While You Were Sleeping

Was checking out the new location map of SoC, then I saw the label "LT27" and was suddenly struck with an unexpected nostalgic feeling. =) Ah, I've been seeing that building for years, and now we will be quite a distance away.

(Though one could easily say, how big is NUS campus really, or for that matter, the whole Singapore town?)

I have surely forgotten that I once missed the CELC at the old Admin building, the old NIE park, or the old KR hall (I suppose it's part of RVR now?) just the same.

Thufir Hawat said, "Parting with friends is sadness. A place is a place."

I can tell you many things I miss about Singapore as a place: the fresh air, the manageable size (long live Street Directory) and even more as an environment (the lack of all those things one would be fined for doing)... but I guess the core of it all is a matter of familiarity.

And we humans can adapt very well. The air quality has not improved in Beijing, but my dissatisfaction about it certainly has.

I've been so comfortable with my life back then, with all its ups and downs, with my semi-static circle of friends, even with all that my personality lacks, with all the shortcomings that attack my conscience from time to time. I accepted the offer for this temporary posting in Beijing because, simply, the opportunity was there. Minutes from the so-minimally-prepared departure, I was thrown to the discomforting realization, "Oh no, I will have to make new friends soon?"

By now I know there'll be bits of the same bittersweet feeling towards these new friends when I leave this city, as what I felt when I left for it; as what I still feel once a year on that taxi trip to my hometown airport.

And yet, it might just be a subdued sentimental recollection one year from now.

Much as it may sound anti-romantic, feelings do pass... or change, and I think that is perfectly all right, 'cause I'd like to think that romance lies, in contrast, in all the effort we spend on the feeling while it lasts.

Now is that mushy or what? =D

Searching

First laid-back weekend after a while. =) This blog will have jumbled things I've wanted to say for some time, so it's unlikely to be coherent..

First, a link: The Keropok - Singapore Daily Photo

I guess partly because the photos are well taken, partly because I'm rather tuned to sight-seeing mood recently, and partly because I'm currently away... I thought, "Eh, Singapore is quite a beautiful country too." =D (Over here all they say about Singapore is "So clean!")

Hope I will still think so when I'm back in a few months, so I'll make time to look around the few places I've never really explored before. Eka, would you be up to it? As an alternative to our movie weekends. ^^

The photoblog by the way was found through a "Google query chain" for "NUS School of Computing relocation", when I needed to find out the new location of my lab, to re-apply for the expired IT resources. I'm working on something related to web search these days, so these search stuff mean a little bit more to me now. =) My browser starts on Google, and I always have an open tab for on-demand googling the whole time I'm working at a terminal. Now, occasionally I'd feel like I should contribute to my own datapool by using MSN Live Search instead. =D

As for the browser, I've been using Mozilla Firefox back home, mostly for its convenient tabbing. (It is supposedly more secure, too, but I never understand much about computer security, so. =P) Now that IE7 -- pre-installed on my lab machine, while Firefox is not -- has tabs too, I've switched sides.. for now. =D IE's tabbing feature feels slower in response, but this comparison is on different machines. Any of you have the experience?

Before the trip to the Redmond campus, we met up with our General Manager Hon Hsiao-Wuen, during which I asked him if, being "Microsoft people" (of which sense I don't have enough yet), we should be careful in revealing our preference for competitor products to these people we were going to meet (within/outside the lab/company). He said that, they would actually encourage us to experience other products and provide feedbacks and criticisms, but please make sure to convey it respectfully. =D

I did miss the powerful built-in/shell tools I'd been using on SoC Linux servers, and once gushed to my project leader about them. =P Hopefully that wasn't too... er, enthusiastic-for-the-wrong-side. The researchers I work with are very young and the team shares a much more casual interaction compared to the professor-student relationship I've had in campus, so it's easy to reveal those kind of things in conversations. =D

Things are moving at a faster pace for me here, being in a team, compared to doing my own research in the uni. My prof gave me a lot of time to explore ideas; we met once a week; I have life outside school. ^^ Here we have concrete targets and are eager for progress; we meet twice a week, plus occasional sync meetings with another department; I don't have much to do outside the lab.

Conclusion: OT. =D

(Of course a portion of these OT periods is utilized for emails, blogs, chats etc, like now. Search data are huge so experiments have long runtimes, and so I have sort of excusable in-between idle periods, har.)

I'm working on a photo blog for recent happenings, will post the link here when it's ready. I wonder if the amount of photos I'm putting up is giving you the impression that I'm on a long vacation trip instead of an internship? XD Somehow I feel obliged to post them just because my usual folks (family and friends) aren't here to experience it with me.

Last-last week my parents were here in Beijing on an invitation to attend the MSRA Intern's Day. My father has always wanted to visit China (the "knowing your root" thing) so despite my normal paiseh attitude I worked out the courage to ask the management if I could invite them. Glad I did, because they approved. =)

So by now I've visited the Badaling Great Wall twice and the Summer Palace twice, but still I would like, someday when my mood has recovered from this touristy overload, to hike the Simatai and to go all the way to the hilltop of the Palace. ^_^

But aside from the general feel-good I'm probably losing the enthusiastic edge with all that happened in my life, though when casual acquaintances asked I'd surely say they were exciting, just so it wouldn't sound as if I were disappointed with anything, which I indeed wasn't. I am still aware how fortunate these were for me, so I could at least not appear ingrate. =D

But still I feel that I've been giving a whole lot of "it was all right" answers, which were honest, because the amazement did not stay with me for long. Now that I'm analysing this to write about it, it might be because I sort of know what standard to expect once I get into certain situations, so it wasn't as impressive when they came to pass.

Does one become like this when too many pleasant surprises came in a row? It seems like I got lucky once, then one unexpected thing comes after another; and suddenly I look back at all these "high-end" experience that were amazing as I name it but not so much as I feel it... if you get what I mean.

I guess the biggest weight was that I think of it as an "undeserved favor" (Hady's term), and it really is a favor in more than one sense as various parties have kindly made room for me -- those breaks from my regular obligations, less work accomplished because my time was divided for the preparations -- so, for one, my mind was not entirely free to enjoy it, and there's also this pressure to justify this good turn by, in some way, earning the rights after-the-fact.

I kept thinking "I really should be more excited about this!" but you know when you think that you should feel something, it just means you shouldn't, because you in fact do not feel it. Am I making sense? =PP

Yet here I'm faced with an offer for another weekend++ trip to Shanghai with a group of foreign interns end of this month. I tend somewhat towards the negative decision: I'm rather tired of the sight-seeing business after all these weeks; this trip is expected to be exhausting, plus it's going to eat a day into the work week and I don't want to ask for another leave. It's also a bit of a bet, because I'll need to decide (and pay) on Monday so we can book tickets, but I cannot be sure what to expect from the trip as we do not have a solid itinerary as of yet.

The decision comes down to: I'm totally okay not to go, but I'm wondering if I'll regret it later if I miss the opportunity, considering that I'm already in China right now. Classic, eh. =P

By the way, the title came about as I tried to connect these jumbled parts.. and you might notice I've highlighted the relevant words using the color of this text. **PLUG** It is also the title of one of our Soracco songs from the Passage of Time musical, which we're going to restage January next year, and which I might as well promote here. =D Stay tuned!