My Very Red Family Room

Alas, I'm finally done with the curtains in the family room. Now we can finally sit there at night without feeling like our every move is being monitored. Some pictures to showcase my new family room. I don't think they do the room justice since they seem to be very blurry and dark. I can be an expert curtain maker but I'm no expert photographer.





Is it red or what?

My Mortality

Accidents - you never really give much thought to them until it happens to you. I didn't get into one and never have, but a recent tragedy in my neighborhood prompted me to think twice about accidents.

On Tuesday earlier this week, when Alex and I were driving home from work, we noticed that traffic around on Bothell Way, the main street to our house is unbelievably heavy. The next day, we noticed that the corner of 73rd and Bothell Way was sealed off by a metal fence and flowers were placed. Alex actually saw two women standing at the corner, crying. This made us curious; we googled the street corner to see what had happened and we found this - on Tuesday at about 4pm, a group of pedestrians waiting to cross the street were hit by a utility truck. One of the victims was pushed by the truck and pinned between the truck and a light pole. She died instantaneously. Another passenger was thrown 20 feet; one was thrown underneath the truck.

Accidents - it could happen to you. I could very well be one of those people hit. They were just getting of the 522 bus, waiting to cross the street to the park and ride. Had I not come to Microsoft, 522 is the bus I take every day to and from work. The park and ride they're heading to is the same park and ride I would use every day. It could have been me standing at that corner, crushed to death, remains splattered. The most frightening part of this tragedy is that these people were not doing anything deemed dangerous or risky. Two cars colliding is common, but a standing pedestrian struck, crushed and pinned is not.

You can argue that one of the drivers wasn't paying attention and this could have been avoided. But to me, accidents seem like the doing of fate. I could wake up one day and that could be the last day of my life. There is no way of telling. I panic a little at the thought of this. I panic a lot at the thought of this happening to Alex or my mom. It makes me realize how vulnerable we all are and how little control we have sometimes.

Accidents - I wish I had an answer for them. I wish I could say believe in God and all will be answered. I wish I could say it will never happen to me. But I can't. All I can do is pray that it doesn't happen to me.

My Life Without Access

Week two and still no access. Someone please entertain me.

Apparently there is some problem with the employee requisition system or something here and I am suffering as a result of it. As of today, I still don't have email or intranet access. Last week I was able to kill sometime by installing software and getting my machine up and running. I don't know what I'm going to do this week to pass my time at work.

I am starting to wonder if people forgot about me. Hopefully they won't forget about paying me. Not getting paid would suck.

My First Week at the Evil Empire

It's official. I've gone to the devil's side. I have joined the evil empire. I'm a member of their cult now. I am a Microsoft person.

After over a month of legal and immigration work, I finally started my new job at MS on Monday. First was one and a half days of orientation. Let the brainwashing begin! Maybe I'm just a little resistant to Microsoft, but the name was just everywhere! On the podium, in the slides, on the shuttles. The orientation is basically one giant session to glorify Microsoft. How employees love it here; how the company has evolved to cater more to employees. There's employee testimonials shown, statistics about human resources trends drawn, facts about Microsoft which rank it as a top company to work for displayed. I've never seen a company work so hard to make you like them.

Maybe they know they have a rather poor reputation within the geek world. Maybe they want new employees to be pumped and excited about their new jobs. Or maybe they just really really really believe in Microsoft. It's probably a mix of all three maybes. Some people here are really true champions of Microsoft. They believe in the company and they sell it. Scary, isn't it? I really hope I don't get brainwashed to that degree.

For now, I just want a job from which I can learn and grow. I haven't thought too much about my future career paths yet. We'll take it one day at a time.

My Last Day at Amazon

Last Thursday was my last day at Amazon. After merely eight weeks at the online retail giant, I packed up my things and left. Even though I had been looking forward to this day for a long time, when the time came to say goodbye, I was still a little nostalgic. It's really a shame that things didn't work out there.

I expected to just sneak out of there quietly, since I really hadn't been there long enough to know people well and make friends. So I was surprised when my manager treated my coworkers and I to a goodbye lunch for me. We went to this Japanese Fusion restaurant in the International District. In the middle of our lunch, we saw two employees who had just left our team for another team. My manager told them we were having a goodbye lunch for me and they look quite astonished. I believe one of them even said "Already?"

I had seen people at Motorola quit their jobs before. They would always make the rounds on their last day and say goodbye to everybody. In my case, I didn't think it was necessary for me to do that. First, it was kind of awkward that I was quitting after only a few weeks there. I think that sends a pretty clear message saying I don't like you to the rest of my team at Amazon. Second, I really didn't know anybody yet. So after lunch, I quickly packed up my stuff and sneaked out of the building.


Goodbye Amazon! Goodbye!

My Homemade Curtains

Curtains, curtains, curtains. Ever since moving into the new house, curtains, or lack thereof, have become a major headache of mine. None of our windows came with any kind of covering, so we had been debating how to best cover them while still preserving the beauty of this house. Almost every single house I've been to over the course of my life use venetian blinds, which I hate. Although they're cheap and easy to install, I just think they're bland.

I wanted draperies. Silk curtains. Colorful fabrics. I wanted to turn our home into one of those makeover projects on HGTV. Alas, everything on TV looks easier than it really is. Who knew curtains were so expensive? It's just fabric! After months of research, going to stores, looking at catalogs, I simply gave up on the idea of buying pre-made curtains. First they are really expensive, more than $200 if you want a decent design and choice of fabric. Second, most of them don't even fit the windows we have. But I refuse to succumb to those white blinds. No plastic strips on my wall. If I can't buy my curtains, I will make them myself. Needless to say, four months since moving, our windows are still bare.

I overestimated the amount of effort it takes to make a curtain. There's fabric selection, length and width measurement, curtain rod installation (of course I don't do that :))...etc. After we had decided on the kind of fabric we want, we found out that we had to special order them because the store didn't carry the amount of yardage that we would need. I had no idea that special ordering meant it would take forever for the fabric to arrive.

This past weekend, after eight weeks of waiting for the fabric, it finally arrived. So, with the help of my mom, I bunkered down and began making my first set of curtains. We first measured and cut the big roll of fabric I got into equal length sections. Since the width of the fabric is not wide enough for one panel, I had to join to pieces of fabric together to form a wider piece. While that sounds easy to do, just sewing straight lines, it is not. I must have sewn and de-threaded, sewn and de-threaded about 10 different times before giving up on perfection. I had to settle for my not so straight lines and sometime scrunched up fabric. I have new found respect for seamstresses.

So after a day of pinning, sewing, and ironing, I finally had one panel made. It was actually quite fun after I got the hang of things. I think things would go much faster if I wasn't such a perfectionist or if I actually had any sewing skills. Unfortunately, after I hung the one panel up, I realized that the color I chose, dark red, is way too overpowering for our small sized media room. Back to the fabric shop to order some lighter colored fabric - light gold. Red and gold, royal, I know. Luckily, I was able to save the red fabric for our family room. Otherwise it would have been heartbreaking for me to waste over 200 dollars worth of fabric.


If this software engineering gig doesn't work out, maybe I can make curtains full time. Then again, maybe not.

My San Franciscan Heart

Most people who know me probably know that I spent a good number of years living in San Francisco when I was growing up. From the age of ten through seventeen, the city by the bay was my home. When I moved to Canada in 1999, the definition of me was San Francisco. Even though Vancouver was a beautiful city, I never warmed up to it because I was always occupied with memories of San Francisco. When people asked me where I was from, I would proudly say "San Francisco!" I guess you could say "I Left My Heart in San Francicso."

Since I left, I went back to visit a couple of a times, each visit a memorable and heart warming experience. It felt comfortable to be back in a familiar city. A little more than a month ago, I went with Alex to Mountain View for a week when he was down for Google new hire training. This trip was my first trip back to the Bay Area in four years. I was excited to see the city again, anxious to show the town to Alex. I looked forward to stepping back in time momentarily and revisiting all the places I once called home.

But this trip was anything but heart warming. Something changed within me. I felt extremely sad and depressed when we drove past the street on which I used to live. Suddenly all the bad memories of life in San Francisco began to pour in, flooding my mind. My dad's depression. My mom's burden. Our struggle to stay. I saw my mom with bags of groceries fighting the crowd when Alex and I walked through Chinatown. I saw my dad walking back home on Van Ness Avenue as Alex and I drove down the busy street. I saw myself hanging around the Marina district as Alex and I ate dinner there. Bits of the past were flying towards me, overwhelming me. I didn't know how to deal with them. I didn't know how to deal with memories I didn't want to remember. I felt like I was being sucked back into the past, except I now knew how different life could be beyond the past. I felt like I was thrown back to live those seven years again, except I now knew the conclusion of that life.

As I revisit each part of my old familiar grounds, I realized how far I had gone since I left. This time, I went back as an adult. This time, I was visiting instead of coming back home. I guess at some point during these eight years, I left my San Franciscan home, and left my San Franciscan heart.

Our Lawn

Part of the headache (or joy) of owning a house is dealing with the lawn. I've always heard people complain about lawns and yardwork, but until I (or Alex) had to deal with it, I never thought much of it. The last weekend Alex and I spent a good afternoon outdoors taking care of our lawn.

In the one month that Alex was in California, the grass on our lawn has been growing as if it's on steroids. Originally we bought a manual push mower to mow the lawn since we really didn't have much grass. When Alex came back and noticed how tall our grass has grown, he decided that manually mowing this was just not going to work. It would take us weeks to complete the work, and by the time we're done, we would have to start all over again.

So we bought an gasoline powered mower. It's kind of funny that we're dealing with all of this right now. It almost feels like we are two kids playing house, pretending to be grown-ups. It still feels surreal sometimes that I own a house and I have to worry about things like the lawn, or weeds, or leaky roofs. I don't know when I will actually feel like a 100% adult, but I have not gotten there yet. Maybe when I turn 30 I will feel like one.

Never knew I had so much to say about lawn mowing. Enjoy the pictures!

My First Resignation

A month of working at that online-retail-giant-named-after-a-South-American-river, I am ready to say goodbye to it. It's been kind of a disappointment to me so far. Before joining, this company is one I've had my eyes on for quite a while. I applied right after graduating from college, but I didn't do well on the interview so I didn't get the job. When Motorola announced our layoffs, I decided to try again. This time, with more experience, I got in without much trouble. I was thrilled when I got the offer. So thrilled that Alex said he's never seen me this happy.

Well, a month into the job and I'm not so happy anymore. I now understand why a lot of people warned me about this company and why the turnover rate is so high here. Two words: it sucks. Well, at least for me it does. I took an SDET (Software Development Engineer - Test) role here because test development is where I want my career to go. I like building test infrastructures and enjoyed my assignments as an SDET at Motorola. The SDET position here seemed like a perfect fit for me. I would be doing Java development, which I have been doing for the past several years, and I would be doing test development, which is something I want to pursue further. Well, a month in and I am doing Java development and I am doing test development. I should be happy right? Not quite. One huge aspect of my job I didn't really consider was the team participation part. My company does not put much emphasis on Quality Assurance, at all. Because of this, most SDETs here work alone or consult developers when tackling testing problems. I am one of the few lucky people here who get to test an entire product by myself.

That should get me trained plenty, having to do everything by myself, right? In a way, it would teach me a lot of things. For example, I would have to do all sorts of testing that I've never done before, like stress and load testing. But in another way, it's teaching me the wrong way to do things. Because of their lack of direction on testing, everything here is somewhat "hacked". So essentially, I would just be creating a bunch of little projects here and there to solve temporary testing problems. I wouldn't be able to build a test infrastructure, or at least learn how to build one. Because of their lack of emphasis on testing, I have no one to learn from, no one to consult with on the subject of testing. There is no test architect to guide the general direction of testing, and there is no team members to consult with about how to test a feature. I would very much like to become a test architect at some point, but I am way too inexperienced as of now to take on that role.

The culture of this company is also a sore point. Because they're a retail company, they have very very low profit margin. They don't have the financial resources as say Microsoft or Google, who mark up their products quite a bit. For this reason, they must operate efficiently and cheaply. That means that everything has to be done quickly and new features have to be out much faster than normal so they can attract customers. There's always a trade-off between delivering products quickly versus delivering a quality product. When a product is shipped quickly, quality usually suffers. When a product is shipped with top-notch quality, it usually isn't delivered that fast. This company values shipment date much much more than product quality. They provide a free service for online retailing, customers don't have to pay to use it. It's okay if a bug or two is found, as long as customers can find what they're looking for. But it's not okay if they lose a potential group of customers because they did not deliver a new service quickly. As a result, their services are usually released in lightning speed but with lots of bugs. To remedy the bug situation, instead of prolonging the release period and hire more staff to test it, they make their developers go on-call to handle any crisis.

So after a month, my position here has become "just a job". It is just the wrong fit for me. As a result, I will soon be quitting this job and moving onto another company who values quality a lot more - Microsoft. I know, I know, it's the devil. But hey, for a career in test development, Microsoft is the place to be. My stint at this company will be short, but I rather leave a bad impression here than waste my time doing something I don't like doing here. I haven't told my boss here yet as I'm still waiting for Microsoft to take care of my visa. I am dreading the conversation with my boss but I can't wait to get it over with.

I can't wait to quit.

My Employment Stress

It's been a crazy and stressful month, to say the least. The ax fell two weeks ago and my worst fear was realized. I got laid off. The company 5% staff reduction (rumored to be much more than 5%) affected pretty much all of our office. Our corporate VP flew into Seattle two weeks ago to discuss "future business plans". In reality, she flew in with an entourage of HR staff to reduce her staff. Out of almost 100 employees in the office, only 23 were left after the reduction. Development, test, program management, and several other departments were all wiped out, completely. Although most of us saw this coming, it was still shocking to watch them "clean the house". All of a sudden, all that we had worked for was no longer relevant. The deadlines, the pressure, and the commitments all disappeared with one announcement.

I had never been laid off before, so all this was new experience to me. I had, however, watched former co-workers get laid off at Infowave when I was a co-op there. I have to say now that watching somebody get laid off is entirely different from being laid off myself. When the announcement was first made, when I first got the little purple folder which contained my severance information and whatnot, I was almost relieved to hear the news. Maybe I had been anticipating it for too long and it felt nice to finally know something concrete. At least now I knew I no longer had a job instead of not knowing whether I would have one tomorrow. It was satisfying just to know my fate, instead of waiting for it to unfold.

That satisfaction, however, did not last long. Motorola gave us two weeks of grace period to basically wrap things up and look for a new job. But I knew in two weeks I would be out of a job. The consequences were greater than having no income for me. I am in the U.S. on a work visa. Without employment, I technically cannot stay here. Suddenly, all these problems started to weigh in on me. Loss of a job, visa problems, mortgage payments...since when was I supposed to know how to solve these problems. I remember my mother solving these kinds of problems not long ago. When had the torch been passed on to me?

But in life, there is no time to ponder, no time to question, no time to doubt. There is only time to accomplish, to "do". Before the layoff announcement was official, I kind of saw the storm coming and started applying to some jobs already. After the official announcement, all I could do was keep applying and preparing myself for those dreaded technical interviews.

Perhaps the experience of applying for co-op jobs during the Dotcom bust is still haunting me, but I worried constantly that I wouldn't find a job, I wouldn't get my visa renewed, and I would leave the country. I don't know how my mother did it all these years, weathering all these setbacks and hardships in life, but now that I am getting a taste of it, I know it's not easy. Nevertheless, aside from the stress of unemployment, the search for new employment also brought about a sense of excitement. After working at Motorola for close to two years, I was growing a little bored of my job. It was exciting to think about working in different companies such as Amazon or Google, companies that I've also longed to work for.

To find out more, read the next post. :)

My 12-Hour Move

Done! Finito! We're finally moved into the new house. Last Friday Alex and I picked up the truck from U-Haul around 6pm to help us move our stuff from his condo to the new house. Originally we had decided to finish packing on Friday night and move on Saturday. But after getting the truck and driving it for a bit, we decided it might be too difficult for him to drive it all by himself on Saturday. The truck didn't exactly drive like my little Honda. So, we decided to move on Friday night, in the middle of the night that is.

When we made that decision, I thought we would be done by 2am Saturday morning or something. Little did I know that last minute packing dragged on for a few hours and loading took a few hours more. By the time we were done loading everything at the old place, it was already 5 o'clock in the morning. I have to say, I'll never complain about Alex not doing chores again. Because of my lack of exercise, and therefore, lack of strength, Alex did 99% of the move this time. I really couldn't help him do anything. It took us that long because every time he needed my help lifting things, I needed to take a million breaks in between to regain strength. I am so shamefully weak.

Of course it didn't help that we moved in the middle of the night when everybody in the building and surrounding homes is sleeping. It's hard enough moving a giant couch; it's even harder when you have to move it without making a sound.

We finally got to the new house at 7am Saturday morning. Traffic was still pretty light since it was a weekend morning and nobody's rushing out to work. By the time we got there, we were dead tired. We unloaded one of the mattresses, threw it on the first place we saw and fell asleep. Since the house is brand new, we had no accessories of any kind. We had no curtains. The morning sunlight poured in like crazy and eventually woke us up after only a few hours of sleep.

Back to work we go. Time to start unloading. The nightmare of lifting the big couch into the truck was back again. Time to lift it back out. Oh god. My weak muscles hadn't even recovered from loading yet, and now we had to unload? We started to lift Alex's couch and I just couldn't do it. I dropped it to the floor half way and just couldn't lift anymore. Luckily a neighbour across the street was washing his car and saw us struggling. He came over and helped us move the couch in.

With the couch in, next came the big heavy T.V. I almost killed Alex when he asked for my help. He asked me to hold steady; instead, I lifted the TV and almost toppled him over with the TV on top of him. He was not amused. I am so useless.

At 3pm, we finally finished unloading and returned the truck. With that, our move was finally over. What a long long day.

My New House

We finally got keys to our first house today! Our escrow closed today after the bank wired the money to them and they got everything on record. Our real estate agent went over to Bellevue, where the seller is located, to pick up the keys for us and we got it from him later in the evening. Even though we don't move until Saturday, Alex and I could not wait any longer, so we went straight to the new house after getting the keys.

We had never gone to the house at night before tonight, so it was definitely interesting seeing our new neighbourhood when it's dark all around. When we did the walk-through last week, the selling agent mentioned to us that Kenmore, where are new house is, is kind of interesting because it's kind of rural as well as suburban at the same time. Today I definitely noticed the rural side of things as we drove by our neighbourhood at night. Unlike Seattle, Kenmore's not very well lit at all at night. In fact, the street we live on does not have a single street light. The downside of that is it would be really difficult if I ever decide to walk home at night from the bus stop. The upside I guess is I can see the stars better.

It was weird when we stepped inside our own house for the first time. It was just me and Alex, with nobody around and a big empty house. No selling agent, no buy agent, no family members. Just us and this big house. We sat in the kitchen and ate the food we had gotten earlier at Taco Bell. There was no T.V.; the house we eerily quiet. For the first time, the new house felt so distant to me, so cold and unfamiliar. I started to miss Alex's small apartment, his tiny apartment that is the size of our new kitchen and living room. Even though it is small, it is our home.

We couldn't stay at the house long because we had to rush to Best Buy to buy a fridge, washer and dryer. We had picked out exactly what we liked already, but stayed on the cautious side to not order it so early in case something went wrong with the house. Today, after getting our keys, we finally bought the fridge and washer/dryer of our dreams. They are all LG appliances. We got a stainless steel side-by-side LG refrigerator, and front-loading washer/dryer with steam wash capability. I'm so excited! I can't wait to use my big new fridge!

After circling around the Seattle area for more than four hours, we finally returned back home. I take back everything I said about the new house being too big and unfamiliar. It was just a horrendous sight greeting us when we walked into the apartment. Boxes everywhere, clothes everywhere, it was like the apartment just vomited all of our stuff out. I have to twist and turn to get things and get to places. I can't wait for a bigger place.

Today, I bought my first house. :-)

My Corporate Policies

When I first started work at my current workplace (its name shall not be mentioned here), it was like most of the high tech companies I'd worked for in the past. Cool people, flexible schedule, lots of freedom for its employees. Nobody was really there to watch over your shoulder and check if you're really doing work every minute of the day. As long as you complete your work on time and in high quality, nobody really cares how exactly you divide your time at work.

Well, that's pretty much all changed as our small office is slowly absorbed by a much bigger corporation. First external Instant Messaging capabilities were taken away from us. No more MSN, no more AIM. Next came a proxy server and a firewall. All of our Web traffic is monitored to see how much you "surf" at work. Today I found out that they started to block popular recreational websites, like youtube and gossip sites.

This is getting really ridiculous. Do they really expect all employees to sit at their desks 8 hours day doing work with no breaks? Surfing the web, listening to music videos on youtube, or even chatting occasionally with friends actually helps me produce more high quality code. I cannot sit here for 8 hours straight and just write code non-stop! I find that if I'm stuck on a problem, taking a break by doing something relaxing such as surfing the web for a bit relaxes my brain and lets me look at the problem differently when I come back to work. It gives me a fresh perspective on things and I can often think of better solutions after a short break.

I often don't have set schedule like most others. I work at home a lot; I work at night and on weekends. I sometimes really enjoy work because I get to code and it's like solving puzzles. I just wish my company would be a little more trusting towards their employees. I believe I am a great employee in that I get my work done on time and I care about how good of a job I do.

We're no longer living in a 9-5 world, where people clock in and clock out like machines. With globalization and rapidly advancing technologies, we are no longer bound to a cube in the office or a set schedule. If companies require us to start working odd hours to accomodate external sites or global customers, or to finish an important project, if companies expect that degree of flexibility from their employees, I believe we, the employees, have the right to expect flexibility from their employers as well.

I do not appreciate being treated like a child by my employer, being monitored for my every move. I think your value at work should be measured by what you produce, not what you do every minute or how much time you spend in the office.

Who knows, pretty soon they might take blogspot away from me too. Time to look for a new job? Hmm...food for thought.

My Responsibility

In six days, Alex and I will move into our first house together. Even though we already handed our money over to Escrow on Friday, I still sometimes have trouble believing this is all coming true. My parents had no money when I was growing up and their friends were mostly new immigrants. So to them, buying a house is an enormous deal. It was the ultimate goal, the American dream. I can't believe it will be mine in six days. Well, 5% mine and 5% Alex's and 90% the bank's.

Peter Parker, aka Spider Man's famous quote is "With great power comes great responsibility." I say, with great fortune comes great responsibility. While buying this new house is a tremendous achievement, it also brings tremendous responsibility. I now owe the bank hundreds of thousands of dollars that will take me 30 years to pay off. 30 years..., I will be 54 then. 30 years of mortgage payments, 30 years of worrying about interest rates, amortization, refinancing. All these terms that sound simple enough but are actually hidden traps, waiting to get you when you're most vulnerable.

For 30 years, I cannot lose my job; I cannot be without a job. Probably not the greatest timing right now with work about to undergo a layoff. Just when I bought myself a new house and signed my life away to the bank, work announces it is going to reduce 5% of the global workforce. Great. Not only do I have to worry about the new house, but I also have to worry about my immigration status. I hate not being an American citizen or permanent resident.

When did life get so complicated? I thought when it was time for me to worry about all this, I would be fully mature, an adult ready to take on the challenges, an adult with a plan to tackle difficulties. Sometimes I just want to shout to the world "WAIT!!! I'm not ready yet!!" Wasn't I supposed to be ready for this before it all happens? Wasn't I supposed to have a plan? Instead I cry, I cry in the face of difficulties. I want to crawl back in time, back to my cocoon where layoffs, mortgage payments have no meanings to me.

I find that I'm not that strong; I find that I pale in comparison to my mother. I keep wanting to go back to the past, keep wanting to be a child again when my mother can shield me from all harms and provide for me. But as Alex said to me today, "You can't be a kid again. Accept it. You're an adult. Accept it."

But I so don't want to.