那個星期三

我在公司跟他 IM 後，一直都不能專心工作。一到六點我準時離開公司，帶了一盒(!)紙巾和一張我要問他的問題紙(!)，跑到公館跟他吃飯，一切都很平靜，好像沒有異樣。他還是老樣子只吃健康食物。也許旁人都不知道坐在這張枱吃飯的人都很古怪...

我們第一次見面是在德國的一個中餐館，記得他兩個小時不停地在說教，我已經接不了口，只有一面在聽，一面在玩水杯。後來他告訴我，我是第一個聽了那麼久都願意繼續聽的人。

這次他問我﹐我約他出來有什麼要說。我說要找個沒其他人聽得懂我在說什麼的地方我才會講。我們到了一個公園，把事情都很坦白理智地討論，現在想起也覺得有點不可思議。其實當他跟我很冷靜地討論的時候，他已經作了那個沒有什麼人能夠理解的決定。

也許我對他的第一個印象才是對的：一個很神經質、很複雜，要小心提防的人。如果他沒有跟我說過那句：交朋友不是一個需要，而是一種關心；我想我不會想過要跟他認識。

Style Cafe, the final farewell

今天大家一起在師大夜市的 Style Cafe 玩 German boardgames. 星期六 Thomas 要走了，這年來無數的告別聚會讓我感到有點麻木... 還記得我初到台北的第一二個星期己經認識他。他在 Siemens 實習，跟我在同一個 Software Park，中午有時可以一起吃飯，非常方便。也許我跟他沒有談過很深入的話題，也沒有告訴他我覺得他很好人- 待朋友很好和很慷慨；但他是一個走了會覺得可惜的朋友。 記得他每次說再見之前，都會諗出一堆 Also Angie, ich wünsche dir einen schönen freien Nachmittag, und noch viel Spaß bei der Arbeit, und wir sehen uns ja näschten mal. Tschüss. 很有趣... 今天道別時的抱抱，很可能是我們最後一次見面。有時真的很想能再到德國。

DongBeiJiao 東北角

坐客運經過鼻頭角了

Auf dem Bus sind wir über DongBeiJiao vorbei gefahren. Ich vorstelle, dass der Blick hier schön wäre, wenn es keine Wolke gäbe. Ich möchte immer hier einmal hinfahren, aber ohne Auto ist es schwierig.

YiLan 宜蘭

今日跟左一個教會o既旅行團去宜蘭。宜蘭縣周圍都係田，好似仲有個冬鄉河自然保護區...

第一站都仲 ok，去仁山步道，但係因為我缺乏運動，走個40分鐘都幾辛苦...

第二站係去三富花園農場。農場已經改裝成為渡假中心，因為農民都改行。入面既庭景都幾靚，但係相信係人工既...


係農場入面食飯同整 DIY 玻璃畫，點解個團走咁遠去睇同玩埋o的o係市中心都可以做倒既野？


最後呢個叫牛舌餅，變薄之後改叫宜蘭餅，係一種特產。

[原來我既屏東室友都唔知呢樣野...]

Thomas's Farewell Party at KTV

Thomas told me this is one of the most popular KTV songs in Taiwan, although he doesn't understand chinese...

Duck's Chicken's friend?

Discovered and reading this 3 months afterwards gives a funny feeling. From I moved to Taiwan, to I plan to leave Taiwan, and all the things happened within a blink of 3 months. We do share one more thing in common, which you might not know: I am from a crazy girl school too, the one with uniforms like "frog's skin".

Back to HK in Jan?

A reply fron the shanky recruiter:

I know that you need to have your E3 visa but we sponsor H1B and green card only. Moreover as you are working in Taiwan we can't call you. So i can give my number that is 732-658-5937. For further queries feel free to call me.

It looks more like a trap than a job... It seems like I am going back to HK in Jan...

Team meeting

(1) When a group of some 20 people sat all together, discussed so seriously about how to file a patent... and when I heard, every small "innovative" idea can be patentable, e.g. the "the other party is writing" status line at MSN... I just felt: was zum Teufel ist hier passiert?! (2) The company is no longer emphasizing "work-life balance", but "work-life integration"... maybe the Bible is right, the end of the world is coming some day.

My wish list...

(1) Fnd another job outside HK and Taiwan, I still feel I wanna bump around... (2) Receive a reply from Kumiko, and visit her in Sep (3) Visit Egypt and Germany in Dec and become a frequent flyer (4) Reduce 10 pounds (5) Meet some interesting people in Taipei, and visit Hualien and Alishan together (6) Lose my German slower, and be able to write letters in very formal German to the German government for getting back my pension, as well as the over-charged tax. (7) Becoming a real computer geek, without being a freak. (8) Understand Japanese and buy a Japanese-German electronic dictionary, with functions comparable to an encyclopedia. There are many more...

Typhoon SEPAT

What occupies me on a typhoon day is a strange mix of knowledge leading me to nowhere: 0) Job-search 1) multi-threaded programming tutorial 2) Game-Engine: http://youtube.com/watch?v=mvXlR7DuZzs 3) Taiwanese train speed categories: 自強 > 莒光 > slow trains are anoymnous 4) Taiwanese typhoon signal catergories: no conclusion yet 5) Laptops: T60 is the last model from IBM that comes with a FlexView. Dell performs better in terms of benchmark tests for most models. IBM is good for weight, strength, and keyboard. 6) Laptop screens: "1/ TN...the most common like X61...sucks but fast. now almost all screens are TN with reflective glass to increase colors and view. best for games 2/ VA.....with kinds called MVA...PVA....AMPVA ...not sure name of last one.....best for movie, colors and view angles acceptable, speed also middle 3/ IPS. best colors particularlyu blacks, colors dont change depending of angle view which are quite large but it is slow, expensive 4/ white led, quite nice, very thin, about fast i guess is ok but i dont know, angle view are good maybe like VA... colors are nice " 7) Then I suddenly miss the Dampfnudeln, and I found this super blog: Gourmandise. Receipts: http://www.rezeptewiki.org/wiki/Dampfnudeln http://www.kirchenweb.at/kochrezepte/13dessert/cg/dampfnudeln.htm http://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/205641086351830,82/Grossmama-s-Dampfnudeln.html

Another myth...

While I was programming, I suddenly thought of Andreas and two interviewers... Why many computer geeks wear long hair? Aren't they practical enough to realize it consumes a lot of time to wash and dry their hair? This is a greal deal if you sum up the amount of time consumed for this every day...

盲目崇洋

MAX says: I stay 25 to 27 in HK . I am a white male. I am looking for a girl who likes to spend this time with me . Day and night. Compensation possible Mais says: Es tut mir Leid. so was gibts nicht... MAX says: da hast du unrecht Mais says: im Pub kannst du vielleicht viele Angeboten bekommen MAX says: da teuscht du dich, ich mache das nicht zum erstenmal Mais says: aha. in HK? MAX says: ja sicher 點解o的老外o係台灣同內地咁受歡迎... 會講英文就可以教書... 嚟兩三個月就一個o黎、兩個走? 點解一個電機研究生工作超晒時先得個40k NTD, 一個可能連學位都冇既老外可以一日教3粒鐘英文就有60K NTD? [難怪好多台灣學生日日放學去補習，o的英文都係咁...] 係美國聽到隔離枱個鬼佬話，香港人歧視內地人；但係點都唔夠呢樣衰，台灣人歧視台灣人。唔係話個個都咁差，但係好多o係台灣同內地教書既鬼佬，都係o係自己既國家失意，先會離鄉別井... 中國女仔唔該可唔可以聰明少少，揀都揀件正o的既外國貨，唔好外國運o黎o的次貨都當係寳？ 再者，當你見倒o係台北 Sogo 既德國攤檔，賣既都係德國冇人買既貨尾，仲要標個高德國十倍既價錢... 當德國人同你講，佢地 Birkenstock 係當拖鞋著，係亞洲個個覺得佢係名牌... 仲有係台北101既Page One, 你會見到美國出版既 "German for dummies"，但係一本PONS 同 Langenscheidt 都見唔到... 你會覺得：係邊條x李入貨既？真係激氣!!!

What Magie said...

Maggie auf dem Bild

"some people are not picky. They've never had a good quality drink in their life, so for them, it doesn't make much difference. they just pick a bottle within reach, and move on, happy.

some people are picky, maybe because they were spoiled with really fine drinks when they were young. they sit in front of the shelves for hours and may remain thirsty, but they would not settle for the rubbish on the shelves within reach. those are the idealists

now, the practical people know that esentially, a drink is like any other, with differences, of course, but something is better than nothing"

It sounds like we are living in a tragic world... :p

Ironic advertisments

Lenovo: "Beat the heat with cool upgrades" Amazon's email reads: "Kunden, die Bücher von Christina Kempe gekauft oder bewertet haben, haben auch Blitzmenüs für zwei von Margit Proebst gekauft" Well, my Thinkpad is overheated, and I don't need any Bliss menu for two... "The fact is what happened, you just look at it from a different perspective..."

Lai's Farewell

Our 1-liter Kirin beer and Sake

I invited Lai to come to visit my notoriously messy room before she leaves Taipei tomorrow. We bought a can of 1-Liter Kirin beer. We had also a Sake during our buffet dinner, 13.5%. I really doubt it was fake, or my tolerance is now higher than I thought, thanks Germany.


I didn't feel drunk, but I behaved like I was...

Then we went shopping. I bought, maybe under peer pressure, a dress not of my style. Now, I cannot tell you if I was drunk or 100% conscious.

LuGang 鹿港

台灣的政治；摸乳巷：很難聽的名字，不是那麼窄...

鹿港天后宫；文化古蹟區

我跟小予坐客運到彰化和鹿港、台北的天氣是蠻好的，不知為什麼我們跑到台中去。我的傘子留在公司裡了，在便利商店買了一件雨衣。我想我已經十多年沒有穿過雨衣，台灣人都會穿，因為他們要騎機車。這天我們都在大雨中渡過，請給我一個放晴的假日!

笑話一則：
我：我今天會去LüGang
室友：LüGang?是綠豆的Lü嗎？
我：不是，是梅花什麼的那個，是一種動物
室友：(想了一會)喔.. 是鹿港(LuGang).. 不是綠港

ChangHua 彰化

At rest station(?), and in front of the ChangHua Train Station


ChangHua Meatball (彰化肉圓)

東區粉圓

東區粉圓 - 在忠孝敦化站、常常很擠的一間店

黑色的是粉圓；我們在大街上很"白目"的合照

Jessia 因為要翻釋國語給我們這兩個"阿豆"聽，感到很頭痛。我和Lai 常常問很多"白目"的問題，她都說我們很"機車"。我們在東區粉圓店裏拍了很多"很俗"、只有遊客才會拍的照片。我"唬爛"說可以吃一百個豆花，她們都說我"吐嘈"。我的打扮不會像"台客"，因為我是"港仔"。

東區粉圓是我的國語學校。

My humor style is sarcastic :p

Developer R: there is no error-report or probe capture with debug log to make sense of this bug or any comment within .. Tester L: It was an output defect and I did attach the probe capture. Question : Does that mean error-report and debug log are required to open a bug even there's no error showing? Manager M of L: Well, I am not sure whether error-report will help or not in this case, it should be easy to recreate. But the developer asked, let's give it to him (and I see you already done that). Tester L: Thanks, M. Here is another question... R assigned the bug back to me. Shall I assign back to development team? Or shall I just wait and see if any further comment from R? Manager M of L: Since you have provided him new information, please assign the bug back to him. Thanks. N.B: The fact isn't as bad as it seems. The actions involved are deem to be appropriate.

想通了？

老實說，認識的朋友都那麼怪，現在我常常問自己：是我的問題嗎？:p 那次小予問我是不是不開心，我沒有回答，只是落淚了，我想我嚇呆了她... 有時也不太清楚自己的感覺，我想我只是不開心了兩三天。現在不開心的是有點覺得自己跟一部機器一樣冷血... 閃電式結緍嗎？我想不會發生在我身上；但是他要這樣做，也就隨他吧，這是別人的決定。也不會覺得他這樣做是錯的，只有他們才知道他們想要的是什麼。反正理智的決定不一定會有最好的結果。我很喜歡那個 greedy algorithm 的 analogy，有時我們是要用 random 的才會逹到 global maximum。一個問題是：我的criterion function 是什麼？ 也許我做決定的時候都想太多了：學位怎麼了、找工作怎麼了、生活怎麼了、理想怎麼了...？是要在事情發生才解決嗎？當我很努力地把一切枝節的問題都解決了，對不起，重點的問題己經不在... 事情現在這樣的發展，讓我連後悔的感覺也沒有，只有覺得："我是一個大笨蛋" 和 "算了吧..." 我有學懂了什麼嗎？

LongShanTemple 龍山寺

Long Shan Temple; Tawanese politics

A 2L glass - Hey, don't mistake, this guy is not Dutch :p

German count++; Renee, a colleague of Lai working in Singapore. Wierd enough, I have more German than Taiwanese acquaintances here in Taipei.

Language exchange notes

Don't ask me why I spend so much time to learn German. I know this is a task with a very low priority, I just find it handy to be able to encode a conversation in certain contexts... (1) If you want a part-time job in a cafe in Germany, learn these:

• Radler = Alster(wasser) : helles Bier mit Sprite
• "fake" Radler: helles Bier mit Fanta
• Spezi = kalter Kaffee: Cola mit Fanta
• Kinderbier = Vita Malz
• Krefelder = Alt Schuss = Schmutziges: Altbier (2/3) (?) mit Cola (1/3)

(2) Expressing your feelings:

• Ich bin krank NIEMALS mir ist krank
• Heiss /kalt: mir ist heiss/kalt ODER Ich fuehle mich heiss/kalt (external Faktor) "Ich bin heiss" gibts auch, aber es bedeutet was anders
• Gut: Ich bin gut = Ich bin eine gute Person Ich fuehle mich gut = ich habe gute Laune/ ich bin guter (gen.) Laune mir ist gut / mir geht's gut = Ich bin gesund, ohne Problem

(3) With and without -s- when linking words: bei Steuer kann mit s oder ohne geschrieben werden, Einkommen[s]steuer, auch bei Bahhof[s]straße, und auch bei Partizipien als 2tes Wort, richtung[s]weisend

DataPower

Towards my goal of becoming a computer freak, let me blog about my work. Oh yeah, this is the first time in history, but I am not going to get technical...

These are the crazily expensive toys which I have been playing for 3 months in Taipei - SOA appliances - what a fancy name. I was told the non-discounted price of the yellow box is 8,000,000 NTD. Of course only giantic clients can afford to buy these boxes.

If I stay until Dec, the end of this project, I will be able to go through a full testing cycle.

The magical boxes