Living Dreams, Inspiring Moments

An update here is certainly overdue, many apologies for that matter. Life in Penang (or Intel) hasn't been much different last week, therefore I didn't bother to make a post just for Day 5 itself (if you are curious, just refer to Day 4, copy and paste). Headed back to home in KL over the weekend and was warmed up by birthday celebration with family and friends (Chingy, Gurru and Mark). Really appreciated it, since the real day itself was rather depressing (I'll get to that later). Bus tickets were rather affordable, but Puduraya in KL would be closed for 4 months soon. Would need alternatives soon... perhaps Duta Station?

My 2nd week proved to be more promising (for a start), which kicked off with a team building session at Sunway Tunas field located in a housing area 5 minutes drive away from Intel PDC. Arriving at the venue early, I took the opportunity to snap some pictures of the surroundings. Half an hour later, the rest arrived and the event took off on a cold morning. Shall let the pictures do the 'talking' here onwards. :)

Everyone else getting ready for the first game, which is transferring water from a bucket into bottle with a sponge. And to make things fun, we're blindfolded with the bucket placed across the court. Ce-yi is the team building coordinator, and here it is seen her 'minion' observing her 'victims'. ^^"

Leader doing what he does best to explain our group logo.

 The proud committee members that we are thankful of for the day.

Group photo, take 2! Luv' y'all~ Hope to have more events like these in future before i leave >,<

P/S: Credits goes to Faris for the wonderful pics!

I admit that this blog is very wordy. Majority of the people out there prefer a visual description, in my observation at the very least (photo blog anyone?). Well fret not about that as I've inquired about taking photos around my workplace and surroundings that aren't considered restricted. Pictures coming up soon! That's that, and I had a very routine Thursday as I delve and further enlightened myself about Perl Scripting. Browsing through the whole thing earlier, it's actually a complete 4 day lecture. Currently in day 2.5 of the slides, I guess it's slower when you need to experiment the codes/examples yourself and figure out why a ton of errors would make your life miserable. But of course you get the learn more with all the different inputs you can try without having anyone waiting for you. :D

Investing some thoughts of what an ideal working environment would be like, and so I've found some funky pictures to share. As much as this do not seem to relate with what I'm actually doing in Intel, just imagine a newbie being thrown into a cubicle with some wild imagination going on (or just in the name of art).

Believe it or not, my cubicle looks somewhat like this. Except that I have an LCD monitor, no clock and some nifty drawers behind me. Oh, and we don't have to be in formal clothing ^^ Jeans and t-shirts FTW~!
 

 This reminds me of how my cubicle neighbors can sound/look like quite a 'party' with all the constant footsteps, chats in Mandarin and Hokkien (and the occasional fluent English, sometimes with an accent) plus cliques discussing "where to for lunch" or "what to do later/where to yumcha after work". And FYI, I didn't eavesdrop, it's just loud that I couldn't ignore it.

All in all, it was quite a fruitful day. There was a quick celebration for the April babies in our department which served some snacks and of course a cake. Got to know a few of my colleagues better, but still there's much to do in closing this gap between me as a newbie and them as the seniors. Bonding session needed, hm... *hint hint* to some specific readers, hehe... :P

Took my chances and decided to travel to Gurney Drive, putting my faith into the road signs available. Unfortunately, they have miserably failed me as I ended up going in circles as Penang has a thing for one way streets and many random junctions which takes you to somewhere (like McAlister Road which I found after leaving Gurney Plaza, pfft~) or no where at all (some housing area in the middle of town). Caught a movie  (Date Night) with Andrew who wasn't much of a GPS but more of a friend who's there to share the feeling of being lost but not giving up just yet. Oh and char koay teow in Gurney Drive hawker center is quite the expensive, Andrew told me it's actually normal for it's popularity. The portion is rather small too, bummer...

I so need a tour guide. Going to head back to KL this weekend while I still have the chance, so some packing to do and thinking of what I can bring back from home. Perhaps my desktop? Until next time~

P/S: Pictures are courtesy of deviantART. And does Intel Penang connect to the Internet via an Ireland server? It's freaking fast, so not streamyx or anything TM would provide me thinks.

Same cold morning, nothing new on this particularly fast day. Time literally flew by as I continued my studying on Perl Scripting and nothing else happened besides lunch. I guess it was probably because my supervisor was on medical leave, so there's nothing much I could do besides going through the materials given earlier. However I did manage to finally get my badge to access my office door by requesting access from admin. The lady who assisted me was a real blessing, even after an episode of attempting to scan the badge again and having myself locked out of the office when it failed.

My dear friend (so far she's the only 1 I've got in the floor, lol) Miss CY took me to another building, PG-8 for a change of menu for lunch. It was an older section of the whole campus, but the people there are more diverse compared to the usually crowded PG-12. The people you'll see in PG-12 during lunch is comparative to college students, probably because the place is new and that most of the staff are in their mid/late 20s. But the point is, food was good and the queue at PG-8 wasn't that long. Though it was a waste as I missed out on the occasional special dish served by an invited chef. There is of course a price to pay for such an exquisite meal, but it's way cheaper compared to when you actually get it from the hotels where these chefs come from. Perhaps next time...

Once again during my random stretch-out walks to the pantry/washroom, I noticed the crowd in the club house. It tinkered in my mind about the chance I'll have to know the people and the place better (currently having high hopes for next Monday's team building session!).

I would like to quote on the insights of my close friend/uni mate/colleague has mentioned regarding the working culture in Intel which is very different from your everyday corporate company. Do refer to this link which dictates what I observe in Intel as well. I do not deny that perhaps the experience as an intern and a permanent staff may be different, but it should clear some rumors and doubts some (or most) would have about what working in Intel is like.

Intel evolution from lowendmac.com

Dinner once again in Jelutong, same place, different food. Then a heavy rain came pouring in, with traffic getting heavy, reminding me of how Kuala Lumpur would be like. Am I missing home? I'm certain I miss my room and everything in it though :P

P/S: This post reminds the loss of my beloved 4GB Thumbdrive, if anyone happens to stumble upon  one  similar to the picture below in Penang, I would be grateful :)

Au revoir~ Reposer en paix...

The day kicked off like a routine with morning prayers as my effective alarm clock, but I've left home a little later than the first day. Traffic was still smooth and I reached the front door of my office at around 7.30am. As I had no way of access to my cube, and with the hallway rather deserted, the cafeteria became an immediate sanctuary for me. I guess the early bird doesn't always get the worm, at least for this case. 20 minutes later I managed to find a nice floor mate to grant me access into the office, which indirectly reminded me of making my own tag.

During the first half of the day, I tried to get acquainted with the Graphical Test Generator (GTG), which is a solution implemented in another project to create a graphical functional test generator. The task proved to be rather daunting in the beginning with all the new jargons, acronyms and technical terms, but my endeavor was not in vain thanks to google.com. I proceeded with some Perl Script tutorial before realizing the clock struck 10.35, which was about time for me to get my tag done. A wise decision, it was to be at the badge centre as soon as the door opened because a long queue quickly crowded the room. Fortunately I've managed to acquire the tag as soon as lunch time arrived. It was worth the wait since I found the design very much to my liking. Besides that, there's lunch discount for me.. yay~!

Lunch wasn't much of a merry affair as I was alone in the busy cafeteria, until the last half of my stay at PG-12 cafeteria. I was curious about how the other staff members made their orders at the individual food stalls which served specialized food as those places had no menu. I mean, even if they are familiar with it, how'd they know what's available in the first place without taking up the time of asking. Note that there is a massive traffic of hungry humans during the first 15-20 minutes of lunch hour. Shall I be inconsiderate to make the line wait while I familiarize myself with the vocal menu? Perhaps I should stick to economy rice, hm... or maybe not.

On the other hand, I've finally gotten my welcome package/intern starter kit! But it turns out I already had most of what the bag provided me. Oh well, I suppose 2 of something is better than 1 (cues Boys Like Girls' "Two Is Better Than One"). The next 4.5 hours I spent in the office was pretty much self studying with Perl Tutorials and being intrigued by the GTG code provided by my supervisor. Time flied, and minor things caught my attention as I occasionally made my way to the pantry and the washroom, such as the happening clubhouse (it serves a Wii and a PS3 on two wide screen TVs, awesome much?) and the many long conversations in various languages that filled the air which I found rather peculiar.

Dinner was taken at somewhere new in Jelutong town, but I've decided to try Penang's specialty of char koay teow once again (it's virtually available everywhere here) to determine the best of the best. It's also rather comfortable to be able to use Hokkien almost all the time when you buy stuff or order food. Credits go to my parents! ^^

I've certainly have had wished that Perl Scripting was part of my studies back in uni, it would have certainly accelerated my learning pace here. As the second day ended, I pray for a more fruitful day tomorrow and somewhere deep inside the caverns of my thoughts and emotions, I wouldn't want to work anywhere else. Let's not be hasty in judgment, shall we? Au revoir à mon deuxième journée!

The outset of my days in Penang as an intern kicked off with a loud blare of the morning Muslim prayers at 6am. Fortunately I've decided to be up on the exact same time, having the alarm clock ringing in harmony with the loud prayers echoing from a distance, else it would be a comfortable slumber totally ruined on a cold Monday morning. After some preparation and a quick breakfast, I was out on the road towards Intel Penang Design Centre (PDC) by 7am.

Traffic was surprisingly smooth despite all I've heard about the morning jam as everyone rushes to the offices located around the Bayan Lepas Free Trade Zone. Locating Intel was no trouble at all as the building stood out like a rose within thorns. A friendly security officer at the guardhouse kindly directed me to my destination (PG-1) as Intel PDC is quite large and has about 12 different buildings. Parking was abundant, and it made me proudly believe I was rather early to work. I looked over my phone, it was 7.20am.

I proceeded to PG-1 to drop off some documents after applying for a temporary pass tag at the PG-4 security booth. A nice lady which I believe one of the PDC admins kindly took care of my documents as I was rather lost as I stepped into the quiet and large office. At 7.45am, I was back at PG-4 waiting room for my supervisor to come pick me up. The world is certainly small, as I've met another senior who have graduated from UNITEN not too long ago who came to start her 1st day as a project engineer. We shared a short conversation before my supervisor came by 8.20am.

My office is located at PG-2, a short walk from the waiting room and after searching for my cubicle, my supervisor, Mr Vinodh took me down to the cafeteria for breakfast. I'm pretty happy with the place as the food was satisfying in variety and fairly priced. There was also a free flow of drinks, so no reason to not have a proper meal before work. I got to know more about what I can expect during my 3 months stay at Intel PDC from Mr Vinodh over a nice cup of coffee. Oh did I mention that the place is VERY clean? I'm beginning to love the place.

I belong to the Circuit Marginality Validation (CMV) Team which comprises of around 30+ people. We run tests for hardware/software on different situations or varying variables such as temperature, frequency and etc. I've got a comfortable cubicle for myself, complete with plenty of lockable drawers and a complete desktop. Stationeries are aplenty, the pantry is well equipped and the washroom was well maintained. As I was left idle, I took the opportunity to explore the place and had a nice colleague (Miss Ho) to show me around.

Time flied and it was already lunch time, Miss Ho offered to take me along to the cafeteria over at PG-12 nearby. The place was packed, but getting seats were not a problem. With the help of Miss Ho, I located the places to produce my identification tag and where I could collect my starter kit from the admin. As lunch ended by 1pm, I'm back in my office and got further briefing by Mr Vinodh on what my work is about. Back in my cubicle, some nice emails welcomed me to the team and also promised some interesting activities during my stay at Intel PDC. I was already feeling delirious by the motion being set on this roller coaster ride.

Focusing on controlled automation tests, I need to familiarize myself with scripting (Perl Scripting to be exact) and fortunately they are almost similar to the other programming languages which I've learned before such as C and assembly language. The challenge lies more on the new syntaxes and some the new software that I need to use. Mr Vinodh enlightened me on what the CMV Team is about and the project I will be involved in. Luckily I don't feel too lost on all the terms used, thanks to techie news and microprocessor subject back in uni.

My 1st day in office ended by 5.15pm as the office grew desserted. It was an awesome beginning of my journey here and I'm already excited about the next day. Tired I am but the experience is something you definitely can't just pay for. Bed awaits and thank God for a hearty dinner in Penang's Gurney Drive (so much good food!), my day is complete. =3

P/S: Unfortunately I can't provide any videos or pictures yet due to company restrictions. Will enquire about it soon enough for educational purposes. :)