I was talking to the co-op students about their plans after graduations in the afternoon. The company hired the brightest students from both UBC and SFU. I gave some advice to one of the guy who havn’t make up his mind. He planned to study master in UBC. I encouraged him apply to top schools in the States, I think he could make it. I was like them 6 years ago. I used to dream alot about the future. Tonight I had a drink with an old friend visiting Vancouver. He is on the other end of the spectrum compare to the co-ops. He is working for CN Rail. His career is smooth, riskless and well-planned. All he need to do is wait for his boss to retire and then move up the ladder. Repeat this process a few times and he will be the chief engineer of CN Rail. CN Rail didn’t hire many people for many years, so there is a hugh age gap between him and his boss, his boss’ boss, etc. He can envision where he will be in 10 years when everyone above him retired. Chielf engineer of CN Rail makes a very decent living, but not glorious. Nevertheless, he is an engineering manager but he makes considerly less than a grunt engineer in PMC. I ask myself which of the two worlds I belong to. Can I still pursuit my dream like the co-ops or should I settle down for a plain simple life like my old friend?

Last time I picked up my golf clubs was almost a year ago. Today, I went to driving range with colleagues in the lunch hour. We greped hot dogs for a quick lunch and pratice a bucket of golf balls. One of the colleague is new to golf, so the other colleague who has more experience became his golf instructor. I learnt golf a few years ago, but my swing is pretty bad due to lack of practice. I was watching their golf lecture. I found that there are lots of things one have to take care of in a golf swing. From how to holding club, where to stand, coordinate the body movement, do the follow through. I think all those technically details of a good golf swing is not as important as having the right state of mind. Golf swing is something very zen. You can only make a perfect swing if you have peace in your mind. The more you want to hit the ball, the worse your swing will be. Just relax, let your body guide your swing naturally. In today’s session, I hit a few balls straight over 200 yards with 3 wood. However, my problem is lack of consistency. The balls just flew different directions most of the time. I want to pick up golf lessons again. Be a decent golf player is one of my goal.

My volvo has just became a holy car. Tonight we had dinner with some church friends, including Fr. Ho who is newly ordinated priest. I gave a ride to Fr. Ho from our friend’s new apartment to the resturant. Fr. Ho had just finished blessing our friend’s new place and I joked can he blessed my car as well. To my surprise, there is actually a ritual of car blessing. Fr. Ho took out his ritual book, look up the car blessing prayer and then blessed my car. The ritual finished with spinking holy water to my car that Fr. Ho somehow carry a small bottle of holy water in his pocket. Now my car is holified and it should be much safer. I asked many interesting questions about Fr. Ho’s priesthood life in the dinner. I think being a priest is really a though job. Weekend is the busiest days of the week, he has to host several masses. On weekdays, he has to visit elderly house, hospital, school, and help out church events. Even on his day off, he still have to act like a priest in front of his friends. I can never understand why someone would scrafice so much to live a religious life. However, I am glad that someone actually willing to be one or the church will have no priest.

Our company has bad news after bad news. The morale of the workers just have one blow after another. Last week, we announced a forced vacation at the end of August with only 2 weeks of notice. Today we are informed our stock purchase plan is suspended due to SEC investigation on previous option grands. The company is witholding 10% of my salary in the past 6 months and not paying any interest! We suppose to make at least a 15% gain on the stock purchase plan. We wonder why don’t the managment delivery all the bad news in one shot. Getting all the bad news on one day is better than receiving bad news here and there. We are already speculating when and what will be the next bad news. Another round of layoff and shutting down remote sites are top on the list. I don’t expect anyone, including myself, will be safe if the situation go worse. Sooner or later the axe will hit the headquarter. The only thing I worry about is whether P.Eng application will be done by then.

I recently joined an internet book club. In the book club, there is a support group to help you read a book. We synchronize our reading progress and have interesting discussion on the ideas of the book. The book I am reading is the main reason I am attracted to this book club. It is a book about the moral and social issues on homosexual, with fairly balance arguments on both side of the issue. My book just arrived last firday, so I spent a few hours today catch up the first two chapters and I can join the discussion. I used to read by myself, this is the firs time I am reading with a group of people. I am sure I will learn a lot more from this experience than finish the book in turbo mode by myself. One of the setting up a book club is to find a book you are other people want to work at the same time. The book club I join focus in philosophy and theology books, on topics that I am interested in generally. I hope I can keep up with other members in the book club by reading a serious book every 3-4 months. You can learn more about the book club by following this link