UltraCrepidate

Today, I learnt a bit about my fellow competitors and their lives off the floor.

My teacher is the only one with a university's degree on teaching French.
All except 3 girls ( including my partner ) are competing while taking a university's degree in psychology, the rest are full time dancers.
My other teacher has a undergrad's biomedical degree. ( She was ranked 53 at blackpool during her prime, which basically means that she's 53rd in the world )

A guy is doing criminology in university while competing.
A younger teacher who is also competing has a college degree and is working as a technician.
A guy is going through university while working and dancing.

The rest have high school degree and just get by with being waiter/waitress or rich parents… ( mostly rich parents ).
Most are single cause they get dumped from being away for long periods of time in order to compete.

I feel very unique now and add the fact that I am the only asian in Montreal who competes… Wait until I go to Germany and do this.

When faced with an unknown situation (my case, the weird relay call) humen respond in 3 different ways:

1. Embrace ( Ok let's try this see what you have to say)
2. Avoidance ( Let me transfer you to the right department)
3. Ignorance ( click, hang up)

I have to keep remind myself that I want to be type 1.
I had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of the relay service today. A user called our competitor in order to call customer service at the place I work. It was weird being reminded to slow down and to say go ahead at the end of the sentence. It's bitter sweet.

The call was a very unexpected customer service call that only team managers should get. I wasn't trained for it but I decided to take it. ( Later I found out that no team manager was on duty, good to know they love shove everything at me when there's no one else… without telling me )

I overheard enough phone calls to customer service to know what to say and applied, the 3 dos. Repeat, explain and patience. So yeah, it was about the phone network and how the TDD machine they use in the states can be brought over here to be used. I had no resources with me and no Internet access, oh well, wasn't the first time I did tech support blind. She got out of it very satisfied, I got out of it saying “wow, how do I know all these”. Then flash backs of all those conversations with the night time IT guy showed up in my brain.

Alot of things are coming together now. I am glad, I am going to collapse because I am sweating cold sweat from lack of sleep. Worked last night 4 to midnight, slept 3 hours, woke up at 5 work 7 to 3. My youth is fading, I can't handle as much of these as I used to.

So people found out I was interviewed to manage the agents on the floor.
I did pretty well in the interview, no sweating no stuttering. I was sure of what I say and it felt like child's play. I was perfect for the job, a little over qualified but it's allright. They don't have to know that calculating a weighted average and using excel spread sheet for me is something I can do while using one hand to type on the keyboard and drinking coffee at the same time. So unless I have a hidden attitude defect that my mind won't let myself see… I got the job. If I don't? I'll probablly go into a very long depression. This will look good on my resume and is the best job of all the interviews I got so far. It'll also be better if I stayed with the same company for more than a year, even though the pay is crap. I am surviving on $15000 a year, which for me is just barely making it. My jaw dropped after a search on engineering job base salary and it is $57000. I thought asking for $30000 is too much and was willing to work for $25000 just so my brain doesn't turn tofu.

Anyway, I noticed that people have started sucking up to me as they begin to realize that I am going to be managing them. The co-workers that hold the same position as me have already started talking to me as one of them, sharing tips and answering corporate questions that they usually don't answer.

Empty rush of sudden pride. It'll be good for my career but I'll end up as poor as I am in a year. IT'S NORDIA! Because I am internally hired!

Anyway, first flurry of interviews done next week is wait for results and clean up the mess that is called my life. I spent so much on food this week because I was forced to eat out. Food bill doubled because of $8 fast food per meal. I lost weight, I need someone to cook for me or just be filthy rich so I can eat to my heart's content.

I've come upon a similar question upon the nature of the universe while chasing a trail of scientific reasoning about space time and realized that I have asked a similar question before.

“If god is all powerful, if god transcends time, then why do we still pray for something that we want to happen?”

While nursing the subject about a continuouse space time theory that has no singularities. i.e. no beginning and no end but wraps around itself. I found myself asking the same question.

“Given enough time, the amount of possibilities will expire itself and repeat as time and space moves on through its numereous possibilities. We as part of what controls it and being controlled by it struggles to change things to the way we want when in whole it decides on our fate already and we decide on its fate.”

All in all, this is a stupid and satisfying day.

Worked, rushed to interview, screwed up the place because I looked for the address of Anjura head quarter instead of one of the other centers. Have no dress shoes, so went to moores and bought a 160 dollar dress shoes. I needed one after I threw away the 6 year old run down dress shoe I had since college. Cute clerk that helped me. Went in, talked to the head human resource guy and got an interview tomorrow morning for another position. Called the place I was supposed to go and moved the interview to next week. Went back to Moore's to pick up the running shoe I left behind. Asked the cute clerk's phone number. Got refused. Left with my shoes and spent 40 on dress shirts. I ralized that I only have 1 shirt, 1 pants and no dress shoes for interview… Been living too poorly.

So, this is what it feels like to blow 200 on clothing. Normal life rocks, I can do this once every week if I don't have to worry about dancing.

Contrary to my initial assumption, the role of leader is not determined based on who's got more experience.

Initially, the core of lead and follow exist within the interaction between two person's character. A new leader and new follower will bring what they understand in life into the lead-follow relationship hence creating improper way of executing the lead and follow.

Without proper guidance from seasoned veterans, rarely does the lead-follow relationship evolves into a coherent form of interaction. Usually, it ends up either the leader doing too much for the follower, or in case of a weak lead, the follower pushes for the leader to lead.

The perfect way to lead comes not from guiding or indicating where to go, but is a result of non guidance of your follower. For this to happen, the leader must think only of himself and goes where he wants to go. It is only when he arrived, that he take the time to feel if the follower is with him and to anticipate if the follower is ready for the next step. For this the leader must develop a hightened ability to sense his followers, to read their mind and understand what they are thinking.

To follow is to be able to hold one's own weight, to be ready to move when the leader goes. Still as a tree when motionless yet move with one's whole might to catch up if the leader decide to go. The follower must not present any burden to the leader for any such movement will distract the leader from his role and turn him into an iron grip dictator.

Near perfection, the lead-follow interaction all feel the same as both party become more and more accustomed to their role. Again, this contradicts my initial assumption on lead-follow because as skill increases, every couple's lead-follow interaction become the same and the only trait that sepetates them are how they react to different situations.

From this reflection my conclusion is that there's a universay way of communicating between human that make up the lead-follow relationship. There is one perfect way to lead and there is one perfect way to follow.

So, the light bulb in my room broke.
The 512mb SD card I finally received is broken.
Palm was broken when i first received it.
The light bulp in our hallway just gave up.
3 light bulps in our kitchen has decided to quit in the 2 months we've been here.
Had to replace the fuses 5 times until I finally spent 16 dollars on better fuses.

Murphy's law of Peter.

If (electronic && (it's near me or purchased by me)) break;

So…

Finally got in contact with Anjura and got more information about that job. I passed the phone interview. No sweat this time. HAHA! After 4 years, I am back to tech support, boy do I feel going back in time. Did i grow? Did i change?

It's overnight and it's for printer. I don't know, I hate overnight and I hate tech support, but past experience of being too picky and single minded on where i want to go has made me lost a few opportunities.

Not having a cell phone also made me lost a few opportunities. Still waiting for that free phone my friend is supposed to give me.

The interviewer asked me a funny question. Why are you leaving your current work? Fed up? I just laughed and said: “No, there's nothing more I can learn from that job…” and I know that for the simple truth.

Anyway some good thing are happening to me and I should be glad. My coke stock just uhhh how do you call that market term, shared its money to its share holders. Anyway I got 130 for it. 2 of my friends from work have decided to let us teach them dancing. Uhhh , stupid rule about dancers with amateur status can't teach to earn money. Teaching, will be a big change of mindset. Especially beginners when they don't understand anything, you can't just speak your thought and have them understand, you have to lower yourself to their level and speak it in terms they can relate to. They have to make the discovery of the new feelings themselves on their own body before you can assign a name to it. Otherwise it just remains a name forever in their brain.

As a man of science, I can relate with the endless search for truth, to the point of obsession until one shuns all social contact. All of science points towards a prediction of chaos that can be done to be 100% accuracy. Yet it is through that chase of accuracy that we realize it will never be achieved.

Stephen Hawking himself ask questions on the meaning of god in his writings, exploring possibilities on points I've never considered myself because I was too content with the answer that I never ask the question for why the answer is satisfactory.

But through this all, there seems to be one answer I cannot brush away. That is that god is what you believe it is. The existence itself is god or to put it in another perspective, we are god. Us all combined is what god is. God has no more choice in the decision than we are in it. The inifinite combined with the individual together to form the whole. We cannot escape god and god cannot escape us.

I conclude that my view of god is not that of a supreme being entity that rules over us, and commands us with absolute love and truth. My view is that of a god formed by existence that is the center of existence but is also moved by the individual cause what is us is also god.

Does god have any choice is creating itself and in creating us?

Used latin costume
150
Latin Shoes
150
Lessons before competition
100
Practice for 7 days
50
Total
$450

Can you imagine how relay service would work for a hearing person?

(picks up the phone) (dial tone) “Phone, I'd like you to call xxx number. Now, phone, I don't want you to play any answering machine messages. And phone, I want you to get this one certain person on the line. You hear me, stupid phone?!?! I need you to find me a live person, you stupid phone!! And I need you to correct the speech patterns of everyone on the other end, phone!! I know I'm not paying you anything, phone, but damn you to hell if you don't do everything I tell you to, phone!” (call interrupted while men in white coats slap on the straitjacket and haul the caller off)

Subconsciously I still reached for the familiar place where the oscilloscope used to sit on my desk at work. My hand turned the imaginary knob and my eyes glanced at the familiar screen that is not there. I think part of my brain has been mapped out to perform the task of debugging and I am at the age where it's too late to erase them to make room for other things.

No matter, I don't need to see the waveform to fix this low tech cheap ass analog amp that people jacked up the price to incredible high because only a selected few in the world understand how cheap it is to make. Capacitors, resistors… huge ones and not one inductor in sight. That explains why it's so hard to kill this baby it's all solid state low pass filters with big ass costly components.

There will always be that curios part of me who needs to see the wave form that comes out of this. To see the distortion, the signal to noise, the harmonics and the cut off frequency.

These things sounded so alien when I read about them on the textbook. But as soon as I started relating the real world experiments to the text book theories, it became so much more than simple curiosity. It's a joy to produce something like this. I think this is what my university education lacked. Too much textbook and formulas. Not enough showing us what it actually do in real world… Mainly due to the lack of knowledge from the TA and the professor to what the knowledge is applied to in the real world.

Alas, that's the past, I am not needed like that anymore.

I have a Gorilla G25 analog amp for sell for $40. Someone gave it to me broken and I fixed it up. So here it is.

I've been trying to blend the two cultures into one within me and have at it with everyone. What I failed to realize that the part of me that's alien to the one I currently live in will always come out and strike people as strange and weird. I have to stop blending and start creating two different personalities.

Damn it. I just lost the 2 lbs I gained because I slacked off on gorging myself with food every 2 hours. I am so pissed.

It's not that I am bitter or pessimistic, it's just 2 years of solid, getting doors shut in your face on something you worked so hard to achieve. Mainly speaking a friggin' job in engineering.

When nothing you do gets you any reply what so ever, you don't know what you are doing right or what you are doing wrong. Keeps you in a constant state of wonder with no stability. Well, tomorrow I am doing cold calls. I am desperate enough I guess. My experience with cold calls is that they are a nice confidence booster when they do meet you. But it's like a huge ass hammer that slammed on you when nothing came out of it.

This is an unusual entry for me but I’ve decided it’s unusual enough for me to dedicate a whole entry to this one person at work. Yes Saida Tesfai a beauty I came upon.

I thought I have grown enough that I will never feel a helpless crush like the ones I felt in high school. To feel this one towards one person so much that I can’t think when she’s beside me. I don’t like losing control of myself like that and I am deftly afraid of her. The problem is she is not afraid of me and is very open to call my name and discuss anything she likes.

She left, sneaked away as you said without saying good bye to anyone. I feel like a boy again, which is good. I am alive and I can still feel, just need to work on how I behave and act when I am giddly happy. When someone’s scent fills my brain or that someone’s presence beside me blinds me.

What's the point of tidying up my room? no one is going to see anyway.

What's the point of improving myself, no one will be interested in finding out anyway.

What's the point of dancing, no one cares if I dance.

What's the point of being happy if it only brings depression afterwards.

What's the point in doing anything? I thought as I laid there, listening to the wild screams of neighboors making love and the banging of flesh against each other.

I feel like I am stuck in life. The efforts I put in to improve and build all end up to be nothing. I can feel my heart coming up my throat everytime self pity kick me into a mood that makes everything pointless and each of my efforts in vain.

Or maybe not. I will be getting a $250 dollar phone from a friend for free!!! Now I can have a cell phone to receive my job interview phone calls… or find out the lack of people calling me for an interview. Whichever, at least I will know for sure which it will be

I have very good teeth. Never needed adjustment or anything.

I remember my childhood, whenever I feel a tooth coming loose, I'd start shaking it with my hand everyday… Painful, but I did it, until it came loose. So basically I self multilated all my teeth. Each and every one of them. Wow.

How do the rest of the human race change their teeth? Go to the doctors? Use a car and a string?

I ralized that I've been going at my job hunting for computer engineer positions in the complete wrong way. All the time, I've geared my resume towards simplicity and clarity. Little did I know that the managers are looking for the real Ummmph. Meaning, knowing that I actually did all these instead of just another fake who copied his way through university.

I've forgotten that all those resume advices that were given are for buisness man. Built to impress.
So hopefully this one will get me at least some response.

I got a tan!!! WOO HOO. Now I look like a filipino

One cannot focus life on dancing
Because a dance is the expression of your life
and to show dancing as a dance is moot.

The top ones I see are mostly better at standard and you can see a bit of stiffness in their latin. Are there any couple that's the reverse and placed in top 10 in blackpool for the 10 dance competition? I would like to find their tapes and see what's different.

Being fit is addictive.

I find myself being more and more extreme in the activities I take in. Always faster, more and more! I want more and I want to be fitter. It's like once you embark on the trip to make yourself appear better and fit to the society's norm of good looking, you can never be satisfied.

Right now I am tanned like an Indian and I want to go swim more so I can exercise and tan at the same time. I have to fight back this urge to just leave the apartment and be out there doing something when I perfectly know that I have to sit down and finish my resume.

It's as if, my brain wants to stop thinking and my body just wants to take over. Alas I can't do anything today. My thighs is indicatint that it can't keep up with the repairs on the muscle, not a sore muscle feel, but a decaying sensation that your muscles are dying. I've been driving them too much lately.

I sometimes wonder if I stink at work. Recently, I've been dancing for 2 hours and biking for 2 hours all around the hills of montreal before I get to work. Rest assured, I was wet from all that. I know I smell of dried sweat and the sun, I just don't know how strong that smell is and how far can people smell me from.

The major problem I face with this new way of living is that it's really hard to dress up for work. I usually wipe my bodies a bit in the bathroom with toilet papers. But I have yet to figure out a way to bring my dress shirts to work without wrinkling them in my bag.

Statistics show that only 5% of the people bike to work in montreal and I am within the top 0.00001% of good dancers in montreal. Doesn't that make me rare? Add the fact I am asian…

Of course she apologizes.
I guess that means she still needs to use me and apologizing will make me stay. I did not verbally accept nor did I reject her apology. Again, like I said, I am a man of action. Let's see how she acts cause talk is dirt cheap and “I am sorry” is worth less than a penny.

Anyway, I have done my part as a person and a dance partner. I will put no more effort into helping her anymore from now on, I am only staying in this partnership until I think I am reaping enough benefits from the money I put into it. The outcome of the talk did nothing to change that fact. 1 more year and I am dumping her…. or until i am well known.

I am actually starting to feel hindered by her because of how her movements are never complete and her over reliance on me when she dances.

I cannot improve as fast as I want. I've overgrown her.

Yay, finally got 2 days off after 2 weeks of working~~

Tomorrow I will make all those phone calls that I didn't have time to make.

Constant intake of food, food and more food. I feel like an unstoppable black hole that can never be satisfied.

With the hunger came too the constant pain all over the body from the injuries I received in any sort of sports related accident. I am always healing and there's always a sore muscle somewhere. On the bright side, I can take so much more pain compared to before. Burning my finger no longer bugged me. I can still take a hot shower and ignore the throbbing pain of my hand.

Other than that. There's no breakthrough of the thought lately. I've been pushing the boundry of my body. Preparing, getting ready for September's competition season.