In my new project, what I had worried about has came true. As I expected, this product family is cursed. When all you heard from the managers is reuse, you know it’s a crappy project that kill your creativity and innovation. The original schedule is finish the chip in 6 months, which is quite tight but still acceptable. Now, the marketing guys want us to get it done in 4 months, so they can sign the deal with Nortel. Which means the decision is to sacrifice quality for speed. Before the chip is even taped-out, we already plan for rev B. Some less important features will not be verified, and all the devleopment work in the testbench is axed. What’s left to do in verification is script monkey’s work. Think about the positive side, I can escape from this project 2 months earlier if things line up properly. Hopefully I don’t have to work in rev B of this chip. I can imagine rev B will be even more nasty, just thinking about all the corners we cut in rev A.

Tonight I just got back my first philosophy assignment. I did quite bad in this eassy, I only got a C+. I would expect getting at least a B. This is the very first arts course I take in university. I found the marking scheme is very different from the engineering courses. In engineering, our assignments have clear goal, either calculate the right answer or get the project working. At long as we archive the required goal, we will get minimium reasonably good mark. The bells and whistles in presentation are there for bonus marks only. In arts course, there is no objective guideline or checklist on the definition of what makes a good essay. I don’t even know exactly what the professor is looking for in the assignment. No wonder arts students usually have lower average then science students. Plagiarism is against the school regulation, but at least we should be given some essay template to follow.

I have set the day of moving at the 28th of Feburary. I first called both the rental office at my current place and my new place to book the elevator in the morning. Then, I called the moving company, Art Moving, recommanded by Chris who just moved a few months ago. It is not very expensive, about $300 to move a 1 bedroom apartment. I figure it is better to hire professional than ask help from friends since I have so many things to move. After that, I also went downstairs to the shipping department to get some old paper boxes. I need lots of paper boxes to pack my stuff. I start packing stuff into boxes bit by bit every day at night. It is really a lot of trouble about moving. No wonder there is a old Chinese saying that, “Moving from upstairs to downstairs, you will lose a basket of rice.”

Today I heard a news about one of my old colleague, Miss Fatty. I worked with her a few years back then and she is probably the worst colleage I ever had. I am informed by email today that she passed away last Friday. The reason of death is not told. All I know is she died from sickness in a short time. I was making fun on her yesterday on another friend’s blog merely two days ago. Yes, she is bad but not bad enough that need to be dead. I didn’t went to her wedding so I won’t go to her funeral. I will probably forget about her in a few days. We only make fun of her occasionally. I guess I won’t find it funny anymore. I am still curious on why she die. Probably I will find out indirectly from other colleagues in a few days.

Don went back to HK for vacation and I asked him to buy a ping pong racquet as he is going to buy one himself. The racquets at work are very crappy. They are the cheapest ping pong racquet I ever seen. A piece of foam glued on the wooden paddle, it doesn’t even have a proper rubber surface. When hitting the ball using that racquet, you hear a funny sound. The racquet I got is a very deal, only CAD$10. It is an entry level double happeniess brand and come with two ping pong balls. I used to own a ping pong racquet when I am small. I think I can play better with my racquet now. Often, I am confused about what is the correct name of this game, table tennis or ping pong. Table tennis is the official name only because ping pong is a registered trademark owned by Parker Brothers, the owner of Monoploy.