Categories
Career

Count Your Blessing – Career

Towards the end of last year 2012, I have been searching and applying for some jobs. I even went for some interviews too but not successful. One day, I received an email from member of my church who is in head hunter line asked if I’m looking for job. I said yes. I wonder how she knew I was looking for job that time. Anyway, she hook me up with her colleague to recommend me a job. It was a technical position which I went for the interview. During the interview, I took the short technical test and after that the interviewer also did ask me what I like to do and good at. I said documentation. One reason is because documentation seems lacking in most companies and somehow I like to create those diagrams especially sequence diagrams which I showed some sequence diagrams I did to them.

After the interview, I don’t have that much confidence that I can get the job because I don’t think I did that well for that technical test. But to my suprise, I got a call by the same head hunter who introduced me to his company, that the company was pleased with my attitude and they want to offer me a “QC Manager” position instead and need me to attend the second interview which I did. I felt kinda stun because all these while, I have never worked as even Assistant Manager position, what’s more a manager position. I have mix feeling, afraid whether I can cope with it or not and same time feeling excited to have that opportunity. During the second interview, the interviewer assured me much and at the end, I took the job and the challenge. I knew if I let it go, I might have one of the biggest regrets of my life.

Indeed holding a managerial position has its challenges especially in the beginning but it doesn’t seem to be as challenging as I have imagine in the beginning also. Maybe my department is pretty small to have that many things to manage and ironically the only person under my department doesn’t need to report to me. Anyway, during this probation period, overall I don’t think that I am performing that well but to my suprise, I scored quite okay during the appraisal and last week I got the confirmation letter from my manager. I am grateful to be confirmed even though I don’t deserve it and to receive this blessing from God in a surpise!

Categories
ZHobbies & Collectibles

Download Affordable MP3 Songs Legally

As written in A Way Out, I have learnt not to download copyright things illegally. Recently, I was thinking to buy some legal MP3. And some research online, there are two recommendations. At the end, I chose MP3va.com because the minimum purchase for MP3va is lower. I paid USD 15.00 (RM49) by credit card and indeed ‘they’ gave me additional USD 5.00. This USD 20.00 is like a prepaid value in your account.

After some searching, purchasing and downloading of my favorite songs, I got more and more excited. And because also some fear that the website will be ‘gone’, I try to quickly finish up my credits. By today, I just left less than USD 1.00 in my account and have downloaded 127 songs (2 songs are free once you sign up) within one week! Tips:

Some tips for using MP3va.com:

  • For the same song, you can search for a few versions to get the best sound quality version by looking at the bit rate (kbps).
  • You can preview listen the songs first before adding or purchasing it.
  • You can search by the singer or the song name.

In the past, one original audio CD can cost RM40 and usually not all the songs in that CD are my favorites even those greatest hits CDs. And I have bought quite number of these original audio CD throughout the years. But now, I found this website where I only pay RM49 to enjoy about 130 songs and I can choose all my favorite songs! Most of my favorite songs are late 80″ and 90″ songs. So, if you too love to listen to music and download them legally and want to save some bucks, give this MP3va.com a shot 🙂

Categories
ZHobbies & Collectibles

Board Games Is Not Bored Actually

I remember once a friend said to me, “Board games are for bored people.”. Immediately I have a conflict with him. I told him that his word can hurt those who love board games. But glad that we resolved on that very day and until today he is one of my good friends in the church.

Recently, I have been playing much board games with my church friends. I think it started about two months ago. We played usually either on Friday or Saturday night. Here are the list of board games we have played before so far: Ticket To Ride (we have Asia, Europe + expansion), Citadels, Small World Underground, Carcassonne (+ two expansions), Flash Point, Terra, Tokaido and the most recent one we played last week was King of Tokyo (+ one expansion). One of us just bought 5-6 new games yet to try out.

I really feel grateful to have this little ‘board games club’ whereby I can look forward to join every week to have great enjoyable fun time with my friends. I am grateful to those to invested into so many board games to lend their board games to us. I also appreciate the feedback that the rest should contribute to this club too, example maybe each to buy a board game and if there are 12 person in the club, we have 12 different games to cover the whole year. Personally myself I have one which I bought many years back, Terra. But this Terra is very under utilized since the day I bought it and so I felt a little regret. And now one of my hesitation to buy new game is because I worry that I will buy another ‘Terra’. Perhaps I need to really do more homework before I buy a particular board games so that that game is fun and at the same time easy to teach and learn for majority.

Speaking on board games, I feel that it is a ‘better’ hobby compare to computer games. Reason being is board games usually involves human interaction and not virtual human intereaction (online computer games). Although the board games are not cheap, but if all are sensitive enough to share the burden, example by buying one game for each person, this hobby is not that expensive after all. I mean if the game cost your RM120 and can last for a year, one month is only cost you RM10. This way is so much cheaper than going to board games cafe like Meeples which slash your pocket by charging you by hourly play (around RM3.50 per person per hour!). If you are interested to join us to play board games in Subang area, please contact me ya. We also wish to reach out to more new friends too as we are enjoying ourselves 🙂

Categories
Tips Macam-Macam

Buy Books From Amazon.com

First time bought some books from Amazon.com. Do you know that you can buy second-hand books from Amazon at a good deal? The shipping cost back to Malaysia to not cheap though but you can consider another cheaper alternative which is to ship for your US address Portland (you can get this address from comgateway.com) for free (if your purchase is above USD25 at Amazon.com). Then ship them from Portland to Malaysia. It works. Last week I got my books already.

Actually how much shipping cost depends also how heavy is your package. I thought at comgateway, my charges is based on my 0.83 KG volume but actually they charge me 1.5 KG instead. This is because 0.83 KG is actual weight but 1.44 KG is my Volumetric weight (Comgateway’s charges is based on every increment of 0.5 KG. Example, 0.3 KG will be based on 0.5 KG). Volumetric weight depends on how bulky the package is. Larger packages have a higher volumetric weight. The actual weight of a package refers to how heavy it is. For new customer at comgateway, you got 10% shipping cost discount also.

It is best to compare amazon’s with comgateway shipping cost first, then only decide to choose which one. For Amazon, one of the problems is, some of the item, they don’t ship to Malaysia.

Categories
Tips Macam-Macam

Beware Of Electrostatic in Petrol Station

“Do not get back into your vehicle during refueling — even when using the nozzle’s automatic hold-open latch. If you must reenter your vehicle, discharge the static electricity buildup when you get out by touching the outside metal portion of your vehicle, away from the filling point, before attempting to remove the nozzle.” – Source hcdoes.org