Going into High Alert

Last day as it goes of the trip here in Sabah for me. We got up, instead of eating we headed to the hospital to do some last checks there and also do some quick inquiries if they had any issues and so on. 0900 was the time we checked out of the hotel. Then off to the gas pump for fuel.

The drive back was better than expected, got to see a lot and also take pictures of Mt. Kinabalu which was in the back drop. Lots of good chances but as my phone was low on batt I conserved the shots as it goes.

120 km later we reached Kota Kinabalu. At first we wanted to head the airport and see if there were any standby tickets available and hop on the next flight out of there. Instead we called some other colleagues of ours whom were at Sabah Medical Centre doing another training session there. Due to a delay in response we went ahead and had lunch. Near the Islamic Maybank and the chicken rice was alright with me by the standards that I compare by. Phone call came and we finally got instructions on how to get there. Off we went to meet up with them.

Got there and yes I finally get to see one of the newer models in operation. Nice machine however I would need a higher level of training in order to be able to teach other people how to operate it as it goes. The other two guys hadn’t eaten yet so out we went for another found of food, I took sugar cane juice and the kaya bread. They also had the special ais tea or “Teh Si Ping” triple layer stuff which is really good. After that to the stationary shop for a brush for maintenance of the machine and a quick check at the organic product shop for a look. More pictures however I’m still uploading the vids to facebook and that is taking really long for me to upload them.

Back to the hospital and finish up the training, and then we left for the airport. The road had heavy traffic however we managed to reach in time and got our tickets for the flight. Apparently we had to scan our luggage, we didn’t have to do it usually at KLIA. Well it’s probably Sabah as it goes. Hung out the McD for something to eat and also yes, wifi, got a vid uploaded there and then it was off to the boarding gate for the 4 of us and then onto the plane and a 2 hour flight back to KLIA. The usual taxi ride and back home again I am. Well as for the pictures I’m waiting for the vid to be done then I’ll leave it for an overnight haul as it goes.

Nothing much other than the usual getting up early due to sunrise and all that, however this time we had a late start, user hands on so we just go in to visit and see how they are doing and not much on our part other than any questions that they have or any other recommendation that we might have to give them as feedback, so we stayed in till around 1000 or so and only left the room for the hospital. Had some requests by the science officer there and we did some calling up in order to find out or not and then later on we headed to Pitas.

Now the hospital there has been having some issue with the machines as it goes and hence was calling constantly to find out what was wrong with it, with the little kancil that we rented off we went for another hour’s drive to the east heading for Pitas.

Winding roads and eventually the coast kinda awed me to wonder if this was the road to Pitas and it turns out that yeah it’s by the coast. Passed a few villages and so on and the schools here, wow, their all so brand new, some pics are up on facebook only that I have yet to label them and so on. So looking for the hospital we came across a really nice building and sign board. Wait this is the hospital? It looks darn brand new to me alright and after asking the key operator he said this entire building was built 2 years ago, no wonder it looks so modern and damn new. Impressive, the lab is nice and big also just that the number of patients aren’t that many and we have a much better machine in there just that the lack of patient load does not warrant much funding for it. So we did a check on the machines and found out the problem, one we decided to head back to Marudu to get the data but as we left my colleague Foo just realised, we had the data disk with us and drove back in and did a recheck with their machine data and found out the problem in the end, solved, well the other ones were part replacement so till then we’re finally done with the Pitas case as we had time to come here and finished d training already.

On the way back we looked for a place to eat by the seaside hoping to get some seafood but with no Chinese restaurant on the way it was kinda hard to find what we’re used to however we found a nice place called Bengkoka and it had a nice restaurant and food was quite ok with me and yeah the view was fantastic alright. Loved it and took a bunch of pics and so on.

Rain came and we set off back to Kota Marudu. Got back to the hotel, packed some of the clothes and all that and getting ready to head back home on day 5 since we’re done here. Early start however we still have some work to do back at the hospital so not gonna leave that fast yet. Went to the KFC again to upload pictures and also some vids. There were a lot of insects coming in though and that wasn’t surprising to be honest, large light source attracts all sorts of insects over. I know it’s kinda yuck but knowing me, it’s probably nothing to me other than seeing a huge beetle land on my laptop. Wait WHY DIDN’T I TAKE A PICTURE OF IT!!! DAMN!!!

Oh well. Day end and a new day has begun.

Got up early as usual, yeah don’t sleep much, keep getting up before the alarm blares out due to sunlight, even if it’s a crack of it coming into the room I’ll still be up, body is kinda messed up for that as it goes, well sleeping before 12 is what causes this for me. As usual breakfast is down at the market, had fried beehoon with chicken, the thing about this place here is that they serve you everything including the bone, so yes if you don’t like bones in your food or haven’t experienced such then this is probably going to be a wake up call for you if you do come over here to Asia.

I did notice one thing though, all these early mornings I’m still in bed with my laptop and it feels like I’m a patient in the hospital, the pillow is setup so that it does look like I’m a patient in the hospital ward. Putting that aside we made our way to the hospital for the rest of the day.

Got in there and started our usual check ups, we sorted out the rest of the hiccups and also did a check on some values and got the machine running like normal again. Need to make note of why the issue arose in the first place in order to avoid it next time as I’ll be the trainer it seems and probably start early as it goes for me. Ran some samples and then headed off to lunch.

We tried some place a bit farther, couldn’t find much so back to the town centre to find a shop and had something like mixed rice as we call it here, expansive stuff, prices here aren’t that low as what we get back over in the Peninsular.

Once we’re done with it, we had time so headed back to KFC again to surf a bit before we headed back to the hospital. Not much to upload as the bulk of new photos would be taken later on after work. So there really wasn’t much left to do other than to go through maintenance, almost did it but I dont’ know exactly all the steps so best left it to my colleague to handle it, he says I’ll be forced to teach next time I’m with him on the same machine as it goes, so best to let him go through it fully first then next time I’ll be able to do it then. Finished early and off we go.

So happens we left at 1600, and on the way to the hotel we decided instead to head to Kudat, to find the Tip of Borneo, Tanjung Simpang Mangayau. 70 km later we hit Kudat for fuel and then set off for the tip in hopes of a sunset. The road condition as we headed for the tip took a turn for the worse, about 5km worth of it was all dirt road all the way but getting to the beach and the tip was satisfactory. Saw the beach and the rocky outcrop of the tip. Took a lot of photos, made some vids, yes it’s all going onto facebook as usual, I’d post some here but I’ll need some time to manage them and also a speedy net line for it. You could hear the wind and the view was fantastic. Had a few wishes while I was standing there and yeah I’ll treat you folks to something like a short video blog and also photos of the area and so on later on when I get to upload them.

We headed back then, it was getting dark, well practically pitch black halfway back to Kota Marudu, was driving and we made another vid, Foo was the one holding my camera and yeah we kinda had a fun time with a 3 min length vid and boy was that interesting. So we got back, headed for food, back to the shop we went to on the first day, interesting special iced tea (teh ais special). I didn’t try it, should have as it was quite interesting, mixture of milk, pandan and tea, need to stir to give it a good mix.

As it was raining I didn’t head to the local KFC again to upload my photos and such, had a much relaxing evening back at the hotel room and so on. They had a jurassic park movie extravaganza, all 3 of them back to back on tv here, but didn’t bother watching. Was busy with other things and all that, then it was time to call it a night and went to bed around 2330.

Day for will be later on. Till the next day.

Got like 0600 due to sleeping at around 2100 the previous night. Anyway we got up washed up and left the room here at around 0900. Went out to the market area for breakfast, was pretty nice, had a plate of fried mee with a hot milo, should have gone for a cold one instead as it was already burning quite hot for the day here, so the hot drink set me on fire instead for the day as it went. Saw two cats sleeping and took some photos of them, pics are on facebook and also yeah I uploaded a video to facebook as well, need to reply some of the comments there but facebook mobile does have it’s limitations, will see what I can do about going in later on and posting as it goes.

Off to the hospital we went at around 0945, reached the place and started some test runs and so on. Due to the nature of the reagents and stuff I was tasked to prepare and aliquot the serums into a few cups in order for it to be frozen as it would last for a month that way and we ran samples. Met some issues along the way and boy does this machine need a lot of manual work, things like writing the parameters again and again when there was a change, maintenance and all that as usual. Hiccups as usual, new machines tend to give such issues hence the so called training session is also troubleshooting.

Lunch hour came by and we went out for food, it seems that also the staff were asking if we could donate blood, my colleague himself donated like a month back and I as some of you would know am a possible hep B carrier however I have yet to take a test for it hence the possibility isn’t there but their asking do it and they’ll screen later on so not really sure when I wanna go ahead with it, would be fun as it would officially be my first blood donation and in a hospital in Sabah to boot. As for the food we dropped by the local KFC, yes there is only one fast food outlet here and had something to eat. They had wifi here as we found out and later on would be back to surf the net again.

Back again to the hospital, found out later on that we made an error with some positions and the test came out fine after that but another issue arose, solve it with some minor setting changes as we open fresh stuff so can’t be the pack at fault unless we’re talking the lot has gone bad or something.

Oh yeah there are a lot of students here doing industrial placement, they feel like nurses but their all working in the lab, and the language, different type of Bahasa, more of like the ancient natural bahasa they speak here. We were not able to get the staff back again for a short training session as we had to iron out the bugs. Next day would be sample runs for them, so we’ll get them to run the samples and so on. Packed up, took our leave and back to the KFC again.

Had a field day with the wifi there and did a lot of stuff and also yeah uploaded the photos and the vid that I had onto facebook. However there were some photos that have gone missing due to some error that I had, so those are not recoverable, will probably have new ones for day 3 as it goes.

The bathroom roof leaks even worse now, then again it’s what we are bearing with. Once again signing off from my hotel room here on the gprs network, really slow, no 3G here or I’ll be surfing faster and come on more often

Getting up at 0500 for a 0730 flight was a bit like normal for me, since I have done that also for Sunday church where we needed to get to church by 0730 for practice. So this time it was a bit different from others.

Met my colleague at the departure gate for the flight over to Kota Kinabalu Sabah. Took off and was in the air for around 2 hours, slept for the first then they served us food later on. Was hazy when I got up and I couldn’t think straight of what was going on and all that in the plane. The sate chicken sucked, should have taken the nasi lemak instead.

We landed at 1030 at KK international Airport. Sight to behold, their actually making it look similar to what the KLIA looks like in design and the 2nd lvl tier for departures. Amazing place to check out and all that. Well the one thing interesting was, as we proceeded to the baggage claim we have to go through some sort of like immigration, either IC or passports to be displayed to the counter to get a pass to enter the state of Sabah, apparently according to Foo, they can come to the peninsular without such checks but for those on the peninsular, we need to have those passes to enter or else we can’t, so it’s like a foreign country in my own country. I got my bag as Foo was carrying all his stuff onto the passenger cabin instead, we next went to get a rental car, taxis aren’t going to cut it where we’re going, there’s hardly one here by the time we got to kota marudu, hence the decision to get a rental was a good one, though there were some kinks in getting it but that’s a company issue so can’t say much about it.

So we got the car and headed for the gas station, to fuel it up and then do some water level checks and all that. Pretty interesting as we got a Kancil to drive due to the unmentionable incident as it goes. So with a map which was incomplete we set off towards Kota Marudu to find our destination to train customers.

150 Km later, we reached, found out there’s some inns here and all that to stay so instead of the original plan to head to Kudat, we got two rooms, well a hiccup ensured and we ended up getting a bigger room to share between to the two of us at a cheaper rate.

Found the hospital in the end, went in, did setup and boy was I in awed of this machine, it’s one of the older models we have and it’s being phased out however, over here it’s suitable for their small workloads as it goes, so Foo guided me through the procedure and it was really manually taxing, the old machines needed to be configured manually, so a quick check with the staff on what tests they run and after setting up the machine and writing the data to the parameter disk, we were all set to pack and head for our accommodation.

Food wise we just dropped in to a local shop and had noodles each. Not much local cuisine to try out here however the language here is very different, the Bahasa they use sounds like what we use on the peninsular but it’s really different sounding and all that, it’s like we really are in another country all in all but their still Malaysians. The locals here are really rich, u’ll find a lot of 4×4s all over the place, money here really isn’t an issue from what I can see and all that. Lots of land to cover and so on.

So we finally turned in at around 2100 and slept, and here I am at 0733 where upon I actually got up at 0600 cause I can’t sleep that much, well it’s really early and so on. Also there’s no 3G network here!! A slow net zone using gprs and edge in order to connect and post stuff, fb is a killer for me with all those images. Taking some photos here also like a tourist to boot though we’re here for work and all that. Don’t have them yet but will be probably posting them on FB when I get back home later at the end of this week.

Alright, that’s Day 1 here for us. Day 2’s post will be up probably tonite or early tomorrow morning again as it goes.

I look right inside of me
Thinking everyday what I am
I take a look around of me
Wondering what they think

Can’t stand the way things are
So hurt that I feel I can’t go on
Make this lie go away
Till we’re undone and back there again

Once I look upon you
I turn away take back my hand from you
I can’t live this lie no more
Can’t seem to tell the truth about the way I feel
Cause it’s nothing but
Myself down under this lie

It’s so hard to see myself
Thinking back of the way things were
What I did to hold you then
Makes me wonder if it’s was right again

Cause I can’t seem
To tell the truth about me
Hiding in a lie
My feelings that I have in side

Once I look upon you
I turn away take back my hand from you
I can’t live this lie no more
Can’t seem to tell the truth about the way I feel
Cause it’s nothing but
Myself down under this lie

So in this lie above the truth
I can’t seem to find my way out
No matter what they say
About the way I think of you
I already knew what you really mean to me
So I can’t go on
No can’t go on
Cause it’s nothing but
Myself down under this lie

Well recently I found some space and time to blog a bit, well not really, just that I have been a bit lazy.

As it stands I started a new job, fully working young adult now as some would call it. Pretty interesting, lots to learn and so on however I won’t go into the details as it stands.

Currently am writing while in Singapore as I’m here for a short visit over the weekend and then back again to KL whereupon I will be flying up to Penang on Monday and headed to Kulim for work. Yes I will be doing a lot of travelling in this job and the following week, heading to Sabah as it stands. Well for the month of July, I’ll be expecting to spend around 3 weeks over in Sabah for work also, but it’s not confirmed just yet on the 3rd week as the 1st and 2nd week of work, is already confirmed as it stands.

Was kinda pondering of late on the things that have happen lately, some ppl turned to idiots, some started a new chapter in life and various other things. Life as it goes keeps on moving like my cousin has recently finished her exams and if she passes the papers she’ll be entering the working world then, so new start for yet another person as it goes.

As for church I’m here in Singapore to pick up my eq and also some of my computer stuff and also clothes to take back to SG, wonder how I’m going to manage all this weight as it goes.

Ok so I did a crazy thing, I went to the movies alone, yeah it was a well deserved thing and easier for me since I was going to marathon 2 show on the spot.

The first was Star Trek, now that is a good movie to watch, the funny part was when he was being chased by the monsters on the ice planet. Best not to spoil too much and yes Vulcan’s do you have emotions. Good part on that one and also it does have it’s good moments where things fall apart and so on. Great movie to watch, worth every sen you spend.

The other movie was Angels and Demons. Yet another Dan Brown book to the golden screen, starring Tom Hanks and its yet another good movie since the Da Vinci code. Great stuff as the story is really good just that in terms of the religion wise its all rubbish instead but then again it does make a good mystery drama movie to follow. Worth every single entertaining minute of it.

On a side note, Maxis broadband is having some issues over the weekend. Can’t login to my msn now but hope it will get back to its normal footing soon as there’s a huge packet loss and no cache dumping going on. Hope they do rectify the problem soon even if the speed is throttled it doesn’t mean the stability should be compromised.

OK great, just as I thought things were going in a bit of a funny way it turns out that I did somethings which were nearly going to put my ass on the line.

So happens that they have a new roadshow going on. New promoters recruited, I am not suppose to go down, turns out that I was requested down for a few days so I went down and I made sure that I was requested to be down there by asking P.L. if I was needed down there. He said please help and train them a bit, so I went down for a few days.

Now today was different, thinking that I would be upstairs finally, it did not work that way. Was requested to be down in LG since one of the two new promoters was off for the day, my managers C and J were there for the Samsung event and after consulting with them they told me that I am not to leave the shop unless given approval my the higher ups in the company, hence a request was put in, rejected so back up I went again, W told me I should quietly go down and be aggressive from now and get the sales from there, however as things are and after much evaluation, the figures are appalling and its much better to stay put rather than to go down, I probably would make a formal request the next time W asks me to go down again, since I am working on a different set of guidelines and now I know what kind of parameters that I have to clearly follow as it stands, and who my boss really is at the moment. C and J are the ones I report to at the end of the day and if anything were to happen they would be the ones taking the heat, so no more going down without approval from now on.

Sitting tight in the shop. Life on the brink and working ethics to follow or not to follow as it goes.

Great job people, well yes I’m actually impressed with the way the worship team handled the songs, it may not be up to standard but there is still room for improvement.

Also that short chat which I did manage to have with some of the musicians gives me a clearer picture of the situation, just that you guys will continue to improve over time.