Under Control

Was going through some recent blogsite visit records and I noticed that I have a fixed number of friends who will dutifully drop by my site to check for new entries, yes am referring to you guys :) I am also in the habit of surfing friends' blogsites for new posts. Am grateful for this mode of update as it keeps us connected to one another through the days, weeks, months especially if we do not get to meet or catch up face to face.

On the work front, besides an impending change in boss, we also found out about a dept re-org coming. My section will be parked with the operations, which deal with obscene number of complaints / feedback. Definitely not good news for us... Then just before knocking off today, my colleague shared with me that he wishes to respond to an internal advert for transfer to another Dept!! That would leave just me and another colleague who is currently on maternity leave. There would be no one with the expertise to guide me on this steep learning curve! I envisage that the section may have to close down if is not able to churn out results fast enough to justify its existence. Hmmm, though this move would be devastating if it goes through, I am somehow not panicking...yet.

I was praying and committing this to God on my way home just now, and I do sense an inner peace that God is in control, and He has the best for me, no matter what the circumstance presents. I will trust Him and conduct myself in a way that displays assurance that He is with me.

Hope Camp Snippets

Back from the camp now, feeling refreshed mentally, emotionally and spiritually, though tired physically. It has been a very enjoyable camp. I was just testifying to everyone that this camp was somehow different from the previous camps. Think it was partly due to the relaxed pace, with lots of free time. The pleasant environment helped too, with good food (except for our final lunch) and service.

I am grateful for the time of silent retreat. We were guided on how to spend our time with God, and many of us experienced God in a very real and personal way. On Sat night, Pastor allocated time for prayer and altar ministry. At first, everyone seemed shy to respond. However, with the Holy Spirit's gentle tugging, one by one, we ventured up to be prayed for. In the end, according to J, all except 4 received prayer and ministry! For me, the experience of going up to be prayed for was an act of faith and a step across my psychological barrier/fear. Even after the session, I was perturbed about some doubts I had and I just off load to WB and J. Glad that they listened and provided some words of encouragement and wisdom =)

After returning to our suite, J and I continued to talk with V. And boy, we talked for a long time, about the ministry time, about our silent retreat, about our struggles with God etc... We listened to each other and encouraged each other with our own experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed the time together, and I thank God for being with us through it all. After all the talking, we felt hungry and ordered room service and shared a plate of char kuay teow... So it was a satisfying night =P

Then there were the team building games and ice breakers conducted by Pat on the first day. Good to see everyone work together, and displaying team spirit and unity. Though a few of the games left us scratching our heads (weird verse structures & "wildcard" concept for the hammering game), we took them in good spirits, and everyone was a winner, given the many chocolate prizes that were distributed! Oh, we also had an impromptu game this morning before Sunday service for those who arrived early, something about moving as human traffic on chairs from one end to the other. The game served well to warm us up for worship and many people joined in the fun by playing or watching. What a brilliant idea by Will!

We played a lot with the kids who came, and during this camp, we see Alicia warming up to us. Hee, many of us managed to carry her or play with her. J and I re-lived our Perth trip days when we shared the apartment with A, V and Vicky. Waking up in the morning to Vicky's voice and her questionings. Nice.

We had another slot of free time after lunch today and before leaving for the ferry terminal at 3pm. So various ones played different games together in the games lounge (pool, table tennis, bridge, can't remember if there were any other games). Of course, I played with the bridge "ka-kis". Halfway through, Nic joined us, and we discovered that he possessed a very "lucky" streak as a newcomer to the group. He had such good cards every round, and it was fun partnering him in the games.

On the ferry ride back, chit-chatted a while with Ai, Jen, V and J about experiences of an only child. Many of us succumbed to tiredness and dozed off on board...

Ok, it has been a long weekend. Gonna take my physical rest now!

Insecurity

Ahhh, I finally spoke to my boss today about all the rumours flying round in the grapevine. Yes, he will be leaving us to join a another dept. And its prob gonna happen sooner rather than later!! The realisation of this finally hit home today, and I am very affected by it. My section was formed about 3 years back under his leadership, and its gonna be a hard job trying to sustain this section, and to justify its existence here. Most of the pioneers have left, so its left with one colleague who is on maternity leave. Me and another colleague joined only some months back. Tough tough.

I think we have grown to be quite dependent on this boss, taking instructions from him directly and he has been watching out for our section, to protect us from missiles fired by other people. I mean, I never knew how protected we were under his leadership until the past weeks when he rejected some new tasks thrown our way. And he is very clear and logical in this thought process. When he vets our presentation slides, he is able to pre-empt what the higher mgmt wants and steers us in the correct direction. Oh, did I mention, he is a very very good presenter, capturing audience's attention, good variation in tone etc. Very confident and fluent in delivery, good at "selling" his ideas. I think in my jobscope, marketing and packaging one's ideas to the bosses is very important. I find Boss very approachable and I like his style of managing his staff. He makes effort to communicate with staff and he is not the "calculative" kind of boss, eg. he doesn't enforce that everyone must be in office by 8.30am, as long as work gets done. Oh, one impt thing is that he does not leave us to fend for ourselves if bosses query us on our work. He defends us lah and is on our side. In short, we will sorely miss him!

Duh, I have been ranting on and on about it... Guess I am still grappling with this news and I need to release my sentiments somehow. I tend to see the similarity between this departure and my previous episode 3 years back. I was under him then. And it was this same boss who told me that my then-section and I had to be moved to another dept... 3 years later, he invited me back to this dept to do something different when I was seeking a change in jobscope. I took up the offer and now he's leaving!! Somehow, the sense of "abandonment" seemed familiar... But to be fair to him, I think the move would be good for him...

Sigh, got to process all these emotions within me. The camp tomorrow would be a good break for me to seek the Lord about this, and to commit the future to Him.

Efficient under Pressure

Finally rushed out the camp folder material and delivered it to church for photocopying. Have spent the last few days on it, searching for and typing out the QT materials, formating the pages, designing the cover page etc. Whew! What's left is for me to do is to collect the sets on Thu and sort them out by Fri... I am more satisfied with this year's camp materials than the one I did in '03. =)

Been staring at the PC for prolonged period at work as well these 2 weeks. My colleague was on course last week and is on leave this week. So his 2 projects have fallen on my lap. And coincidentally, the 2 projects were scheduled for presentation during this period, so I have been helping to amend the slides and stuff. Well, on a positive note, it is really a good exposure for me, to experience the high level meetings, and to hone my skills in preparing slides for technical presentation. In the midst of covering my colleague, I am also preparing my own project for presentation on Dec 4, so that's a rather tight timeline, considering the 2 days I be away for camp... On top of that, the training session I was supposed to conduct has been fixed on Dec 5 and I need to get about confirming the training content, so that's another urgent item on my To-do list. With all these things at work, I must say that I have been forced to be very focused, with minimal distraction... And I will be very tired after each work day. I guess this would carry on until my holiday break.

Yes, my family and I will be going Japan for a week in Dec. It was initiated by my bro as he had hoped for us to go on a holiday together with his wife... strengthen family ties lah. We have also roped in my aunt and uncle. Am looking forward to it. Praying for an enjoyable time together.

Well, more immediate is the church camp. Yes, am also looking forward to it. I do need the time set aside for silent retreat and to meet with God...

Presentations

I had my "maiden" technical presentation (since I joined this dept) done today and thank God it went smoothly!! Yay! Was initally quite anxious about it, like I was preparing for my FYP presentation. Ha ha, wasn't "grilled" as much as I had anticipated. Whew! I believed God has answered my prayers and cause my big boss to be in a good mood today, so she did not ask too many questions =) Basically, the meeting members were very participative in the discussion of subject matter and I did not have to shoulder too much of the spotlight... hee.

I have been busy preparing the slides and content of the presentation for the past few days, and it is indeed a load off my chest, for now, bearing in mind that this is just a preliminary assessment. The big technical assessment is yet to be completed and it will need to be presented at this forum, and even to the higher Mgmt and M even ... Duh, shall take one step at a time.

Oh well, after today, I have a better sense of what my job entails. Besides the number crunching, and working with simulation softwares, I will prob have to devote a large amount of time to preparing the figures to present to bosses. And for every layer of boss I clear with, I will have to incorporate the comments to the slides. I have a boss who is also our technical advisor, and I am really impressed with some of his insigtful questions and comments. Have lots to learn from him.

With the many opportunities to carry out presentations to bosses and boss's boss, I foresee that my presentation skills will be honed, and I will learn to be more confident (and fluent with technical jargons) when presenting. Not a bad thing eh, except that I will prob be quite stressed and stretched when each presentation draws near. Of course, after each smooth delivery, I will feel an immediate sense of relief and accomplishment, like a released "stress ball", just like what I'm feeling now =P