Waynetopia - Start of a new world

Thursday, February 23, 2006

My Story

A few days back, I mailed some of you my Christian testimony. Since quite a few requested to put this online, so I here it goes. Hope it blesses you reading it.

The Verse:
But seek first the kingdom of God, and all these shall be added unto you".

Matthew 6:33
The Story

I always wondered how to describe my salvation story since I have been attending church before I could ever remember. Born to a family with humble finances, my family was predominantly Christians except for both my parents. Courtesy of a relaxed childhood, I attended 2 different Presbyterian churches all the way through elementary school, one in English and the other in Chinese. Being exposed to the biblical teachings since young, I used to think that Christianity was all about obeying rules. This was further reinforced with by family pedagogical way of teaching “Christians shouldn’t do this; Christians should do that”. Christianity was simply … religion.

Since young, I always knew my family didn’t have much but just enough to get by. There were many things that I wanted to have and do but couldn’t. I refused to believe that I was under privileged in any way. “After all,” I told myself, “you can’t have everything; life is fair”. I started banking on achievements to prove my worth. I worked part time through middle school for spare cash. It was around that time where I began developing a growing a .com company which I believed would be my lucky break. The website grew rapidly within a year. For once, I felt I really had something I could be proud of.

My euphoria was short-lived. An unforeseen financial downturn in my family drove me to search for opportunities to ensure my college education. When a scholarship to study in Singapore came, I knew I only had one option.

Being put together in a dorm together with the best scholars in the region, it didn’t take me long to realize I am living with the elites. All of them were smart, rich, athletic and talented in some way or another. I simply could not measure up. These people made me believe they could have everything. To make matters worse, my new hostel lacked Internet facilities meaning I had to give up my involvement in the online company. My one and only prized possession was taken away. For the first time in my life, I began to think that life was unfair. I resented the fact that these people had it better because their families could afford to send them to better schools, lessons and coaching with fees easily five times more than what I earned. I worked harder than anybody else. What must I be the one holding up the bottom of the scales?

Week after week, my self-esteem diminished. No matter how hard I try to do something, there seemed to be someone else in the small dorm of 14 who could do it better, be it studies, sports or extra curricular activities. While I still prayed regularly, I began to doubt if my prayers were ever heard. The set of rules called “Christianity” doesn’t seem to be helping me in my problems right then.

The day came when I knelt down in church after a disastrous week and cried out to God. I had nothing simply nothing left. My grades were slipping, finances were running out and I was shunned by my dorm-mates. Praying in silent agony, suddenly I saw a vision. I saw all the things that I had always dreamt of doing flashed before me all at once. Till today, I still believed I heard God spoke to me that day in church, “Believe in Me and put Me first and I will make all these happen”.

After that weekend, I felt different. I felt I no longer need to build my confidence upon achievements. Instead, I could be just rest my confidence in the Lord. My Bible reading experience also changed dramatically. Suddenly, it seemed like there is always a verse in my daily readings that was able to sooth me of the wounds I collected on that day. Christianity wasn’t a religion anymore. It became a lifestyle and a relationship. I became more interested to learn more about something I thought I already knew. After attending baptism class, I learnt that to be saved means to believe that 2000 years ago, a man hung on a cross for me and this man is my Savior. It’s not about the good deeds that I do, how many Sundays spent in church, the songs I sing or the amount of rules I obey. On August 26th 2000, I acknowledged this Savior as I fully submerged into the water of the baptism pool.

Looking back, I can hardly believe I am the same person I was 7 years ago. It has been a long journey. I still struggle financially. I had to work on vacations and even during term time just to make ends meet. But the little that I have, I am committed to tithe a tenth reluctant as I may be at times. I am still in the company of elites, although I see it as a privilege now to be able to work and learn from people way better than I am. I still strive hard, but that’s because I want to be a husband who is worthy of my future spouse. In God’s eyes, there’s nothing more I could do to earn my salvation.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

A blurb from my internship report

Just a portion ripped off from technical journal. For those of you interested in technical stuff, read on....

Environments
After a week of fiddling with the products, my job scope became more defined. Since I was working in the Quality Assurance (QA) Department of which my supervisor Geneva was manager of, it was only natural that I my initial responsibilities would be testing.

I learnt that for most software products, there would be at least 3 different working environments: Development where the developers / programmers continuously work on new code; QA where the testers validate the quality and functionality; and the Production, which was the live working product. All 3 were to coexists simultaneously and independently – while we the testers are testing in the QA environment, the developers could continue to write new codes and the customer beta users can continue to use the live product. When the developers had written substantially enough new code, it will be grouped together as a “build” and will be “pushed” to the QA environment, meaning the QA environment will be updated with all the latest changes from Development. Once the testers have finished testing and validated that it works, it will be “pushed” again to Production (now the live version will be updated from QA). Anytime there are major issues with a push, the build will have to be "unrolled" or reverted to an older build.

No wonder software development is so complicated :-)

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Colours and snow in New York

Part I: Colours
Visited the much anticipated city. Managed to meet up with Ellen, close pal from our ODAC days. While I was expecting New York to be metropolitan and all, I didn;t expect it to be so Hong Kong/Tokyo style. The was so filled with billboards, LED screens, lights and colours that it blinds you.


Ground zero || Downtown New York


Beautiful lights outside some unknown pubs


M&Ms Machine || Coffee Jugs (my fav!)


MacDonald's - colourful New York Style


Ellen & Mia in Hello Kitty shop


Part II: Snow
Unknown to us, New York was going to have one of the heaviest snow storms in 10 years that night. Didn't know it was such a huge thing until it was on international news. Some parks have between 15-25 inches of snow. The sudden change in the city is phenomenal. Overnight, the city became a completely different place. Snow-covered roads prevented any possible transportational activities. The snow was so heavy it was literally pelting. But the experience of being caught in a historical snow storm is truly unique.


Admiring the snow on a lazy sunday morning


Ellen, friends and the snowcladded lanscape


This is for you guys, ODAC 18th Batch.
We had it on sand and earth. Having it on snow completes the collection


Wednesday, February 08, 2006

The Next 2 Weeks

Home!
After leaving off a suitcase for 2 weeks, finally got a roof to call my (together with housemates Niki, Rex and Shamir) own. While I wasn't expecting things to be a piece of cake, setting up the house was more than just unpalatable. The team effort to unblock password protected routers, tap into the right cable TV network, negotiate hefty deposits and assembling furnitures really brought out the hackers and engineers in us.





Niki: Looking for cheapest furnitures online
Shamir & Rex: Getting the wireless router up
Me: transportation route to get our furnitures in



New Morning
Woke up in the morning and needed some time to register my new surrounding. Not used to being woken up by the peeking sunlight through theblinds. I could smell the tang of fresh wood. Looked around at all my new furniture. Suddenly, it feels like home.



Clockwise from top-left, my table, my bed, my shelfs and living room

Saturday, February 04, 2006

High Velocity @ Poconos

Most of us have a few things that we hope to do before we die. For me, skiing is definitely one of them. Can't believe I actually had the good fortune to do this as my batch orientation. God bless the genius who actually thought of this. Anybody who is addicted to the adrenaline rush should definitely try it out. It is every bit as exhilarating (and heart stopping) as I expected it to be. Did the most magnificent falls as well. My body actually contorted to positions I didn't even know the human body was capable of. I vow to be back before winter is over. Not for the faint hearted...

Of course the resort was equipped with other facilities as well. Good dinner & bowling alleys kept us occupied when the weather was wet.

Men in black

the gang

looking down at our skis while taking the elevator

knocking down the pins after dinner