so demanding that I could not do any of my programming work at the same time, and guess what? The delivery got delayed and I scored another own goal... Haha... So much for trying to help...

Anyhow, I've done up everything that my boss told me to do for my handover and I even did up a few extra user guides for some of the past projects that I've done so whoever's taking over would have an easier time. I didn't have to do it, but I did it anyhow. The last project that I did wasn't complete (the customers still had things to add), so I didn't do up the documentation (I wasn't told to do it anyway). Everything else is there, and I can sleep peacefully at night knowing I don't owe anyone anything... :)

I would just like to end off with a thought. If you feel that the grass is greener on the other side, either take a brave step to explore the other side, or start watering your side. Doing nothing and hoping things would turn out for the better needs nothing short of a miracle. :)

Jenesis Lost?

07-07-07 came and went, and so where's Jenesis?

Sorry folks, Jenesis got delayed. I couldn't deliver.

I was trying my darndest hardest best to squeeze something tune out during my two weeks vacation in Greenland, but nothing came out of it. I wrote some words and I sketched out some pictures and that was it.

Naturally, I was disappointed. This was the first major project that I was to undertake after my wedding, and I messed it up. Messing it up was expected though. I didn't do much to make it come to pass.

In my disappointment, God showed me a vision of Genesis; how from nothingness He created everything and made the Earth and made man to populate the Earth. It was God's intention to create us from the very very beginning, but He did not create man first, then worry about where to put him. God created the paradise that man would live in, and every little thing that man had needed, every little thing that He had intended man to have dominion over before He even created man.

I had attempted to build my Adam without first building the Garden of Eden. I was very ill prepared to take on the task.

After consideration, I would attribute my failure to two major factors:
1 - Failure to have detailed plans
2 - Failure to act on my plans

I did plan to release the single waaaaay before my wedding even, so technically, I had about 7 months to write the song. I had plans to release the song on 7th of July, but I hadn't made detailed plans to execute the plan. I had not broken down the task into little milestone tasks to accomplish along the way, and I had not factored in the unplanned matters that had eaten up my time (eg. job changing, house maintenance etc).

I need to start taking actions, no matter how rough my plans are. Leaving everything til the last moment and hoping for something good to come out of it requires nothing short of a miracle and a tremendous amount of faith. :p I would really need to invest time and attention to pursuing the goal instead of hoping that I could somehow download a new song from God.

Fail to plan, plan to fail. I'll be making new plans for this and I'll make sure I break it down to manageable and measurable milestone. I will discuss the plans with June so she can be participate in it, and I can be accountable to her to make it come to pass.

We should make plans - counting on God to direct us. (Prov 16:9, TLB)

NDP Preview 07-07-07

Just went for the NDP (pre-)preview for this year, and I must say it's really good!

As the national stadium's no more, this year's NDP is going to be held at the floating platform off Marina Bay! Everything seemed so much prettier with the night cityscape and the Esplanade as a background. Many of the displays made good use of the surrounding water, especially the Navy. This is the first time I've seen the Navy showcase their prowess on a National Day Parade.

Well, as this wasn't the actual preview, there weren't any goodie bags. But well, there were still the fireworks! :) (My sis went for a later preview; they omitted the fireworks! -_-")

Here's the pictures (taken by June and myself)! Enjoy! :)


























You can also view these photos here