Back with a vengeance! hehe...

Wow, time flies! January’s coming to an end and I want to maintain my resolution of posting at least 2 entries per month. I’ve been extremely busy, partially trying to impress my stingy boss (so that I can gain some favours from him, what else? (at least I’m forthright), but I don’t think it’ll work, since he’s only concerned about trying to keep the Project ‘within budget’). I’m the Quality Manager, so the budget’s got nothing to do with me, hehehe.

I also feel that I’ve not been giving my best in this Project, so it's about time I give it a go, and see whether I still have the grit and the anything-goes attitude I used to have last time before the intricacies and politics of this stupid Project (yeah, it is the Project, and the weather, and the people, the god-forsaken place…)… Anyway, it’s about time that I buck up and show some results (…but what sort of results do you expect from Quality? 1001 Non-Conformances? That’ll just mean Quality suck, right? 0 Non-Conformances, that’ll mean we’re not doing anything! …Quality is indeed …err complicated).

On the home front, I’m back with full force. The cluster headaches are gone. Anu’s happy (and contented… ahem). I’m registered with the Foreigner’s Registration Office (without participating in any enrichment scheme). The satellite TV’s fixed (and hopefully, it’ll stay fixed for the rest of our stay here). The bloody mosquitoes still hover around and bite despite near-zero temperatures (and I thought we could do away with insecticide in winter!) Everything is still bloody cold, especially my room in the office. I can’t put a bloody blower in there because the bloody electrical circuits were not wired for that type of load, and I can’t be bothered with getting our electricians to fix it coz I figured winter’s coming to an end very soon, and none of my other colleagues are using any heating device anyway, so what the heck, I’m a man! (…hmm, maybe that’s why the colleagues spend a lot of time at site nowadays…)

Anyway, I’ve gotta get back to work, gotta to show them who’s Gary Ong… Will post pictures to keep the blog updated ok?

India Update: A Great Start to 2008

2008 has started off pretty well. Bharatpur is bloody freezing. The daily power cuts have sharply increased and some times last the entire morning (on and off, according to its own liking). They still routinely happen from 6.20am to 6.50am every morning without fail. That’s about the same time I wake up and take a dump at the freezing toilet every morning. The sun doesn’t really come up till 7am in winter which makes reading while I shit a bloody hassle (not impossible, after all I have a candle! hehehe). I have nightly headaches; …looked up the internet, it may be cluster headaches, it comes every night and goes away in the morning, (interfering with more pleasurable nocturnal activities, shit!) Not that the occasional pegs of whisky, rum or / and tequila help. Everything is bloody cold – the toilet seat, the woolen jacket (just before I put it on), the pants, the drinking water, … as opposed to summer when the bloody shower is hot even at 5am in the morning.

Coming to the office is a bloody drag. My room must be in the colder part of the office, opening the door to the office room feels like opening a fridge door, and then a flick of a switch and the feeble tube light comes on (also like a fridge). The room only starts feeling warmer after lunch, thereby affecting the ever-strong performance of the very efficient Quality Manager for more than half of the day (yeah, IT IS the bloody weather!)

The mosquitoes are still around, but they hardly bite. Most of the time they just float around slowly (like they’re high on something) in front of your eyes, while you’re watching TV. The few nights when the temperature went up a bit, they actually bite, the bloody critters. The lizard should be having a field day if they’re around but there’re no signs of them – nature sure is kind to mosquitoes here.

The crooked TV Technicians of Bharatpur pulled another one on us, again. We found out that the recently replaced satellite dish is also a low-quality dud, and so are the cables connecting the dish to the box. Bravo! The local foreigner’s registration officer (aka the police, not all, only one greedy a#%$&le) was giving yours truly a hard time, thanks to the unbending (read, stupid) principles of yours truly of not wanting to comply with his local enrichment scheme. Screw him!

All else here is fine otherwise (thank God). Anu’s as sprightly as ever (but not too contented…).

And that sums up what a wonderful year it’s been so far. Things can only get better right?