I have work!

At long last, after months of blunting the razor-edged slingblade that is my grey matter with sodium, glucose, sucrose, dextrose, maltose, dosetose and ambidextrose, I get some real honest-to-goodness-bona-fide-brain-cooking-eye-watering- hair-follicle-loosening-weirdo-tech-comm-any-old-how-edit-a-
300-page-doc work!

Whoo Hoo?

Don't get me wrong. I welcome the work. I welcome the opportunity to earn my measly pay and flex some neurons, nevermind that my cube has no ceiling light.. At least I got my name on the wall...Oh, those medals on the wall of my cube? They're not mine. Neither are the STC awards on the wall. Nope. Those belong to Robin Boldt. Who's Robin? The owner of the cube in which I have been assigned to work/squat for the duration of my training. I occupy the cube, but the final reality belongs to Robin. Stuff around me resonates of Robin (other than having her name on it, of course), but thankfully doesn't smell of Robin (unlike my roomie, whose fragrance fills the apartment in which I am condemned to live). Nope. On a more cosmic time scale, I am merely a ghost, flitting aimlessly about, anchored by invisible bonds to this confined space.

Once in a few half-lives of a free neutron, I am driven by primal urges (sweat, odour, narcolepsy) to seek a less bounded domain: This is where I freeze my butt off every work day.

I survived the shopping trip

..and I confess! I wanted to have some nice (but cheap) Timberland gear!

So I tagged along with some other professional shoppers to the sort-of local factory outlet 2 hours away from Mayfield, Prime Outlets at Grove City. Here's proof I was there
I managed to score me some Timberland shoes at $39, and some cheapo Polo-Ts and Chinos at bargain prices. But alas, alack! The classy 3-system Parka from Timberland wasn't available in my size.
BLARGH!

Weather here (and there) is chilly, even for me. It's about 25 Fahrenheit, but feels much colder with the wind chill, and the occasional snow flurries.
Most of the place looked like this. Sprawling, distributed factory outlets. The three parents in the group had a whale of a time getting toys for their kids, but I kinda OD'd on the variety of goods and unavailability of my clothes size - looks like too many people here have my clothes size... which is actually about the same as the store not having my size at all.

More later, after I re-fuel.

A little behind

That I am, cuz I had 3 days of full-on Industrial Automation training, and Jet-Lag finally started kicking my butt.

But enough of me, on to some piccies!
A nice post-snow dawn greeted me that first snow-day. If you see pixellation and purpley-stuff, you can attribute that to my half-frozen eyeballs thawing out just after I woke up.
That's my office, company HQ in Ohio. As with most buildings in the US, it's sprawled out over a large area, unlike high-rise multi-layer cake buildings in Singapore.

Just to the right of the photo above, there's a frozen pond, with a bridge (see this pic's background). Apparently, the grounds used to be a golf course. Which explained the two swarms of Geese waddling around the building exterior.
And why don't I have a shot of them? Because I'm stupid, that's why.
Speaking of stupid, this is the first time I've seen two-foot tall bags of potato chips...
Carolyn (the other writer from Singapore, also in training, like me) and I chose to walk back to the apartments that one day after class. Thought it would be a good way to get some exercise in, while familiarizing ourselves with the route home.
Most of it was boring, snow covered cars, homes, shovelled driveways etc, but this stood out, at least to me.
Ok folks, that's all for today. Why? Because I'm going to Pennselvania to shop? Why? Tell you later.

Snoooooowwww!

Whoo Hoo! 3rd day into my training trip, and I score me some snow! Woke up in the middle of the night to see the first vanguard of a billion snowflakes invade Planet Ohio. Temps for today are near freezing, or below zero. Wind chill brings the temp down by another ten, and I chose this day to try wearing my dress pants (made for the tropics!!) BBrrrrr!

Thankfully, with my stupidly warm parka, I managed to stave off hypothermia, look alert during my training classes, and did my best snowman imitation from the supermart back to the apartment, where I made this:
Piping hot roast chicken, fresh from the oven, yumm.. the only thing missing is the red potatoes, which were still in the oven.

More later!

Sardinian Thoughts

No, not from Sardinia, but from a Sardine in an aluminium can sent hurtling in a parabolic arc under the Earth's stratosphere from Point A to B to C to D. Needless to say, I uncanned unharmed.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised by airline food served on Northwest. The texture's all boing-boing and splurghth, but the flavours are good. If you eat the food blindfolded, not only will you be able to polish off the entire meal, but you'll get random spotty samples all over the front of your shirt and pants to boot! Is that a great deal or what?

Sodden veggies aside, the worst experience of the flight from Singapore to Cleveland was the waiting. It was all rush rush rush rush rush rush after the initial human bull rush to deplane, then by stampede to the immigration counters, only to be abruptly brought to a moaning halt at CUSTOMS, with the muffled cursing of forcibly-extracted notebooks and tinny pleas for "Chinese Interpreter at counter 14" being mildly interrupted with the stamp of impatient hooves.

I got no pics to show you of all that, cuz using a camera phone there's ill-eagle. In place of that, here's a pic of my desk sign. So other than spending an additional hour on the tarmac waiting for the passenger umbilical to detach from the mini-plane's passenger disgorging outlet because the umbilical probably got frozen stuck to the plane (did I mention that it was -16 celcius in Minneapolis?) and also waiting for them to de-ice the plane's butt and also waiting half an hour on the runway waiting for a bewildering vehicle to finish running mystically ritualistic smoke rings around the plane to bless the flight (I was not seated in a position to see any animal sacrifices), the journey was good.

Remind me to tell you more about passenger garbage. Those pigs..

In the meantime, here are some superlative-class pics.

This here's a bad pic of my Mayfield Heights apartment living room.

This here's a worse pic of the dining room.

This here's a worser pic of the kitchen.


No pics of the still-single (unattached) bathroom and me small bedroom, cuz there's too much junk in it.

Time for me to make breakfast. Eggs with Italian sausages, stone ground wheat bread, and coffee. yum.

Veiny, Giddy, Visa

I veined, my head swam, and I applied for a visa — a J-1 visa, that is.

Public Service Announcement: When applying for a J-1 visa, be reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally careful about your flight scheduling. I had to re-arrange my flight plan 5 times. ARGH! >8-{

I vaguely remember mentioning before that I'll be on a training stint in the US, no? Well, I apparently can't just slime my way across the unfriendly skies and flop my sweaty carcass over on a US customs officer's counter and expect to be allowed to train on the Visa Waiver Program. Nuh-uh. I need legal sponsorship. My company uses AIPT (Assoc for International Practical Training), and they handle all the silly legal mumbo-jumbo that visa applications traditionally come saddled with. All for a fee somewhere around the value of my monthy salary. Wow, who knew?

Anyhoo, there I was happily riding on the coattails of a flight-planning-accomplished colleague, blissfully unaware of impending doom. All the while, I thought that I could show up at the Airport on the 12th and have Northwurst sling-rocket my saggy butt halfway around the world. I'm day-dreaming about collecting on all those air miles when I get a perturbing e-mail from Fedex. What the...?

To compress several harrying hours spent re-reading the email, let's just say that "I read the e-mail and acted accordingly". After harassing a I'm-still-in-a-meeting-HR-person, I find out that the Fedex package contains documents that I need, for my J-1 visa application.
OK, fine.
I then find out that the American Embassy takes 2 days to process and (hopefully) approve the visa application.
Still OK.
That is, until I check the expected delivery date of the Fedex package. 8th Jan.

ARGHRRRGRHRRHGRHH!

OK, let's do some logic exercises:

Package with important visa document arrives 8th jan.
I can only go the Embassy to personally beg for the visa the next day (at 7.30 am), 9th jan.
The visa takes two days to process, 10-11 Jan.
Collect the visa after two days 12 jan. Ooooops. My flight leaves 12th jan at 0600...
I start getting hypertensive, and the vein in my neck throbs a vein (ugh) counterpoint to the smugly blinking cursor on my computer screen. Veiny? Check.

After wasting two hours griping to random, helpless people in the office, it finally occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, Fedex might deliver the package early!! While my cube-mate snorts derisively enough to cause a mini-tsunami in her coffee-cup, I frantically click through the Fedex e-mail and website to look for a Customer Disservice number. I find the number and convince the somewhat helpful but disembodied voice to request the the package be re-directed to my home, should it arrive early. Still in a dazed panic, I grill the hapless HR person about half-baked alternatives to the J-1 visa, but alas, alack, 'tis in vain (enough vein references already right?). I spend the rest of the afternoon moping about yet another change to the flight plan and losing one day of jet-lag recovery by pushing my departure date by a day. It's the only way I can be more sure of actually making it to the US customs counter with a J-1 visa. I morosely slouch my way home, my mind playing virtual pinball with scenarios until I finally pass out on my bed. Giddy? Check.

Whoo Hoo! A night of intermittent frantic pleading with the Power That Is yields great results! The next morning, I track the progress of the Fedex package, seeing it ping its way from Maryland to Newark, up to Anchorage (Alaska!?!), and finally, Singapore! A friendly Fedex delivery guy cheerfully hurls the package into my waiting palms, and I spend the next 2 hours reading font point size 5.34 legal print... gah! I'll be spending my Black Monday morning queueing up at the Embassy to beg for my visa.. Visa? More or less Check.

Merry Christmas to All in Blogland...

..and in WorldWideWebland and so on and so forth et cetera ad nauseum!

Yes. Mea Culpa. Me culpable of not posting enough on my miserable blog. But hopefully, the adrenaline rush and frostbite of spending several weeks in Ohio might change all that.

Yes. I hereby resolve to blog my experiences of Ohio and US-on-the-job-training! Within limits, of course, can't very well give away company secrets and be sued for breach of Information Security Policy, now can I? Well, yes I could, but why would I want to? Not quite one of the things I need to do before I die...

About this blog post:

Now what was I supposed to talk about?

Oh yes.


Merry Christmas and Season's Greetings to all!


This auspicious blog entry marks the start of my already faltering resolve to regularly blog experiences and personal impressions of my exciting On-the-Job-training-stint. I'll be enjoying (hopefully) -25 Celcius weather, and finally (after 6 years) be able to use my stupidly warm parka.

We'll see who wins. My parka and my polar bear constitution, or Ohio area-effect snow and wind...

About the people helping to arrange the training:

My Department's Head Cheese (hereafter known as Kind Boss) in the US has been extremely helpful and kind, by co-ordinating efforts to secure resources for me, while I'm there. In addition to Kind Boss, I also have one of two mentors helping Kind Boss out, like fine-tuning my training program, answering stupid questions and generally catering to my every whim and fancy. No, really! I didn't anticipate that US HR would send me a questionnaire, asking me to list my preferences for Stuff After Work (SAW).

So, happy, culturally-starved me, I listed Broadway, early music performances, free music conservatory recitals, gentle hiking and coffee as my preferred passions. Will they really help me experience all that? Read on, over the next several weeks to find out!! Ha! Finally, a good reason to keep on reading my blog! Whoo Hoo!

So, a Big Thank You to Kind Boss and Mentors for your offered help! But, here's a problem:

Being a Person of Oriental Origins (POO) uh..., I'm obliged to make a feeble attempt to try and show my appreciation, other than making them famous by mentioning them on my well-read blog.

So, for Kind Boss, I schlepped over to Chinatown to get a Chinese-Dragon-topped Jade name stamp, with Kind Boss' English name phonetically transmogrified into Mandarin, natch. The two mentors have a Chinese-Lion-topped Jade name stamp. What do you all out there think? Lemme know, by posting comments!

I have a Peranakan heritage, so I also got for Kind Boss a pair of authentic, but not antique Peranakan Intan display spoons. Hopefully, Kind Boss will like them, and think kindly of me during the half-yearly job appraisal (ahem).

During my OJT, my weekends will be sorta free, aside from the free concerts. I'm also thinking of visiting New York at the end of my training, and go see a few Broadway shows - Spamalot and Company come to mind!

Please be kind, and send me suggestions on how to enjoy myself in the US, during January to March (preferably not too far from Ohio, like Hawaii).

Please?