Sunday, January 23, 2005

Byte me and RAM it

That ingenious little dorky website made me realize just how much I regret not having many mementos from my 1A term. I only have a small handful of polaroid photographs of Derek, Tony and Irwin, (and Pink-chan) and if it counts, I may still have those digital photos that Tony took of machinery in the shop for one of the final MTE graphics assignments.

I'd like to buy a digita and/or film camera sometime this term, so that I don't miss any more important moments.

Oh, and I never knew what the giant digital countdown in POETS was a countdown to the IRS until I noticed it on the BMARI site 8D

... I can't wait 8D That is, assuming MTE 08 passes CEAB accredation standards >__<

Saturday, January 22, 2005

It's Saturday

My alarm woke me up at 7:30, and it took me a little while to register that today was Saturday, and that I didn' t have to go to work. >_< So I found Tony's SMS message that I managed not to notice even though my phone is *on* my bed and set on vibrate mode, and then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Weekends are good 8D It's snowing pretty heavily outside, and I don't think mum's going to work today--which unfortunately means that I probably won't be able to go out, either :S Oh well, everyone's either far away and/or busy.

:(

But Calvin and his affinity for kittens is cute. ^^

Thursday, January 20, 2005

I passed out at work >_<

...Yeah :S Everything went all yellow-ish and tunnel-visiony and I felt all numb... and when I couldn't stay focused enough to test a floppy drive and didn't have enough motor skills left to take a CD out of an optical drive, I went to call for help.. (I later found out the CD was Half Life 2. XD!!!!)

and went to Timothy, him being the closest to me, and I told him, "Tim, I'm gonna pass out..." and he kinda looked at me in disbelief and said something along the lines of "O_O You're kidding" and VOOM down I went :S I came to and everybody had come out of the office, and Maggie got me some hot water and pain killers. Arnold and Jim missed the whole thing.

I took the rest of the day off ^^;;; Took a three hour nap when I came home.

Hehee.. on another note, Timothy forgot his lunch today, so we went to McDonalds for lunch with Arnold and Keith... XD Learnt that Keith is from Jamaica and has a Jamaican accent (I wanna hear a Chinese kid speak with that accent!) and that Timothy went to a private school :P Prep. XD

Oh, and Danny gave us an actual quota today for how many computers we have to fix.. We're not allowed to spend over an hour on each machine -_- so we have to fix over seven a day now :S

Pah.

I can barely manage that, and I don't even have packing or shipping to do like everybody else. Richard's workload has just doubled now that John is gone (oh, and I think he's Shu Jin, since that punch card was blank for today and yesterday was his last day) . So now there's an extra repair bench, and I'm thinking that either Keith or Arnold are going to get ... de/promoted to repairs, most likely Arnold since he'll be free after the LCDs. Keith I'm not sure, b/c now that Dick's gone, Maggie needs someone helping her with the data entry.

I don't want to get fired. :'(

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

This makes Seven

Uggghhhggles to PDEng. That's the "Professional Development for Engineering Students", if I haven't already bitched to you about it yet... It's basically an online course that engineering co-op students have to complete during their five work terms. It includes material on engineering laws, ethics, professionalism, etc. that's supposed to help us become professional licensed engineers.) I finished Module 2 yesterday though, and it's due in an hour-- and I've even completed one of the activities for Module 3. 8D but yeah apparently there are more modules to come this work term still >_< Pah.

Ahaha.. Danny hired ARNOLD! He started yesterday around four o'clock, right after his interview. He's been helping Jim, so he's getting OT too.

Spent three hours on the phone with Tony helping him with PDEng-- and he still failed the first quiz XD The only other person who passed it on the first try was Jon (Er, Bily tells me so--I don't know who Jon is myself.) Helped Bily over MSN, too.

I think I dozed off at work today while running the super long tests :S People really need to stop sending in their units for "service" when their computers work just fine >_< The 'more info' on-holdcart is already full, and Frank even had to put a unit on the very top of the running cart... haha..

And so this makes seven.

(Er... Someone got... fired yesterday. .__. I really really hope he doesn't start firing the co-ops. :: scared ::)

Saturday, January 15, 2005

CS co-op :)

After interviews all morning, Danny hired Keith yesterday, a co-op student also from computer science at UW. That makes two people in each department now-- two mechs, two CS and two comp eng... He's helping Jim with his work, and I'm kind of jealous that they have access to restricted areas lol... but not by much since it's just a couple of rooms and the 'cage' area where they lock all the things like computer parts and instruction manuals >_<

Hehe. So far all the guys at work have been really nice. Some are obviously more.. outwardly ambitious than others, I guess I could say. They're really helpful XD

Especially Tim and his l337 hax0rz skillz in taking off CPU fans. XD

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Blah.

screw.. unscrew.... screw.. unscrew. screw.. unscrew.

repeat.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

PC Repairs!

Spent part of yesterday afternoon training with Frank, but he had to finish some priority machines so I ended up changing my first mobo by myself XDD

We finished the last eight skids today, and then I started repairs on a new computer. Other than the power supply being blown, I had to replace the mobo as well >_> after spending three hours determining that it really was the mother board, since we don't have a spare to test for that and I had to isolate that it wasn't the RAM or the HDD or the CPU that was faulty >_< Rawr. And in the end the tests took an hour, and the unit is on hold currently while I wait for a shipment of power supplies to arrive. -__- Oh, and I found a StarCraft CD in the CD drive XD Owner may have burnt out his power and mobo playing SC :P

I spent the rest of the day helping Calvin with receiving, since he had two cartfuls to receive, and we never did have time to receive the parts.

._. and I realize that magnetized electric screw drivers are teh rockz0rs.



Saturday, January 08, 2005

I think I'll be doing my job description soon...

:S! Over 1200 boxes today... the pads on my fingers are all raw from sticking that many labels on cardboard boxes all day.

Maggie says that we'll continue with the boxes on Monday morning, run the first eight skids in the afternoon, finish the other eight on Tuesday and then after that, Richard and I are to start repairs. O_o she didn't say what I'd be repairing though-- I'm sort of hoping I'll get to help Jim with the LCDs. Either fixing the PCs or the LCDs would be fine by me though-- as long as I'm not folding keyboard boxes or counting French manuals ><

Turns out I forgot to sign out yesterday when I left.... so I had to ask Danny to sign my card again... Thank fully he didn't seem upset by it--he did tell me to talk to him the next time I had a problem with my time card ^^;;

One full week that Eric hasn't shown up for work. We think that it's probable that he'll come back and demand his pay for the four days he worked that wasn't on our last (first? lol) paycheck, though.

Getting a rabbit tomorrow. Going early with Isabel to buy a cage and some essentials 8D G'nite!

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Note to self

First kit:
2500 give or take 1000
1599
971
1080 (today)
16 skids = 1920 (tomorrow)

I want to keep track of just how many of these French keyboards we'll pack in the next four months.


I remember now 8D

I remember what I was going to write about yesterday XD

Yesterday morning, I was twenty minutes early for work and ended up being the first person other than my manager there. He was busy in the back of the warehouse doing something, so he asked me to unlock the backdoor for the other employees. XD I had so much fun looking through the little closed circuit feed video and pressing the 'key' button everytime someone buzzed the door bell XD The system automatically turned on the video monitor everytime someone buzzed, I just never realized there was a camera right above the door. I also turned on the audio monitor, too XD

So yes. I amuse myself with trivial things 8D When all you do is fold boxes and count booklets at work it doesn't take much to amuse you >_<

:( Maggie said that we weren't doing our work fast enough. Not in those words, but she said that we should've been able to finish the manuals yesterday -- she said she spent 10 minutes on every 120, and the fastest that Richard and I could manage yesterday was 15 minutes per 120 >< So today we worked our butts off and skipped afternoon break to continue with our work... we ended up finishing with over an hour to spare before the end of the day, and she told us to fold 180 more boxes ._.;;; Half an hour before work ended though, Danny came over and told us to stop and pack up the cardboard, and (Inesrt Chinese accent here) "clean! clean!!!"

Apparently HP is coming to the factory tomorrow to audit us .... so we went around with cloths and spray bottles of alcohol wiping every dusty surface we could find ^^;; and then Jim did a little presentation on how to use the new PC Doctor software and the new parallel serial port loopback hardware for testing ports. (note to self: Remember to burn something to test optical drives? o_o) and handed out packages to everybody--of course, everybody but Richard and myself >< We all know it's just for show for tomorrow anyway, so that HP will think that we're efficient and all. And that we're actually fixing their broken Compaqs -_- Danny says that we'll get it next time.

... which reminds me, I should tell him sometime that I'll need to start fixing computers before our co-op cordinator comes to visit. He's dealt with UW students before though, so I guess he should know the procedure.. unless this whole on-site visiting thing is something new with the new co-op system.

16 skids tomorrow. .___.;;;; Unless we forego it to please HP instead. It wouldn't do to let them see how much we screw up now, would it XD

I swear, Brampton does NOT need 5 thousand French Canadian Keyboards.

...CANADA does not need 5 thousand French Canadian keyboards, let alone 50 thousand :@ and all only "a utiliser avec le modele Compaq Presario" -__-


Wednesday, January 05, 2005

"Skitting" at work

We ran eight skids today... and I must say I'm proud that it's the first time since I've been working there that nothing's gone wrong, NOTHING. No books were misplaced, no missing CDs, no extra instruction manuals or pamphlets. 8D Usually, for the other 4 thousand keyboard kits we've assembled, there have always been one per every 120 that was missing a book, or a CD, or a remote, or batteries (0.100 on the electric scale!), a pamphlet (0.05), a MOUSE (0.200) ... etc.... so today when all eight went without incident, I was all RAWR RAWR 8D 8D 8D!!

We suspect that Eric's quit already. We received our first paycheck last Thursday, and I wasn't there Friday or Monday, and he hasn't been there these past two days at least. He allegedly spent the weekend with his girlfriend, and Calvin and I were joking around that his disappearance had something to do with that. XD We were all aware of the fact that he was particularly disliking the job, and he had mentioned on several occasions that he probably would quit Computer Engineering and the University of Waterloo all together and go to UT to study social sciences or something, and to eventually study Law.

There was something else that I wanted to talk about to... but I can't remember it for the life of me now XD So it'll have to wait until later. *wavies*

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

2000!

;o; I miss the inside jokes we had with the MTE girls.

I'm just _lost_. XD

2000 boxes folded by Dick and Richard today. I put the little French labels on each of them. Six HOURS straight of box making.

>____< I work in a sweatshop.

Monday, January 03, 2005

End of Holiday..

These past two weeks that I have been working, the high school students have been having Christmas and New Year holiday. Today was the first day back at classes, and since the high school is right across the street from the warehouse where I work, and work starts the same time as homeroom, I'll have to go to work a little earlier to avoid the traffic congestion at the intersections ^^;;

The long weekend's been fun, even though I ended up not being able to see my boy today ;o;

More updates soon!

Third day off

I have the day off from work today =) I'm being lazy and spending it watching soap operas on TV. And later I will probably continue watching anime from yesterday. XD

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Obligatory First Post

So here is my first post in "teh college blog"... even though I'm technically not in school right now ^^; There's a summary at the end, feel free to read that if you don't want to read the lonoog post XD

The day after tomorrow marks the official beginning of the work term, although I've started working already. For my first work term, I'm working as a PC Technician for TATUNG Canada, a Taiwanese based electronics company. I had originally applied for the job posting on JobMine (the school's employment portal, for those of you who aren't familiar with it) and they had already hired the four people they had said they would. About two weeks later, they e-mailed me personally and requested that I come in for an interview. The Monday after I moved back home, I went for the interview and then on Tuesday morning, I started my first day at work. ^_^ The hourly salary is next to minimum wage, but I have a job and that's all that matters. Five of my co-workers are also students from UW: three in Computer Engineering (Tim, Eric and Calvin), another in Mechanical Engineering (Jim) and one in Computer Science o.O (Richard).

First (1A) term was pretty eventful. It consisted of the expected: met new people, (attempted to) learn some new things, lived on my own away from parents for the first extended amount of time (although they did visit every weekend), grew up a little, gained a little bit of responsibility and confirmed the fact that I can't manage my finances at all, let alone well ^^;

I didn't Frosh--and I don't have the famous yellow hard hat like every other Engineering student, but I used that first week on campus to familiarize myself with the place on my own anyway. Student loans occupied the majority of my time anyway, but that was all sorted out in the end. Towards the middle of this work term I'll have to re-confirm with the government my employment and study status, so that they loan me more money (hopefully!!) for the Spring term.

There are 119 days left until Spring term lectures start. Four months to work, and save a little bit of money, and ... hopefully next term my marks won't be as dismal. First year doesn't count towards our GPA anyway (or so I hear) and thank goodness I only needed a 50 to pass this term. Every subsequent term from now on I'll need 60s to pass ><

As they are now, my grades are: Math 116, Calculus 1 for Engineers: D; ChE 102, Chemistry for Engineers: D; MTE 100, Mechatronics Engineering 100: B; GenE 121, General Engineering Digital Computation: B; Math 115, Linear Algebra for Engineers: B.

:S The average is a C, but that's okay I passed! XD I wasn't really expecting to pass Chemistry, but I believe they bell-curved it. :( Some of my friends didn't pass several courses, and I wish them all the best in clearing those off their transcripts as soon as possible, since our courses next term have prerequisites.


And for those of you who want to read the summary (some of these I didn't elaborate on but I will if you guys request):
- fried rice with some of the UHS gang during Frosh week
- writing the alphabet 14 times as the first homework assignment
- the microwave blowing up
- ELPE
- Math Prep
- hanging out at Martin and Tony's suites
- coming home only twice (Thanksgiving and Commencement)
- getting drunk(? O_O) for the first time from jello vodka and crashing at Tony's place
- living away from home
- going to Timmy's at 4 in the morning
- missing half of lectures after midterms
- LEGO Design Project
- blowing up the microwave AGAIN
- eating Pho with the girls
- Hooked on Tronics/Tron and Quartered
- RezNet
- Chill 'n Grill
- Magical Trevor and Kenya
- dead baby jokes
- Martin's depressing music

Test post Test Post

TESTING! 8D