It was the only awake and not-at-work activity this weekend. 25 hours of (unpaid! I will learn to negotiate better!) overtime and the project is still not where it needs to be. Note to self, pay more attention to summer students and disconnect office phone next time.
I’ve got a couple of long rambles coming. They’re just stuck behind two custom pieces of code, a bug fix, and an overwhelming need to sleep.
At least now that I’ve seen pirates 2 I can read other people’s blogs again that’s a quick non-work related activity.
Random thought – Is a kracken (sp?) the same as an octopus?
Happy Canada Day!
So oddly enough I’ve been more social this past weekend than I’ve been during my entire stay in Singapore.
Friday was our work social. BBQ, gossip, and good times. At one point in the evening there were two easily viewable camps – former employees and new employees/temps. The rest of us wandered back and forth, but there were two tables and there were definitely two camps.
Saturday the 1st the canadian expats were all hanging out at the dragon boat races since there were 9 teams racing. So I went to the fireworks for the 4th of July with my flatmate. I was hoping we’d arrive after the speeches and just in time for the fireworks – didn’t work out that way. ‘A nation of war’ blah blah blah. Combined with the attitude of the friend, read stalker in training, the flatmate had been specifically invited there by (Example: How dare they distribute Canadian beer on an American holiday. Point 1 – this was happening on July 1st not the fourth. Point 2 – What a thing to say to a friend’s retreating back and in front of someone you know is a native of that country) it was not my ideal setting. Needless to say that portion of my day was an exercise in holding my tongue rather than be incredibly rude to someone whom I will hopefully never see again until he opens his mind – or at least his ears then he might actually understand the sarcasm and/or cutting comments directed his way until which point it would be a waste of my breath. My flatmates thankfully salvaged the evening by taking me out to dance and the other friends we ran into were much nicer.
Today I went out for dinner and a movie with friends. So my celebration of Canada Day away from home was to be social. I felt like me again, it was nice.
So while I was sick in New Zealand I found a book called ‘The Jane Austen Book Club’ (as well as a Georgette Heyer called Royal Escape which I’d never read) – it would be imho the perfect book to start a book club, or to accompany a book club doing the Austen works simultaneously, which is an idea that has been occupying my mind more and more as an activity that would introduce me to people I could talk to. I’m not entirely sure how I would go about starting it though. Any suggestions? Oddly enough I’ve started adding management related reading materials to the pile, although I don’t think they’d make good book club reading, as more and more I start having to balance resources and, of course, personalities. I am starting to recognize some of the changes I’ve undergone during my time here – I’m not entirely sure I like all of them, but they are definitely proving pragmatic currency for life as I know it.
In addition I’ve started looking to expand my collection of entertaining, but work appropriate backgrounds for my computer. So please comment with links to funny/sarcastic pictures that are related to IT, books, movies, music, or even that you just think that I might enjoy. 
Now I’m getting to the spoiler movie portions of this post so anyone who doesn’t want to read anything about either Cars or Superman – this is the stopping point…
So Cars was funny and entertaining, I enjoyed watching it but it made me realize that I’m lacking a mentor. Someone who’s been where I’m going and can help me get there. I know there are people in my family I can ask questions of, but that’s not quite the same. My flaw with the movie was that there were some minor physics glitches. Front wheel drive cars and rear wheel drive cars do not move in the same way all the time. The animation however was quite nice (Pixar – duh!) and it was a good mix of child appropriate content with current context for the older audience members.
Superman was long and dramatic. There were some things that stuck in my mind. “Any sufficiently advanced technology will appear similar to magic” – it occurs to me that as we make more and more strides scientifically, both in terms of discoveries and in terms of technological entertainment, we have a harder and harder time believing in things.Whether that is religion, new technologies or theories, or even just the potential of humankind. Alternatively I’m speculating that there are more and more difficulties with suspension of disbelief now then there were previously. For example, someone said that the cartoonish look of superman’s cape made it more difficult for them to believe in the movie on the screen. So as our technology gets better at bringing fantasy to life on the screen we get more demanding about the fantasy being just so before we are willing to believe in it. Odd isn’t it?
****Warning Spoiler****: At one point in the movie our perfectly human, almost husband, of Lois Lane saves the day. It occurred to me that every person wants their own superman/superwoman – not the ’superman’, but *their* superman. The one who saves their day in whatever way necessary whether big or small and does it not because they have to, or it is the right/proper/expected thing to do, but because they want to. At one point Superman says: “You wrote the world doesn’t need a saviour, but I hear people crying for one every day” and despite the cliched phrasing I think it’s a true statement. I can think of only a handful of people I know who are happy, comfortable, content individuals – the majority, myself included, need saving from something whether it is their own self or an external force. Some beautiful visuals, but although it provoked some thought I wouldn’t feel a single desire to see it again.
Work related, our FY ended on Friday and we delayed only two of the six projects which were originally deadlined for that date and I have to admit that’s quite an improvement for our team from six months ago. The two delays were both minor, one because of client request and the other a matter of ease we need a meeting with the client to review and sign off on the project while the client has no time for the next week so we’re putting in some minor changes (spit polishing) with the extra time. Having said that I have not been impressed by timeliness from the other technology companies we’ve worked with so far. Does the whole industry have deadline problems or is that my view?
I’m not set to leave Singapore for the next month so that should be an interesting change. Right now it looks appealing, but I guess we’ll see how it feels at the end of the month. The last of the postcards should go in the mail either tomorrow or the next day (whichever time I’m paying enough attention to drop them in the box on the way either to or from work) I’ve forgotten to record the dates I sent the others so I have no idea when they ought to start arriving at their various destinations. I have just had the idle thought that perhaps for the first time Singapore’s temperatures and those in Saskatoon are probably the closest they’ve been the entire time I’ve been here. At least if what I’ve heard about it heading towards people melting temperatures is true… And th-th-that’s all folks!