I'm in a country...

I'm in a country, where there's a food store, a youngster walks in, holding a mobile, store owner asks for the order, the dude ignores, the dudes is actually on the mobile, talking to a friend, doesn't put the call on hold, doesn't apologize when he finishes the call, goes ahead and stares at the menu.

I'm in a country, where there's an old guy waiting to cross the road, waiting along with a whole bunch of us, waiting and picking his teeth with a toothpick, not bothering to cover his mouth, letting everyone behind him see the full glory of him savoring the moments of him picking his teeth, not feeling the slightest abashment about it, finished picking, aims and throws the toothpick at a drain hole, misses, doesn't feel any abash about that either, crosswalk man turns green, says some joke that incurs a laughter from his friend beside him, walks two steps, bend down, take a spit on the crossing just in front of me (and a whole bunch of people behind me), and continue crossing the road.

What the f* is wrong with this country?

IMO, they should take away all the bloody English modules / tutoring (they don't help anyway even though it is among the highest in the world), and teach them "Civics, moral, manners, and proper human behavior".

そういう食事の文化が受けられん

久々のポストだけど、韓国の食事の文化について話したいと思います。

ここの人にとってはいつものものだけど、僕は納得出来ないわ。
食事のとき、目の前に置いてもらった食べ物なって、一切触れずに残して帰ったこと。

肉でさえも野菜のさえも、食べ物は以前生き物として考えられるだろう。
その生き物を、誰かがその命と取り、殺したり・・・
その料理者を、その生き物を料理に準備したり、作ったり、飾ったり・・・

でも食事者はその料理を食べる「義務」とか一切感じてない、一切触れてない、
その料理をどうやって貰ったその「過程」、頭の中に一瞬でも考えなかっただろう？

僕たち人間、どうしてこの地球で「一番生き物」として存在する権利が持つのだろう。
その権利を持ち、他の「下のもの」を狩り、育み、命を取り・・・
その生き物の命を与えるか取る権利を持つ僕らは、その生き物たちの「神」と成る存在なのかな？

その権利を取ってる罪ゆえに、僕らはその生き物たちの「犠牲」にとって、無視や日常生活や文化の違いとしてするだろうか？

僕は出来ない。
僕は前に置いた食べ物を、食べるぐらいの「尊敬」をあげることしかできない。

この国（他の国でも）、そういう食事文化として、僕は沢山不満を持つ。
毎日の毎日の置いて触れられずキムチ、野菜とか、全部ゴミとして整理するだろう。

その命たちは、無意味で命が奪われた。
その命たちは、無意味で何の役も立てず、ゴミになっちまった。

そこで、僕ら人間は「一番生き物」としてこの星で存在してる。
神あれば、止めてくれるだろう？
神あれば、こんなこと無視しないだろう？
神あるだろう？

そういう食事文化、そういう国、僕は人間同人として、「恥じ」しか言えない。

Engineering job... but not in SG?

quoting => http://forums.salary.sg/education-personal-growth/646-engineering-technology-careers-not-valued-singapore-high-cost-low-tech-4.html

"After reading all your comments, I really do feel compelled to chip in my 2 cents worth.

My stand is that Singapore doesn't really pay that well for its engineers and scientists (techies). While I agree that while techies cannot expect hefty bonuses like the bankers (as they are usually not directly involved with sales), too low pay will cause your tech people to worry and be distracted and not focus on the job. Thus the quality of work is likely to deteriorate.

I have a close friend who just completed a PhD in the defence engineering industry. He's starting salary in Singapore is only 5k after slogging so hard, and that is one of the highest around. I have heard horror stories of other companies paying even lower than that. With this kind of mindset from employers, how can Singapore ever encourage its people (who are super practical and kiasu) to ever go into science and engineering?
Compare this to overseas engineering companies in Israel, where the starting pay for an undergrad (yes u-grad) is $6k SGD. Not absolutely fantastic, but good enough. I have also seen adverts for engineering teachers in Dubai with a 200k+ salary tax FREE.

So my advise would be the same as with many others:

Do engineering and get out of Sg. Stay in Sg, get out of engineering."

"I have been in Software Engineering for 10+ years and I can tell you that it is a lot of hard work , late nights and below average pay when compared to the people in the financial section. But we had our good days (remember the dotcom bubble), when everybody wants to be in Software (even actresses) and salary was rocketing. 

Last few years, globalization has made Software Engineering not so attractive because you have to compete with Engineers from cheaper Asian countries and thus limit your salary. If Singapore engineer pay go up, it has to be justified with higher productivity (which may mean longer working hours) and better innovation (which is easier said than done).

The statements about demand supply is correct, as it more or less sums up the situation I described above. The only silver lining I see is that Singapore has highly motivated and skilled engineers compared to the cheaper Asian countries and many MNCs are aware of that, so they still depend a lot on us to provide their IT solutions.

One question, will the finance and banking industry one day face globalization like IT ? I remember reading that it was already happening with Accounting jobs going to India , but anybody can comment on this?"

The Magic of the Bidet

Imagine you are eating a chocolate cake on a plate. Naturally, some yummy chocolate would have dropped onto the plate. Once you have finished your yummy chocolate, its time to do the dishes. As we are all familiar with, we will rinse the plate (+detergent) under the sink. This gets rid of some of the chocolate, which we proceed to scrub away with a kitchen sponge.

Now... apply the process to wiping the butt after you shit. In a country without bidet, you may use the toilet paper to wipe the butt. If the paper is still dirty, repeat the process. This cycle will go on maybe 5~10 times, depending on how sticky your shit is.

BUT WITH BIDET... it is like rinsing the chocolate off the plate before you wipe (scrub) it. The water jet sprinkles your butt with 3~5 levels of intensity, and with the option to oscillate forwards and backwards to "hit the correct spot". So statistically, after rinsing off the chocolate, you may require 2~4 wipes for your butt, for the same level of stickiness of the chocolate.

(Although I might digress at this point to comment that some individuals might opt to skip the wiping process after rinsing of the chocolate.... I beg to differ and view the wiping process as a necessary routine.)

AND AMAZINGLY, the success is even more evident when your shit is even more sticky! In the event that you have ate something really bad and requires around 20+ wipes to clear... it takes <10 wipes now!!! This is absolutely fabulous because the butt is always so painful after 20+ wipes. And you feel weird if you don't wipe it 99.99% clean.

Oh... why am I writing this? Because I have just engaged in the services of The Bidet, and I am in a happy, songbird-lalala, dancing mood. And I am currently pondering on whether to purchase The Bidet to bring back to Singapore. Comments are welcome.


Coming Up Next:
How The Bidet Seat-Warming feature relaxes your butt and thigh muscles to make you shit better.

Being a nerd made me a sucker for neatness

Refactoring. Whats that? Its a computer term for tidying up code, improving efficiency, renaming user-friendly names, etc. Today, when I saw some code that was like this, I was flabbergasted and fricking tempted to refactor and clean it all up. And I did.

Original:

void SortByColumnA()
{
    (blah)
    (blah)
    (blah)
    MergeSort( start, end, originalArray, finalArray, SortTypeColumnA);
    (blah)
}

void SortByColumnB()

{

    (blah)

    (blah)

    (blah)

    MergeSort( start, end, originalArray, finalArray, SortTypeColumnB);

    (blah)

}

void SortByColumnC()

{

    (blah)

    (blah)

    (blah)

    MergeSort( start, end, originalArray, finalArray, SortTypeColumnC);

    (blah)

}

...(D, E)...

void SortByColumnF()

{

    (blah)

    (blah)

    (blah)

    MergeSort( start, end, originalArray, finalArray, SortTypeColumnF);

    (blah)

}

And so I took all the five... (or was it six) functions, kept one, deleted the rest, and tidied them up. Viola! Pleasant for the eyes. No more feeling like taking out a chopper to find the culprit who did this. Magnificent. Kon-kon.

After:

void SortColumn(SortTypeColumn sortTypeColumn)

{

    (blah)

    (blah)

    (blah)

    MergeSort( start, end, originalArray, finalArray, sortTypeColumn);

    (blah)

}

And I never thought i would write a techy-blog post like this.
Just needed to get it out of my system. I really wanted to tear out my hair when I saw functions A, B, C, D, E, F, with 98% similarity, and only a different variable/function name. Obviously the result of a quick copy-and-paste, modify name, submit and check-in operation. RRRRGGGH.

鼓動：声殺して

異国ゾラの下、僕は盲唖の役演じてた。
骨まで冷える風が、何故友の顔懐かしいだろう

Updates

Hmm... last update was April. So it has been 5 months since I've updated. Well... time flew by pretty fast, and u know, we were all caught up with the tiny, little things that we were doing. But thats not to say I don't miss home, don't miss Singapore, friends and family... but then its just there. As in, its sort of became a way of life... the missing is there, the wonder how friends are doing, but then I can't really do anything about it. The thought slips away fast, and the next morning you check facebook and they seem to be doing well and alright... Everyone feels far away... the thought is there... but the thought is fleeting, gone before you can put pen to paper, gone before you can get a comp and write it down in a blog post.

Although occasionally I jot some thoughts down in my phone (its drowned and dead now but thats another story...), people are just too occupied beings. Or maybe its society, or the fast pace of life, like I mean... who would bother to sit down and draft a letter in pen and ink now? When there's email? And who would bother to email, when there's facebook? Or facebook, when there's twitter? Or whatever is next? Neuron-brainwave-blogging?

Anyway this wasn't my point. It has been roughly 1 year since I came to Korea. i.e. Sept 03 2009... Look back and time flies. Look forward and it seems a long way ahead. Its been a fun year, learning stuff in Nexon, learning snowboarding (I can do intermediate courses now), traveling Korea, climbing mountains, living alone, growing fat (I put on 12kg to 72kg right now), meeting Singaporeans, making a few Korean friends, learning a little of Korean, touring China (Beijing, Shanghai).

Of course I anticipate the coming 'year', and miss my friends and family (can't wait to see everyone again). About going back, its SGD700, and 5 days of leave... which is... not exactly what I want. Because work is hectic, I wanna take a breather, and going back to Singapore? It doesn't really cut as a holiday, to explore a new place, do new stuff. Its more like... going back to the oven. And I can foresee I'd just be sleeping at home, or playing games, or going to ECP by myself. Because everybody's gonna be working, and where does that leave me on the weekdays daytime? Best case situation is I have two full days on weekends to meet up, and I would pack my schedule to be crazy, and that doesn't fit like a 'relaxing holiday'.

Something like going Japan/China with friends would be awesome, a 'real' holiday and I can catch up with everyone. Hopefully the Dec plan to go Japan works out... Gonna be expensive and gonna be broke... but its been sooooooo long since I've seen you guys. And its not everyone yet. *haiz*

Living overseas, hearing news about Singapore, is just weird. NDP never meant anything much last time, but this year was quite... strange. Wanted to watch the parade, but missed it, with a tinge of regret, and when I asked people in Singapore, they go like "aw, its lousy, same as every year!"

Actually, NDP is really the same as in every year... I'm the one that's changed.
In tiny, minute ways, maybe... :D