Random stuff/thoughts:

What do you call heh-mee when you forgot to bring the heh? Said this to a friend a few days ago, but apparently he don't know what I was talking about when I said I brought shrimp noodles for lunch, but forgot my shrimps.

Do you use plastic bags to hold the paper you want to recycle and dump everything into the recycling bin that says "Paper only"?

My computer seems to be only active in the afternoon or at night. It always refuses to start up in the morning when I wanted to log onto facebook and cast "alchemy" 3 times.

On to my usual ranting.

I really can't describe how fortunate I am, how nice God has treated me. Really. Every step could have been a wrong step as in things won't turn out the way it has turned out. And all I did was to follow my instincts.

I could have landed myself in this motor company if I had not realized in the nick of time that motor is something seriously distasteful to me, and hence turned down the interview.

I could have landed myself in an Indian consulting company and worked my ass off for a lower pay than now, plus much less benefits, and more stress, if I had decided to abandon that job offer (or rather, not follow up cos apparently the recruiter forgot about me after a couple months, which shows how disorganized the company is) and gone on to Cali to seek better opportunities. Things would also be different if I had stayed in Madison to continue my job search. I might even have to return to sg.

For the above, I was the one making the decisions. Hence even though I merely followed my instincts as with every fortunate choices in the past, I'm still in control.

Next come the instances which i totally had no control over. Being accepted into Sony is already something that is extremely fortunate, especially when I have no internship experience and am "alien" to the country (sounds like I'm ET). Yes, I'm so happy that I managed to pull through my first job search without an internship, which saved me half a year of time, and that is a difference of more than 40 grand USD (that includes tuition fees saved)! Of course, strictly speaking, this sum could be more if one propagates that half year down to the last half year before my retirement (assuming retirement age is the same for both cases, with and without intern), since the block of time I'll be working now till I retire is merely shifted forward by half a year. But let's just keep things simple, and make it 40k, which already is quite a sum.

What's more, if I had been recruited into a different department, things are more likely going to be worse than this, as the managers of the other departments are really pale in comparison in terms of employee welfare. My manager is really one of the rare kinds I've ever seen. Even the unruly me, can't match his unruliness. My hats for him.

Compared to the companies which I almost got in, I think this offers the most opportunities. Like what Sony preaches, you don't work for a company, you work for an idea. There're ample opportunities and encouragements for you to voice your ideas, and you are also strongly supported if you want to realize that idea. Of course, this is probably the case in many other large established companies as well, but probably for a small company, like that Indian consulting company, this opportunity won't exist.

Of course, when given such opportunities, it really takes some effort to grasp hold of it. Not everyone is ready for them. Some of them have families, some of them have girlfriends, and some of them are just not interested. That Israeli colleague of mine is really enthusiastic, but I guess that enthusiasm wasn't strong enough to get her over that inertia barrier. After all, each one of us is required to only submit 3 ideas a year. Well, I guess I'm the only one grabbing hold of this opportunity.

Yes, and consumer electronics has always been something I'm working towards since college. I really can't imagine myself working in a motor company or a semi-conductor company, or even a software company like Yahoo! or Google. That would just suck. Yes, so I guess this instinct led me on the right path.

Talking about Yahoo!, I had wanted to rope this Indonesian chio bu in cos I know she's good and Sony's recruiting. Soon after I asked her about her job search, I disallowed myself to offer her my recommendation. Cos she has 3 job offers (not interviews) to choose from and Yahoo! is paying her much more than Sony would. Now that is what I call zai. She's claiming some 80k as a fresh Bachelors graduate in Computer Science! I didn't know that fresh Bachelors can earn this much. She's also the lucky girl who won an Xbox360, a Wii and an Ipod in a Career Fair Raffles. Who can beat that? I didn't even win that camcorder I wanted even though I threw in 12 Raffles tickets.

Alright, I'm not comparing. I'm really happy as I am now, and I wouldn't even think of Yahoo! even if I'm given the opportunity. Consumer Electronics is my interest.

Oh yah, I even interviewed 2 people already since I joined the company. It was damn funny! Will talk more about it next time if I remember.

That's it. Gotta go entertain my piano already. tata~