I always wondered if woman say that to all guys they first meet or if it is done because I have somehow, through my ignorance of social norm, mistakenly expressed what is regarded as romantic interest. The former would depress me to no end on the reality of the opposite sex while the latter at least give me some hope of understanding when I crossed some invisible line.
After realizing that comments like these are usually the result of an inflated ego, I have recently started retorting to comments like these in an effort to put their egos down in a coffin. Yes, it took me some 29 years to figure this out, but I can’t help the fact that I was brought up in a completely different culture, where the game of chase wasn’t too well studied and understood by the female population until the democratic revolution.
It is extremely puzzling to hear something so out of context like this, during a business discussion where I am trying to get something done. The same kind of WTF thoughts crosses my mind when I read articles where female employee sues their supervisor for patting their back on a job well done.
How can you take business and somewhow contort it enough in your mind to believe that I am actually hitting on you? Am I being too nice? Am I smiling and complimenting too often? Those are the only thing I can think of after studying various books on the subject matters. The “nice guys finishes last” complex… except I am not going after you.
For me, being nice is a formula. Just like pretty much everything else in my life. If you are not rich or powerful, be nice to suck up to the rich and powerful. If you ARE rich and powerful, you can afford to be NOT nice to save the precious time that’s left in your life.
Only recently do I have the unmistakable feeling of being an adult. To find myself such an alien from ideals of my brave young self. So, what happened? Realization happened.
Perhaps the biggest one of them all, is the realization that the ideals of my younger days are not ideals at all, but an imposition of the controlling group to extract work out of members of the society. Knowing how money work and its sway on our lives definitely didn’t help either.
The whole time while I was young, I was acting out someone else’s desire. To those of you still reading and still young. No, those thoughts of yours aren’t original and yes, you are there to profit somebody else no matter how much you believe you are your own boss.
The fact that I get lazier as I get richer, presents another blow to my original image of my self proclaimed honest character. In the end, I am just like any other corrupted adult. Jaded and without an aim in life.
Some days I disagree with these thoughts, some days I agree. The fact remains that I am thinking these thoughts and that alone probably places me in the jaded department. You can only get jaded about life when you’ve grown up right?
Holding hands with the little girl, the symbolism of such a picture crossed my mind. Est-ce qu’on va me prend comme paedophile? Her frail silhouette trembled against the harsh unforgiven desert wind, drawing pity and sympathy from onlookers. For that one moment in my life, I had a perfect clarity on life’s single purpose: to ensure that she doesn’t trip on her way to beg.
The desert consmes the weak. Such is the way in Merzouga.
She’s barely strong enough to hang on to my thumb and it’d be easy for me to shake my hands free, but I made an effort to let her hold on to my thumb comfortably so that I can make her life just a bit easier for the short moment that our roads cross. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her because I feel ashamed of the comfortable life I have. Yet I didn’t want to let go for fear that I will discard this meeting as irrelevant. So there our shadows walked, alone, on the sand dunes of Zagora. Life became real and this is not a crook after tourist money, but a girl begging for a few more days to live and possible reprieve from hunger.
That set the tone for the rest of the day and the rest of the trip. I believe it was a turning point worth noting. Where the party stopped and the spiritual journey began.
I was deeply humbled. For the adventure in traveling is deeply glorified. At that moment, I saw it for what it is. A safe way for sheltered people to pretend to risk our lives and hopefully gleam the excitement of a dangerous life that we wished. I can never do what these people do to survive this far so stop pretending.
How can I ever hope to change anything so problem
atic as this? How can anybody manages to do that? This scene the type of picture you’d see on National Geographic or the infomercials that asks you to support a child. You see it, hear it, read about it and talk about it but the moment you are in it, you begin to understand why these people are making an effort to reach out to us in the comfort of our air conditioned chairs.
Waking up in the desert
Like always, I woke up earlier when traveling which allowed me to enjoy the quiet desert sunrise before the other tourists wake up. When there is no wind in the desert, the sand absorbs all sounds. It made me wonder why I enjoyed the Dune series so much. Is it because I longed for a life like this? Solitude and peace with nature with simple joys of making music while eating bread and drinking water.
Rest of the journey
We asked to be dropped off at Ouarzazatte after saying good bye to our great companions and found our way to hotel Royal. For a well needed bath smack in the middle of nowhere at 102 Dh a day for 2 people with shower. We asked around for a guided tour towards El-Rachidia, but it seems like there isn’t many tourists here interested. I thought it’d be the opposite since this is closer to the camel ride destination. Because of the fact, they cannot use economy of scale to reduce prices, private tour comes down to 3500 Dh. We will probably end up renting cars.
In the end, we joined the group after at hotel royal for 750 Dh each towards the east. After hunting is done, we watched a game of soccer with the locals. I am glad that there’s one thing that everyone in the world can relate to and that is soccer.
The list is an assortment of sins and must-dos which Mark and I came up with for this trip. One of the items that I wrote down was watching an authentic belly dancing show. This is from a pet peeve of mine. When I travel I want to learn everything I can about the local dance culture, their business model, people’s perception of it and the nuances that come with the lifestyle. So the previous night, we did just that.
Culture and Economy
Here’s a footage of us crossing the street to get an idea of the chaotic nature of the traffic
Here’s a list of us walking in the souks alleyways.
Between child prostitution in the new city, peddling wares or photo-ops to tourists in the old city and finally, selling hashish (better quality pot more on this in a later entry) to every white skinned people looking lost, I think Marrakesh has a pretty good economy going for them. This impression I have of this place can probably be attributed to the underlying conflicts between the French and their “Colony”. So to speak.
I’ll try to demonstrate this first with examples. There’s a very big difference in interaction with the locals between Mark and I. First of all, it’s rare for them to see a white guy walking around in with an Asian. Second they never expected me to be able to speak French let along jokingly stab back at them. For the most part, people left me alone (the reason will be revealed in a later entry). So besides the normal: “You Japonais?” while showing the Buddhist prayer hand they usually just blurt out whatever English they know and be done with me. Mark however gets a completely different treatment which includes and not limited to: “Want hashih?”, “Take pictures?”, “Cent Dirham!”. I am not sure if he gets solicitation for “Jeunne fille” sex, I did not ask and do not intend to. We did have somebody asking us if we want “Good stuff with woman” around a street corner in CasaBlanca, but I didn’t think the woman was that young or good looking.
For us, Marrakesh was a new experience, but for the French who were visiting for the 10th time in their life, it was pretty much a colony where people are to be ordered around and that everything is cheap. You can basically collect France welfare and just stay in Morroco for its low living standard if you want (based on my calculations, detail feasibility study still need to be done). So the French’s attitudes towards the locals are that of annoyance and impatience (Which is the type of attitude I ended up adopting near the end of the trip as well for a different reason).
Overall, Marrakesh is worth staying 3 days for. Western tourists pays very well since our living standards are luxurious compared to the scraps that they have to fight for. 100 Dh (roughly $27) may be pocket change for you, but for the locals it can probably feed a person for a week (I once survived off 15 Dh/day on this trip).
What I believe will really help both the tourists and the locals, is for an effort to be put into making a transactions binding and to develop a pleasant attitude when an offer is rejected. The changing of an agreed upon amount made me suspicious of anything they say. The insults that they blurt out when I refused them, made me dread any contact with the local people. It’s true that by adopting the two, you might not get my business, but if your neighbor can get my business, it will benefit Marrakesh eventually. The way it’s going right now just pushes me to be my cruelest self without regret.
Sight Seeing
There are quite a few point of interest for sight seeing if you are into that type travel. Personally, traveling is more of a way to learn another lifestyle and a chance to interact with people that I would otherwise have not met. When you have traveled a lot, sight seeing in every country becomes the same. But this was a slow day as we waited for the next desert excursion to start, so we decided to do what all good tourists should do. Visit these places of interests. Palais Badii, La Koutoubia and Jardin Princesse Lalla Hasna. Add some more of the souks crawling and we managed to waste a whole day. As a consequence of this more leisurely pace, we got to witness more of the day to day life of Marrakesh. That includes a knife fight between a souk kid using WWF style huge metal belt against a street bum wielding a knife. Some blood were shed before people finally broke up the couple. All without the police being informed. I think the police are there more to protect the tourists than to enforce order between their own kind. There were also a rock throwing fight between kids. By rocks I mean rock the size of your fist. A police confiscated the camera of a tourist who took pictures of the royal palace which they were not allowed to.
Change of Plans
When we got back to the hotel, our hotel owner took us to a travel agency to register for a camel ride at 700 Dh each. Ralid was the person who serviced us. We were surprised by how fluent he is in English in a country with strong French influence. It turns out that he actuall graduated university in the US, go figure. For those of you who wish to take a desert excursion with a caravan, it’s best if you ask the hotel owners. Travel agencies tend to charge double the price and provide the same type of experience.
After much deliberation between me and Mark, we decided that signing up for this will not only provide for a good experience, but also allow us to travel towards the southern part of Morocco without having to worry about finding transportation. We made a conscious decision to break off from the original plan and make a leap of faith to go the less traveled road. Less protection for tourists and more potential dangers in less civilized area. By making this change, we no longer know if we will make it back in time for our plane nor do we have any idea how to travel from here on. I am scared of the numerous possibilities for error, but at the same time excited to see what I can do.
Night of Marrakesh
We spend the night at the night market in Jamaa-el-fna, splurging on food. For 75 Dh, we had: Tanjine, calamari, Pastille, Aubergine, soupe, coke and bread. This is definitely awesome and worth it. The place completely makes me feel at home. Reminds me of Taiwan’s night market but with different people. That about wrap up the day for the calm before the storm hit. It’ll be a while before I get to splurge on food like this again. But I didn’t know that back then…
Conversations with strangers under a foreign sky, with sunshine brushing our faces through the shades of apple trees. Our morning was spent with Suzanne from Switzerland and Yum from Korea/Barcelona, both veterans of backpacking. We found a few tips on getting into Spain/Barcelona for cheap and learned about the pitfalls to watch out for when passing through customs . I can’t reiterate how much I prefer a hostel over a comfortable hotel. Not to mention that between Mark, me and finger pointing, we are able to communicate enough to have an interesting conversation with strangers from most of the countries around the globe.
Yesterday was just a taste to get our foot wet. Today we are going in for the kill and our destination is the “Ancienne Médina” of Marrakesh. We started off cheap and wanted to hike our way to the destination, but by noon we finally learned the important rule of the game that will shape the way we travel for the rest of the trip. One cannot withstand the unbearable heat of Morocco. I was already sun burnt and have emptied my water bottled by the time we called a cab. We paid the driver 40 Dh for the ride to our riad styled hotel Chellah. Very nice and clean with an open courtroom in the center. Most of the houses and hotels are styled in this way. I think paying 40 Dh is justified for how far it is and how complicated it is to find the the roads to our hostel this time. The driver also speaks French fluently while at the same time explained the history of all the buildings around.
At last, we arrived at the hotel intact. What a heavenly sight. Here’s a panoramic view in flickr. Click on all size and check out the original for the detailed view.
Here’s a footage of us walking from outside our hotel to a major street of the souq. I apologize for how shaky and bad the video is. I had to hide the camera because the locals gets very aggressive when cameras are pointed at them.
False guides
A few years ago, the government instigated a big crackdown on false guides so I can only imagine how bad it was back then. Even with the crack down and enforcement in place, we were still heavily assaulted everywhere we went. Marrakesh is a tourist city and scammer heaven, so don’t expect any peace of mind unless you stay inside.
Imagine this, you are lost in a strange country with intertwining side streets confusing the hell out of you. You take out your map and your trusty guide book “Lonely planet” to get oriented. Out of the blue a friendly looking local approached you and asked if you need help. His smile heart warming with a few missing teeth, you welcomed the help and asked if he can tell you where is “Jemaa-el-Fna” (Central square). He said he’d take you there, but having heard stories of the false guides you told him that you don’t have money and that you are not going to pay. Really, you just want him to point a general direction. Figuring that you can rely on your skills at asking for direction that you’ve honed in other backpacking trips. Well, you are in for some surprise buddy. This is not an European country.
Disclaimer
Perhaps Marrakesh shouldn’t be the first place that you visit, but chances are it is if you got swayed by any of the guides or vacation agency packages. And as such, you will have a misplaced sense of trust on Moroccan people if you did. I am warning you first because the real Morocco is not like what I am about to describe.
The false guide trade
Dealing with the locals of Marrakesh is tricky. The only rule that they abide by is this: 100 Dh for every service rendered. The guide promised that he’s just being helpful and said that we’d do the same for Moroccans visiting Montreal. But as we progressed, it became more and more obvious that he’s just taking us around to his friend’s place so they can gauge us. We got a full explanation of all the spices and natural makeup. 10 Dh for visiting the last synagog. The kicker is when we decided to ditch him, he had the audacity to ask for 100 Dh. We gave him 20 Dh and held on to our claims that we didn’t need hm and said so at the start.
It seems to me at the time that for Moroccans there is no such thing as business integrity. Several times we tried to work out a deal first before taking on any service but still get asked to pay different prices at the end. And when you accuse them of lying, they get really mad at you for saying that. It insults their honor (which is pretty ironic). In Morocco, theft’s punishment is having your hands cut off and I am not sure what lying is, but I am pretty sure it’s a harsh punishment too. Price changing is not equivalent to lying. So they hold you to your western guilt and honor while exercising no honorable conducts themselves. Before you bash me on this, please finish reading the rest of the journey. I understand that this happens only in the tourist towns in the tourist area, but I also need to warn anyone who decides to venture there.
For people who’s not on a budget and not afraid to splurge, you can usually find an official guide by asking the owner of your hotel. They come with official badge and are dressed in the traditional Moroccan robe but they charge more than the 100 Dh demanded by false guides you find on the street.
Sight seeing
Because of the false guide, we were pretty disoriented and had to spend the better part of the day finding our way back. This is when I discovered a unique character of Mark. He seems to have a need to know absolutely where he is. It surprises me because the whole idea of backpacking is getting lost. In any case, after much roaming around, we finally found our way and proceeded to finish the tours outlined on lonely planet.
One of the point of interest on the walking trail is Cafe d’épice. The place is shocking because of the number of white people stuffed in it. It act an oasis for weary western travelers to take a breather from the constant assaults of shopkeepers who wants to sell you stuff you don’t need. This is also where you can see the effect of lonely planet in full swing. Marked as a “Friendly place towards females” we saw a building full of white woman. All of a sudden, we don’t feel so unique anymore.
I spent some money buying some cloths to help me blend in, somehow , all that seems to do is making people mock me as “Chinese Alibaba”
When we returned to the hotel Chellah, we met a pair of British born sibling who lives in France: Jen and Rob. We were all relieved to be able to speak English once again and to feel the proximity of people who think like us that we decided to spend the rest of the day together and go out to watch some authentic belly dancing. It is from Jen and Rob that we begin to hear about the camel excursions in desert that some of the other backpackers are participating in.
We talked and enjoyed the atmosphere in a traditional Arabian settings until well into the night. Jen and Rob decided to head back to the hostel early because by midnight, the streets have turned hostile. Especially so towards woman and we had to surround Jen to protect her from all the cat calls and potential problems that might occur. At night, the streets are back in the hands of the locals. Single woman venture out at your own risk. Even guys needs to take more precaution.
Jemaa-el-Fna was quite a impressive in the morning, however, it is nothng compared to the night. It reminds me of a Taiwanese night market with the lights food and the people. It also showed the ugliest side of Marrakesh. Everythng at the night market requires money, a rule which we didn’t know. Because of this, we severely pissed off a few people. From listening to group of people making music to taking pictures. They will get hostile if you don’t pay up as if we are intruding on their right to enjoy themselves. They will even stop the music and stare at you using crowd psychology to force you to pay.
I have started calling in sick on the day when I am actually sickest. Because people give me weird looks when I told them that I will be out sick in a few days. Perhaps people inherently don’t believe that an employee’s sick leave is actually for real medical reasons. Nor do they trust that an employee is actually smart enough and knows his body enough to forecast when will be the most viral moment of his week long battle with the cold.
Well, that’s the reason why I usually ask for a sick day off in advance from my boss. Because I know that I woke up with a sore throat today and when the pain did not subside after 3L of water with plentiful of vitamin C, there will be a great battle in my body in 4 days. I know because I’ve kept record of all my past cold/flu infections.
So, instead of warning in advance so that the business can prepare for it, I call in sick the morning of, which usually means chaos for people who were expecting me to be there. What an illogical thing I have to do to fit into the society.
It must have been a month now since I first started tackling this bug. I almost accepted defeat and claimed insanity like the main character in “The bug”. I did, however, develop an unfriendly scowl and slacked off on maintaining my image. Not only is this a great example of some of the extremities I encounter, it is also “the bug that almost took me out but not quite”. Most of my colleagues tells me that it is has the strangest twist that they have ever encountered. I see it as a good lesson on how various assumptions and cost reductions across different products can eventually result in “The One”.
The first report of the bug appeared a month ago, from a customer complaint of some missed bytes through RS-232 serial communication. For those of you unfamiliar with this standard, we usually laugh it off because the serial communication has been done to death and any error should be recovered by the redundancy, handshaking and recovery routines that is inherent in the communication protocol. The problem, therefore, must lie in loose cables or chipped connectors somewhere. So the first thing that we do is to ask the customers on a witch hunt. Of course, being a suspicious engineer by nature, I setup something similar on my end and ran some test overnight just to make sure that we didn’t accidentally “design” it wrong.
Christmas came and went the memories of this bug went to the back of my mind as I tackle numerous demands from customers deploying their systems all over the place in order to get rid of their inventory to strategically position themselves in the coming recession. This particular client is in a different situation however as their systems are already deployed and are just now encountering this bug in the field. As time went by, more and more report of the bug appeared till eventually, it happened on one of their development system that they have in house. This presented them with an opportunity to hook up all sorts of monitoring devices on each point to track the flow of data. Lots of expensive equipments and probes later, they found out that 8 bytes of data will randomly disappear after it gets received by the serial communication port. The nail in the coffin is that they found out that the problem only happens when the cable is connected to our product. By now, we have gathered several confusing evidences that doesn’t make sense and are in conflict with each other.
The serial communication works when the cable is connected to the com port of another product
It only happens on certain systems
Errors are reported after 15 retries failed
On systems that does not have problems, it didn’t fail even once
So it seems obvious right now that we only need to compare the “good” and “bad” system and look at what is different in order to zero in on the problem. Here’s the kicker. All systems are exactly the same. Same hardware bought at the same time, same installation procedure and the HDD are all restored from the same disk image. In essence, they are clones of each other.
How can some clones have problems while others don’t? The mystery intesifies…
Having experiences investing in the market have made me a skeptical person when judging the success rate of a project. Especially so when it comes to empty promises. Don’t get me wrong, I was once the enthusiastic techie who’d jump at a chance to participate in some grandiose research project. Thinking that maybe, just maybe, if I put in 120% of my efforts, the spill over will be enough to make it successful.
I’ve since learned that the success of the project is a correlation between its complexity and the health of its parent company. Take the first major project I participated in for example. It was an exotic product that will probably be a game changer in terms of how things are done in the medical field.
However, the price of the company’s stock had been falling for 2 years straight. Back then, I didn’t see that as having any correlation with the project that they are working on. I was wrong. That can only be true in companies with solid foundations.
As the number of quaterly and annual financial report I read increases. I can extract more and more from the numbers in the maze that they provide. With each pitfall around the corner that I stumble upon, I gain the ability to see one more secret hidden in these numbers. My dad always tells me to leave that to the analysts who are better at it and I was content at doing that for a while. Until the recent market crash taught me one important thing. Most of these big shots in the financial world got through their studies because their parents paid good money to the universities which they attend. They got there through inheritance.
Take an acquaintance of mine in Ottawa for example. Who’s now working in the treasury for example. His math skill is questionable and he had no experiences in a similar position. I have to say that his family’s influence was the major reason he got the job. Now think about his credentials and think about the fact that he is now responsible for your tax dollars in the government you will understand why I don’t trust the big financial heads.
I would say that I am a conscientious shopper. Someone who buys only after evaluating necessity, emotions, financial situation and the broader economy (currency, inflation etc.) in general. Buying electronics when the currency exchange rate are the most favorable, waiting till the car dealerships are crashing and burning to bring a cash upfront deal to get huge discounts and finally, optimizing only when the effort/cost justifies the savings.
I shop around, but I also understand that shopping around wastes time/money and is not worth it if you have to shop around a lot. Therefore, I am more likely to stick with a few trusted source to go to than buying the cheapest thing out there. I also like to make (annd see) everyone and everything I approve of, prosper.
So, I get to thinking during the finals days of bus/metro riding, what will make me stay with certain dealers? Sincerity of service. Yes, I am usually cheap on my first trip due to the great deal that’s announced somewhere, but if I like the service, I will usually stick with the same person most of the time. I say sincerity because I know about all the sales techniques people use from working closely with sales. It sets off an alarm inside that will usually make me bail out of a deal unless it’s a really good deal. I just don’t like the fact that people are applying techniques to me.
So in sum. Great deal to attract me to the store so that you can show me the sincere service you provide. Of course, the sales person will have to judge whether or not I am worth that kind of service. There are people who’s just out there to rip off businesses.
From the perspective of a person trying to build a comfortable life nowadays, the fact that my family emigrated to a new country means my life planning will be drastically different. For the record, I am a typical Asian working in the field of engineering. It’s not a career that I aspired to when I was small and I am the first one out of all members of my family tree to become an Engineer. My blood is that of artists and salesmen.
My dad sat me down one day during the frenzy of preparing for finals and applying for the program I want to talk about my career. I believe that up until that point, I’ve exhibited a preference towards art and acting. The genes from my mother’s side. In Taiwan, I excelled at it and was reinforced by my peers that I am very good at both. I believed in that fact myself. You can see the same result from my grades. I wasn’t that good at math like your stereotypical Asian guy.
What he told me was this: “You are an immigrant and that is a fact. You cannot plan your life ignoring the biggest change that has happened to you so far. You need to ask yourself, what can you do that is naturally better than the people who were raised here so you are not always playing catch up.”
“Lawyer? Actor? Can you out-talk a local in French? In English?”
My father showed me some of his frustration as well: “I learned a new word today at the age of 40, it’s called conspiracy (Excruciating and slow attempt at pronouncing the word, we are not good with words that have more than 3 syllables). People here grow up knowing what that word mean. How can you expect to beat them at their own game which they’ve been playing far longer than you?”
“Let’s say that you can. What do you think will happen when a white CEO is trying to decide between a white and an yellow guy when both are equally qualified and with the exact same background? White of course. Wouldn’t you choose your own kind as well? Don’t you think it will be even worse in other fields where the results are more subjective?”
That, is what I call “shattering of dreams” in my life. The moment when I realized the difference and admit that it exists. This “difference” continued to co-exist inside me on a day to day basis as I see the other world’s reality whenever an event happened in the wrold I live in. This “other world” of the yellow culture that continues to give me insight to what could’ve happened differently and provides ironic comedy to what would’ve been otherwise a perfectly normal assumption on normality.
One thing that I miss and forever wonder about is what it will be like to grow up having relatives. To be able to nurture your relationship with your favorite cousins and to seek help from your favorite uncle on topics you dare not reveal to your immediate family. I miss the annual get-together in celebration of the lunar new years. I miss the celebrations of major achievements between relatives of the same age, to be called uncle and looked up upon by my favorite niece. I was deprived of all that the moment I set foot on this land.
Early on, I realized that the only people I can rely on from now on are friends
By the time I earned enough money to be able to afford the plane ticket back home, a wall had already formed between us. The last time they saw me, I was a 10 year old naughty boy who chases the chicken around for fun. Now, I am a stranger in suit who showed up at their wedding dinner. We speak formally to each other because we recognize each other as someone we don’t know. My heart cried out in pain.
Fact of the matter is, once you immigrate to a new country you lose all the connections that you had built up and will forever be at a disadvantage when it comes to tapping into your network of people. There are less family gathering, less weddings to go to and generally less opportunities to get to know new people, or call up a relative in a particular field of interest that you know nothing of.
Not only are you missing these advantages, you are also doubly hindered by the fact that you are constantly reminded of it. It’s true that we complain about our family and they present a source of problems for some when they are unhealthy. The truth of the matter is, we often don’t know how useful they are until you are completely stripped of one. There are bad apples and good apples in any tree, but what’s more important is to have the connection and to learn from it. Just because a family member is a good apple doesn’t necessarily mean that it is good for growing up. They may pamper you for example and prevent you from learning how to deal with something.
So, what do I do? I turn my friends into my family of course. Someone once asked me what’s so important about that blood tie between family members. I remember thinking that there’s nothing special if only for the fact that we were put in a position to be forced to know each other and spend the major part of our lives together. Now I understand it better. It’s the connection in your brains that are formed based on the interactions you had together. In a more general way of speaking, someone you can trust that doesn’t intend you any harm. Someone you can trust to hide you for one day when you become a fugitive. That for me, is family.
Phew, spent two days of my long weekend completing this little code snippet. It’s a good exercise to get myself back up to par with university graduates. During my career, I’ve seen stuff that are more twisted than my mere char **. For now, I have reached my limits and I will just be content with the fact that I managed to de-reference a pointer that points to a dynamically allocated array which contains pointers to dynamically allocated structures.
Do I smell memory leak?
I took the picture down because apparently, google search still finds it. Oh well here’s the project file and source code if you really want to take a look: lmproject
I dreaded it for the whole summer, going to school that is. Unlike people who are born and raised here, I didn’t get a slow transition into high school from grade 7 to grade 12. Instead, I was injected into grade 10 alone to learn the rules of the game while the others have already jaded themselves and found their own comfortable niche.
My parents didn’t help me prepare for it, they were as clueless as I was since the administration only speaks French and scoffs at anyone who tries to communicate in English. “Apprenez la langue” they’d tell them.
Back to the topic at hand. It was my first day of school. So, there I stood, in the school yard envious at the crowd of people who knew each others from the year before, smoking, joking and generally merry making. An alarm bell rang and people all went inside. Not knowing what’s happening, I simply followed. I followed them until I realized that they were all going to their own classes. That’s when it dawned on me that I don’t even know my class schedule.
A class where the students dominate the teachers? That defies the very definition of a class.
At that moment of desperation, shame and despair overwhelmed my senses. “Am I going to get punished? What tools do they use to hit their students? They look bigger than the theachers from Taiwan, their slaps must hurt more. I don’t want to get slapped in the face on my first day of school.” Luckily none of my thoughts materialized and a nice secretary, seeing my despair, took me into her office and looked up my file. I was then escorted to my proper class and the rest of the day was a blur. I was just content that besides the initial embarrassment of getting to my class late, everyone seems to be ignoring me.
Later, to my amazement, I watched as the students disrespect their teachers in anyway imaginable and wondered why the teachers don’t call them up front and exercise physical punishment? You probably already know the answer, but to me that was the strangest idea ever. A class where the students dominates the teachers? That defies the very definition of a class.
“WHAT THE FUCK are you smiling at?” Nicolas screamed when he noticed me laughing along with the others at the joke. “YOU DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND ENGLISH”. That second part I understood perfectly well. I understood because everyone stopped laughing and just stood there staring at me. Even though I did not understand what the joke was about, I was perfectly capable at detecting the infectious laughter that everyone was experiencing and I laughed with them like a deaf boy would laugh with their peers.
I felt my smile freeze, then fades into a frown.
That sums up my dilemna with humour. After the incident, I stopped trying to pretend that I understand their jokes and resorted to stating the fact outright when people ask why I was being so serious. Simply put, I did not experience the same childhood that the locals did. I did not watch the same cartoons, listen to the same radio stations nor participated in the same activities as a native born north american.
Things like a “Kramer moment” or references to “The Simpsons” are usually completely missed by me, thus leading to the subsequent misunderstanding of all jokes that followed. To not feel out of place or destroy the group dynamic, I usually laugh along with people while storing away another reference to “Google” when I get my hands on a computer. This is probably why I am so good at faking genuine emotions on my face when Asian guys are known for their stern faces.
I hope people can understand that it is not because I am too serious or are trying to put them down when I don’t even pretend. It’s usually because I completely missed the fact that it was supposed to be a joke. I want to fit in really, but I also understand that those 16 years is half a life of difference in experience. I can’t expect myself to realistically be a 10/10 on all three languages. If anything, I can only say that I wish I could get to know you in Mandarin. But you don’t know that language and I just happen to know yours.
I’ve lived in a Western world for half of my life and the other half in Asia. Even though I’ve successfully integrated myself and speaks the language fluently, I still find myself in these awkward moments of silence. It leads to revelations of our differences in culture. I am a guy who’s half way in between and I wish to show you the realities of why we sometimes behave the way we do.
“It is every geek’s destiny to have his/her patience tested by Linux”
“I just know” a frustrating answer that I’ve been hearing from the Linux developers whenever I ask how they know certain technical details. “I just know”. I thought they were just being a cocky geek, but I noticed that I’ve started saying it as well.
How do I describe this. Linux is logical, even though I did not personally implement or write any code, because of its nature, it is easy to guess the different ways that something can be implemented. Once that is established, the only thing left is to run tests to see which of your assumption rings true. Most of the time I am dumb struck at why certain obvious implementations are left blank, but most often than not, I am just awe struck at my own ability to solve the problem.
I remember this one instance, when I thought about what I was doing. Something I’ve never done before, yet I am so sure that it is the way to do it. I didn’t panic when minor setbacks prevented the system from booting. I know how to recover the system, check the log, correct mistakes as single user and reboot. It didn’t phase me that I might have destroyed the hardware or something or the fact that I have corrupted the MBR and other sectors. A year ago, I would just reformat and reinstall XP, but nowadays I took it as a challenge to see if I could just modify a few files with vi to revive it.
“I was confident of the solution even though I’ve never done it once”
Playing with linux feels like playing with an OS that has all of the options yet nothing is automated for you. I miss window’s plug and play but at the same time, I really enjoy the lessons I learned while debugging this mess. Especially the bugs in kernel space. I was probably just lucky. But then again, I’ve been lucky with all the bugs that I fixed.
These people are professionals at making things happen.
The teams on both side of the conference calls are getting bigger and bigger and the titles sounds more impressive than before. Chief Engineer, VP and people with signing power listening in on the conference in case the NDA needs to be quickly revised or certain information needs management approval before being revealed. I really welcomed the introduction of management type into our conversation as bring an air of non-nonsense to the table. The nerdy and geeky types stopped their quarreling and there’s a general lack of ego boasting.
There are several traits I noticed about them, the most important of which are: clear voice, not deep nor high pitched. They are direct and to the point unlike the bullshitting I that usually accompanies the management types. They are not afraid to take a back seat and let the team member with more knowledge on the subject speak. They were Engineers too and they know that one person cannot know everything. It gives me something to aspire to.
Before this, I’ve always looked at the leadership role as something that’s shoved to me due to the inability of others. But as I encounter and meet more and more leaders that inspires me, I find myself wanting to do the same, to become them. My attitude towards work changed too making me a better employee in general.
You should never overlook the effects of inspiration.
“How does one succeed in public speaking? Why, by bullshitting of course.” ~Project partner, final year.
I spent 6 months working on my final year engineering project. Pulled an all nighter before the formal presentation and survive on nothing but 3 hours of sleep each day for the week before that. Double, triple and quadruple checked the power point presentation before heading off to the auditorium with nothing but adrenaline and caffeine to keep me awake.
It didn’t matter that only 2 out of the 6 people in the group pulled their weight and hauled ass. It didn’t matter that before that day, I was an unshaven mess who’ve been holed up with the robot for the previous 2 months. I shaved, greased up the straws on my head, slapped on some wrinkled suit and tied the geeky tie. I went on stage that day, knowing my stuff inside out, in order to bitch slap that presentation to ashes and I did exactly what I set out to do. I was happy and I slept for almost 24 hours afterwards.
Mind you, it wasn’t a smooth ride. No, not at all. The TA’s laptop couldn’t read our 100MB large power point presentation back then (We were using Pentium 900Mhz if I remember correctly, so the laptop must’ve been some 200Mhz variety) and we were scheduled to present first. When we brought this problem to the professor he simply said: “This is a real world problem and the project tests you in real world scenarios. You either deal with it, or you lose your time slot.”
So, me being me, I decided to use Plan B. (Being an engineer, I always have 3 fail safes for important events.) I reshuffled our presentation order so I can go first while the rest of the group struggle with our TA’s sucky laptop in order to fix it. I happened to have a small working version of my part and some neat Javascript demo of how our robot will go through the obstacle course. Since the team members couldn’t fix the laptop in time, I then spread paper copies of our 100 page slides to the key people and continued. Like I said, nothing is going to stop me from doing what I set out to do that day.
“I felt the same way today.”
It always feels a bit rough, like you have insomnia. The invisible stress wall created by the presentation day manifests its power over my life in subtle and destructive ways. Cleaning, grooming, organization, and sleep. All suffered under the desire for a perfect execution. But that is only because I wanted to be good at it, not because my boss wanted me to do it. This is the reasoning I use to justify spending personal off work hours at home to go through the power points and with imaginary audiences in my living room.
“I wondered if Steve Jobs still practices his presentations.”
Now that the ordeal is over with, I feel much relieved. I couldn’t motivate myself to do anything before the deadline, but found renewed energy to clean up afterwards. The 20 hours sleep I had must’ve helped as well. But most importantly of all, I feel the need to be with people. It seemed only yesterday that it was still February, in the blink of an eye, I’ve dedicated almost two months to it without knowing. Time is moving faster…
“Meetings are the bane of productivity.” ~Causalien
I guess I shouldn’t complain. Being busy and in demand means that my job is pretty secure. It doesn’t mean that I don’t look back at simpler times with envy though. A time where all that I have to do is my job description an nothing more. Nowadays only 1/3 of my time is dedicated to the job, while the other 2/3 are spent mostly in meetings or catching up on new technologies that I’ve just been assigned to.
It’s probably no coincidence that they happened to give me two of the new products we have in the pipeline. Knowing myself, I must’ve reeked “adaptation” all over my forehead when the boss first laid his eyes on me. No, correction. I thrive with the exotic.
I also hate meetings. I really do. Half of my days are spent in meetings and sometimes the whole day. It wouldn’t bother me if that’s all I need to do, but the reality of business is that you are still expected to perform your original function. It also seemed more and more likely that I will have to spend my off work hours catching up on work without getting compensated for it. With the deadline approaching, normal work piling up, more meetings scheduled than I have time. I wondered briefly if this is management’s chess play to force me into contributing my personal time.
Dear management,
Please dangle a carrot as a reward in front of me, so I can actually motivate myself into burning my own life force in an effort to cover all the shit that trickled down from upstairs. Otherwise, let me snooze.
“I mean, why should I live? What’s the point of continuing existing if there’s no point at all?”
I haven’t participated in one of these philosophical debates at work. Mostly because I know that the point is moot so long as I cannot defeat the infinite theory that is both self proving and disproving. So, I simply threw this at him, hoping to get out of the tricky situation where we both spiral into a soul searching session.
“That’s because you still haven’t figured out the perfect reason why you shouldn’t die.“
It’s strange on the metro these days. All these people with their new gadgets: ipods, PSP, more ipods and mp3 cell phones. These gadgets used to be reserved to the elite geeks who’d jump in joy at the news of the first ever PDA.
Now, every punk from rich to poor has something to occupy their mind with. It feels tainted. Maybe this is the actual reason why I decided to become an ex-geek besides being immerged knee-deep in tech. It lost its exotic charm when the general population adapted to it.
I am amazed at this new sight though. Just a few years ago, we were still using walkmans and only a decade since everyone came to terms with a ringing cellphone. I remember getting pissed off on a bus by someone’s cell, now it’s just another sound that’s loss in the filtering process.
So what does this mean for business? Gadget fashion is the industry.
On the way to my dance lesson, I’d pass by him; sitting… or whatever you call it that he does in his chair selling those bingo tickets to passer-by whilst at the same time begging for money with a hat in his left hand. His hair, a dirty and dying color, balding with his age. His skin, thin and wrinkling, with veins clearly visible from the surface. A man, at the lowest level of the society, ignored and shun by others… Yet he is more man than any of my fellow males.
His body from hip down is missing.
Imaging being him. Never able to have sex with someone, nor enjoy a good old pissing in nature, let along even understanding what it feels like to move his body with his legs… Yet he swallowed his shame, and bared all the stares of strangers to come out and make a living for himself. I wonder, why he lives on. I cannot imagine, what hope he has? Or is he just living, a lump of flesh, due to the need to live?
What are my worries with my dancing compared to his life?
Red puffy eyes, a frown that tells of sorrow and tears that won’t come out. She looked away desperately seeking a refuge from his face. Hoping to find solace in his absence. Him, looking down, ashamed of what he had just done.
What is the story? I wondered, staring at the couple in silence. Feeling the purity of the emotions they emit. So simple yet so strong. Parting? Breaking up? No… cheating. The guy is at fault. For it is he who appears conscious and ashamed. It is the woman who is looking away, angry at what he had done. It is not the fading of love for they end up going home together, but a moment of weakness of the guy’s part. Simple, but sad.
Everyday, the train carries hundreds of stories with it. Amongst them, the saddest novel can be made, but simple ones such as these are repeated everyday.
Everyday, when I walk home from the subway station, I’d see this little white dog lying on the ground. Its nose resting on its front paws. It’d stare blankly at the ground without moving. It has accepted the death that is coming and is now waiting for it. It lays in front of its owner’s shop, still loyal, even after being abandoned. I see no kids playing with it, nor do I see the owner talking to it or caressing it. There is no sympathy from anyway towards it. So I stopped my footstep and stood there. It raised its head to look back.
At that moment, our souls touched. We understood each other. In his eyes I saw, the center of his life. The life force that makes him happy. The companion he is with, as if being together is the meaning of life. But that has passed and now there’s just him. He understands that the past can never come back. He’s life and purpose has been served. Now, he’s just left over, a toy that once gave his companion the meaning of life…
We exchanged that stare, but now what should I do next?
