Lulu goes to Korea

I'm in a country...

2011-01-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-13T20:02:00.000-08:00

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?

2010-10-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-19T22:59:00.000-07:00

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)

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

(blah)

}

void SortByColumnC()

{

(blah)

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

(blah)

}

...(D, E)...

void SortByColumnF()

{

(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)

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

2010-10-03T20:38:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-08T01:24:00.000-07:00

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

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule

2010-04-22T00:37:00.000-07:00

interesting article on how programmers and normal people view work time in a day.
this Paul Graham... he's probably a programmer. LOL.

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule - Paul Graham

July 2009

One reason programmers dislike meetings so much is that they're on a different type of schedule from other people. Meetings cost them more.

There are two types of schedule, which I'll call the manager's schedule and the maker's schedule. The manager's schedule is for bosses. It's embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by default you change what you're doing every hour.

When you use time that way, it's merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you're done.

Most powerful people are on the manager's schedule. It's the schedule of command. But there's another way of using time that's common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started.

When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That's no problem for someone on the manager's schedule. There's always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker's schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.

For someone on the maker's schedule, having a meeting is like throwing an exception. It doesn't merely cause you to switch from one task to another; it changes the mode in which you work.

I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there's sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I'm slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you're a maker, think of your own case. Don't your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don't. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.

Each type of schedule works fine by itself. Problems arise when they meet. Since most powerful people operate on the manager's schedule, they're in a position to make everyone resonate at their frequency if they want to. But the smarter ones restrain themselves, if they know that some of the people working for them need long chunks of time to work in.

Our case is an unusual one. Nearly all investors, including all VCs I know, operate on the manager's schedule. But Y Combinator runs on the maker's schedule. Rtm and Trevor and I do because we always have, and Jessica does too, mostly, because she's gotten into sync with us.

I wouldn't be surprised if there start to be more companies like us. I suspect founders may increasingly be able to resist, or at least postpone, turning into managers, just as a few decades ago they started to be able to resist switching from jeans to suits.

How do we manage to advise so many startups on the maker's schedule? By using the classic device for simulating the manager's schedule within the maker's: office hours. Several times a week I set aside a chunk of time to meet founders we've funded. These chunks of time are at the end of my working day, and I wrote a signup program that ensures all the appointments within a given set of office hours are clustered at the end. Because they come at the end of my day these meetings are never an interruption. (Unless their working day ends at the same time as mine, the meeting presumably interrupts theirs, but since they made the appointment it must be worth it to them.) During busy periods, office hours sometimes get long enough that they compress the day, but they never interrupt it.

When we were working on our own startup, back in the 90s, I evolved another trick for partitioning the day. I used to program from dinner till about 3 am every day, because at night no one could interrupt me. Then I'd sleep till about 11 am, and come in and work until dinner on what I called "business stuff." I never thought of it in these terms, but in effect I had two workdays each day, one on the manager's schedule and one on the maker's.

When you're operating on the manager's schedule you can do something you'd never want to do on the maker's: you can have speculative meetings. You can meet someone just to get to know one another. If you have an empty slot in your schedule, why not? Maybe it will turn out you can help one another in some way.

Business people in Silicon Valley (and the whole world, for that matter) have speculative meetings all the time. They're effectively free if you're on the manager's schedule. They're so common that there's distinctive language for proposing them: saying that you want to "grab coffee," for example.

Speculative meetings are terribly costly if you're on the maker's schedule, though. Which puts us in something of a bind. Everyone assumes that, like other investors, we run on the manager's schedule. So they introduce us to someone they think we ought to meet, or send us an email proposing we grab coffee. At this point we have two options, neither of them good: we can meet with them, and lose half a day's work; or we can try to avoid meeting them, and probably offend them.

Till recently we weren't clear in our own minds about the source of the problem. We just took it for granted that we had to either blow our schedules or offend people. But now that I've realized what's going on, perhaps there's a third option: to write something explaining the two types of schedule. Maybe eventually, if the conflict between the manager's schedule and the maker's schedule starts to be more widely understood, it will become less of a problem.

Those of us on the maker's schedule are willing to compromise. We know we have to have some number of meetings. All we ask from those on the manager's schedule is that they understand the cost.

an innocent question

2010-04-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

well.... its a simple, innocent question... without any particular motive in mind I guess... but it suddenly got me thinking that there isn't anything fun in my life lately... I've been putting off the things I wanna do, the things I like to do... I guess its part and parcel of work life... or rather stuff that I can't do everyday.

How many of us are losing ourselves to our busy schedules and job commitments?

I hate work life... because there's so much things occupying your mind... there's no time for your own leisure... for a time without commitment, without stress, without thinking that you to go back work on Monday, thinking about the work tomorrow, thinking about how to solve a problem, or why is there a particular annoying bug, or why your program refuses to compile.

I need to find a place/work/country/lifestyle... where I can sky-dive, windsurf and cycle/rollerblade everyday. LOL.

(11:18:07 AM) Fred $^o^$ \(^o^)/ (/^o^)/:
can u do me a small favour?can you name me 3 things u find fun?

(11:19:24 AM) shir0i~... workshop canceled and now they asking me come back Saturday and Sunday. f***:
fun?about what?You feel a disturbance in the force...

Fred $^o^$ $^o^)/ (/^o^)/:
anything... 3 things that are fun

11:20
shir0i~... workshop canceled and now they asking me come back Saturday and Sunday. f***:
in korea?
or just anything that comes to mind

Fred \(^o^$ $^o^)/ (/^o^)/:
nope nope... don't need to be in korea
any 3 things that comes to mind

shir0i~... workshop canceled and now they asking me come back Saturday and Sunday. f***:
sky diving through the air
wind surfing in the early morning through the cool waves and a forever-stretching beach
cycling/rollerblading through the streets and alleys of a foreign city with no itinerary, and no schedules, no deadlines whatsoever to tie you down

Fred \(^o^$ \(^o^)/ (/^o^)/:
haha
have you done all of them before?

11:25
shir0i~... workshop canceled and now they asking me come back Saturday and Sunday. f***:
wind surfing yes
not in the morning though
not in the most beautiful beaches
sky diving no
but bungee jumping yes
cycling yes
but it has been sometime (since I last went cycling... and without any worries/stress)

会说话的哑巴

2010-04-05T22:04:00.000-07:00

我想拍一部戏，叫[会说话的哑巴]。。。主角卢仲威，拍摄地点韩国。。。
这两年是个旅程，这两年是个考验，这两年是个折腾。

韩国永远无法取代日本在我心中的地位。来了这里，只让我觉得这里的人多丑陋，多没文雅，多困在自己小小的世界。

恨不得回去新加坡。我只向往的是假期，旅行的时刻。五月份去中国，九月份去日本。我只期待着这些日子。。。

i was bored

2010-03-11T00:38:00.001-08:00

Character	Radical/Stroke	Total Strokes	Pinyin	English Def.	Katakana	Hangul
卢・盧	卜 + 3	5	lu2	cottage, hut; surname; black	ロ	로
仲	人 + 4	6	zhong4	middle brother; go between, mediator; surname	ナカ	중
威	女 + 6	9	wei1	pomp, power; powerful; dominate	タケシ	위

these gamers are comparing the measurements of female characters in our game... -_-

2010-03-10T16:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.inven.co.kr/board/powerbbs.php?come_idx=2071&query=view&p=2&category=&sort=PID&orderby=&where=&name=&subject=&content=&keyword=&sterm=&iskin=&l=285

Well... can somebody translate the Korean for me?

Rush n Cash - Sadako Video

2010-03-04T15:52:00.000-08:00

Yes I finally found this stupid Rush n Cash video!!! It is so funny it get stucks in my head...

And then discovered there are ~20+ other Rush n Cash commercials. LOL
http://video.naver.com/ArticleSearchList.nhn?where=1&query=%B7%AF%BD%C3%BE%D8%C4%B3%BD%C3#pageno=1&where=4&query=%EB%9F%AC%EC%8B%9C%EC%95%A4%EC%BA%90%EC%8B%9C&st=sim

the korean craze on yuna

2010-02-25T15:25:00.000-08:00

http://norco.tistory.com//attachment/cfile4.uf@14264D184B84C49A10C1F4.swf

fanart about our game

2010-02-22T17:24:00.001-08:00

guess what this means...?

2009 Korea gaming companies (sales)

2010-02-04T19:52:00.000-08:00

from: http://www.onlifezone.com/3535015

1. Nexon

2. NHN

3. NCSoft

4. Neowiz

5. CJ Internet

6. Actoz Soft

I love gigantic polar bear monsters

2010-02-04T15:36:00.000-08:00

the bear reminds me of wy... especially after u've spilled milo/coke on his pc...
http://video.naver.com/2010020506221208031

Episode 4 gameplay and bosses

2010-01-24T16:22:00.000-08:00

http://heroes.gamemeca.com/special/section/html_section/heroes/contents/report/view.html?seq=163&page=1&search_kind=&search_text=&code=1

Mabinogi Heroes Episode 4 was released during Grand Open (2 weeks ago)... and gameplay videos are already uploaded.

The players are like level 20... and I'm level 7. No time to play my own game. (I haven't seen some of these bosses before - although I have access to all their 3D models, data specs, hit points, weaknesses...) LOL.

Well, at least I'm on the credits page.

Mabinogi Heroes: Grand Open

2010-01-20T18:20:00.001-08:00

New maps: (episode 4)
http://heroes.nexon.com/Common/MoviePlayer.aspx?movID=16

Fishing:
http://heroes.nexon.com/Common/MoviePlayer.aspx?movID=17

New character: (Evy)
http://heroes.nexon.com/Common/MoviePlayer.aspx?movID=18

SG food

2010-01-18T15:46:00.000-08:00

thinking about going back to SG from 12-17 Feb makes me think about the food I wanna eat there... WOOHOO!!!!

so here is the die-for list:

Fish & Co baked salmon
Thai Express curry soft-shell crab + Phad Thai
Marutama ramen
Fried Hokkien Prawn Noodle
Prata
Dried Beef Hor Fun
Roasted Chicken Rice
Katong laksa
Punggol Nasi Lemak
HK Dim Sum
Crystal Jade Red Burn Beef Noodles
Long Johns Silvers fish+chicken combo + cheese nachos + coleslaw + potato salad
Astons chicken chop + potato salad + pasta salad
Carl's Junior Portbello(?) Mushroom + Beef Chilli Fries

the city is white again

2010-01-14T17:16:00.000-08:00

the city is white again.

white flakes, bubble foams, flower petals...

dance softly in the morning sky;

so slowly, so gently, so like and unlike rain...

warping my sense of time~

few are mesmerized by this sight.

huddled and crouching and unseeing in their cold...

full most earnest hurrying to the next destination;

"i look up, i look into their eyes, i look around.

white smoke bellowing from chimneys,

white frost gathering on small hedges;

white ice covering my hair."
何が人生の意味何だろう・・・僕は想ってる・・・

the slippery, ice-covered drain i pass and avoid;

the korean newspapers that i don't give a second glance,

the red berry tree that amazing blooms in this weather.

another day has risen and awakened.

Heavy snow in Seoul

2010-01-03T20:12:00.000-08:00

4th January, 2010, 8 am, (I was on the way to work.)
Poor news reporter:

http://cfile10.uf.tistory.com/original/1672C8104B4124EC25E240

Extract from vid link above:

Newscaster: Mr. XXX reporter. It is snowing heavily now in Seoul?

XXX Reporter: It is snowing heavily now in Seoul.

Skiing to work -_-!!!!

Mabinogi Heroes cartoon strip

2009-12-30T17:53:00.000-08:00

Some fan-drawn Mabinogi Heroes cartoon strip for New Year 2010.
Seems like my game is quite popular in Korea... There's so many articles/reports/blog links... but of course I don't read them all so I don't really know how popular it is.

http://www.thisisgame.com/board/view.php?category=12131&id=326636

Mabinogi Heroes Premier Open

2009-12-15T16:58:00.000-08:00

The game I've been working on, Mabinogi Heroes is finally out. =)
It is in Premier Open, which means you can play it in some "PC Bangs" (LAN shops) in S. Korea. It is a MMORPG game... with gameplay somewhat similar to a 3D Diablo. (MMORPG-hack-slash-FPS)

This is my game's webpage:
http://heroes.nexon.com

They interviewed the developers the other day, and I'm in it. (51% and 90% of the clip)
The guy who edited the video actually put the short segment about me inside. Unedited. lol.
http://heroes.nexon.com/movie/heroes_m[dev_interview].swf
Link above or embedded video below:

Mabinogi Heroes opening credits

2009-12-10T18:14:00.000-08:00

http://cafe.naver.com/mabi7hero.cafe?iframe_url=/ArticleRead.nhn%3Farticleid=16339

with particular attention to:

Translation: "Is Rujongwei a foreigner?" -_-!!!

Updates

2009-12-05T23:56:00.000-08:00

Looking at my (this) blog... it seems that I've been neglecting it for quite some time - like a few months. Sometimes its hard to find exactly what to say... sometimes facebook has taken away the need for this blog. Sometimes I want to hide my inner feelings from everyone, sometimes I don't want to be understood. Sometimes I don't want to admit my mistakes. Sometimes I don't want to admit my weaknesses.

But then it seems like so much has happened, so much has been piling up that I need to communicate with everyone who reads this, or even sometimes I don't get the feeling that people read this, it is a struggle to really define whether I am writing this blog for myself, or for my readers, or even if knowing that there are out there, reading.

Anyway, the blog post. It has been... three months? September 3rd to now (Dec 06)? I've moved office once, moved house twice, and lots of other stuff have happened.

Work wise, I've been learning stuff, but its not enough, at least not according to my expectations. IIS logs, model build scripts, parsing, assembly reflection are some of the stuff that I've worked on, but as Vincent said... it really isn't about gaming. Its more like tools to support the game. Well, I'm in this "special part/section" (where after 3 months my mentor finally bothered to explain to me) that it is a temporary part setup to help ease the programming part. Not say that I have complains about it... I'm thankful that the work I am doing benefits the modelers and some of the programmers, but somehow I feel alienated from the core of the team. They are handling critical sections of the game, and they are so involved that they go back on weekends to work and everything, and OT like until 11pm. But I'm so alienated from them, handling non-critical sections. Good point is that I can just pat my arse and disappear at 5pm/6pm, but the bad thing is that I don't feel that I belong.

Everything is kinda stringed together, also with the language communication problem. For example, lets say I bump into a colleague in the washroom, I just say good morning. He greets a reply, and thats the end of the conversation. Awkward at best, sometimes the conversation doesn't happen. If it were in English, if it were in SG, I would happily try to get to know everyone, talk about their weekends, personal matters, recent sports, whatever. I cannot stand having just a totally "work" relationship with people whom I see everyday, 300+ days a year. I only have 2~3 colleagues that I "really" talk to, and them I talk in English. I can speak Korean, but the conversation ends after maximum 4 sentences. And the conversation barely scrapes the surface of what I want to convey, or inquire. It just doesn't cut it. And don't tell me I can learn Korean like I learnt Japanese, I'm sick of hearing that. I learnt Japanese in JC until University for 3 years before I went Japan for 3 months. And even then, it wasn't enough. I've learnt Korean for maybe 6 months now. And it ain't worth shit, when facts come to facts. But then, like somebody said "its the choice that I made", I gotta stick with it and make the best of it... that much I know. That much I do.

Relationship wise, its been crazy again. There's so much I want to say... but I shall leave it for the next post. later.

Company Press Conference

2009-12-03T23:48:00.000-08:00

Had a press conference today about the game that I've been attached to: mabinogi heroes.

Acrofan (with game vids):
http://www.acrofan.com/ko-kr/life/content/20091204/0502030301

Gamespot article:
http://www.gamespot.co.kr/ArticleView.asp?artice_id=20091204145755

zdnet:
http://www.zdnet.co.kr/Contents/2009/12/04/zdnet20091204160101.htm
haha... the modeler for Evy looks just like her... ^_^

http://www.thisisgame.com/board/view.php?category=12101&id=317336

Game website:
http://heroes.nexon.com/
(too bad they block by IPs... i.e. can't play outside of Korea)

Song

2009-11-02T21:26:00.000-08:00

Lunch in Korea

2009-10-07T21:15:00.000-07:00

sidenote first: Playing around with fb, I wonder if allowing fb notes to import posts from this blog is a wise idea. Hmm. Maybe yes maybe no. Anyway... back to the post.

Lunch in Korea is WEIRD.

Well, its not weird, weird, but it is a different experience. Lunch starts at 12pm in my office/studio. (And this reminds me of the story where I had to explain to a Korean that 12pm is noon, and not 12am. I had to do 9am, 10am, 11am, 12pm to her. -_-!!)

Anyway, so like around 1140~1150, somebody would say 식사을 해요 and then we would gather outside the office. (Just walking out of the automatic glass doors) And then there would be groups and group leaders. Group leaders would have different destinations for lunch, and these peeps are rotated. So members would walk out and ask, 어디에 가요. Or leaders would advertise their destination.

So by slowly walking out of the office and off the car park (reminds me of the PARKING joke), groups would have formed and headed their separate directions. So conversation starts in Korean in this group of (normally) 4~8, which is the part I sometimes hate (when they speak rapid Korean and I catch no ball) and sometimes like (when 1~2 speak to me in English/Japanese/simple-Korean).

So 1~3 minutes later, we arrive at our destination (which of course I have no idea WTH I'm eating because I just randomly join groups). And then if its a restaurant I like I go whoopie silently in my mind and if its a restaurant I hate I go f**ks**t no 선배 next time no 선배선배선배.

And so ordering starts. Which is cool if there are photos on the wall so I can just read the label off the photo, otherwise I'll be starting my prayers by nodding along with some recommendation of THE GROUP.

Note: THE GROUP normally nominates a dish, and then the 3~7 peeps nod their head in unison and everybody orders the same dish in the restaurant. This happens 80% of the time. 20% of the time, there are two nominators and two unique declarations saying they will have dish A or B. Seldom you get one person eating dish C by himself, unless of course you are a 의국인 like me. (This portion can totally go into the point in-group out-group behavior of an Introduction to Korean studies)

Next, conversation will start and I will avoid participation by taking cups and pouring water. Note: the most junior staff/youngest person ALWAYS pours water for everyone in his table. A table seats 4 peeps, so if you have 8 peeps, there will be two pour-ers. (junior-senior culture) In accordance with pouring water, its of course not always me (there are other junior staff), and they will try to help out. e.g.: 1. Distribute cutlery, 2. scoop kimchi from the kimchi bowl.

So food will arrive. And I will realize what I have ordered (what people have ordered for me). And then the race begins. Eating with Koreans is like eating with Wangyangs. They don't mince their meat, they pour it down their throat. Even spicy-pork-bone-soup is finished within 10 mins. I have to eat at full speed to match them. Wangyang will fit in perfectly here. It is so crazily fast that I was stunned from the first day. Koreans have this 빨리 culture deeply embedded in them. (By right you are supposed to start only when your senior starts and stop when he stops. But I think that rule is somehow abolished)

Then when everybody is done (the others engage in small talk while waiting), the leader says 가자? And with agreement from the floor (or sometimes the novice 의국인 is caught by surprise), peeps start to rise and leave. (Oh yeah did I mention that 50% of the time, Koreans eat cross-legged on cushions on the floor with small low-rise tables? ~!@#$%^ luckily I got used to it fast)

Then everyone starts to fork out the wallet. (If you are the senior/oldest and aiming to treat, this is where you step in. Too bad my company doesn't follow this. Normally they practice some form of treat/drink for first meetings) Then everybody forks out \6,000. (remember that we all ordered the same dish?) They (forcefully) pass it to one person, and promptly walk to wear their shoes. (Oh yeah cross-legged sittings come with smelly Hongkong feet) If its winter, you go 아!춥다! If summer, go 아!더워요~ when you are outside. LOL.

Then conversation resumes while going back to the office. 30% of the time, 80% of the people go for tea/coffee. 100% of the time, 30~80% of the people for go a smoke. Because this is a game company, 20~30% of the people go back to play games/watch Tekken competition video replays/PSP/DS/comic. And usually I'm back around 12:20pm, which tells you how fast we eat.

In addition, not ALL people participate in the lunch. 20% of the people eat cup ramen, 10% eat salad/fruits - diet (females/males!!). And they do it on a regularly basis. And 5~10% of the time, I spot my mentor sleeping in the bed in the office. Skipped lunch prolly because too engrossed in coding. Return to code after nap. Best.

3 weeks into work

2009-09-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

Updates:
Got people wondering that I'm missing? Well, sort of busy with work. Work life = no life. Plus Korean lessons. Here is my weekly outlook:

Work - 8am - 5pm.
Mon, Wed - Korean classes from 8pm - 10pm.
Thurs - Basketball with NEXON peeps, 7:30pm - 9:30pm.
So I don't think I'll be on MSN on those nights. And this current arrangement sucks because work ends at 5pm and I have to wait. Too lazy to walk 20mins home and 20 mins back, so I just stay at office.

Weekends I spend touring Seoul, which is pretty much just a city, so I'm looking forward to going to the countryside, or skiing during winter. Work sucks because I can't communicate with those Koreans, and so they don't speak to me... I'm like an alien to them. As Vincent says, I (we) learn something new. We learn to stay quiet for 8 hours per day. zzz. How much I wish this were Japan. Whoever thinks this is a walk in the park needs to reconsider all factors and angles. I look forward to visits from SG. pft. grrrrrr. I should stop thinking in this angle. Thinking about maybe and what ifs. What if I didn't take this job, and waited for JET 2010. grrr.

So I'm pretty motivated to better my Korean. At least I (we) can communicate with the Son-saeng-nim. (she speaks Japanese too) At least she bothers to talk to us. To as least do something worthwhile at work and learn something. Feel like a liability now. zzz. Maybe I should just slack two years. Or am I expecting too much from myself. (or the company?) Grrrr. The best thing is the weekends... I look forward to touring the country. Pft.

Address:
S. Korea, Seoul 943-24, Kangnam-ku, Daechi-dong, Shinan Metrokhan Officetel, #20-01

Handphone:
010-6422-1908, or
(+82)10-6422-1908

Home VOIP Telephone:
070-8129-7846, or
(+82)70-8129-7846

the Korean language

2009-09-17T07:05:00.000-07:00

well, Korean is Korean in Korea, just like Japanese is Japanese in Japan. hmmm... its difficult to explain, but as a Singaporean, I guess we have a different 'interpretation' towards language. English is the main (written) language in Singapore - if you only speak Mandarin (and no English), you can get by with a limited subset of Singapore. Likewise if you only speak Malay, or Indian, Japanese, Korean, assuming that you do not want to communicate with a person from another race.

I should have expected it, but then reading (and understanding) is different from experiencing. It always has been for me. Korean is the language here, it is the alphabet here. People type Korean on their keyboards as fast as I type English, perhaps 140wpm, it is quite amazing to see vowels and consonants combine to form words after words.

In my own internalized interpretation, Korean language is a "pronouncing-alphabet". Just like I can recognize abc...xyz immediately, Koreans can recognize 어디에 갈가요 as individual "unique-sounds" immediately. To me, I take time to _parse_ the characters, dissemble them, construct, and pronounce each sound.

e.g. 갈. It is made up of k-a-l. And so a string of (normally) 2~3 words form a meaning. Sometimes romanized, like 텔레비전. Other times from Chinese, like 약속.

Anyway, what am I driving at? Haiz... the language barrier is still too great for me to break. Nowadays I hardly speak 10 sentences a day, and I pretend I'm an invisible wall 95% of the time our team of 4~6 goes for lunch. Then the weekends are so empty and free. Its not like Japan anymore... not like I can go everywhere to explore and play. Sometimes my team helps me to order food for lunch. (T.T)

I need to start from zero... I need to forget my old self... I need to step out... I need to find a routine to settle down... in this new life~

Home, work (NEXON) and basketball

2009-09-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

OK I got my internet/cable-tv/VOIP phone. The cable guy came over on the 9th and he installed. Luckily he could speak Japanese (because he stayed there for a year) and so we conversed in Japanese.

Anyway here is my address (Sep-Nov 2009):

S. Korea, Seoul 943-24, Kangnam-ku, Daechi-dong, Shinan Metrokhan Officetel, #20-01

VOIP Telephone:
070-8129-7846, or
(+82)70-8129-7846
from Singapore. VOIP meaning its internet so its cheap for me, and then it might be turned off when I'm not at home.

Vincent is going to be attached to NEOPLE (a subsidiary of NEXON group), and I'm going to NEXON, devcat studio. I just signed a confidential form, so I can only say I'm working on a game similar to mabinogi, which is released in NA, EU, KR, JP, CH. (http://mabinogi.nexon.net/) My mentor is Jaesuk Gim, who can speak very little English. Vincent's mentor is James, studied in Canada. dammit.

My work is supposedly from 8am - 5pm. I will see whether I get any OT... (T-T)

We have Korean evening language classes after work Tues/Thurs, and then alternate with Tues/Fri. So that means every Tues with alternating Thurs-Fri, Thurs-Fri. Looks like we are going to be busy.

Then on our fortnightly free Thurs, we have basketball sessions. LOL. We were kinda automatically signed up for bball given that Vincent is 1.98m (I have heard qns about his height 20x times since day 1)... not that I mind, I'd like to meet as many colleagues as possible.

NEXON team plays full-court 5v5 against some "BBS" players who outnumber us 2:1. So we are pretty shacked. Anyway they are all quite tall... dammit I seem to be the weakest. The basketball guys were quite colorful, especially the few that had dinner with us.

Y.K. (An?), HR.
Park Star, web design.
Ogre, Talesweaver, Korea #1 hacker + hiphop rapper + composer + middle-school shotput champ.
Jason, Counterstrike Online #1 champion.

Ogre is like wy resized to 1.88m height, 120kg, gold earrings on one ear, negro hiphop style, transition-sports-glasses and when we went for dinner, he was like:
ogre: "Do you like kimchi?"
me: "Erm.... not bad. We ate it everyday... so we were kinda sick of it."
ogre: "You mean you fucking hate kimchi."
me: "Erm... ooh. Erm... yeah."
vincent: "(whisper) ...I like his style... he's cool."

LOL. He eats 4 burgers, 4 cokes for a meal, and wears cargo pants and jackets with 20 pockets so he can store sandwiches, burgers and coke cans. He is a walking vending machine. I likes.

Day 4

2009-09-07T04:18:00.000-07:00

current status:

language problems sibei jialat till these two years going to be damn lonely. taking long time to setup everything... 10 days for alien foreign card... which w/o it i can't apply mobile/internet... so my status now is equivalent to illegal immigrant.

starting work this thurs 10 sept, because quarantine for 1 week for H1N1 even though i don't have symptoms. going to be working at Nexon Corp, mabinogi team.

current address (sept-nov 2009) is:
S. Korea, Seoul 943-24, Kangnam-ku, Daechi-dong, Shinan Metrokhan Officetel, #20-01

first three days

2009-09-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

first three days of settling in...
it feels totally like SEP so far... just exploring the places, getting the basic stuff like water, detergent, toiletries, food, toilet paper, bank account...

so far 0.5 day to setup bank account, 1 day of touring... not much completed. though thanks to Kate (and our project team heads), i got two programming (methodology?) books to read, and be tested for/submit a summary, within a week. Which is also due to H1N1 (they call it SI - swine influenza here), that I need to be quarantined.

well, good news in a sort of way, otherwise i would have had to start work immediately. One maplestory children picture book for myself, because i seriously need to resume studying korean. this place is totally like Japan, and everything is the same as before, except I don't f**king understand korean. I can't even get the TV up and running by myself. shit. I need to get motivated, and i need to trick myself to study.

And all this is before i start work... before i get to meet all the colleagues and talk to them in Korean. Which is impossible for me, at the state of only being able to say yes/no/goodbye/thank you/sorry. And I heard my mentor is starting to learn English for me. Haha it will be a quackquack-cockadoo situation very soon. f**k. At least Vincent's mentor went to California to learn English before. dammit.

And there's a relationship issue that I'm keeping somewhere at the back of my mind, which Vincent terms "an open relationship". Which I don't know how to handle... Logically and plainly speaking, what she needs right now in her stage of life is someone to study with her, play with her... enjoy her uni life. Which i can't really do... I need to polish my survival skills - to be able to eat, sleep, interact, commute, communication, work happily in office/home, and make as much friends as possible - which any person who went on exchange knows how important this is.

I need to step out of myself right now, to put on full power to my sluttiness and lameness and joker and craziness (which I have pretty much confidence in) - the life that I choose to lead... the crazy, full-throttle, ever-changing life. How can I make her happy, how can I make everyone happy? I don't know the answer...

uverworld~ D-tecnolife
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JKD-lh68g4

癒えない　痛み　悲しみで　キズついた　君
もう笑えないなんて　人嫌いなんて　言葉そう言わないで
見えない未来に起こる事　全てに意味があるから
今はそのままでいい　きっと気付ける　時が来るだろう

How can I see the meaning of life...

testing~

2009-08-30T09:05:00.001-07:00

test test