Lavender Cafe

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

0088. Work Swirl (14)

Today is division social event. As usual, we went to a restaurant to eat. This restaurant is so expensive, approximately $35-$40 CDN. Food is cooked in front of us on a big iron plate. It's kind of fun to watch chief cooking. There are about 10 peoples on each table. The food is excellent but not much, just enough for filling my stomach.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

0087. No more fees for internet!

I found this place at the intersection of HsinYi and KungFu. It is eCoffee. This eCoffee store is much bigger than most of their other store I know. They even have hot pots! But most of important is that I can use internet without extra charge. Of course, I got to purchase a drink or something. I can use my computer online for about two hours, which save about a hundred dollars. Hey, it's worth it!

0086. Hair style changed part II

I permed my hair in May. Visit my photo album to check out the difference in May and now. They are not very good pictures because I took the pictures myself. So just bear with me.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

0085. Memorizing Bible verses vs. Life

Recently, I just found out days are different with or without memorizing Bible verses. Days without memorizing Bible verses, emotion and work are not that smooth. Now has a better understanding why we need to treasure God's words in our hearts. God's words is an invisible help in our daily lives. We may not understand at beginning. It's easier to understand after we lose those things.

Friday, October 28, 2005

0084. Work Swirl (13)

These days are so busy to a point that I didn't have time to write blogs. In fact, I am writing this blog while I am off office and in a workshop. How ironic is that! Anyways, let's talkb about my work. I am currently assigned TEN topics. Some topics are big and some are small. As a beginner, this is pretty heavy for me. In fact, I just had an emotional break down last night (there are other causes besides work). It's a mixed feeling here. I know I will learn a lot in a short time with workload like this. But it's hard for my body and mind to handle so much information at one time. This coming weekend, I will have to think this all over. Perharps, some of the topic should leave out. I can't get into the details of my work here for confidentiality issue. But I do wish I have a sister in Christ can talk about at work.

Friday, September 09, 2005

0083. Work Swirl (12)

A surpised turn showed up today. All my testers are going to the big testing group. At least some of my colleagues are happy. As for me, just start all the job transferring. There are still few more meetings to come.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

0082. Who is gonna changed?

Recently, I have heard something about change. Someone applied the 80/20 princeple saying that 80% of people try to change others while 20% of people change themselves. I wholeheartly agree this. We, as human, always wish people change to the ways we like/work. However, changing another person is impossible. A person makes changes only because he or she decides to change, not because of others' words. Therefore, the wise people are those 20% of human beings. As for me, I don't think I among those 20% yet.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

0081. Super Wind

I didn't sleep well last night. I heard strong wind blow several times. The wind was so strong that I started to think the house going to be destroyed. Even though the house is not going to destroyed, walking outside must be very tough. Signs, trees, and electricity lines could be brought down by wind. Staying outside not only has to against the windiness also watches out any thing dropped out of nowhere. There is a hospital near by where I live. This is the first time that I hear quite a few ambulance sounds. So there are quite a bit accidents happened this time. I wonder how bad it is after the typhoon leaves this afternoon.
I heard, over the radio, some expert mentioned that the wind gets stronger when the temperature of ocean gets higher during typhoon developing. Will the fact that the temperature of the earth is getting higher and higher cause typhoon bringing in the stronger wind? Who knows? No one dares to make the conclusion. Is there going to be a wind in the future so strong that can blow away cars??

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

0080. What shall we do at the days of Typhoon

Typhoon is here again. Usually, we would know if the day is off in the morning. This time is different, 'cause it is really windy and rainy before Typhoon steps onto the island. The wind is big enough to break my big umbrella. :'( My big umbrella is a good one, its bones not too bad. Actually, all typhoons this year brings in strong wind as well as the huge rain. I often heard people still go around the cities during those typhoon days. I pity them because they have no clue what could do on typhoon days. Today, from my colleague's typhoon-day activity, I realize that some people really ..., never mind, I don't know how to describe these. My colleague got off the work early and guess where she went? KTV!!! (NB. for those you don't know, KTV is a place to sing.) I can't believe this! Sing on those days. I am totally speechless. As for me, house chores, writing, reading, crafting, lots of things to do. I don't need to KTVing to pass time!

0079. Work Swirl (11)

A big surprise waited for us when we arrived at the office, especially for several male colleagues.
The head of this department, vice president, wrote an e-mail inform the entire department changes of human resources. This change was ordered on August 18th by the president. Basically, he re-organized the company into four divison: manufacture, customer relation (CPM), research and development (RD), and quality assurance (QA). RD contains two sets of hardware RD, Wireless RD, and application software RD.
Therefore, there is huge move of people and works between departments. Even though all QA suppose to merge to the large division, but managers in our department wish to keep a few for internal quality controls. However, the job description for staying in the department is not clear. From the time we knew this, we all thought we have the rights to decide whether to go or stay.
Besides my boss, I am the first to know where to go. Originally, I sent an e-mail letter to vice president and wish have a chat about my future development. Praise the Lord, I never thought that this is also happened to the time of change and therefore, I have new direction of work. One of the change is that third party applications and licensing are now combined with application software development. Those third party stuff require several people to handle communication, survey, and verifications. I don't want to be a QA for rest of my life. This new job has similar skills of planners. Therefore I decided to take the new job. The new job title is Feature PM (FPM). During the whole time, I have peace. Believe God will help and lead me at the new work.
As for my rest of colleagues, well, the e-mail we received in the morning decided their futures. For those having hard time to make decisions, they are happy that someone made the decisions for them. But it is a surprise to those three being ordered to stay, especially the one who wished to go to testing division. He didn't expect to stay and was in a crappie mood. I was surprised that top management didn't speak to those three colleagues before they announced the change. I don't agree the way they did. We all thought we have the right to make decisions but never thought the fate is arrived before decisions are made. Then why don't they assign at the beginning? Now I am more curious how top managers are going to comfort them.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

0078. Skype v.s. Google Talk

Skype is really poplular these days. It is so convenient to talk over interent without paying large sum of long distance phone bill. PChome Online, an internet service in Taiwan, also made Skype popular by incorporated Traditional Chinese display. When I first tried Skype, it has the ability to call a fixed line. Now, Skype also provides voice mail services and virtual numbers that others can call in. My division at work even officially requested us to use Skype for internal quiet communications.

Last week, Google announced Google Talk. The UI of Google Talk is a bit like iChat I am using on my iBook. In fact, I can log in with iChat. So far, only people who owe a Gmail account can log in to use. But, if I invite a person who has no Gmail account, Google will send out an invitation to that person. However, if someone's Gamil account has no invitation, then Google only sends out notification without a link to registar a Gmail account. This Talk application does not have many features as Skype - talk and text chat.

Skype is used widely these days. Therefore, Google Talk now has better voice quality (less trafic). It's hard to tell which one will win the battle. Skype functions widely while Google Talk still in beta version. It will be interesting to watch those "talk" battles.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

0077. Work Swirl (10)

Several weeks ago, I changed my attitude while chatting with another colleague about my current status. Not long after our chat, we are reading two books related to work attitudes in our group study. I also read a similar sentence in the book "Investing yourself". The point is the attitude we use to face the situation. The situation may not be the best. However, our attitudes affect our working methods and feelings. Therefore, I decided to talk to my boss, not just work quietly. When I started thinking from a different angle, I felt different.
There are discussions in these days, about the structure changes within the company. We, as QA, are either going to another bigger QA department, or stay at current department with a different title. I may change my job. I will go to the details once everything settled.

Monday, July 25, 2005

0076. Work Swirl (9)

Well, I am not sure wether this is good or bad: This morning, our manager showed us the new organization chart. My title becomes "Project scheduler and MMI Contact". I think this new title just gives me the proper title, because I have been doing those jobs for last half of the years!

Thursday, July 21, 2005

0075. Plan

Others may have life completely plan out. But even though I have a direction I would like to head for, I don't know where or what is next. However, my God knows. That's good enough for me.

Friday, July 01, 2005

0074. baaa~

baaa~ baaa~ I got a new nickname - well-behaved sheep, from the Sheep family (the group of people I am memorizing Bible verses with in ShiLin Zion Church).

0073. Work Swirl (8)

I still remember while I was at home this past March, being asked if I am going to back to North America. My answer was yes but I did promise to stay in this company for at least 2-3 years. I didn't think the time for change is near. However, I started to think about the possibility after getting back and talking to my colleagues.

My department has a new group of people. I am more interested in what they do because it is closer related to what I learned in school. The end of June, I had a chance to talk to some of them. I have a feeling that it is not going to be easy to transfer to their group. I doubt their leader will ask me to join them if there is vacancy. Well, experience is one of the blocking factors and the shortage of testing engineers is another one. The new colleague sitting beside me once told me that I am like someone's secretary. My current job is project releases and its scheduling, not much of actual testing. I asked our manager. He can not put me into the position we planed because the shortage of people. Our projects are multiples of last year, which means the work load is multiple. Our team leader has problem to communicate with others. To let work go smoothly, our manager order me to handle the scheduling, which is supposed to be team leader's job.

I am not happy with the whole situation. Well, next March will be my full two year here, which is the time I promised. I will be leaving if the situation is not changed.

Sunday, May 29, 2005

0072. Work Swirl (7)

I will be going for a business trip in mid June. Up to now, we will stop at German for sure. Orignally, I was told that we may stop at Span. But now we may go England, possible France as well. But my preparation of trip was not quite smooth though. This trip is for the Video telephony. We don't have enough resources due to the still developing environment in Taiwan. I let others use the devices for other applications testing since we didn't have many. Right now, we have enough devices but lack of USIM. I thought I could use this weekend to get more familiar with the device and applications; however, my colleague, who tests Video telephony full time, was told on Friday to work extra hours on Saturday. This implies no testing for me over the weekend. My colleague and I hope I can do the testing while he is busy with other things. Just wish everything goes smoothly!

My company has developed several new devices this past six months. I like one small size PDA phone with keyboard attached. But right now, it is not quite stable for smoother use. New Smartphones are continuation of previous ones. Since it is a bit tedious to type on Smartphone, I prefer PDA phone. The device made for Video Telephony is design for business users. It has been described as electronic dictionary (very common devices in east Asia). Well, it does, plus a rotatable screen. Actually, it is not too bad. The design aims to use on the table. Typing is pretty convenient with keyboard. The size can not be smaller than most PDA phone with that large size of keyboard though. Many of colleagues said this device is too heavy. We even joke this device is a brick, which can hit people ^^ Sorry I can't show you what this device looks like yet, since it is not out in the market yet. Just wait another few months, I will have the pictures for you.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

0071. Keeping Sabbath

I can't remember since when I started to take Sabbath seriously. Maybe because I had an experience of blessing 15th years ago for keeping Sabbath. Maybe because Dad's order. All I know is that I have to keep Sabbath no matter what happened, unless there is a business or class I can not avoid. Therefore, it shocked me when a friend of mine not keeping Sabbath when she is on vacation. Keeping Sabbath is one of the ten commandments that God gave. God was angry with his people when they didn't keep Sabbath. So in my mind, this is not something I should compromise. I never really understand why people does not keep Sabbath.

Saturday, May 14, 2005

0070. The time is near

Just read a part of "The Call": "The time is up and I will not give more chances to the people who say believe in Me but do not follow Me. Those who are not cold nor hot among my people will be removed." (Translated from Chinese, not originally English text) It's hard to describe my feeleing. The prayer I have is that, Dear God, I don't want to be among those whom you about to remove. Help me live more faithfully before you.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

0069. The Helpless(2)

This is to clarify last post. Not long ago, one of the colleague gave me a book to read - Good Luck. The main message of this book is that we can not change fate but we are the one to create luck. It also includes some principles so that readers can apply to their lives. It takes some time to think through these principles in order to apply them into the current situations and life. We happened to study the helpless on the evening of the day I finished that book. I thought about these principles a little bit prior to the Bible study. During the Bible study I realized I don't need to spend time on these principles. The gentile is trying to make more money by using these principles. Jesus is all in all and it's enough to have him. Also, these principles may not help me to get closer to God. I don't need to spend time on these principles. Trust in the Lord because the Lord our God gets closer to the helpless!

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