Time to say goodbye

Departure and farewell is part of our discovery journey. We bid farewell to the old and greet the new. It is no stranger for me as well but somehow this round it is different. I can still recall my last day of my form 5, form 6 and university. It was not as heavy hearted as what I am experiencing now.

I guess the different now is I am the only one leaving...leaving my close friends and buddies I made throughout my 3 years there. Back in school time, it was a departure for everyone. We were all occupied with farewell greetings for each other. So it was less emotional and easier to deal with.

Mmmmm....I have already made all the necessary past down earlier and returned my laptop today as I am worried that tomorrow will be an emotional and unproductive day for me. Hope that I will be able to stay calm and not over emotional tomorrow.

Lastly I hope that our friendship stays strong beyond the Intel boundary.

Time to move on

This has been troubling me for so long...finally I have made my decision to move on after 3 complete years of serving...
Now I really enjoyed my time in intel...hooray!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Blessing Quarter

Finally back to my blog...really a long stop since my last post.

It has been a busy quarter be it at work, study or home.

Glad that a lot has been accomplished. I am really happy now that so much has been sorted out.

Anticipating my new start and am certain that postgraduate is something I really want and something I can accomplish.

Now that I have the green light from both my academic and my industry supervisor, I just have to kick start my project. No more procrastination, Sze Wan!

Close to drown

To much of distraction at a time. I could not concentrate. This song totally spell out my feeling now.

Another trip came, another canceled

From the pretty empty weekend schedule in the last 2 years, my weekends now are demanding and tiring. With my master program on, I can not have much time for myself.

Sob, sob sob...

Then one plan came, another canceled.

Initially my travel plan for this year was

Family trip in Bali on 13 to 19 June 2010
VTSM gals in Hanoi on 16 to 24 October 2010

with 1 or 2 other short weekend getaways

Then suddenly came my business trip to Folsom from 15 to 30 May 2010. As I was just in the transition mode, trying to cope with new work allocation and study, I have to cancel my trip to Bali :-(

I can not make it to join my department in our quarterly teambuilding. It is so not cool to be able to plan and prepare but unable to join in the very activities. So no teambuilding for me on the 26 June 2010.

And now, I got selected to represent our country to Korea in the Malaysia - Korea International Exchange Program from 2 to 11 July 2010. I will have to skip 2 more weeks of class and a little more money to spend and less annual leave left. With this, I am uncertain if I can still make it for my Hanoi trip. However I will keep this option for now.

To summarize my annual travel calendar

• 15 - 30 May 2010 - Business trip at Folsom, California, USA
• 13 - 19 June 2010 - Family trip to Bali, Indonesia (PPKed)
• 26 June 2010 - Teambuilding at Cameron Highland (Withdraw)
• 2 - 11 July 2010 - Malaysia - Korea International Exchange Program in Seoul, Korea
• 16 - 24 October 2010 - VTSM gals to Hanoi, Vietnam (tentative)

Happy for some to happen :D and sad that some got canceled :S

the longest day of my life, 15th May 2010

15th May 2010 was a super long day. The longest day of my life with a total of 39 hours with a total of 22 hours spent on transit and on flight.

The journey was very bumpy on our way above the Pacific Ocean. Luckily my pill took effect and I managed to doze off despite the unpleasing economic seat. It was more spacious on window seat and safe to have the cabin wall and window to lean and look out upon.

Best of all about this trip was that all the immigration and custom clearance procedure seems so smooth...not a single beep from Penang to Singapore then to Hong Kong and San Francisco.

Oh...not to forget, Changi Airport deserved all the extremely good reviews. So much to see and so much to do there. There were activities and spaces for everyone! But Hong Kong airport has more stores for shoppaholics.

I better go on bed now and today is going to be a long day. SF 49 miles scenic here I come!

Am now in Changi Airport

So tired now...cant do much other than surfing the internet and window shopping. Saving all my credit limit for my time in Califonia.

Hope that I can have a smooth flight to SF(best to be without the pills) and may I get immigration clearance smoothly.

Oh yes...I just get my flight ticket issued. Both isle and window seats are out :S I want my window seat so badly for the comfort and the view.

Photos from the last team building

I was so lazy to update my blogs. I have actually written quite a number of posts but was too lazy to edit my photos for the posts.

As picture speak a thousand words, here I present you only photos from my last team buildings.

VTSM Q1 '10 Teambuilding : CNY Shopping Spree

As usual, I was in the OC team again. I have been drained with TB since I joined the group. Luckily we still managed to deliver and everyone enjoyed it.


All TB couldn't run without a great meal. So another round of buffet. This time at Tao Cuisine and Lounge at e-Gate.


We would rate the food below expectation. The new menu was not appealing and the service was rather poor. It was slow at the beginning...starving us :S. But towards the end, they could not stop serving us. Keep bringing food to our table and caused us so much of confusion. Food has been passed across tables. We were overloaded.


After the meal, we headed to the QB. Our 1st game as well as the most enjoyable game was at the Jusco Arcade. All of us were like 大小孩, having fun playing the arcade and best was winning the game here entitle our group to additional RM4 allowance to shop with in the following game.


Last event of the day was the shopping. We were given a whole long list of clues for CNY item to shop for.


It was an enjoyable teambuilding despite the rather so so experience at the Tao. We love arcade and we want more of that.

IIP : White Cane Day and Mangrove Planting

These were the 2 recent Intel Involved Program that I joined. I was really into the programs, so they were no photos out of my lovely EOS.

White Cane Day...it was on last October 10th, 2009. There were approximately 200 participants, each volunteer was paired up with 1 visual impaired participant from St. Nicholas. I was enjoying my time talking to him through out our journey.

photographed by Shiu Inn

great to learn from him...he was so optimistic and brave. We were both same age. He was normal until few years back.

Mangrove Tree Planting...it was on 7th November at the Sg. Sembilang, Juru. We were there to plant hundreds of trees. It was under the hot sun at close to 10.30am. I almost fainted at the site after planting teens of trees. Really exhausting to pull myself out of the mud...aiks...I got myself dirty and scratches on over my feet and hands.....Anyway it was an enjoyable and valuable project.

half my pants were in mud...this is how I was after 1 round of washing

VTS Q3 '09 Teambuilding - Georgetown Scavenger Hunt

After planning long for this teambuilding, it was finally over.

It was really an interesting teambuilding for my team. Here were some questions I prepared for my team building.
Actions on the day.

And usual, we have a great meal...buffet lunch at Sarkies Corner, E&O Hotel.

missed a lot of the nice desserts...all participants were rushing out...I want to enjoy my desserts

VTSMers rocks! We enjoyed our teambuilding very much!
And we are the 2 persons behind the game...me

...and Huey Ling

Havoc at work

It was an unfruitful day at office.

Last week during my training, I have to restart my workstation at cube as my offline tester was troublesome. So I went ahead with shutdown -r -t 0 remotely. The workstation which was 1km away from where I was could not boot up into window automatically. Somehow the machine just stuck at BIOS waiting for a local F1 key to boot up...really stupid wasn't it? Luckily with my colleague's help (technically to go to my cube n press the F1 key) the machine boot up fine and I was able to remote login into the machine again. Actually I learned about this problem a month ago but just not bothered as I was busy with some other work.

At the same time, I have issue on my laptop as well. Our IT seemed to force BIOS upgrade on all HP6910p laptop inclusive of mine but the upgrade package was screwed up. Obedient Sze Wan always proceed with the package installation but somehow this package installation was like forever. I installed it for nth times till I finally have to call for installation postpones which in this case, I only have the choice to postpone 60 minutes each time. So just imagined working on a laptop which has a pop up every 60 minutes asking you to install a package...really annoying right?

So today, I have a little bandwidth and decided to solve my problems on both the workstation as well as my laptop.

First, it was the laptop. Contacted the service desk via the chat service and reported my problem. He was very helpful...trying all ways to solve it...checking my registry and event, manually call for the package execution, waited patiently for the installation and for an auto restart(which never happen) yet all these were not working. So he got me to restart my laptop and he continued with his diagnostic. Finally he proposed that I have my hard disk encryption disable and perform the installation again.

So reboot my machine and went into the bios setup...poor me...tried tens of my common possible password combination but failed to get pass the setup password. Without this password, I would not able to get into the setup window to disable my password encryption as suggested by him...trying hard to memorize if I have placed a setup password before and what could it be. It was running late for lunch time...hungry :S

Then I did a little google for some quick tricks and I found this.


It may be useful but not for my case. This laptop is a company property...no way that I can dismantle it and remove the battery. So after lunch, I went back to him for help. He has no idea and his solution was me sending the laptop over to PC service center for the technician to trouble shoot on my issue.

Guess what, it took the technician less than 5 minutes to solve the puzzle. They actually have a default setup password on my laptop...how come this was not known to the service desk personnel?...arggghhh!

So after getting into the setup window and disable my hdd encryption, I headed back to my cube to proceed with the upgrade installation. Installed as like my previous attempt and still no auto reboot as being suggested by the installation package. I was worried it didn't work out for me again. Anyway I just called for manual reboot and thank god for it was finally working. At reboot, upgrading process finally shot off...yes!

Done with laptop, I moved on to my workstation. I contacted the service desk again. This time it was she who came to help. After understanding my problem, she checked on my WS and suggested that it was not due to force BIOS upgrade as I was guessing about as there was no record of any Bios upgrade of my WS in their system. I asked for solution and she suggested that I reboot my WS and check on the BIOS, much like what I did earlier....problem with quick boot option or my boot priority...as I was no expert in this field, I did as she suggested.

Repeating my previous attempt with a little more on here and there. By the end of today, this problem was not solved yet. I have escalated this issue further to the service desk and really hope that they can solve my problem tomorrow with few simple steps.

I was really stressed out by this small problems...these problems didn't seem very important but may be ‘phek chek’ especially during my critical time.

And I really dislike facing all these problems...they were more tiring compared to my project development work...

Busy life!

I have been busy for the past days...really tiring.

7 June (Fri) - went for the last bowling training at Penang Bowl before the competition during lunch time. Best score of the day 117...not good but not too bad ;P.

In the evening, dinner cum meeting with sister guides at Louis Cafe at Argyll Road to discuss about our coming QGG camp...great time with friends but the food was not up to expectation based on recommendation from other food hunter.

8 June(Sat) - Went shopping with sis and mum. 1st thing that we got was my new Sony Ericson W595. This was my first ever self paying new mobile phone. I was reluctant to pay so much for a phone cause I am not those upfashion people. Was hoping that for my big bro will change his soon and I could just take over his piece but too bad that my KRZR K1 was not inline with my plan. So another RM730 gone this year for my gears...one lens just flew away :S

We also shopped for my bro's new house 红彩 I also got my baking materials...butter, flour, almond chuck, corn flakes, baking powder, sodium bicarbonate, brown sugar, fine sugar, raisin and cherries.

9 June(Sun) - Accompanied my mum to do some grocerries. By noon, I started my baking. First I made the cornflakes raisin cookies dough then kneed them into bite size pieces followed by the making the almond cookies. It took me close to 4 hours to complete the 4 portions of those biscuits.

10 June(Mon) - Stuck in the traffic jam in the early morning...damn...followed by Monday blues throughout the day.

11 June(Tues) - This was a super tiring day. My day started as early as 7.30am and only got to leave office at 8pm. I was early in office for my weekly team meet with my team mates in US at 7.30am. Then from noon onwards, I was in the Auditorium for the DTTC Conference, I was in as participant cum AV volunteer. So it was good to be able to grasp so much from the conference though I was lost at times. I have learn and acquire a lot of new information and technology. Those presenters are really geeks....salute them for their passion and commitment in developing super advance tech. This conference lasted for 7 hours. By the time I arrived home, it was after 8.30pm.

12 June(Wed) - This was my worse day of the week. It was my mum's birthday. I have arrange for dinner with my family members and at the same time I was also involved in our PCD cup, bowling competition which I have totally forgoten when it was scheduled for. Anyway I managed to sort them out on last minute.

So at 4pm, I left office for Penang Bowl. I winded my car window down as it was extremely hot after hours under the sun...this was when my nightmare begin...That stupid power window could not work. It would not be a big deal if I was unable to get it open but it was really shit when I could not wind it up after getting it all down...I was hoping that things would get better after a while but it didn't.

So I have no choice but to head to a mechanic...didn't expect him to repair it completely but expecting a simple workaround like some bypass just temporary get the window winded up first so that I would not be too late for my game. At first the mechanic said it was the switch that malfunction and advise me to have that change. I agreed since he insisted that the switch was really broken and it was a few minutes work...so RM130 just for the stupid switch. Aparently that simple switch took me close to half hour.

When he was done with the switch, the damn window still wasn't moving. Then he continued with his diagnosis procedure and concluded that the motor was broken too due to the malfunction switch. He disamble the unit and showed me the parts saying that the motor's carbon was already exhausted. He can only simply clean it and made it work...so he disambled the part and asembled it back. Too bad that after all the processes, it still could not work. Again I have been place in a position that I could only agreed to his advice. So another RM60 to get the motor change....

After all the dissamble and assemble, I think he must have felt bad for the wrong diagnostic and he suggested that I changed at least the motor. So again I did as he say...saving me that RM130 but wasted my whole one and a half hour there.

I finally arrived at Penang Bowl at close to 6.30am. I felt so bad for not being there for my group. I felt that I was a stranger to my own group. So I decided to keep myself low and be there just a supporter cum cameraman...walk a round for few shots and cheered for PEDAS...till my sister's arrival at 7.30pm.

We drove all the way to Batu Feringghi's Mario's to celebrate my mum's 51st birthday. It was a costly dinner but we enjoyed our night out.

13 June(Thurs) - I could not recall what I had on that day...

14 June(Fri) - my lunch meeting was canceled for my manager was not in. So during lunch I ask Pau and KH out. It has been 2 years since I last met KH....got a great lunch at Apex Cafe.

In the evening, Vern Han and I called for sister guides gathering at her bor's house in tanjung Bungah...got a great time catching up with everyone else...eat and chat till after midnight...oh yes...must mention here that everyone love my cookies :D

15 June(Sat) - went to RedBox at Gurney for karaoke session with YY, KM and MY. In the evening, I attended the Arabian Night organized by the Danz Club. Was there to support Slyvia and Anne...really great to see them enjoy themselves on the dance floor....I just could not imagine myself on the floor...perhaps it would be a 'KAYU' strolling around the floor...haha.
16 June(Sun) - After a tiring week, I decided to stay back at my room in Jelutong. It was a cleaning day as well as a movie marathon day...finally finished with my Desperate House Wife season 5....phew...

Leisure trip on Seberang

This was my very first personal outing with VTSMers. We have been talking about going round Butterworth for food hunt but nothing happened until last Sunday.

FF, SY, SL and YC met up with me at McD Juru Autocity at 8.30am. Our first destination was 7 Village Noodle House. This was one of my frequent breakfast shop. I love the kuey teow theng very much especially the semi dry one. Their ramen was good too. Though a little pricy, it was still recommended and a well worth dish. The ramen was RM5.70 which came in a huge protion with generous topping...a half boiled egg, 3 sliced of pork and minced pork. The kuey teow theng was RM2.70 each with rich and clear soup base with minced pork. There were other side dishes available. Personally I favoured their fish nugget and lo bak. Their tong shui was good as well...with the correct sweatness and generous portion of ginko and longan.
Then we continued our trip to Jeti Batu Musang, Batu Kawan to board our boat over to Pulau Aman. The boat ride was RM6 per person for 2 ways and the boat was very frequent. We arrived at Pulau Aman at about 10.15am. We were blessed for it turned sunny after a short while of cloudy day. The breeze was cooling.

Jeti Batu Musang, Batu Kawan...the only jetty to get boat to Pulau Aman

4 VTSM gals and me...set to Pulau Aman

From the old jetty, we walked towards the new jetty passingby the Restoran Terapung. Then heading back and round the island on the other side. There were more occupants on the right of the island. We walked passed the very 'kampung' feel fishing village to Telaga Emas. It has been years since I last stepped into a real Kampung...no traffic, no chaos and no pollution.

natural born model...

the bread winning tools

After going around, we headed back to the Restoran Terapung for our Mee Udang. It was already packed up with customers and we managed to get the 2nd last table available. We were thristy but to our dissapointment, the coconut drinks were sold out...having no other choice, we have to get do with can drinks.

The restaurant received more and more customers. There were many who have to wait for their tables. While we waited long for our Mee Udang. The mee udang was good. RM6 per plate with 3 medium size udang. It taste good...the noodle was soft and flavoured with the soup base. You will definitely like this if you favour '鲜味'.

Until we were about to finish our meal and when i was about o get another can drink, the coconut drink finally arrived...yes the Thailand fragrant coconut was here. I could not resist the chill coconut. Finished it within few sips.

We saw more and more customer walking in and many with bags of prawn mantis. So I went to the jetty to check out. Many were waiting for the fishmen to dock, bringing their harvest. However baskets of harvest were sold off within minutes. 2 families bought all the harvests. We would have to wait for the next sampan if we wished to feast on the prawn mantis and crab.

So we went back to the shore empty handed. YC left early while we continued to Seberang Jaya food court for Yoyo drinks. Everyone love the peanut blend very much...RM1.50 drink that surely satisfy everyone at all time :D

It was still alive when we arrived on the other shore...fresh

Then we went to the Sunway Carnival Mall for a karaoke session in the Amp Square Center. This was my first visit since it was open years back. The system was much better than Reb Box in Gurney Plaza and at a slightly cheaper price too...yeah...found a good spot to kill some time during holiday. This was also a great activity after hours of eating non stop.

Finally for dinner, I brought them to Wai Sek Kai in Chai Leng Park and we patroned the Sim Corner Lok Lok Restaurant. I have not been to this shop but have heard a lot about it's great variety of sauces.

The sauces were delicious. I love the red chile sauce, the thai sauce and sweet garlic sauce best. The sambal udang was very good too. It has a lot of dried prawns...yummy!

SY discovered a stall selling Leng Chee Kang ...Hello Kitty Leng Chee Kang. It has a lot variety of ingredient...definitely worth the RM2.50. The stall also sells a bowl of leng chee kang with extra ingredient at RM4...This was surely way much better that the 'Leng Lui Tong Shui' at Jelutong Market.

the whole bowl was filled with the yummy ingredients

Our trip ended at close to 9pm...great day with great food and people!

For more photos, please refer to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=94142&id=533382630&l=6b6f7a4c1a

CBW...after close to a decade

This was my 2nd official visit to my alma matter CBW. My first visit was 2 years back for guiding movement while this time, I was there representing Intel in our Intel Involved Program, Marine Conservation Awareness Campaign.

The school got a major face lift at the hall, the co-curiculum corner(at the old bicycle shed) and it's gate(the short 100m field track right beside staff room was no longer there and so was the long jump ground) . Other than these, it remained pretty the same as a decade ago.

Back on my our activities there, I signed up for a volunteer program and expecting to share with a small group of students but turned up to be surprised to have the all its students listening to us. As the materials prepared by the OC were limited and goodies being less atractive, we had a little difficult to win the girls attention especially with such a huge crowd and the unclear slide from far back...Imagined our situation on that day...6 volunteers vs ~400 students.

Anyway, we managed to improvise the initial given game and involved the whole school community in our game...We also have the attentions of more than half of our crowd. They were responsive. I was glad that one of the girls actually listen to us at all time and managed to detect the wrong info that I delivered...I will remember the differences between manatees and dugongs for the rest of my life :D

Apart from the talk that we have, I managed to catch up with some of my old teachers...Pn Chew, Ms Pamela, Pn Hasanah, Pn Lee, Pn Lim, Mr Goh and few other. Glad that many still remember me. ;P

Thanks Gan, Nick, Asma, Acu and Jack for making this program a success! KF and Along too.

for more photos, please visit http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=94405&id=533382630&l=93b4d55d3b

My 4th team building with VTS-M

I love team building. This was my 4th team building in VTS-M...2nd that I organized.

In the morning, we played bowling at Penang Bowl. I was in Group 3 with WE, KW and WK. I enjoyed playing bowling with my colleagues. Never expected there were so many master of the game in my department.

WK, WE, KW and me, SW....seem like this group is only for the Ws.

me in action...1st round score - 122...can't remember how many spares and strikes

me...got the Best Female Player...yeah!

After the game, we headed to the E&O hotel's Sarkies Corner. We had a great buffet lunch there. The food was excellent and the price was good as well...Inteller got 15% off...so it was only RM41.05 per person.

my starter...most of the starter dishes were good

I love the curry chicken and the squid...many more main course choices but my stomach just didn't have enough space for all

even though I was full, still could not resist them...these desserts were 10x better than in G-Hotel

syok sendiri after meal... :D

VTSM gals...girl power!