Post KPMC

4th Korea Prime Minister Cup (KPMC) ended last Monday, with me getting 4 wins from a total of 7 matches, which is actually pretty much the standard achievement for Malaysia. I was ranked at 29th out of a total 68 participants, a slight improvement from last year where Malaysia was placed 35th, although Alex who was then the representative, also had won 4 games.

In turned out that I was not the only one who felt uncomfortable with the speedy tournament. Other players from further countries like Europe, North/South America were even worsely affected than me. So, I guess all my rantings in the previous post didn’t really hold much water.

I’m not going to say much here. I just hope that I can continually win local selection tournaments and qualify for more international tournaments. 2010 will be an interesting year, with plenty of oversea tournaments to aim for, including World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC), Korean Prime Minister Cup (KPMC), Asian Games, and other smaller tournaments.

More pictures and reports available from Malaysia Weiqi Association website.

Tough time KPMC

I know I have not updated this blog for very long. For the past one month, I have been out of control of my own life. I got involved with a lot of people in many activities, and as such, I had trouble keeping my usual routine. I did not blog, study, play Go etc.

The fact that I have started focusing more on my work instead of side activities was the major factor.

Tomorrow, I will leave for Jeonju, Korea to attend the Prime Minister Cup (KPMC). It is one of the major international amateur Go tournaments, the other prominent one being World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC) which I attended in 2008.

Honestly, I still have not recovered from the trauma of performing very badly in previous WAGC. I got 46th place. So large was the number, it was even larger than the answer to the universe. That time, I could still forgive myself for being the nervous newbie to competitive tournaments.

I was quite looking forward to KPMC tournament until I saw the schedule below.

3 matches on Saturday, 4 on Sunday? Are you kidding me? I cannot play more that two matches per day! I almost fell sick during SEA Games 2007 after playing three matches on the first day. Had to rest myself at the massage and therapy centre.

Way long before that when I attended Malaysia Chess Championship, I vomited after playing three matches on the first day. I suppose I’m just not cut out to bear intense pressure from tournament. I’m not a mind sport athlete, just a hobbyist.

Scary.. presenting on 7th Oct.

Dear all,

Please find the attached file as the latest Infosec Project 2 Presentation schedule. The involve dates for the presentation are 5th, 6th and 7th October 2009.

Please note that the report should be prepared for 3 copies and must be submitted to CASE at least 3 days before presentation day.

Thank you and all the best.

Wohoooo…. I really cant rest. What will Raya mean to me this year? Huhu..

Preparation for Nanning Tournament

None whatsoever !

Nanning International Weiqi Tournament is coming near. I’ll be leaving for Nanning on 23rd September and will be back on 30th September. Quite long.

Visa is ready. Flight arrangement is also ready, I think, as I left it all to Mr Tiong. He will be accompanying me and Boon Ping as team manager.

I think I have gotten a little bit stronger lately, despite the fact that my rank progress has been stagnant, currently at 4d. I have better winning ratio lately on KGS, and am not fearing the 5d’s too much. They used to intimidate me but I have learned that if I put fear aside, I can match up to them pretty well.

I wonder if I can have a free mind during the tournament. There’s only 30 days left for my project, and spending 10 days of them for a Go tournament seems untimely and very costly.

I just hope I can manage it all.

Phishing? Social Engineering?

I wonder how many people will give their passwords when simply be asked so. This morning, I received below email, purportedly came from Google, which asked me to confirm that I still want to use Gmail. Of course I still want to use it, how else could I chat during office hour?

Everytime I receive a phishing email like this, I always see which email address it really came from. In this case, it is verifyscess@googledesk.com. Googledesk? Hm, not a bad attempt as masquerading itself as the mighty Google.
And verifyscess? Must be an attempt to circumvent spam blocker or other filters. Spammers really should look for other ways because wrong spellings make email sounds too fake.

Global Issues are Interesting

Hmm, the number of readers of this blog is declining rapidly. Cant help it, been to busy for updating anything. The past 4 days, I have been working on two global issues assignment, firstly a group work about China and its rise to superpower, and secondly an individual work regarding G8 and its commitment towards eradicating global poverty.

I have to say, despite the short time allocated for this subject, I have learned tremendously a lot. Perhaps it’s because I previously knew so little about global issues, hence can easily absorb the intros and the fundamental theories. I am eager to learn more and actively participate in various discussion although for now, I’m too tired.

Yawn…

A better life awaits after I finish my part-time Master in a month (hopefully). Until then, this blog has to suffer for a while

A little update about my current activities

Efficient.

There is no way I can afford to be less than that. I need to submit two assignments on global issue, the first about China’s rise as superpower, and the second about effectiveness of G8. After submitting the two assignments, I will only have a month left to finish my Project 2 : Securing Internet Voting System with Trusted Computing Technology. That’s actually not my project title, I’ve forgotten the actual title after a month of not touching project. I’ve been touching something else.

Funnily, I still procrastinate and write this blog post.

Regarding Go, I completed the second league but the result is not yet published on MWA website. Also, from 23rd September to 30th September, I will probably be representing Malaysia in Nanning, China for Nanning International Weiqi Tournament. I will also probably be representing Malaysia in Korea Prime Minister Cup in Jeonju, Korea from 22th October to 27th October. Both “probablies” were there because I am not sure whether my employer will grant me unrecorded leave or not. They suddenly make fuss about the invitation letters not having letterhead.

I might as well fit in a little update about my work here. I have finally completed the VBA Excel programming to track our team performance although from time to time, there will be new feature request from my superior which requires me to continually do the development. Honestly, I feel like a real programmer now , although in reality I really should be doing sales consultancy and familiarise myself with various telecommunication products.

Okay, time to start writing about China rise to superpower. The superpower term is wide-ranging, and may cover economic, political, military and technological prowess. Anyone who has any idea that they want to share regarding this is most welcome.

Excelling Baduk

I was doing some “unnecessary” Excel 2007 development, when to my suprise I found a Baduk ActiveX control. Wow… cant wait to try using it. Programming GUI has always been my biggest hurdle in any project, but with this, seems like much of the task has been simplified.

I’m starting to love Microsoft again. As a note, I have replaced my default Google search engine with Bing.

I’m not investigator, I’m solution consultant, for good or bad

What I wanted was just three no’s away. First, I needed to say no to a lady who wanted my position and had done some necessary paper work for that. Secondly, I needed to say no to the General Manager of the investigation unit who wanted me to join his team, and finally saying no to the Chief Internal Audit who issued me the offer. I did say all the no’s this morning, ending a nearly 4 months dilemma of whether to join Special Affair as investigator, or remain at Solutioning and Programme Management as Solution Consultant.

Hence, for some time to come, I am Solution Consultant. I am not thinking of switching job for time being now, and will just focus on doing my job well.

There are few incentives for staying in my current department. Firstly, the amount of training that we get is tremendous as we’re supposed to be familiar with Cisco, Juniper, 3Com and whatever other vendors’ telecommunication products. Learning path is systematic, as there are certifications to aim for i.e. CCNA, CCNP, CCIE, Junos and some others that I have yet to know.

The department is also planning to set up a mini-lab at the office for us to play around with routers, switches and trying out various configurations. Sounds cool. I need lab for learning, as my imagination aint that superb.

Also, we just had renovation in our office. I like my newer place despite being smaller than the previous, because I managed to switch my faulty cabinet with someone else’s during the renovation chaos. Haha

It feels like I’m starting all over here again. It feels good, to finally end the dilemma.

Lately I have been speeding on the road. 150-160 km/h is not really an impressive speed for many, but for me it is. I had always been driving very slowly before.

I just love the satisfaction I get when people on the right most lane have to give way to me to overtake them.

Evil me.