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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "ccho" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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09:12 am
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friday
I moved into NYC last week. I have yet to assemble my IKEA dining table, but everything else is built and in use. I have been shopping around for a TV, and have my sights set on a 32" LCD, but I would probably consider an HD CRT if I could find a good deal. Digital cable is going to be quite taxing on my wallet.
I found a pretty cool application of AJAX yesterday from a CNET article -- meebo.com. I can finally start using AIM from work again, as the client site that I have moved to has a firewall in place, blocking certain ports and hosts. I really admire their effort put into developing something more than a hack (e.g. Friendster) and succeeding.
It vaguely reminds me of the time I tried to build a classic MacOS interface using DHTML back in college. I never got past opening/closing and maximizing/minimizing windows. I had been hoping to submit it to HCS once completed, to simplify the process of navigating through documents and services they provided, but stopped developing it after receiving a tepid and insulting response from an unnamed member of HCS. A few weeks, later, they implemented something not web-based, but similar to my interface and put it on every Mac in the Science Center. I was discouraged by this, I vowed never to join HCS.
The client site I am currently working at is pretty nice. Free bagels and cream cheese in the morning as well as fountain sodas. I get a pretty large desk and Aeron chair as well. They also provided me with two 17" LCD's and a decent P4 with 2GB of RAM -- which is nothing compared to the Swordfish-style "multi-monitor system" in the next cubicle, composed of an array of 6 17" LCD monitors.
Here's an article from the Korea Times with a funny typo:
After graduating as an oriental painting major in Sungshin Women’s University, Kim lived her life as a housewife concentrating on house chores. But as she had always been interested in dying, she pursued dying as her hobby. Every night while her children were sleeping, she would concentrate on dying work. And her interest in dying naturally led her to become curious about hanbok fashion design.
``I thought the best way to make the best of my painting talent and dying skills was to become hanbok fashion designer,’’ said Kim.
In other news from the Korea Times, kimchi imported from China is reported to have parasite eggs in them, originating from human excrement, which they use as fertilizer.
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12:53 am
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Inspiration or embarassment?
William Hung's "Inspiration" album was released a few days ago on iTunes. I wasn't certain of the progress he has made having had a famous singing teacher, but it seems that he's just as bad as when he sang on American Idol. The short monologues inbetween tracks were also good for a couple laughs. In one of them, he talks about how he sings for passion and not for fame and money... but that's rather hypocritical since he's singing and selling this album itself.
A lot has happened since my last entry, but I have been too tired to write about it. I've been going to teach straight from work for 3-4 hours per day and arriving home around midnight.
Concert at the wine bar was quite a disappointment -- some parts sounded extremely bad, very few of my invited guests came, and it completely destroyed my weekend. The only true gain from the concert was the recording at which my brother and friends could laugh at.
I went to the electronics market in search of a decent powered mic for my MD, and it seemed like noboby had even heard of such an item. I found one by browsing store windows, and the shop owner seemed to know very little about it. It was interesting to see how little they knew about what they are selling, or anything related to what they were selling. I would not be surprised if some pimp was in charge of their operations and even giving them aliases.
I've started applying to jobs, including global financial consulting firms. I'm ready for a career change, and ready to leave my current company which has shown me repeatedly that they don't value me, nor do they deserve my services. I'll leave you with that sour note, which is not quite as bad as the concert or William Hung's album.
Current Mood:  tired
Current Music: I believe I can fly
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01:54 am
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my poor mouse
My poor Intellimouse Explorer has died! Five years of faithful service (rain or shine, Quake or Counter-strike) from touching up skin blemishes to navigating through virtual worlds...
It was actually not completely flawless, and malfunctioning at crucial split-second moments which may have cost me fame and fortune. Who knows, I could have been like fatal1ty, making 2x my current salary playing games, or not. So I switched to my new Razer Boomer Control ball mouse, but feel myself longing for an optical mouse again (or perhaps I just need a new pad), perhaps the new Razer Viper :)
The other day I felt like I was working at my first full-time job from 8 years ago, formatting a server, installing a new OS and software on a slow machine.
It reminded me of a scene from the end of 2001: A Space Odessey, when they showed that guy watching himself living a complete cycle both forwards and backwards. Interesting movie!
I'm playing a small chamber music concert this Sunday at a wine bar, so basically we'll be performing in front of a partially-drunk audience of 30-40 people. Despite having invited many people, very few people even took the time to respond to the invitation. I'm also breaking my promise not to play in front of intoxicated people. Why??? I don't know either, but this was supposedly the only place we could get.
The next few weeks will probably be busy with English tutoring moonlighting work. I need to scrape up some money for my future... it is possible that this will soon
become my full-time work here for a little while. I'm thinking of further education or complete career change, perhaps in accord with the perceived shift of jobs to offshore sites. Then again, I would need to consider the eventual collapse of the boom in India, as I believe it will change their economy for the worse within 5 years. But since sustenance and enjoyment of life both require some amount of money, I'd like to find a career where I could make an ample amount to support a family (maybe) and retire, seeing as how Social Security will probably disappear by then.
Last weekend I went on a company workshop and took some pictures. I actually left my 512MB CF card in my card reader at home, but luckily I had a 128MB backup CF from my old camera with me. I'll work on that photographic journal someday...
Though I wanted to write more, it's already getting pretty late. Don't want to oversleep and get to work an hour late like today...
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01:41 am
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A trip down the decision tree
I attended the RSA Security Conference in SF during the last week of February, my first visit to the US in over a year. The first thing I noticed was the air quality was so much better than Korea -- even at the airport. I had plenty of good food and was able to see most of the sights I wanted to see. I even made full use of the hotel's workout room facility for three nights. First time working out since college I guess. Yes, I'm much weaker now.
Overall, San Francisco was a great place, but I don't know if I would want to work or live around there (in the unlikely event that I could afford to). I took a ton of pictures, got to see Bill Gates give a rather dry keynote speech, saved only by the product manager who demonstrated some interesting features of Windows XP SP2. I took a bunch of photos during the conference and afterwards.
Security is a pretty interesting field in IT these days. But, certain companies such as Verisign and RSA already have monopolies in their segment of the market. The conference was pretty well-done and there were lots of freebies (well, they should give us quality stuff for having paid $1900 each for the full admissions fee). There were some interesting sessions and I learned a lot about the field while I was there.
I recently saw The Net on TV for the first time and recognized the Moscone Center. What I don't understand is why the Praetorians were so uncreative and how the IP address of the CEO of Gregg Microsystems had a segment that was greater than 8 unsigned bytes.
I had time to visit AJ and Umesh and see their nice apartment and TV. I also visited Fisherman's Wharf, Muir Woods, Twin Peaks, Golden Gate Bridge, and Sausalito. I went shopping
and bought an iPod mini at the Emeryville Apple Store (the one in SF opened the night before I left) and waited an hour for the Emery-go-Round and some homeless lady with a child started talking to me. It's difficult to maintain a conversation that begins with "did you pay for that in cash?"
That being said, I spent at least $70 in taxi fares and wasted $20 on Holiday Inn webTV-like internet access. Ah, the joys of omnipresent internet cafes where you can use their computers for a dollar an hour.
Tomorrow I'm off to a company team workshop event... sounds exciting with hours upon hours of presentations in Korean. Bringing a pillow would be a little too obvious...
Current Mood:  cranky
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01:17 am
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What privacy?
Privacy seems almost non-existent in Korea. An e-mail I write to friends and acquaintances gets forwarded around to people who it was really unintended to reach. Luckily, the main subject was just humor and cultural differences rather than Peter Chung-esque explicit content. My actions and casual conversations are closely observed and communicated to others without my consent or knowledge. Information pledged to secrecy is quickly leaked and spread within a week. Maybe some people enjoy this kind of attention, but I have yet to see any positive result. I guess I should be a little more cautious -- perhaps I will start distributing documents with NDAs. I wish people would read my blog/LJ with such fervor.
However, privacy may be contrary to the intent of one of my upcoming goals. Speaking of goals, I can't find time to accomplish anything important... I've been staying up quite late just to touch upon them, but it is difficult to make any progress this way.
Today, I had dinner in the basement of my complex with my father. It was one of the worse places I have eaten in Korea; they served my father the wrong thing, I found hair in my soup,
Well, the only positive side was we got to watch a TV program with some women competing to get a job as a flight attendant and one of the tests involved describing an arbitrary word in English. One contestant tried to describe the word "service" as "giving [a] smile for others to see and that is [a] service". But, I'd rather just cook some noodles because at least those have some quality standard and I have my own TV...
Tomorrow is yet another company dinner-type event to celebrate the past birthday of 3 people in my team. I wish I could tell them I had no time, but my birthday is one of the three ;)
Anyway, I'm off to work on writing an important letter now.
Current Mood: sleepy
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02:32 am
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BYC
February has been a busy month, with little time to work on my plans. Some positive results include possibility of having my photos published in the company magazine, business trip scheduled for the 22nd-27th in San Francisco (first time going back to the US in over a year), and the possibility of joining a different department in my current company.
Today I played basketball with some company club -- I felt really out of shape. I had been doing toe lifts earlier in the week and my calves have been sore for the entire time. Running is very tiring, especially in Korea where the air quality is terrible. I developed a minor cough, but perhaps that is tied to my lack of sleep.
On the 5th I had a special company event with my division and the company CEO in attendance. I was the official photographer as well as a performer. That day I learned that performing in front of drunk people is generally ok, until they are given the chance to speak. It was somewhat disheartening when the MC started talking to me and I understood all of what he said except for the question he asked me... So, the audience decided to yell out that I couldn't speak any Korean. Well, that precluded me from making any comments as well as concentrating on all aspects of my performance. Performing the Samsung song seemed so appropriate at the end, but I couldn't get the MC's attention while he talked to the violinist I performed the duet with.
You may be wondering what the subject line is... I was bored on the bus and started having acronym wars with myself. Koreans abuse acronyms by converting any long English word into an acronym leaving me only to guess what they could possibly mean. I recalled a recent sermon by a pastor about a Korean-American who wanted to disavow any connection with his Korean heritage on a plane ride to Korea. An old lady tried speaking to him in Korean but he pretended not to understand, but finally he gave in and asked how she knew he was Korean. She identified him by his socks, which were tagged BYC, a popular Korean underwear and socks brand. Anyway, here is my serendipitious acronym which I used Korean words transliterations for:
B = Bballae (laundry in Korean)
Y = Yori (cooking in Korean)
C = Chungso (cleaning in Korean)
Every working male deserves a wife with these qualities -- I'm just kidding of course.
But something far more humorous was shown to me by my brother... William Hung singing Ricky Martin's "She Bangs".
Nothing more needs to be said besides "I already gave my best and I have no regrets at all." and
"One good thing is that I am meeting more girls than usual. I don't know who they are, but they are much more friendly with me, so oh well."
Happy Valentine's Day to those who have a reason to celebrate it :)
Current Mood: sleepy
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06:52 pm
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Would have been funnier if NE lost
Now I know the purpose of Samsung corporate training. All those 5 hour projects assigned at 10pm were to prepare me for
occasions like this. My co-worker approached me last week about performing a viola solo for some department talent show/dinner
last Thursday. So I spent some time over the weekend to practice a bit and arrange a special encore (our company song).
Today, I was approached by some manager who enjoys playing violin at his church to play a duet. So I told him that I could arrange
the encore for violin and viola, but he pulled out some popular Korean pop song, "Magic Castle" (homonym in Korean for "Magic of sex"
and printed it out and asked me to arrange it for violin and viola.
It's not short, and will probably take me at least 4 hours to play through and arrange. There goes my Monday night, and Wednesday
night since we would have to rehearse then. Tuesday night I'm going to a piano concert about an hour and a half from where I live
which means I have no time to practice my solo. I know I will find out how terrible this violinist is on Wednesday... One of the virtues of being
disagreeable and stubborn is that you end up using your own time as you see fit. "SELECT FROM * where clue > 0" please!
Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: "Magic Castle"
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12:24 am
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Happy Birthday to Me Part 2
Over a year has passed since I came to Korea, and another birthday has arrived.
Time hurdles forward but there is little we can do but buckle the seat belt and gaze out the sun-flared window.
Some choose to open the window, and hope to catch something important -- but are instead met with a bugs that lodge themselves in their throats.
This year, I hope my ambition will deliver more than airborne raisins!
The upcoming week will be a busy one...
My old supervisor at work will be leaving for another company, I will be attending a company dinner today, family friend's wedidng tomorrow,
concert Tuesday, and performing (yes, as hard as it is to believe, solo viola) Thursday for a company function with the CEO in attendance.
I guess it is not so bad, especially if I perform after the Indian guys from my department sing an Indian song!
The cherry is the new 8am-5pm strict work hours -- now I have to wake up an hour earlier! :(
The big question is, will I get the ultra mega mega man this year?
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09:00 pm
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A New Year
I decided that it's about time to start writing again after many failed attempts at writing a complete entry over the past few months. I doubt anyone even reads this page anymore, but perhaps it will serve as a useful reminder to me in the future. Actually, I'm writing this at work simply to pass the time and feel that I've accomplished something useful today as I have no assigned work to do.
Here are some things I have been busy with which kept me away from my blog:
-Teaching English and standardized test strategies.
-Exploring photography which is quite time consuming and expensive.
-Sightseeing (and taking pictures).
-Practicing viola. Hey, I performed solo at a wedding and joined a chamber music group...
-Playing games, especially Counterstrike, with my brother and friend in the US.
-Watching TV and Simpsons reruns.
Last year was filled with new experiences, but also many diappointments. But, the new year is a good time to review my losses and determine how to prevent/avoid them in the future. I'd like to leave it a mystery for you to wonder about ;)
Here are some plans I have (but might not keep) for my webpage:
-Add a gallery of my favorite photos.
-Create a more uniform and appealing interface.
-Flesh out some of the sections and update others.
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09:00 pm
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Handful of Rocks in a Glass House
At long last, an update to the ol' weblog. Even I am unsure of what provoked my sudden spark of productivity. Of course there are many events that occurred during this period of time, and I think the main reason why I have not written any updates is because I have been engrossed in researching and learning photography. Though I did not purchase my new digital camera until the end of August, I spent a lot of time researching the camera online. My final decision was to purchase a Canon EOS 10D. It was a rather large investment to make to start a new hobby, but I felt it was the best way to learn quickly. Photography and studying photography has changed my visual perspective. I find myself searching for angles to compose an image, even when I don't have my camera with me. You can find some sample images from photos I took in England here.
My desktop computer has been out of order for a bit, progressively getting worse. I've narrowed the problem down to the motherboard or power supply. I first detected the problem while fiddling with the BIOS settings hoping it would help me boot up. I found the power monitoring and the +5v level was down around +4.3v which is quite low. Then I changed some jumpers around, hoping I could fix it somehow and found that the power supply connector molding was burned at certain pins, which corresponded to the +5v pins. Guess I will have to go shopping in Yongsan for a new motherboard and power supply :(
I purchased a refurbished 29" HDTV from a friend working at Samsung Electronics Display Division. The quality is decent, though my TV reception is less than spectacular. My hopes are that I will be able to learn some Korean through watching it. So far, I think it has enforced the learning of words that I have already learned.
England was interesting, here's a quick overview of what I did there:
-9/10 - Arrived in England, ate dinner with family, and setup my new camera.
-9/11 - Took a boat tour in London, visited London Tower, saw David Blaine in his box by Tower Bridge, ate fish and chips.
-9/12 - Visited Blenheim Palace
-9/13 - Traditional English breakfast, End of Class Ceremony, dinner with an old friend from Harvard.
-9/14 - Went punting, visited Deer Park
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11:54 pm
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I'm Four and I Can do Anything!
The title is just a flashback to an event long ago, which is a rather funny
memory of a family friend who couldn't join in our group activity because he was
too young. He threw a tantrum which involved cleaning off all the pieces off the
board game that we had been playing. It somehow crept into my mind as today was
my youngest cousin's 13th birthday. On the way to TGIFriday's, she kept repeating,
"I'm a teenager now." After eating dinner, we went to a nearby park and rented
a tandem bike, the first time I have ridden one. Nothing special, and not as
comfortable as riding a regular bike.
There haven't been any news entries for a while as I was hit by waves of laziness over
the past few weekends. Every couple of hours I look at my watch and think about what
I just accomplished. One o'clock... nothing, three o'clock, nothing, five o'clock...
still nothing. But I did eventually do my laundry, go to the grocery, clean up
my room, and practice viola. I also played some Counterstrike with Marc on some
Korean servers and made fun of their names and inability to speak proper English.
Had everything gone as planned, I would actually be in India right now, or even
this weekend. But my ticket was cancelled as other people want to use our department
funds to go to conferences. I suppose there is a positive and negative side to
going on the business trip, so I'm not complaining. As my consolation prize, they
bought me Indian food for lunch along with the other Indian programmers.
At work, the staircase resembles a sauna that is becoming increasingly pungent.
Don't buy into the myth that oriental people don't have body odor. Originally,
I was going to write this entry about the different unpleasant odors that I
encounter everyday in Korea. But I'll try and avoid culturally-centric
generalizations as my current English student often criticizes Americans which
I find a little bit annoying.
We had a "workshop" at work as well, where we listened to people present some
information about what they are working on and then eating dinner and drinking
at a nearby resort. The next morning we took a short walk and then went back
home. It was not especially productive, but was a welcome break from work.
I also recently finished some required online training, "Six Sigma". Basically
it is a methodology for quality control where you strive to eliminate defects,
up to 6 standard deviations from the mean of a normal distribution. It has
become such a popular catchphrase throughout the company. Many people are
involved in training for becoming a "Six Sigma" expert.
I just looked up some of the diagrams that they make to illustrate some analysis
on the web and used them to learn the material. We applied this process to
some optimization for decision-making; I threw together some diagrams and fudged
a conclusion but ended up with a 97/100 for the course (was a surprise to me!).
Must get some sleep, more news at a later date of course.
Current Mood: sleepy
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11:27 pm
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Riding the Waves
When I started this entry, I had just come back from watching The Hulk with my
cousin. The plot moved a little too slowly, probably to show off all the special
effects (which were mostly great, though some parts looked rather silly). I felt
like falling asleep during some parts of the movie, and was hoping it would end soon.
Though I read various Marvel Comics titles when I was younger, I never really
followed the Hulk because he seemed too powerful and one-dimensional. There was
lots of Mac advertising in the movie though Bruce Banner's laptop looked like an IBM.
At work, I wrote a couple more test programs and learned how to use ANT as
well as other open source utilities used in analyzing the tests. I was told that
my role would involve more testing; though I'm not thrilled about this role, it is
still one way to practice programming. Hopefully, we will get through the project
soon, and I can work on something more interesting later this year.
One of the Indian guys received his Samsung ID card after waiting over
a month to receive it. Unfortunately, they made a rather glaring error in
spelling his name, resulting in a piece of plastic with a bunch of numbers and
"Sameasabove" inscribed. Apparently, there were multiple instances where he
had to enter his name, so he tried to save a little time (which ultimately cost
him another month).
The TOEIC (some English competency test) that I took last weekend was rather easy
as expected. There were a couple ambiguous questions
and answers. My favorite was a listening question "We have a meeting in the
morning, didn't you get the newsletter?" One of the answer choices was "Yes,
I am feeling much better, thank you."
My test paper was blown off my desk during one of the listening questions since
I was sitting in my assigned seat beside the window, but I think I got the
questions correct anyway. I finished 40 minutes early and fell asleep for the
rest of the time. My coworkers are a little concerned about getting low scores,
but I heard that it's rescaled so much that 5 wrong is still a perfect score.
I pick up my viola now and then, but am often discouraged by my faltering
technique and the terrible tone quality I produce. I think I should replace
all the other strings, the A string is sounding rather false. Maybe tomorrow
I will pick it up again and do some practicing since I don't have to go to
work. It's "Sandwich Day" tomorrow, but the main reason that we have off is
simply to connect Korean Constitution Day with the weekend. I'm glad that
SDS stopped requiring its employees to attend work on Saturdays.
I often want to formulate some plan for myself to learn more about Korea
including food and language. Work has kept me rather busy, and there are few
people who could probably answer all my questions and provide me with a
satisfactory amount of information. Too few people know the area I live
in well, and I also lack a car which would be the best way to explore each
of these places on my own.
Today I played basketball with some friends from SDS training in the morning.
We played 2-on-2 for about 40 minutes. Everyone was taller than me so it
was a bit tough getting rebounds. Having lost a lot of weight, I didn't play
a very physical game and got blocked a few times, but ended up scoring a bunch
of points.
Afterwards, we ate out at some kalbi place which was pretty expensive. We talked
about scenarios in case of a war with North Korea, as well as our corporate
training. The conversation somehow drifted to Starcraft and professional gaming
in Korea... so I felt the urge to go home and play a few games.
Current Mood:  curious
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09:32 pm
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Augh, I've got a paper to write
I'm writing already; I thought that as long as I'm doing some writing in Korean, I may as well
add to my weblog.
Last week I had the chance to watch
28 Days Later
which a Nobel Laureate reviewed (but he gives away the plot and the ending). It was an interesting concept, but
not very scary for a horror movie. I thought the ending was somewhat open, contrary to what the Nobel Laureate
had written. He mostly focused on describing his thoughts about the virus paradigm however.
At work I've been sifting through bugs, writing some JUnit stuff using a special StrutsTestCase package.
Most of the tests I'm writing seem a little useless, but at least I get to explore the current projects
in a little more depth. I think my Samsung mouse drivers are buggy. Often times it double clicks when I click
only once and I lose control of certain functions at different times. At first I thought maybe it was a
problem generated by running Eclipse and other resource hogs, but it happens regardless of what program I
am running.
I received an e-mail from one of the people I attended corporate training with that I thought I'd share.
They are an advertisement of wedding photos, showing before and after shots of Asian women -- we always make
fun of how much make-up they wear, I guess we should be glad that some of them do wear it:
(1,
2,
3).
I'm actually writing a short speech about differences in Korean and American culture that I will give
tomorrow in Korean to a few coworkers, part of a morning bonding activity in our office. So far I have talked
about my favorite Korean book, Paul Graham's Nerd essay, and my Summer Festival. Since I can't think of
too many more topics that would be interesting to everyone else, I decided I should compose a multi-part
speech in order to avoid finding new topics every couple weeks. It's still a burden to write in Korean.
I came up with the idea for this topic after reading
this article
this morning. Reminds me a bit of my father, though he doesn't demand to play. I found some interesting
but poorly written material, I guess I can just summarize what they wrote about.
I guess I should cut short so that I can finish planning out and writing my speeches.
Current Mood:  exanimate
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07:34 pm
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splag writes ,'hey.. when are you going to post to your lj again?'
I did neglect my weblog for a week, and felt as though I had been shirking my duties. Obligations
to myself to write about my life in hopes someone is entertained by reading about it as well as
record some interesting events (not very personal ones) that someday I can receive the pangs of nostalgia.
But mostly I write because I want to keep everyone up to date, or provide a humorous jest to invoke a
smile -- and it keeps me busy. But my excuse for not writing is that I have been feeling a little bit
sick that week. My voice was hoarse and I was not able to eat very much (possibly related to the
trauma of the poke in the eye?). As an aside, Vancouver was chosen over Pyongchang as the site of
the 2010 winter olympic games... I guess we didn't impress them enough [see June 22 entry]. ;)
Tony, Charles, and Arnie came to Korea to visit before I left for the Summer Festival, but they
stayed long enough for me to have dinner with them last weekend. I took the subway out to Shinchon
(100 minute trip) to meet them as well as another family friend. It was great seeing friends from
the US again and we had a pretty fun time although we didn't get the chance to play basketball.
My father brought my viola to Korea during his latest visit. The d-string had broken, maybe during transit,
so I thought I had a spare. However, the spare turned out to be a new brand of strings that I wanted to test
out, but they were extremely short and barely even reached the pegs. I'm certain that I ordered the 15 1/2"+
strings, but I guess they sent me the wrong ones. Anyway I started practicing in my room after work
and on weekends. Someone next door actually plays piano, or is starting to learn piano, and practices
at odd hours. Whenever I start practicing, they start practicing as well -- I hope it's not a little
kid whose parents make him practice just because I'm fooling around with my viola.
At work I started on a project with two of the Indian programmers with weekly milestones.
Last week, I worked on an authentication console using struts and JSP, or rather copied over some previously
written code from a different part of the project and integrated it with some hierarchical tree
GUI that the Indian programmers are working on. I wouldn't call it work, but I did spend over 3 days sifting
through commentless code trying to figure out why some aspect of it wasn't working. This week I'm learning
JUnit and will write some test code for the part that the Indian programmers are working on.
I saw Charlie's Angels 2 over the weekend with my coworkers. Not by choice of course, but it was
entertaining in a ridiculous sort of way. Sometimes I felt they were trying to emulate Austin Powers.
I also met with some of my corporate training classmates out in Yongtong, maybe 20 minutes by taxi from
home. In the street and the bar that we went to, they were playing some of the music that we had to dance
to for the Summer Festival. I was constantly wishing that I would not hear those songs ever again.
What made my day today was while I was playing Counterstrike, and I singlehandedly leveled the Terrorist
team, well 10 out of 11 players (without touching an awp once), wish I had taken a demo.
Current Mood: okay
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01:23 pm
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Samsung Summer Festival 2003
It's a relief to be back in civilization again. I had been occupied with the preparation for
and the celebration of Samsung's Summer Festival, where new employees of the company gather
together. Over 5400 people were in attendance, and I'm sure that tens of millions of dollars
were spent. The preparation for the festivities varied according to division of the company
as there were five different teams, mostly composed of multiple divisions.
For the first seven days, our team of about 750 gathered at a ski resort in Yongpyung, near
Pyongchang, which is one of the candidate cities for the 2010 winter olympics. We took buses
to the gym, where they had some screens and loudspeakers setup. They started playing the
music from Starcraft -- it was sad that I recognized it and even more humorous that many
of the people sitting around me recognized it as well.
It seemed like
a nice place, with a golf range and a mountain biking course during the summer. The food was
terrible though, most people threw out half of their food during the first few meals.
We usually
practiced in a gym designed for a skating rink, which was not really well-ventilated. The
air quickly fogged up with dust making it rather unpleasant. The bathrooms were extremely
dirty, littered with cigarette butts and dirty tissues.
We also wore a tri-colored
jacket for the team performance to form words and pictures as a team which retained all the
sweat, which was somewhat uncomfortable. One of the letters we formed was "V", which I found
strange since it has no significance, and Koreans also pronounce it /boo-ee/, which we had
to yell upon making it.
I had a great time, despite the constant complaints made by teammates, meeting a few new people
and spending some time together with my IT training classmates. We discussed issues such as
the origins of Gatorade and how Christians in Korea are very discriminating on whom they associate
with (much different than the US).
We learned several dances and a choreographed team performance which also involved dancing.
Combined, I think it was close to an hour of dances that we learned.
Not sure if you can actually access these outside Korea, but if it's possible, you can listen
to some of the songs we danced to:
Let's Start on a Journey
A Romantic Cat
Champion (this one is a funny remix of the theme from Beverly Hills Cop)
Arirang (so many versions of this song exist, I couldn't find the right one)
Parts of our team performance music included the first couple bars of Zigunerweisen and one of
Vanessa Mae's arrangements... maybe The Devil's Trill? I felt rather silly dancing to that...
During the actual performance, one of the flag bearers, holding a 3m pole, hit me in the face with the tip.
Luckily, I had a short time to avoid it, but it still glanced the side of my left eye. It bled a little bit,
and is a little bit swollen, but I am otherwise okay.
After practice was over, we went to Phoenix Park in Bogwang for the event itself where we met with all the teams
and many vice presidents of various divisions of Samsung. Since our company division didn't have much money to spend,
we crammed 20 people per room, which were originally designed to house 5. We slept arm-to-arm, and the bathroom was
always occupied. I was unable to take a shower during the three days that we were there.
Other events besides our performances included taking
some oath, hiking up a mountain, Idea Development Contest (various skits prepared by different divisions of the company),
live performances by Korean pop singers/groups, candlelight ceremony, and a
meeting with the SDS CEO and other people in the company. Excellent blackmail material for whomever was videotaping
the meeting.
We received quite a bit of paraphernalia including wind jacket, wind pants, hat, sun visor,
backpack, longsleeve shirt, polo shirt, handkerchief, pen, and inflatable cushion. I threw it all
in the laundry machine for a couple hours, hoping that I could just get it clean enough to store away in a not
often-visited corner of the closet.
Upon my arrival back home, I was able to use a computer for the first time in 10 days.
My Yahoo Bulk Folder was filled with over 600 messages including another 100 that passed
through Yahoo's spam mail filters. Since I got back I've just been cleaning and resting, need
to go back to work tomorrow morning. My father is also coming to Korea tomorrow, bringing my viola hopefully.
Finally, an interesting read.
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Chopin Piano Trio
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10:59 pm
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South Park
I started writing this entry on the 3rd, but did not get a chance to finish until tonight.
Although I haven't been following South Park that closely, I got the chance to
watch some of this season's episodes. The past few seasons of South Park have been
rather mediocre, but recently they started recycling some of the more humorous aspects
adding a fresh twist. The ones that I watched were episodes
704 and 705.
Thanks P2P filesharing ;) Speaking of which, I believe that it could be much easier to find
legal content than through the web due to the filters and relevance to the preferences of the
content to sentient beings rather than web robots, unfortunately, it is far more often used
for not-so-legal purposes. This is a paradigm that I have thought of often, but needs further
thought to become a feasible service.
Other events that have occurred since my last entry -- I saw the Matrix Reloaded with my
coworkers, met with my SDS IT training group to watch an exhibition soccer game between Korea and
Japan, and attended the wedding of one of my fellow trainees.
I must not be sleeping that well these days as it seems as though I am waking up a few minutes
before my alarm goes off which probably means I am waking up quite often, but don't remember it.
It's rather noisy here, with dogs barking, children crying, couples fighting, and a piano next
door. When I get my viola here, I will have my revenge!
I also heard that my cousin almost lost my dog while taking him for a walk. The collar fell off while
he wasn't looking, and I guess he had not been paying attention for a while because he couldn't
find him anywhere. So he went to a friend's house and when he came back to his apartment
complex, there was my dog sitting at the front gate.
Windows went haywire and a critical configuration file went corrupt forcing me to reinstall
Windows XP completely. I actualy didn't have a driver floppy disk which would allow it to
recognize the RAID 0 striped array in my computer, so I had to go to the PC room in the basement
and put it on a floppy. It also took quite some time to reinstall most of my apps that require
registry entries. I didn't bring all of my software to Korea, so I'm still missing some
non-critical programs.
A lot of people have been asking me why I came to Korea, a frequent question that I can
provide a simple answer for, but after answering, this often causes second thoughts about
diving headfirst into this turbulent pool of unknown dimensions (forgive the melodrama).
I've postulated that the best way to approach this new environment is not have any regrets,
mindlessly charge forward leaving behind any form of dignity, and to muster a great amount of
self-confidence. It seems to be a contradictory divergence of personalities.
In the words of David Letterman on the Late Show after the 9/11 attacks, "And it's very simple, there is
only one requirement for any of us and that is to be courageous, because courage, as you
might know, defines all other human behavior. And I believe, because I've done a little
bit of this myself, pretending to be courageous is just as good as the real thing".
I just wanted to point out how it was interesting that it bears relevance to my life.
Interesting,
how my entry has gone from South Park to personal philosophies. It's very much a patchwork entry, but
I have much on my mind, much to do, and not enough time.
Current Mood:  contemplative
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11:55 pm
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May 26, 2003 - The Robo Story
So why is the title of this entry "The Robo Story" you ask... or perhaps you skipped
over the title completely. This morning, I was reading the front page of the Samsung
SDS portal, and they had a little story about Samsung's N270 phone featured in
Matrix Reloaded
(a somewhat ugly phone).
The funniest part about it was the phonetic pronunciation of Matrix Reloaded --
/ meh too reek soo re roe dee doo /. Here's a Scooby Snack, Scooby.
The second part is that I met someone at the church I started attending (Global
Mission Church) who had graduated from Harvard in 2002, but I never met him even though
he lived in the quad (Cabot House). During freshman orientation week at Harvard, I
vividly remember watching the Love Story, which of course takes place at Harvard. I
related this movie title with the way Koreans pronounce "love". My friend was trying to
tell me about "Robo Hotels", but I really had no clue what he was talking about until he
spelled the word out. This is the very distant connection that I wanted to point out
when I thought up the title
My pace of work has shifted this week with the addition of online and offline training
courses as well as a new book to study on JSP and
struts. On Thursday,
5 programmers with 2-4 years experience in the field came from SDS's India branch.
I was designated as the messenger to facilitate communication between them and
those who couldn't understand what they are saying. It's not a role I particularly
enjoy, but keeps me busy at work.
I learned all of their shortened names; it's probably not that difficult to learn them although
calling them by their full names may be a little too time consuming. One of them is named
Mysore Nagaraju Visweswaraiah -- my friend pointed out his name "Mysore" is a popular name
in Indian cuisine. Too bad his middle name isn't something more exciting like "Bhutt".
They also decided to call me "Mr. Chris" last week, though I suppose that's a little better
than my team leader's (or manager) spelling of my name "Cris".
My housewarming party was ok, not as many people as I had hoped showed up, but we had a
fun time eating, drinking, talking, and went to a PC bang for a couple hours to play
Starcraft. I haven't played in a really long time, and my team lost more games than
we won (partly because one guy on our team had never even touched the game before).
It was interesting watching them play, as well as trash talk... it brought back memories
from college ;)
Wednesday, we have a special dinner with a few people from work. We ate samgyupsal
(thick sliced bacon) at some place nearby work and afterwards went to a bar. We have
another special dinner on Wednesday, and will probably go to the theatre to go see Matrix
Reloaded which was just released in Korea last Saturday. I need to get some sleep, will
write more this week.
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Kodaly Cello Sonata
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10:50 pm
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Wasted the day away...
I finally found some time to write an entry -- actually I accomplished almost nothing today, so
I'm writing in order to feel productive. Actually, I should be working on some of my online
training material for work, but it's too frustrating to try and translate and understand it.
I received my new laptop on Wednesday. So far, I'm satisfied with its performance with basic
applications, but it gets very hot while in use. It's too hot for continuous use
Sony and IBM have somewhat similar
laptops in the market. Continuous use of the laptop on your lap is uncomfortable and not advisable,
as it brings back memories of this
article. I don't think I've ever seen the fan turn on, I'm starting to believe that it's broken.
I've been meeting more people at work and have had the chance to talk to them more. A couple
of them really seem to want to learn English from me -- one guy buys me juice or soda at work
so that I will teach him some conversational English. One of my friends made me a poster to
advertise my English teaching services around the area. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few regular
students to secure an additional source of income.
I planned a housewarmnig party for next weekend at my new apartment for the people I attended
corporate training with. Regardless of how few attend, it should be interesting to host. I have
much cleaning to do ahead of me.
Current Mood: okay
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03:08 pm
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95% of my e-mail inbox is spam
I completed a short report on web services for work though I did not discover
many interesting points in my research. Monday, I will be ordering a laptop for
work, Samsung brand of course; I'm in the process of choosing between two models,
the P25 and the
X10. I'm leaning towards the X10 since it uses the new Centrino chip and is
slightly more compact, but slightly slower -- also it resembles Apple PowerBooks in
appearance (minus the widescreen).
This
accident is horrible, and it seems really stupid to assume that the people that got
sucked out of the plane at 10,000-35,000 ft. had any chance of survival. The result of
negligence, either in production or maintenance of machinery can be devastating to human
life. Almost equally horrible, well to a much lesser magnitude, is the way that
The Korea Times often translates its
articles into English
(example 1,
example2).
At least they make the effort to translate the article to English. Speaking of which, perhaps
I should start translating my weblog to Korean for practice.
This is a pretty nice computer-generated movie
that I found through Slashdot. It looks amazing, especially since it was built using
existing commercial tools.
Last night, I went out to meet the staff of Ivy
Connection. Their website is under construction again, but basically it's a small
business to setup graduates of Ivy League schools with tutoring jobs such as teaching English,
college essay corrections, etc. Had some dinner, met some of the staff, and a couple new
members including some girl who was one of Guus Hiddink's personal translators (one of the
most famous people to South Koreans, as he is the coach of the national soccer team who led
them to the 2002 World Cup victory). The business seems promising, although I haven't been
assigned any students yet.
I'm going out to play some b-ball in the awesome (relatively) spring weather now. I still have
lots of shopping to do for my apartment, and will be having a housewarming party this Saturday.
Busy life in Korea.
Current Mood:  relaxed
Current Music: Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet, Ravel String Quartet
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11:34 am
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Quick Observations
As I was returning to my apartment today, I noticed the Cafe name next to the entrance
to my apartment was called "Azit Cafe", but pronounced much like
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) splag (AJ's) name! I've never
gone in before though, it doesn't appear as though many people frequent it (just like
my webpage :) ).
I started some research at work on "current web service trends". It's far too broad, I don't
know what to concentrate on exactly. Since the assignment was delivered second-hand, I
wasn't able to narrow down the topic of research. I will probably try concentrating on either
component based or serviced based architecture and hope I can find some good case studies
to present in my report.
I got a haircut today at the department store nearby. It took over an hour though because
when I got there they told me it would not take long at all. But the people ahead of me
were getting some hair treatments, so I waited 45 minutes until I got my haircut. Then
the lady cutting my hair had to stop and treat the person's hair next to me for another 10
minutes. The haircut didn't even come out that well and was relatively expensive. I
guess I'll have to search harder for a good barber.
Current Mood: sleepy
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