Wednesday 28 December 2011

Just rantin'

It is very sad that I do not get the French-speaking French, Canadians...

Of the very limited audience of my blog, majority are Singaporeans.
This is followed by a not-too-small proportion of Russians.

French-speaking people, Y U NO COME?!
On another note, 140% ...

Saturday 24 December 2011

Noel

C'est l'ocassion pour le fete! Pardonnez-moi pour le francais mal. Je suis bete, je sais, si je veux les gens qui parlons francais a me comprendre. Mais, je vais essayer! Un publicite en francais, depuis un singapourien qui connais anglais et chinois tout la vie seulement.

Noel est presque, qu'est que vous fairez pour l'evenement? Moi, je ne sais pas. Meme si je suis catholique, je ne vraiment crois pas que le Dieu existe. A bien de moments, j'ai les pensees... pourquoi beaucoup de gens croyons dans lui? Personne ne le voit! Serieusement, je ne sais pas...

Peut-etre, apres beaucoup de annees, je vais comprendre. Que pensez-vous? Je vais comprendre dans l'avenir? Ou je toujours ne comprends pas? Ah... tout n'est pas importante. Le plus importante en courant, est pour moi a reussir. J'ai 19 ans seulement. Il y a un longue route avant moi.

Dire-moi "meilleurs voeux". Je dois vous remercie pour lire mon francais mal. Et, peut-etre, vous pouvez correcter-moi dans le grammaire (je suis tres faible dans ca!). En tard, humain.

Sunday 11 December 2011

Giving everything you've got

Running a marathon is no simple task. I remember running my first marathon a year ago, with a close friend of mine. It was hard, daunting, strenuous. If you're a fit guy, you'd think that running a marathon is simply maintaining a steady pace across 42km. It is quite true, but then again it's not all.

The both of us went into the marathon hardly prepared. The furthest distance I'd run to prepare for the race was probably about 5km or so, not even an eighth of the entire race. Then, the first few kilometres breezed by. It felt so good running past people, just letting our legs fly in the cool morning wind. I felt great.

As time passed by, however, aches started kicking in. Practically every part of my body ached at least once—my thighs, my calves, my abs, my shoulders... not my neck muscles though. At some point of time it felt like I couldn't go on. I'm sure I couldn't have went on if I didn't have company. You know, I was relying on this... spirit bond (no reference to DotA's Syllabear) with my friend—if he could make it, I could; if he couldn't, I couldn't.

To me, a marathon is a test of both a person's physical and mental endurance. One year down the road, I'm pretty sure that I can't run a marathon. First of all, my stamina took a dip for the worse (and is still dipping, I guess). And then, I'm also not motivated to run a marathon.

I wouldn't advise anyone to run a marathon if he just wants to do it for the accomplishment—the pride, the sense of achievement, the medal, and the finisher tee. It's because, at the end of the marathon, you actually start questioning yourself: who, really, is impressed by your run? What's changed after fighting so hard? I don't know. For me, it leaves me all dull and gloomy... I'd advise you to run a marathon only if you want to run it, if you have a desire for it, be it for friends, or... yourself.

Friday 9 December 2011

Thoughts on IT

I went for my first interview yesterday. It was with Microsoft.



OK, I wouldn't say it's really my first, because I've had interviews before this. None of them, however, was about a complete evaluation of me—in other words, those interviews were nothing more than formalities. In this case, however, I had my qualifications looked at, I was observed, interrogated, and came out thoroughly disheartened.

It was an interview for an internship position, anyway. A position that went along the lines of developing proof-of-concepts for both aZaaS and Microsoft (in other words, whatever that I was going to work on was a shared project between aZaaS and Microsoft).

My main flaw of the entire interview, was, perhaps, being a little too humble (on hindsight), and also not being able to show my drive and willingness to go the extra mile. To be honest, I'm not exactly the very self-motivated, passionate-about-IT kind of student. I'm more of the, "I know you know I'm good", "We'll see with time" kind of person. I don't know. It's probably got to do with my personality rather than anything else.

Knowledge-wise, I believe I portrayed myself as a person who has a sound knowledge of whatever I've studied before. On the other hand, one of the interviewers' (there were two: a male and a female) questions stumped me. "What do you look forward to when you wake up every morning?" God, hath you forsaken me? I know not the answer to this question!

The male interviewer was the one who spoke the most, and he mentioned that he was working as a janitor. Someone who cleans stuff, stacks up chair... yeah, a janitor being an interviewer?! My frigging ass! I could only look at him in disbelief, thinking about what he could really mean. I think I must have looked really dumb there... So the interview gradually developed into a casual conversation that went along the lines of this... I can't remember the interview word for word, but, here goes:

He: So what do you look forward to when you wake up every morning?
Me: *speechless for awhile* Um, I think I'll need some time to think about it.
He: *smiles* By some time do you mean a few minutes, or a few years?
(I never came up with the answer in the end. Later...)
He: What do you know about ASP.NET?
Me: *ramble about GET, POST, Toolbox stuff, and Entity Framework* I used the database-first approach (referring to Entity Framework).
He: So what's the advantage of using the database-first approach?Me: Erm, I wouldn't say that there's really an advantage of a database-first approach, it's just the one I used when I developed it for the assignment. In the code-first approach, you write the classes first, but in the database-first approach you make the tables first. I guess the only difference is that you have control of the one you start doing first.
He: You know, during the first 5 minutes of the interview, you came across as a bo-chap person. But right now you show that you actually have knowledge of what you're doing.
Me: *feel proud inside*
He: What's stopping you from just going out there and making it big?
Me: Well, I don't really feel like I can make anything tangible. You know, when I was in secondary school, I picked up this book on C++; I'm not too sure whether C# was around at that time.
He: Yes, it was. I'm 10 years older than you.
Me: Oh, OK. Erm... yeah, and anyway, I learnt how to like assign an integer and stuff, but I never saw how I could make something tangible. I mean, even in school, we do assignments and make something out of it, but I never see any of them go into the market.
He: *something alone the lines of But you've never really tried, have you? How would you know?*

So yeah, it went something along the lines of that. I don't think I impressed either of them at the very least, but at the end of the day I hope I get the job! It might really be the "play hard-to-get" kind of thing that people in relationships do, just to tease us internship interviewees, but... I don't know! To cut it short, it was a very unnerving experience. At the same time, it was eye-opening; I learnt a lot from it.

On the other hand, my friend (who went in before me) portrayed himself as a true blue leader, a person who is very motivated and driven, willing to learn... But the questions the male interviewer posed (once again) shook him. Questions such as "what is the difference between mutable and transmutable?""what is an interface?", and "what is the fundamental difference between C# and Java?" I could probably talk some crap about the first two questions, but maybe not so for the third. I guess, I'm not really experienced at Java.

Overall, I'm glad that I came across naturally, and I tried my first real interview with who I really am; I did not, in any way, try to portray a false persona! this is one thing I'm really happy about. On the other hand, I have no idea if I'd get the job... oh well! Good luck to me.