Today I am stucked in all day long meeting again. The first meeting is really boring and useless, I go only for the free lunch. The speech is given from a remote site thru teleconference. Toastmaster said 60% of communicaiton comes from gesture and facial expression, no wonder one is interested in whatever he talks about. To make it worse, the slides are pages after pages of block diagrams. Who would care all those look alike boxes. I bet if there is no free lunch, no one will show up in that meeting. The afternoon meeting is a marathon meeting from 1:30p.m. to 5:00p.m. It is a training on one of the software tool that I went through a couple of years ago. I only need to be there to refresh my memory and join the discuss on making decisions. I brought some other work into the meeting room to better utilize my time. I found when I am locked up in a meeting room, I can actually concentrate better. I able to accomplish the schedule planning and task assignment for my part of the testbench. I suggested that we should all a laptop at work so we can bring it into the meetings. Using pen and paper to calculate time in the schedule is not fun. However that raise another question if everyone has a laptop and no one will pay attention to the meeting. I proposed we can block internet access inside meeting room. So people can only access the intranet and do actual work or listen to the meeting, both are equally boring I presume. The guy sit next to me said blocking internet is useless cause he will probably setup ssh session in his Linux box for turnelling to the internet. I guess it is in the blood of engineers eager to find ways to work around any obstacles.

My old boss has finally transfered to a different role, moved to feasibility work from verification. I have been working with this boss since I joined PMC. Good or bad, I am already accustomed to his management style. I have now reported directly to the manager of the project instead of a verification leader. Althought I report to a manager directly, I am in fact under the supervisor of the senior engineer leading the project’s verification. Since the manager is quite abstrate from my daily work, as long as I don’t raise any big issues requires his action, all he knows is whether I meet the schedule. So technically speaking, the senior engineer is my new boss. I have been working with him in previous projects. Unlike my old boss who stuck in the same position forever, my new boss started the same level as I do in the company during the downturn, and promoted 2 level in just 2 years. I think he is on the fast track to be a leader in the next round of promotion and probably a manager in a few years. To be fair, he was a leader in his previous company before it went bust. His promostion is quite natural with his level of experience. Another major difference is my new boss is more technical compontent than my old boss. If I make some stupid technical judgement, at least there is someone to double check me work and able to convince me why I am wrong. My new boss seems a nice guy and easy to work with. He started the toastmaster at work, which I am a keen member. I hope I will get better luck with my own promotion under this boss. Everyone knows, if you boss doesn’t move up, you can’t move up.

The undergrad admission office screwed my application, the computer system showing I have applied to the computer science diploma instead of philosophy. I wonder how can they make such an obvious mistake. Maybe it is out of their expectation there is someone apply philosophy from engineering background. In order to fix the error, I made a trip to SFU today. There is a small exhibition about the holocaust in the convocation mall. This week is to memorize the millions Jews died under the Nazi in second world war. I spent a few minutes, walked thru the poster boards, briefly read the text and the photos. I have read about this piece of history and seen in movie many times. It is a no brainer to figure out why Hilter is evil to systmeically kill all the Jews in Europe. I have a few questions pops up in my mind while I in the exhibition, If Hilter wasn’t anti-semtic, and Nazi is merely a fascism but not racism govnerment, could German win the WWII? What is the merit of genocide? Wouldn’t overwrite their culture, force them to assimilate has more benefit? Is it more humane to give them an option to convert before killing them? Why don’t the Jews fight back? There are several million of Jews in Europe, only if 0.1% of them are sucide bombers like the Arabs, Nazi would be in big trouble. I don’t have the answers to these questions but they worth a deeper thought.

Today I suppose to work on my philosophy eassy due thursday, but instead I spent most of my time organizing my bookshelves. My place is more in shape after I put all my books into their place. I put the bookshelf in the hall way at the entrance. I think I did a good job catagorizing my books. The lowest level relates to my memories. They are my old engineering textbooks and photo albums. I wonder how much stuff I have learnt already gave back to the profressors. The second level is mostly foriegn content, Japanese mangas, anime art books, dictionary and language learning materials. I don’t collect many manga, only a few sci-fi classics, Akira, Nausciaa and Gunnm. I have almost all the released Macross Art books though. The third level is non-frictions including general science, economy, business, history, philosophy and books with inspiration. I didn’t read enough history books, this is one area I should focus on in the future. The forth level is chinese fictions and popular readings. I have a broad taste in reading chinese books, from martial arts novels to romance novels to translated novels. The top most level is the CD case and english fictions, the scope is quite limited, only sci-fi, Harry Plotter, Dan Brown and Philip Pullman. I have to overflow my religion books and recreational books to the bookshelf in my bedroom. This arrangement reflects my philosophy that relgion is one of my hobbies. I didn’t plan this arrangement ahead of time, I thought all my books would fit in one bookshelf. Probably when I realize I have to put some books in the bedroom, I grouped relgious books and hobby books together subconsciously.

Today is another great day to ski. Over the past week, we have lots of snow dump, we even see the city covered in white down here in Vancouver. Then this weekend has really good weather, sunshine and warm weather, it is a perfect day to ski. As usualy, I went to Whistler to take ski lesson today. Since I still have some cold, I take it easy today, joining my friends in lower level 5. The class started with 8 people in the morning, then 3 of them left us after lunch. I was thinking if the other two drops out as well, then I will have a super group with my friends only. I told my wishes to my friends, and they said I am bad. Shortly into the first warm up run, one of the guy have a spasm and have to go back to rest. Then we went over to the Harmony chair, came down on a black diamond run, and the remaining girl couldn’t handle the run and dropped out. So my curse is realised. It is one of the best ski lesson I had, each of us got lots of time from the instructor. 3 people with same skill level is most optimal for lessons. One-on-one lesson would be too tiring as you always have to play catch with with the instructor. 3 people gives us some rest on the way down while the instructure is coaching other people. Moreover, 3 people plus the instructor fit nicely into 1 ski lift. Too bad that the discount lesson is over this week. Taking ski lesson in Whistler really helps to improve my skill.