September 30, 2003(Tuesday)

I woke up at 6:30 and went to work at 7:45. I have not been to work so early since the first day to work. I had a meeting with my boss Omar and co-worker Berlitz about traffic analysis for another customer RCTV.
I went to Fondo Comun to perform backup of the data to the new assigned little old laptop. A driver from Desca supposed to come at 2 to pick up the computer and move to the new place. However he was 40 mins late. I reported to Omar when I was waiting; he told me that being late is a Venezuelan culture and it may be that the traffic is heavy at that time. I am a bit surprise of what he told me because that would cause me late to the next customer. Omar always sounds very concern to the customer; probably he was overwhelmed with the work that he is doing at that time and can not take care of my situation.
I was working in RCTV from 3 to 8. This is a TV station and I should be able to see a lot of actors. However, I do not know any Venezuelan actors and I was inside the computer room all the time (only went to washroom once) so I cannot see any stars (but I don't care anyway)

September 29, 2003(Monday)

I went to Fondo Comun for most of the day in order to finish my traffic capturing job. There is another traffic capturing job that they want me to do. I still don't understand why they want me to do this low-level job. I have no big problem because I can concentrate my brain cell on the MBA. It is also quite easy too. However, it may not be good for the long term resume.
I went back to Desca from 6:30 - 8 to talk to my boss Omar about the Fondo Comun project, the new traffic capturing project and also CanTV requested to configure the PIX. The CanTV requirement is new to me and I told Omar that I need more time to work on this because I don't want to look stupid before the customer.
I went to Ricky's house for dinner and then had a meeting for the constitution. There are other people here too. They are trying to be very picky and detail; they examined each word and the grammar. I found this a waste of my time because I am not good at Chinese and this is not a priority. Therefore I left at 10:30 while some of them continue.

September 28, 2003(Sunday)

I led combined (adult and youth) Sunday School. Probably because we combined with the adults and there were a lot of people, I did a boring job. Afterward, we had luncheon at church. KinHey (Paco's son) was there too; he was naughty and always is destructive. Therefore, I played with him, but acting like I am punishing him. I tried to hit his butt repeatedly; he did not cry but found that funny. And then Paco and I hold on to him and throw him up and down, like playing "chin chow". He was scared and really cried hard. I thought that this is a funny game and had no idea why he cried so hard and went to his mom and continue to cry. Well, he was a very "dare" person and always went behind his mom. However, other people thought that I am mean and guilty of making him cry (but they did not accuse Paco)
We had the church General Assembly and I went home. I studied Acts 12:1-25 for 1.1 hours.

September 27, 2003(Saturday)

I used to study the book of Acts with the FCGC teens. I stopped at about Ch. 10 because I went to Venezuela. After about 1.5 years of idle, I picked up on this book again. I studied Acts 10:24-48 and 11:1-30 today. I am so "spiritual". I also went for my weekly jogging today.
I went to Che So's house for the Church Council fellowship/gathering time. We ended up talking about church thing too. Afterward, I went to Baptist Church for music practice.

September 26, 2003(Friday)

I need to do traffic analysis for customer Fondo Comun. I went there in the morning and Desca gave a desktop for this task. Therefore, even though my laptop is still dead, I can still use this desktop to check email and do other stuff. They told me that there is some internal error to the laptop and needed to pass it to the "HP service center" to fix it. Therefore the earliest that I can have my laptop back is next Monday. I need to have a computer to work on the traffic report early next week and definitely need my computer back if I am traveling to Dallas next week. The computer that I use right now is really Spanish. It is not "Ctrl-A" for "select all" but "Ctrl-E" for "seleccionar todo" (don't know where is the "E" coming from)
I went to Dr. Chu's house for dinner. Paco's family went too. Paco, Dr. and Mrs. Chu are very dedicated Christian that is about my age. They are from two different churches but I am glad that they are "more friend" with each other because both of their sons are going to the same school.
I played with Paco's son "KinHey" and yison during the dinner. They really liked to play with me, climb on top of me, "ride shoulder horse". Kids like me and I have a "special, weird" method to teach and play with them. Probably because I used to be very naughty when I was young. I should teach Children Sunday school or be a kindergarten or elementary school teacher.

September 25, 2003(Thursday)

Today is my 9th year dating anniversary, 2nd year engagement anniversary and -1 year wedding anniversary. What a special day. I called Carmen in the morning for 10 mins. I went to Fondo Comun for traffic analysis. My laptop had problem for the last few days, since people reformat my computer and changed the operating system from 2000 to XP. It worked ok for the first 1.5 hours. Afterward, my computer freeze again. And I had a really hard time switching on my computer again. Even when it is switched on, it cannot detect the network card. I have talked to my boss about this because being a Network Engineer like myself, I can't survive without computer. Especially I have to work on the MBA homework online! I hope that they are going to give a new computer to me. Laptop hates me! When I first went to Venezuela, I was assigned a Toshiba laptop running Window XP. It crashed after using it for 5 months. And then it crashed again 2 months later in November 2002. The IT administrator gave me a used HP computer with Window 2000. I used it for 10 months; it is slow sometimes and had some little problem, but at least it still alive. However, after the reformat to XP last weekend, problem happens again and again!
I am glad that not much thing is lost because after two previous computer crashed, I learnt to save often. Not only save to my computer but also to some external place, like network drive or yahoo briefcase. My boss Mario told me that there is no additional laptop available at work and they will try to reinstall everything to my computer again later today. He told me not to install any other software to my computer, besides the standard one. As far as I recall, I only installed ICQ and Trillian to my computer for the last few days, and I have uninstalled both application. I don't know what happened.
In Fondo Comun, there are people smoking indoor. This is really annoying. They sit next to me and smoked. I tried my best not to give them a dirty look.
I went back to Desca to return my dead-laptop and hoped that the IT department can revive it. I will go without laptop tomorrow and see whether I will get it back tomorrow
I went home and ate dinner by myself (to celebrate this special day). I fell asleep while waiting to call Carmen. Finally I woke up at 1:40am and talked to Carmen for 1.2 hours! Glad that the land-line Telcel Fijo telephone is working so that I can talk to her easily.

September 24, 2003(Wednesday)

I went to Desca and planned to remotely troubleshoot the Fondo Comun problem. However Mario wanted me to go to customer site, not that I can help, just that it is necessary to show the customer that someone is working on it. It is a waste of time. I went there did nothing basically. I just surfed the net and checked out MBA homepage too. I left at 2 and went home.
My Dallas visit date was very confusing too. Originally they wanted me to go Tuesday. Then it is postponed to Wednesday. We received the offer late so they wanted me to go Thursday. Today, I was informed that the equipment is not ready until Oct 2 so I will go next week. It totally disrupted my plan. I had church commitment or other things and it really confused all these. I also told church people yesterday that I won't be here this week and now I won't be here the week after instead. This instability is not fun at all.
I went back to Desca and they wanted me to perform traffic analysis for customer Fondo Comun. I do not understand why they wanted a highly trained CCIE to perform this basic task. I really wanted to voice out because these are really boring task but eventually I swallowed it. Moreover, Mario talked to me about the contract. Originally when we talked about the contract, Desca promised to give me either 4 courses or $1000 for each course. They told me at that time that I have enough certificates so I expected to receive $4000. However Mario told me today that if they need me to attend any course, I would not get that $1000. It is as written in the contract but disturbed my budget; I thought that I would not go to any course. It sounds like that there may be two courses that they wanted me to attend. One is a MPLS course in Venezuela, which will be in Spanish. I told Mario that, since I am trading my $1000 for this course, I don't want to attend this Spanish course. He told me that I am ok listening Spanish, just like he is ok listening English. The other course is an EMC course in Boston. If I have to attend a course, I would rather attend the second one.
I went to church prayer meeting at night. I have not attended that for about a month; at that time I really felt attending this is a waste of time. For some reasons, I was busy every Wednesdays afterward; either working in CanTV or out of town. I finally able to attend today; there were more sharing and less teaching which is what I want. We also talked about the church's position on the China Day performance on Sept 28. It is obvious that the Lui and Ah San intercepted the invitation that is destined to the MB church. They did not want to let the church (the church council appointed me) to arrange the program. They were trying to invite church people to help them; surprisingly, the church council suggested me that I should not help out because their motive is wrong; they just wanted to show off and glorify themselves. After prayer meeting, I went to have dinner with Ricky. Our church wants to hire a pastor; we need US$40k/yr to secure the budget; currently, we have about US $10k/yr. This is a time to train our faith.

September 23, 2003(Tuesday)

I went to customer "Fondo Comun" for troubleshooting in the morning. Actually it is the Cisco TAC engineer doing the troubleshooting, and another co-worker assisted him. I had nothing to do so I just surf the net. The internet connection is poor for my computer (again). I have to reconnect many times.
The is a customer Telmex and they need me to go to Dallas for the installation. They signed the contract at a very late time. Therefore, my boss and the project manager's plan is changing back and forth. Originally I may go this morning. Then it is postponed to tomorrow morning. Because they signed the contract at very late time and we have already cancel the air ticket for tomorrow, I will go (as of today) to Dallas on Thursday. Thing may change again later. This last minute, back and forth thing, is very annoying but I am learning to adopt it.
I went home to write an essay for the MB Youth Fellowship. There is an essay competition and not many people entered the race. I still think that I have lots of creativity.

September 22, 2003(Monday)

People reformat my computer in the weekend and change from Window 2000 to Window XP. I got it back this morning but it was not in a good shape. The screen is blank when I turned on the computer. I have to shut off and turn on several times. Moreover, the internet connection has problem. The computer sometimes cannot detect the network card and I have to turn off and turn on again. I download different software to my computer. When I download the 3M ICQ 2003 pro, there is problem again. When I first download, it only download the first 10% and then it stopped. I "cancel" the process and download it again. The cache saves the first 10% and this time I download from the 11% to 17%. This process of canceling and re-download happened 10+ times before I can download the entire file. The internet connection at work is also slow; it took forever to open some site, e.g. the hotmail and Cisco Discussion Forum.
I am glad that nothing much happens today at work. Therefore, I can download software, check email, chat with Carmen and update diary. All my bookmark (favorites) are lost so I have to find the websites again.
There will be a project that spans Mexico, Dallas and LA. I will go to Dallas for a week this Wednesday; therefore, I have to notify churches about my normal responsibilities. Hansel was surprise to know that I got such a short notice for going to a trip or not. I am surprised myself; however, a consultant company must be responsive to customer's need. Moreover, this is a small company, plus this is Venezuela! It opposes my plan-ahead characteristic.
I went home to enjoy the food that people gave me yesterday. They gave me a "holy communion cup size" of pepper and I pour the whole thing to the congee. It is so hot!

September 21, 2003(Sunday)

Ricky picked me up 20 mins earlier because he planned to go to bank but it closed. Therefore, we had breakfast together. Afterward, I let the Chinese combined Sunday School again for Acts 4:1-22.
I led singspiration at MB Church. "Praise you Hallelujah" (ACM's "You are King"), "Christian should the Elite Army of God" (ACM's "You are King"), "Come worship God" (ACM's "Come Revive me"), "Power of Your Love" and "Shout to the Lord". We used lots of action for the first song. Also, the choice of my song list is very limited because I have to find some songs that include Spanish too. Afterward, I talked to Dr. Chu and another person during the Sunday School time. I also fold paper airplane for kids and played with them. We had MB Youth fellowship at night; it was a sharing about "self pity" and "self boastful". I went to have dinner with Ricky at night; he may leave Venezuela soon; he also gave me tips about working in big company can learn a lot. I learnt a lot regarding about working in corporation and working life in general from him.
People in the two churches treated me really well. Mrs. Lam from MB church boiled some congee, Mrs. Chu also gave me rice and soap. Mr. Wong helped me to line up for one afternoon for buying the telephone, lined up for two more afternoon to fix the telephone. Ricky always treated me for dinner and I only treated him once. Che So always invited me to go to her house for food and she helped me to wash my clothes. People always reserve food for me after church pop luck (and I am exempted from bringing food :). I thank God for placing all these angels besides me!
After getting my "Telcel Fijo" land-line telephone, I called Carmen and chatted about my situation, her situation and also her Christmas trip to Venezuela

September 20, 2003(Saturday)

After 50 mins weekly run, I went to church for the Church Council meeting. They wanted me to be responsible for the music department. After talking with Che So, I proposed to have two teams, one is pure Chinese and the other is pure Spanish. However, people worry that this will lose all the Spanish youth because of the pure Chinese thing. Therefore, whenever I lead, I will have 3 pure Chinese songs and two mixed song. Moreover, the meeting was dragging and went into detail without seeing the big picture. I don't think that it is productive.
I went to MB Church to teach Semson about the church webpage that I did and for music practice at night. We were hungry afterward; Mrs. Lam offered to let us went to her house to eat, instead, we bent Mr. Lam (who is the church vice-president and also working in restaurant) to eat in his restaurant for free (which means, he pays the bill). We chatted about old people's disease (because they were all over 45 years old)

September 19, 2003(Friday)

I went to CanTV in the morning. Except one little problem, everything is smooth and ok. The VP of Business (or something like that) visited us in the middle of it. I talked to the CanTV engineer and apparently that he is very happy with the service. This will be a model for other customer too. I am glad to hear this.
I increased my afternoon nap from average of 45 mins to 1.1 hours. Including the 8 hours of sleep, I am sleeping 9.1 hours a day. I must find something to do to decrease my sleeping time. Usually people just complain that they don't have enough thing to do, but I have too little thing to do. But whatever that I do involve a lot of brain and I don't want to take any more courses or so on.
I talked to my boss Rhamer regarding about the legal contract. We were both ok about the contract. However, I wish to change the starting and ending date from June to September so that I can be more secure that I will be able to work until my marriage in September2004. He did not want to change the starting date. I told him that I am very committed in working in Desca; I will marry next year and Carmen and I are making plan to move to Venezuela. He told me that Desca still very interested in me. In fact, there may be a course about EMC Storage Network in Boston and the management is thinking of sending me there to take the course. (Mario told me about this yesterday that instead of sending me to Boston for the course, I can only take e-learning) This is very encouraging to know that the employer still wants me. I had been laid off from my previous two jobs, both with less than two years of working experience. I will negotiate the contract with Desca in March and I hope that I can work longer in this job.
My laptop is screwed badly. My previous laptop corrupted twice in September and November 2002. Since then I am using another old HP laptop from my ex-co-worker. The monitor display and keyboard have problem sometimes. Moreover, there may be other problems too. Whenever I open any Microsoft product, it requests me to insert the “Office XP”. I will give it to the company administrator and they will reformat the computer in the weekend. I hope that I will have a usable laptop next Monday.
I went to the grandmother of Shirley, who lived in the opposite apartment. This grandmother is 80+ years old. She is a very dedicated "New Testament Church" (some cults) member. She uses internet to listen to online sermon, prayer and use the DVD to see the praise and worship everyday. Someone (grand children? or children of her friend?) reformat her hard drive and she can not do what she used to do. It really bothers her so she asked her family to find someone to help her. It turns out that the connection to her keyboard is loosen; also, she does not have the DVD viewer anymore and the one that someone download for her only last for 5 mins so her worship time always ends in the middle of it. I am just amazed to see people in such an old age uses computer Window XP! Also, she is a very dedicated cult’s member; she is the only member in Venezuela but she still reads the Bible and listens to online sermon every day. I don't think that I have met any Christian as dedicated as this!

September 18, 2003(Thursday)

I did not go to CanTV in the morning because there is a meeting for everyone at 10. However, Jorge decided to make it 10:45. Oh well, he is the big boss and he can re-schedule the meeting. The meeting was 1.2 hours long and all in Spanish.
I did not go to CanTV in the afternoon because another customer needs me to do the traffic analysis. However, when I went back to work, the customer canceled the appointment. However, some one from Desca Colombia asked me a technical question and I tried to find the solution for him.
I talked to Mario for 20 mins. He asked me about the situation of the customer, especially CanTV because it is a large customer, and I assured him that everything is good and customer happy. I asked him whether I can help him to take over the employee certification position because I am always interested in either training others, being trained or be a training administrator. He thanked me for my offer but told me that it is not necessary now. However, he wants me to do EMC (another vendor for Storage network, like Cisco) certification but there is no bonus for obtaining this certification. He told me that I don't have to worry about the laid off (fired?) of the other CCIE Adalberto. He did not have the required performance; however, Mario was pleased with my performance. This week, Rhamer, Jorge and now Mario told me that they are pleased with me. This is so encouraging and I am so happy! Out of the three people, I am most happy that Mario praised and thanked me because he is my direct boss and also I had a bad relationship with him last year and now my relationship with him is pretty good. (And Mario is the only person that did not nail on my Spanish situation) He told me to relax and work is fun. Hey, I have 9 hours of sleep a day and working hard on my MBA. So I really think that work is "that" hard? Anyway, I got good image in front of my boss, at least now.
I went home and cooked dinner again. I fried chicken meat; with lots of oil, small fire and little salt, it turned out pretty tasty. I hope to make the skin to be more "lone". I also tried to fried little thin long green bean (I don't know the English for this one. My dad cooked "four season bean" with that) with the remaining oil. I cooked for 20 mins with small fire and it still not too well-done. Probably I need to think of some other method to make it well-done. I started to look forward for go home to cook because it is one way to relief my stress from work. NO!!!!!! Is it because I cannot escape the fate of "all Pun has to cook and gain weight"? I tried so hard to fight against this fate and the inner desire started to leak out.

September 17, 2003(Wednesday)

I went to office in the morning because I will be going to customer at 10. At that time my big boss Jorge was here. He chatted with me for 20 mins. He emphasized that he needs Spanish from me. He used Spanish most of the time during this talk. However, other than that, he said that people, e.g. Mario, Rhamer, CanTV and Colombia people, are satisfied with my performance. This is good to know. He also mentioned that he may want me to take the third CCIE exam (CCIE Voice). This would be a huge commitment for me because I don't know anything about that and I am also taking MBA. He needs to confirm with Mario and I would know later. Afterward, there was an out-of-the-blue meeting for 1.5 hours. The meeting was totally in Spanish. During one or two time, Jorge expects me to answer some questions, which he asked earlier in Spanish. I tried to fake some answer and people laughed. Probably they are making fun of me again. I am used to being made fun of because of the language problem. I know that they are just having fun and I want to maintain my Mr. Nice image.
I *guess* that during the meeting they talked something about the customer satisfaction. Probably the consultant thought that this is not their job and past the customer to the support and vice versa. Apparently Jorge and Mario were not happy about that. My boss stressed that the consultant should do whatever to make the customer happy. From the conversation with Rhamer and Jorge earlier, I knew that they were not talking about me. I do whatever that the customer and my boss asked. It was a pain at that time and I don't enjoy it. However, my motto (and my boss's motto) is that "if the customer is happy, my boss is happy; and if my boss is happy, I am happy". All these seems to pay off (partially) now. With this working attitude (hey, I always thought that I have a poor working attitude!), my CCIE certification and my MBA, I have confident that I can move up to management, given that I know the language. Oh well, my goal is some other companies so it is good time for me to learn and move up the corporate ladder later.
I was supposed to go to customer "Vepica" 10am but due to the out-of-the-blue meeting, I went there at 2:30. I need to make some configuration change to their PIX firewall. It sounds easy but I know that life is never easy. I went there and it turns out that it is only a change in IP address. They want to redirect their traffic from the SMTP mail server to the Anti-Spam server. I did that and my job is done! However they cannot receive email. It is the ISP's problem so the customer is nice enough to let me go. This is one of the easiest times.
Instead of going back to office at 4:30, I went home to have a nap and cooked dinner. I am trying hard to skip afternoon nap one or two days a week (except Saturday and Sunday). I was tired without the nap. Also, this is the fourth consecutive meal that I cooked Spegatti with corn, "soup sauce", chicken. I am expecting to eat that tomorrow too. I finally bought rice today so I will use the rice-cooker that parents gave me when I came here soon.
I went to CanTV to upgrade their IP Telephony software. We need to wait until no user is on the telephone. It is really frustrate to see one or two, out of 400+ users, were still on the phone and I have to wait. Also, my co-worker Frank did most of the work and I was here for standby purpose only. So I ICQ Carmen, checked MBA work and surfed the internet. (But still this customer satisfies with my performance).

September 16, 2003(Tuesday)

I went to CanTV and nothing happened again. So I spent to morning checking email and my MBA courses. There is problem with remote access to the company email in the morning, I checked at 11:50am and knew that I was supposed to be in another customer's site at 10am. I responded saying that I would be there after lunch.
After lunch at home, I went to another customer Fondo Comun and open Cisco TAC cases for their Cisco Works and Voice Gateway problem. I stayed there until 7:30pm and went home to cook dinner. Today I ate spegatti, corn, orange, meat (from last Thursday Mid-Autumn Festival's Church BBQ) for both lunch and dinner. I worked on the MBA homework at night.

September 15, 2003(Monday)

I went to CanTV in the morning and then went home for lunch. In the afternoon, I went to Desca because CanTV needs only 2 hours per day from me for this week. I got the US cheque and I went to bank to deposit. Due to the country's currency control, the Venezuelan bank can't deposit the US cheque and I walked to the bank's designated "express delivery" shop and asked them to mail the cheque to US bank.
I found out that the contract of the other non-Venezuelan co-worker Adalberto was terminated last week. I was a bit shocked and I asked my co-worker Yelitza about it. Is it because Desca has more than the required number of CCIE, or because he is not Venezuelan citizen. Does that mean that I will be next. She said that none of those is true, she only knew that there is some problem with him. I went to my boss Rhamer's office and talked about my contract. We are trying to get a visa for me and we need a formal contract that is good for the government. The contract that we used previously is only good for internal use. I asked him why Adalberto was fired and whether it has anything to do with the company have more CCIE than required. He told me that it is because Adalberto did not accept the new contract. His contract was the same as mine; both of our salaries are decreased to half because of the country's financial situation. He told me that Desca is getting a visa and a contract for me so I am safe.
I asked him about how I am doing at job too. He said that the company really wants me to speak Spanish. I told him that I am communicating using "Spanglish" with CanTV customer. He only emphasized that I need to speak more Spanish. When I asked whether there is any co-worker that "hates" me, he said that there is none now (i.e. there was!) because I no longer just sit and study but also work on project. He is satisfied with my technical ability and other thing and told me that the Colombia Security Conference went well and people are happy about that. It would be good for me to go to bar to have a drink with co-worker, but that is not important at all.
I talked with the company's CFO Jose about my MBA study. I asked him for advice several months ago when I am applying for university. He asked him how I am doing with the course. We chatted about some economic concepts and he showed me websites about US Federal Reserve and "CNN Money". He also told me that Desca is healthier financial-wise. I spent about 45 mins talking to him and I learnt quite a lot and is good socializing time with the top management.
I am supposed to go to CanTV for some troubleshooting but they forgot the key so the troubleshooting will be postponed until tomorrow. I went to Che So's house for dinner. We talked about the "Chinese Place performance incident" yesterday at church. We also chatted (I don't call it gossip) about people at church, e.g. the Wong, Tse, Kiang family. I also told her my frustration about being appointed to be the music director at church. If they want my style, then I will go for pure Chinese songs. However Mimia complained that I do not care about the need of the Spanish youth so I should do a mix. However, I worry that it will be "two side not reach the shore" (Chinese saying, means that you don't do well on either end) The church's congregation are mostly Chinese and only 4 or 5 Spanish youth who can't read Chinese. We also talked about whether we should choose some of the youth at church to be in the worship team.
I phoned Carmen about what happened to me today. We chatted about my contract. I know that I will probably not be able to reach the expectation of the company about my Spanish requirement. Therefore I am pessimistic that the company will have a new contract for me from June 2004 - May 2005. And now I am talking a legal-contract with Rhamer and I want to stay in Venezuela at the very least until my marriage at September 2004. Therefore one of the option is to ask Rhamer to start counting the contract from today and end at September 2004. Therefore I have fewer things to loss if he does not continue the contract. (I hope to work in Venezuela until Christmas 2004). However, by doing this, some of the possibility about salary increase or benefit would be forfeited. That will be the trade off. I will try to talk to Rhamer and test his reaction. Also, I appreciate Carmen for cooperate with the plan; I understand that she would be very uncertain about the career future (like I am) and takes a big leap of faith to live with me; I don't even know where I will be at that time. I have to see whether I can find a new job and whether Desca continue the contract.

September 14, 2003(Sunday)

Since we have no pastor now, we had a music Praise and Worship. We had several songs: "Praise you Hallelujah" (ACM's "You are King"), "In Jesus" (ACM), "Come Worship God" (ACM's "Revive me"), "Because your name" (Author is "Uncle West"), "God will make a way", "yo queiro se mas como tu", "Llaname", "When I look into your holiness". People liked the atmosphere today. I led "Acts 3:1-27" for the combined adult/youth Chinese Sunday School and it went pretty good. I do have the gift of leading and teaching.
During the "China Day" last year, MB church had a performance at the "Chinese Place". This year, they invited us again. However, they went through Mr./Mrs...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Lui and Ah San. These people told the Church Council and myself about this invitation. We are glad with that and the Church Council 100% agreed to have a join effort with the MB church and I will be the person fully responsible for that. I have warned them that the most difficult battle is not with the non-Christian (i.e. I hinted that it is with these people). They love Chinese Opera and they hate to co-operate with the MB Church. I can foresee that whoever responsible for this program will be "dead". The Church Council assured me that I got their full support. I am very excited because my wish is to have a join effort between the music talent in both churches.
I went home to cook lunch. Then Ricky called saying that the Baptist Church decided to withdraw from the music performance. I was shocked and disappointed; he was busy at that time and did not offer an explanation. However, I reflected myself that do I really care for the Chinese, or only want to show off my limited music leading skill? Therefore, this may be a good thing for me nevertheless. I called Che So and Ricky afterward regarding about this incident. They told me that the Lui and Ah San said that the Chinese Place invited them and they invited us so that the Baptist Church would have sometimes to expose themselves to the public. Therefore, they react vigorously and angrily about the idea that I will be fully responsible for the program. They wanted to be the host and the Baptist Church be the guest for the performance. They talked so much, so vigorously and so angrily that Mr. Wong and Che So, who answered the phone, did not have a chance to say. Afterward, Mr. Wong, along with Che So and Ricky, decided that the church will withdraw from this because we don't want to be the guest and they be the host in this 25 mins performance. It is not reasonable from a church's perspective that we be the guest and they make all the arrangement and let us fill the hole. From her tone through the telephone, I can tell that Che So was quite angry about the behavior of the Lui and Ah San. I understood and agreed with what the decision of the church. I talked to Semson later and knew that probably the Chinese Place's idea was to invite MB Church. From the Chinese Place's perspective, the Lui and Ah San represented the MB Church without knowing that they changed church this year. Now neither church will participate in the event; the Lui and Ah San will only represent on behave of themselves. However, both churches wanted to have some evangelism program in the year end and both churches wanted to co-operate with each other. I am the "music director" of both church and I will probably be the person responsible for the program either way. I am very excited if this work out. Not only that, Carmen will come during Christmas and I extremely wished to serve together with Carmen in this large-scale outreach. The last time I served formally with Carmen was during 2000 Canaan committee. We have both grown to another level during the last 3 years and it will be excited to cooperate again. For all the time in Venezuela, I only serve with myself. No one is really good at the MC skill except Semson. I hope that when Carmen came, we can serve the Lord together in this event.
I hosted the MB Youth fellowship committee meeting at night. The last time I led meeting was the November 2001 committee meeting for FCGC fellowship. I am "famous" and good at being efficient, to the point and finish on time. I did not disappoint myself today. I went to eat dinner with them at night. During Dec 25, there will be a Christmas meeting in the MB Church; they wanted the youth fellowship to be responsible for this program, which means, I will take over most of the program. I had a plan for Christmas 2002's Christmas program but since I went back to Canada at that time, the plan was not implemented. However, if I have to responsible for the Chinese Place Outreach during the year end, I may not want to be heavily responsible for this Christmas program.

September 13, 2003(Saturday)

I went to Parque del Este for running 50 mins. I used to run every other day for 45 mins each time in Canada. Now I only run once a week and I felt that my physical is not as fit as before. I went to work at 2:00 and had the MBA C511 (Organization Change) Final exam from 3-6. This is the first online MBA exam. I went to Indiana August for the in-resident week and I took this course. It stressed about the work/life balance and we went to zoo! We have an option of whether taking exam or not. If I choose not to take the final exam, I would have B+. I would either have A or A- when I take the final exam. The professor said that if we value the weekend for other personal commitment, that is ok because that is our priority. We would still get a good mark, just not A or A-. This is the only course that the professor allow us to choose whether we can take final exam or not without failing the course. The exam consisted of four essay questions. My speed was slowing than I thought and I used all three hours.
I went to Ricky's house at night for the Church Council sharing. We would like to improve our Sunday Worship. One of the changes that we will make is to ask the worship team to lead song every week. I will be the person responsible for this worship team. I will choose two teams and we will lead every other week. Currently, I am the "music director" for both Baptist Church and MB Church. In Canada, there are a lot of music gifted people so my job usually is leading the fellowship but not in the worship team. Human talent is really limited here! I will lead music every other week at Baptist Church and also every other week in MB church. I really hoped to be the music leading in Fraserland Church during 1996 and I even "thick face" to ask people to let me lead but they did not. Now I lead every week in worship!
I went to church for music practice. Since I am appointed to this job (but the official starting date probably will be October) I tried to lift up their standard too. Instead of practicing each of the songs, I focused on the transition between songs. Moreover, I publicly apologized to Mimia because she said that I focused too much on the Chinese side and ignore the needs of the Spanish congregation (She cried Aug 31 because I did not leave enough space for her to translate). I knew very little about Spanish songs so that is expected. However, I apologized because I have the "thorn" in my heart. If I don't clear it, I can't really serve happily.

September 12, 2003(Friday)

I went to CanTV again today; basically, I spent most of my time studying. I went to have lunch with Ricky Lam and talked about the church problem again. I left CanTV early at 4:30 because people were doing some painting so the room is full of chemical smell. My parents told me that they received the long sharing I wrote to them several weeks ago. That is the most important letters that I have written to my parents and I am glad that it arrived safely.
I treated Paco for dinner. I asked him about how his wife and kid is adapting to the new environment. Her wife used to work full time and felt bored now. I wonder that this would what Carmen feel when she will move to Venezuela after our marriage. I also told Paco that he is more suitable to be the youth leader because he will be here for a longer time; I can't identify myself fully with the youth here yet.
I studied for the final exam tomorrow and saw the photo on my website that I printed before.

September 11, 2003(Thursday)

I am in CanTV for the whole day again. Nothing really happened. The only thing is that, when I am about to leave, the customer asked me to do something again. Glad that it is resolved within 30 mins.
I went to church for the mid-autumn festival program. We had BBQ and people performed singing. I was in charged of the Quiz game, like the one in MB church last Sunday, but less Christian related. I asked something about politics, Chinese history and science.
I talked to Luisa Ng after the program; she will go to Miami next January. It is another sad thing to the church. A lot of people have left already. Very few people with my age remains.

September 10, 2003(Wednesday)

I was working in CanTV the whole day. There is nothing going on and they just need me to standby. I am alone in the cold server room so I had a lot of time for my MBA study. I am bored afterward. There was some troubleshooting that we need to do for CanTV and we did it between 7 - 10pm. I have nothing to do with that except walking around and be prepared to contact the Cisco engineer. They need to do something to the telephone network and there were one or two people on the phone (out of the 400 phones) and we have to wait till they finished in order proceeding with the troubleshooting. I am quite an annoyed with that. Are they too customer focused or I am too self-centered? We have this maintenance window and I thought that we can do whatever we want within that window. Luckily we just waste 45 mins about this thing. The customer is also a bit slow in everything. He does not know multi-tasking. During the troubleshooting time, he did not have anything to do. After the thing is solved and we are ready to go home, we have to wait for him to sit down and sent email. That wasted another 30 mins but I am glad that I have the patient.
I went to prayer meeting afterward. It is supposed to be between 7:30 - 10 and I was there at 10:30. They have finished already but were talking about some trip to Panama or Costa Rica to find a new pastor. I guess that I must have missed something, or else that they really are planning a long distance church trip for several people.

September 9, 2003(Tuesday)

I went to CanTV in the morning again. They only need me to be here from 9:30 to 11:30 so I can wake up a bit late. There is nothing going on but since Desca has a contract with this important customer, someone needs to be there at least this week.
I went back to office in the afternoon. Mr. Wong came to pick up the "Telcel Fijo" telephone because there may be some problem. After plugging in for 3 hours, it automatically goes to "standby" stage and no phone call is allowed. I need to unplug the power supply. Moreover, I went to refund the air-ticket that I purchased in July 27; this is a one way air ticket to Miami that the Vancouver American Airline asked me to purchase because I do not have Venezuelan residency. I also get money from my bank account to pay for my rent. I tried to make long distance telephone call to Vancouver. After several tries, I can call my parents and wish them "Happy Mid Autumn Festival". However, I tried 20 more times but I still cannot call Carmen. It is either the long distance telephone number is busy (90% of the case) or the phone automatically disconnected when I am able to talk to Carmen. Since this problem happens at both my home and my office, I can conclude that this is the problem with my long distance telephone company. The voice mail is in Spanish so I have no idea what they are trying to say. I just purchased another two telephone cards (each worth Cdn$6 = 80 mins air time). The long distance phone company works fine until I returned from Colombia. I want to change phone company but I need to ask people to teach me how to make the long distance telephone call, because every instruction is written in Spanish.
I went home to cook "fried chicken" again. I put too much salt and water this time so it does not taste as good as yesterday. I am more comfortable with cooking now. I read the "Pokamon" comic at night for an hour. This is my major stress relief activity. I have finished the six books that I brought from Canada. I hope that I can get more comic books when Carmen comes, or read it online. The "One Piece" comic that "twins" lent me is also a good one that I have not finished reading. I also studied for an hour at night. The MBA program says that I need about 20 hours a week. Now I am taking two courses and each course instructor says that I should estimate about 6 hours a week. So the actual time I should reserve is 12 hours, not 20 hours. The "six hour per week" estimation probably is on the high side too; both courses that I am taking now (Economic and Quantitative Analysis [i.e. Statistic. Uses a lot of Microsoft Excel]) are my strength. Therefore, I have confident that I only need roughly 3 or 4 hours per week. I am already 2 weeks ahead. Therefore, the MBA study definitely is on the bright side now. However, I know that "the best is yet to come". Therefore, I should still be prepared for the worst.

September 8, 2003(Monday)

Usually there is a lot of thing to do in Monday morning. For example, update diary, upload photo, check emails, photocopying and so on.
I have to go to customer CanTV again. My boss Mario told me that I have to go there for the whole week; I talked to the customer and he said that 2 hours a day is ok. It rained really heavy. I have umbrella but I am still wet. The street is full of water so when a car drives by, the pedestrian would be wet. As I was walking to CanTV, I saw the customer standing outside the shop in order to avoid getting wet. We chatted about the network problem and other things for 45 mins.
The customer job was finished at 5:45 and I went for grocery shopping. I cooked fried chicken at night with spegatti. There was problem to the telephone that I purchased two weeks ago and I had problem calling Carmen. This telephone is like a "stationary" cell phone; it is either the problem of the telephone or the long distance telephone company. I guess that it is more likely the problem of the long distance telephone company because I have no problem making local call. After the telephone rang for 4 times in Carmen's house or cell phone, the line is always disconnected. However, I tried to turn off my cell phone and then the line is not disconnected. This is a very weird problem. When I called Carmen again later in the night, the long distance phone failed again, no matter how I did (e.g. I turned off my cell phone, my CD players, called again and again). That is mad. But for the first time, Carmen can call my local phone. That is good.

September 7, 2003(Sunday)

I led the Sunday School for both Chinese youth and adults again. It sounds like that they will be combined in the foreseeable future. I led Acts 2:1-47 and it went pretty well.
I went to Paco's house for lunch. His wife and his kid just came several days ago. They did not go to Church today because they had a meal with their relatives. His boy is so naughty. I don't think that I have ever seen a 3.9 yrs old boy that naughty. He climbed on his dad, and use something to hit me (kids like to play/attack me) and not listen to anyone and very active. He must be a really smart kid. On the other hand, I don't think that the kid is disciplined. Paco just met his kid; his wife was working so she does not have time to teach the child. Also, the nursery would spoil and not teach the kid anyway. Therefore, he can do whatever he likes without much fear. I am sure that when I will be the father, I need to learn how to discipline the child. Most of the time I am too nice to little children and people like to play with me. This is good, but they don't really respect me like what they should to an adult either.
I went to MB Church and led singspiration. This is the first time that I led in MB Church and they planned to let me do it every other week. They really want to improve their really boring singspiration time and I am glad that they have this urge to do it. They won't be able to do it last year when the old deacons were still on board.
I was in charged of the Bible Quiz for the MB Youth fellowship. I have been responsible for Bible Quiz about 10 times and I had dozen of experience in this. Usually people do not let me play because I am too knowledgeable. Combined with all my different twist and technique, they like this Bible Quiz. Even I think that this was a good one. Usually under the typical Chinese School System, there is no creativity. Therefore, they were quite amazed looking at all those different twists I have for this game. It also reminds me that I had a bad school marks in HK but my confident and marks increased when I went to Canada. Probably if I stayed in HK, I would not end up as good as I am now. I really thank my parents for moving us from HK to Canada.

September 6, 2003(Saturday)

I woke up at 9:40 and organizing my binders. I like everything to be organized. I called Carmen and the line failed again, which really disturbed my emotion of the day. I went to Parque del Este for a 50 mins run and upload the Colombia photo; usually I did it immediately but I forgot the USB cable at home so I did that today.
I went to MB church for music practice at night for my singspiration leading tomorrow.

September 5, 2003(Friday)

Nothing really happened today at work. I went to have lunch with five other co-workers. I rarely have lunch with a group of co-worker and definitely is the first time with this many co-workers in South America. They are all Spanish speaking so I am left alone most of the time. Walking in the back by myself and watching them as they are talking. However, at least once in a while they would ask me questions so that I can say something. For example, they asked me about Carmen and I showed them the three card-photos that I took with Carmen. And asked me something about the Chinese culture and what I eat in HK. I don't think that the Caracas co-workers would treat me and concern me as nice.
I left the office at 5:20pm and arrived to airport at 6:30. I took the 9:20pm flight from Bogotá to Caracas and arrived at 11:50pm. I read "Introduction to Management Accounting" for about 2.5 hours until my brain is saturated. I arrived home at 1:00am. After organizing and unpacking luggage, I called Carmen at 2:30am. However, for some reason, the long distance phone card is not working; the line was cut off after 10 seconds. I am mad about that.

September 4, 2003(Thursday)

Someone next door kept on making noise at 4:15am for 15 mins. I am not sure whether it is from the person next door or from elevator. I have complained to the front desk; they offered to have a new room, but I don't want to change the room at 4am. I tried hard and finally went back to sleep.
Nothing much happened at work today. I went to have lunch with manager Segundo and his secretary. Afterward, we went to shopping center and looking for some souvenirs. However, there isn't. I have asked around my co-workers for the last several days to see any good thing for my family and my girl friend; they gave me different suggestions as to where to buy but I don't have the time yet.
I am about to leave for my flight. And then there is a phone call to the office saying that one of the customers has problem. Martin, one of the Caracas Desca Engineer was working in Colombia for another customer and the other two CCIEs in Colombia were in Mexico for the Cisco Networker Conference. Therefore, they wanted me to go to fix the problem. I contacted my boss Mario because I may have to go to another customer CanTV in Caracas. My boss said that I have to stay here for three more days to fix the problem. I requested to leave Friday night because there is no one that will are working during Friday night anyway and I need to go back to Caracas for the music practice in the MB church Saturday night. He approves it and I went to customer "Telefonica" from 7 - 11:30pm.
I called the Cisco TAC center for troubleshooting and it turns out that this is either the IOS problem or the ISP's problem which I can't do anything. We upgraded the IOS not because this is the source of the problem but because I want to do something so that it would satisfy the desires of the boss that "we have done something".

September 3, 2003(Wednesday)

Someone came to the office and offer the brush shoe service. I am reluctant to use this service but because I will have a presentation this afternoon, I used it anyway. I have never brushed my shoes since I purchased it about 7 years ago. Now it is very shiny; I even took a picture of my shoes, like what Hansel usually does. I also felt uncomfortable for people brushing my shoes; I am not used to this "high position". However, in Venezuela and Colombia, there are maids that prepare coffee and bring it to my desk.
I had a second presentation rehearsal to my co-workers in the morning and they like my presentation. I went to have lunch with my co-worker Segundo again; afterward, I took advantage of the color laser printer at the office and printed over 100 pages of photo from my website so that I can look at it afterward. I went to Radisson Hotel for the presentation at 4:20. Waiting time is not easy; I am a bit nervous at that time. I was looking at different booths and chat with the co-workers a bit. I also spent 30 mins and showed my PowerPoint slide to the translator who will translate my English to Spanish people. In fact, English is his first language and he proofread my slides too.
Show time started at 6:40 and lasts for 75 mins. The topic is "Cisco Security Network". There are about 200 audiences and I was told that most of them are IT managers from different universities; this is a three days conference (once every two weeks) and I am the only speakers that talks in English. I did a good job; one of those conference organizers told me that this is the best talk; my co-workers came to congratulate me for the super job. I am happy of course; but I know that I can do better if that is a church environment. I am born and trained to be an attention-seeker so I enjoy the challenge and the attention when stands in front of many people to talk. (It would be scary if I am playing violin or flute though). I found that most of the IT presenters are boring; I used the techniques that I learnt from church's public speaking. For example, I inserted one or two jokes in the presentation (even the Spanish audience who have to hear the translator talks laugh); I am quick to react (the wireless clip-microphone failed in the middle of it and I joked that it must be my co-worker that jealous me hacked into the system and mess thing up). When I am talking about how Desca can help them, I used the technique for preaching gospel! For example, I told them that this is the best company to work for you and if you are able to find another one that is better, I will switch to that company. I am very persuasive as far as I think; it reminds me that in Winter Conference 2001 people told me that I should be sales. I believe that my "mouth" is good. I joked with one of the Desca manager that he should tells my boss that I did a great job so that he can increase my salary. Actually, if Desca has customer because of this talk, I would be in a very powerful situation. I also thank the organizer and my co-workers to invite me and give me this chance; of course they returned by saying that I did a great job. I told them that if there is future conference, invite me.
I went back to hotel at 9pm and went to the nearby supermarket to walk around and went to have dinner by myself so that I can have some time to reflect and enjoy what I accomplish today. As I am walking around the supermarket and the street, I thought that I was in Vancouver West! The place is absolutely nice like west side of Vancouver! I spent an hour organizing the photo that I printed today.

September 2, 2003(Tuesday)

I woke up at 3:30am and arrived to the airport at 5. I took a 1.2 hours flight to Colombia. The weather is a lot cooler than Venezuela; I estimate it to be 15-20 degree. The person that picked me up was 45 mins late so I was waiting in the airport. He brought me to the hotel and I had about 30 mins sleep. It was a pretty nice hotel.
I went to Desca Colombia afterward. Every car that went to parking lot must be checked for car bomb by a police dog. People knew my background already; they said that I am the best engineer in the company because I am the only one with dual CCIE. I am very afraid because I know that I don't know anything. (In contract to the church environment where I am full of confident). The Colombia office is only 4 months old and there are only 12 employees. I met half of them today and the other half went to Mexico for Cisco "Networker" event. This is a nicer office than the Caracas office. In fact, this city is more beautiful, greener than Caracas. I asked the local people about the car bomb situation and they told me that as long as I stay away from the dangerous place, everything would be ok. This is the same as the situation in Venezuela.
I performed a first-version presentation to co-worker and they thought that it is pretty good. In fact, I am very confident about my presentation skill, thanks to all those public-speaking experience from church. I love to stand on the front stage to talk. People asked me to help out for a demo tomorrow morning and I tried my best to turn down because I am not too confident about my technical skill and I want to focus on the presentation.
I had dinner at night at the hotel high class restaurant that is located in the top floor. I had a Colombia Style Steak which only cost 25,000 peso (Cdn $14). It is very cheap considering I eat nice food at nice place.

September 1, 2003(Monday)

It took me about 6 hours to prepare for the Security Conference today. I went to Che So's house for dinner; I have not been to her house for a long time and we chatted about the church stuff. I called Carmen at night for 30 mins and she told me some gossip about our Vancouver friends. It is good to talk to her so that I would remember my Vancouver status.