IEDM 2007, Washington, DC

Today is the last day of IEDM 2007 and I am waiting to check out from Club Ouarters and make my way to Atlanta, GA, for a visit to Georgia Tech. Though I saw Jim Meindl at IEDM, I didn't get a chance to talk to him. If you trace the lineage, he is at the very top of my academic family tree. It is:

JMeindl -> KSaraswat -> RReif -> CSTan

So I am certainly very honored to be part of this chain.

A few highlights:

- flight SQ26 was delayed for 1.5 hrs due to technical issues with the aircraft and a replacement was made. But we made it in JFK just on time nevertheless;
- at JFK I went through the special registration procedures again and was the last one to collect my baggage;

IEDM highlights:
- I took a shortcourse on Nanotech/Nanoelectronis - I liked the one given by del Alamo on 3-5 CS for logic applications, and enjoyed Lieber's talk on NWs (the assembly approaches he talked about were intriguing);
- I didn't really enjoy the rest of the 3 talks;
- The CMOS performance boosters course seemed interesting;
- There is true 3D paper to the best of my knowledge (and a few are related in some ways). Takafumi invited me to visit his lab in Tohoku if I made it to 3-D SIC (will see);
- There was a session on energy harvesting and a great talk on Si PV was given;
- met many big names and old faces (there is a strong MIT presence here, I think MTL must be empty during this week). MTL-ers include: DAA, JHoyt, JdelAlamo, Tayo, Duane (didn't talk to him), Gene, Vicky, Chang-Lee (LL), Ali, John, Liang, Niamh, DH Kim, Charles C, Tony, JFiorenza, etc;
- had a one-on-one with Tayo and he bought me wine (first time);
- The GOLD seminar was great so was the dinner. Was great to meet Janice and John Kymissys;
- NUS and IME did very well. How about NTU?
- at the panel session, DAA at the closing remark, based on show of hand (question: would FETs remain in gadgets in 2030?), concluded jokingly "FETs has a bright future, and there is plenty of room at the top to integrate on Si". I liked this line. I first used this line at my PhD thesis defense on Nov 14, 2005 based on a talk Feynman gave in 1984. Great, now it is official!

What happened in DC remain DC. I look forward to IEDM 2008 in Bay Area and hope to contribute in IEDM 2009 in DC. Hope this is an ahievable goal.

So long.

Wednesday, Dec 12, 2007 10:51AM, Washington, DC

Deal or No Deal

Deal or No Deal sesson 2 is now playing on Mediacorp Channel 5 and I am addicted to show. Every Wed and Thu 8:30-9:30PM.

Last night the someone walked away with S$45,000 with a much much smaller amount in the case she picked. Tonight, for the first time, someone picked a S$250,000 case... only to walk away with S$40,000. I can understand why she burst out at the end...

Is playing DONO a pure luck determined game? How to win big? How do you know when to stop and to proceed? I don't have good answers that I find convincing.

I want to play too!!!!!!!!!!

Leaving for DC and Atlanta in a week!

TGIF, Nov 30, 0:35AM

Memories

Part of my intention of having this blog, besides to "report" my interesting (or boring) daily encounters, is also to bring back some of the past memories. I was skimming through my external hard-disk and was digging out some old files. I found this picture of three cutes boys (IJ's going to love this) by the port of P-Town. OK, if you do not know, P-Town is Province Town right at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. This is probably one of the most lively (and rather unique too) places in the US! I must have been there for some 3 times? It is an interesting place because it is a gay (and lesbian too) town! IJ used to have this dream to move to P-Town but gave up when I told him that this town is probably a dead town in the winter.

Anyhow, JH drove me and IJ in this trip. It is a nice 1 and 1/2 hr drive from Boston. I was the navigator as usual and I can't recall we made any serious mistakes. It was upon IJ request during one of his post-Harvard visit to Boston. It was a sunny morning/afternoon though it turned really chilly at night. I recalled we had brunch at this restaurant and we ordered a piece of cake to share. We cleaned the plate and the waiter jokingly told us "get another piece, don't eat the plate." On our way back we patronised this Thai restaurant, which wasn't not at all good by JH and my standards let alone IJ's. As charming as he was IJ starting talking to this waitress and found out her stories. Apparently she left her little daughther in Thailand to work here for a living and she was sick from some illness.... OK, it wasn't fun to hear this.

My memory of this trip is vague now, but this picture can possibly tell you we had a great time in P-town. (I can't recall who took us this picture though, someone random?)

CLieber of Harvard is in town at NTU this week and it created quite a sensation among us. The part I like most about him is that he is quite down to earth and unpretentious... but I think he should probably be more gentle come to hand shaking (it can hurt your wrist!).

Monday, Nov 5, 10:47PM

MIT Killian Court - Fall 2007

Go Mich, Go!

So Michelle complained that she did not deserve a compliment as JH did (recall previous post). I want to put it in record that I think she too will go very far, in fact she has come so far!!!!

Go Michelle, Go!

Blogs... just how many?

Have you ever wondered just how many blogs out there in the cyber space? Must be a lot isn't it. Here are some numbers I quoted from an October issue of IEEE Spectrum (pg 60):

- blog search engine Technorati tracks nearly 100 million blogs;
- nearly 200, 000 new ones added every day;
- according to market research firm Gartner (Stamford, CT), there are more than 200 millions abandoned blogs.

Some numbers for you to digest. Does anyone have similar numbers for social networking sites? I could remember e-group, yahoo group, hi5, friendster, MySpace, facebook and most recently OpenSocial (google's initiative)? How many are active and how many are abandoned?

Sunday, Nov 4, 12:10PM

food poisoning or was it me?

I have very low tolerance of stained food. Just not too long ago I suffered a terrible stomach upset and that put me to feeling extremely lousy for a few days. I still remember I lost a few pounds from that. I can traced that incident back to fish that was not properly coooked (OK my fault as I can't wait for my fish to cook). And this week similar, though less severe, incident re-occured.

I was at the ICA building Tuesday waiting to collect legal documents when I bumped into Jon and decided to have lunch together. I ordered fried noddles. It started to feel funny even before I finished my plate and it disturbed me the whole afternoon. It does not take an expert to tell that the noodle was stale... (but edible). That night, I vomitted and sat on toilet bowl a few times. Bad. The next day I felt so lousy that I cancelled dinner appointment with IJ and stayed at home doing absolutely nothing. Even now it is still feeling funny but my appetide has improved though not completely. Could it be because I picked it from hometown last weekend?

I noticed that I get sick easily from food. Like the Chinese proverb goes "you get illness from what you eat, you get into troubles from what you say," - I can testify to that. Do you have similar problem?

I was at Suntec earlier attending a SUSS roadshow. I cut it short after lunch - partly sick, partly because the topics didn't really interest me a whole lot.

This is TGIF and I have low appetide. Need some love here.

Oct 26, Friday, 10:41PM

Dr. CS Tan, finally!

This is going to be a rather long winded one considering that it was three weeks ago I posted in Cupertino CA, so please bear with me. So I have concluded my US trip and returned to Singapore about 1AM Monday morning (Oct 15). Some highligths:

Sept 22 - Sept 29 (Bay Area)

I decided to cut my stay at VMIC 2007 short and to skip Thursday lunch. I just did not feel I was in the right condition to join in. Ron told me later in email that I missed a very good talk by Eric Beyne of IMEC (damn!!!).

Noubar returned from his trip from China (he too decided to cut it short because he could not take it any longer there!) and he greeted me as soon as he arrived. I thought he was such a nice person - Mocha at Starbuck to kick off the session and later drove me north for Lebanese food (my first real experience, though I have tasted middle eastern food before).

Over the weekend, they showed me around coast area before heading to Stanford to meet George and Ming Lee (just married). I took a red eye for Boston - was very much looking forward to.

Sept 30 - Oct 10 (Cambrigde, MA)

I must have slept on the plane so well that the next thing I knew I was in Boston!!! (Welcome home). I cabbed it to MIT Edgerton Hall and JH was already there waiting for me. After lunch, he took me to Mass SPCA... the way I see it, he will go far, very far. He has a good heart down under him. He seemed stressed out juggling between school and job, but hey, he managed it well I thought. That Sunday night, I slept like I was deprived of it for ages.

The program in Boston began with lunch with Linda at Qingdao since the vegetarian place (Mass Ave) and House of Tibet were close. That evening, I met Andy in his new bio lab. He was having fun there although I can see that he was completely swamped. I always respect and enjoy talking to him - he has potentials, real ones. I would always credit him for Cu-Cu bonding. That night we dined at Koreana and he insisted on sharing and walked me home.

Tuesday was a very formal day. I met Carl in the morning and later Charles briefly. I headed to the State of the Institute. I could see Rafael from far. Lunch with CH after some photo shooting in the Killian Court. The real fun began when I went to the Office of the Provost. The happiest person in the office was none than Susan (oops... Susan K, not Susan H, if you know what I mean :P) - She gave me such a big huge!!! We could not wait for the Chairman of the Board to leave and there things just turned very casual. The agenda was photo taking with Rafael - a mock graduation ceremony. My regret was I never attended the commencement ceremony and a petition for postpone was denied (I still take it quite emotionally). Anyway, so finally Rafael handed the diploma to me and we were gowned very properly. I feel that I have finally graduated from MIT. Congratulations, you are now Dr. CS Tan, Class of 2006 (EE, PhD). This is a life time achievement. As Caijun (then at IME) said, you carry it with you your whole life. The sense of achievement was beyond words - It was a real sad thing that Dad did not live to see this. Thanks to Susan, I spent about 1h in the Provost Office.

I later visited Lieber's lab at Harvard and dined with Swee Peck at Wagamama (if you wanna know this is westernised Japanese food, very popular in London).

Wednesday was MTL day!!! It began with Gary who was kind enough to show me to the SiGe epi in Hoyt Lab. When I was a grad student in MTL, I passed by her lab many times but never bothered to take a closer look. Dennis, Leo, Dee, Acia, Debb, and Sam were glad to see me too. Dae-Hyun drove me to Koreana for lunch (thanks!!!). I met Dimitri briefly before Jae-Kyu came in for their weekly meeting. Finally Jesus remembered who was this person he had an appointment with.

The day ended with dinner at the Blue Room with Susan, Stephen, Andy, and Katie. They won't let me pay, so... I highly recommend Blue Room.

Thursday started with lunch with Sam. I met with Leslie briefly early, she could not leave her job. He shared with me his new invention of bio-fuel. Not everything got into my head, but I could make some sense out of it. The visit to Cambrigde Nanotech was great - I know the ALD system much better now. I met Liang-Yu in her office as soon as I saw her message.

The highlight of the evening was buka puasa at the Lin's. Alex walked me and Arafat from Harvard to Union Square. Lin has a cosy place!!! And the chicken rice was delicious! Alex offered to give me a ride back.

Friday I went lunch at Mulan (my 3rd time) with Albert, Charles and Ken. I then met Anantha at 2PM. Margerat was as sweet as before. Anantha brought in chances to MTL and he proudly presented to me the newly launched newsletters, the Micronote. Nice story about DAA...

I then went to Linda's house. She was almost done with cooking when I arrived. That nigth I met Lyssia and Hardy again. The last time I met her was at IEDM 2005 in DC. The are such a loving couple - they found an apartment in Andover now? WOW!!! The discussion centered around Myanmar, Singapore/Malaysia and human rigths. I didn't get to interact a lot of Phil, though. Again, I got a ride back and a big big huge!

I waked up Saturday morning not feeling like moving in with Arafat - pure lazy. JH was cool about it... so I camped there! I showed Arafat around Cambrigde Mall. I met Liz for dinner later. She broked her foot and had difficulties walking. She insisted on walking with me despite doctor's advice against adding weight to her foot. Nice dinner with lots of sushi/maki and catch-ups. Take care Liz - you are always strong.

On Sunday, Tony and his family bought me dim sum lunch in Chinatown. Then I met Suzan at Starbuck along Church St (Harvard Sq). She is so much happier now... good to know that. The highlight of the day? UNION OYSTER HOUSE of course. Four of us - JH, CH, Arafat and me dined at what was presumably the oldest restaurant in the United States! (Seriously the food was as great as it sounded, but the ambient was five star, a must-have Boston experience).

The Columbus Monday was spent in Wrentham factory outlet - met Peggy and George for the first time. TK drove and Mich was forever lovely.

Finally I get to spend almost one full day on my own on Tuesday. As promised, I got Irene little niece a bear she asked for. Hope she will like it. I had lunch at Fuo Guong Shan on Mass Ave. The Ven still remembered me and gave me a book as a gift. I had such a peaceful vegetarian lunch. Met DC later in Harvard Sq. The rest of the afternoon was spent in downtown Boston. I didn't know that Hardrock cafe has moved from Copley area to Quincy Market area.

The last night ended with dinner at Joel/Ari's place in Westgate and meeting Arafat for kopi.

I left for South Station at 10AM - thanks JH for being such a good host. I made a stop at Hardrock Cafe. The bus ride to Albany was a smooth one though it was raining. The leaves are preparing for Fall, I can see that.

Oct 10 - Oct 13 (Albany, NY)

I arrived on Wednesday about 3:30PM and cabbed it to Hampton Inn. The taxi driver was thrilled to know that I came from Singapore.

Thursday morning I visited Ron as planned (was delayed by 15 min as the cab driver picked up another guy). We discussed on plan to move forward with the book. Ron is helpful and very genuine. He showed me around RPI campus (small and neat) and brought me lunch. He insisted on driving me back to hotel (thanks!!!). That evening, I met some old faces and new faces in the 3-D world! The highlight was tour to Albany Nanotech - I seriously think this place is going to be very happening when it is running at full force. Any opportunity for me?? I met this group of people from Seagate, Air Product, Tessera and Stanford at Red Lobster for dinner - was very cohesive I thought!

Friday was very intense! I didn't quite catch most of the presentations on designs... but looks like university 3-D research is more towards design now. What is left for technologists like me? I presented my stuff, it was OK, not great.

I didn't sleep Friday night so that I can correct for jet lag when I get back to Singapore. The flight was early at 6AM and I bid Bob Patti farewell at Ohare. I arrived in SFO and I get all procedures done - the same officer who checked me in checked me out - he could not remember me, but he remembered his own writing! Good bye America, I will be back again soon.

I got a window seat all the way, so it was kinda of uncomfortable but I pulled it through. I think economy class is a torture for long distance flight. To my surprice, someone came up to me and call my name at Incheon during transist... Eric's wife, on her way back from assignment to Micron at Boise. Small world.

Now I am back in Singapore. It was indeed a very refreshing trip. Thanks RSO for supporting this trip.

I plan to go home Wed night. Pei Qi grandpa passed away and it would be helpful if I go back earlier to look after the house. And looks like we are one more step closer to our new house!

Oct 17 (Wednesday), 1:50AM

Sleepless in Cupertino, CA

I am now in Cupertino CA at the Zulina's. I left Singapore last Saturday for US. The first part of the flight from Singapore to Hong Kong was a breeze... a mere 3.5 hrs but the flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco was a disaster... and I will tell you why. You see, I was clamped between two men (it would difinitely a lot better if they were women :P) - one was definitely overweight and the other kept turning and scatching himself. Holden was right about this route of SQ flight... I watched "Just Follow Law" and I can definitely relate it to my current working enviroment. Mr. Bean entertained me too. I had such a hard time between HK-SFO, it was warm, dry, immobile, and the food were bad. Economy class seat can never beat Super VIP Bus seat.





I was greeted by immigration officers at SFO who were polite and felt bad that I needed to go through the special registration thingy - all Malaysian males must go through this regardless of ethnicity. Just follow the law I guess. I almost lost Arafat's racket while waiting for Zulina...





Zulina picked me from the airport and we headed south. Noubar is on overseas trip. She had nasi lemal ready for me! We spent Sunday around the area. I checked in the hotel early Monday morning and met Ron to discuss matters related to the book in the evening. It was a little cold for me... I miss Singapore heat! I had such a terrible dinner Monday night that Zulina decided to take to Chinese buffet Tuesday night.





My presentation was yesterday. It went OK, not great. I decided to cut it short and moved back with Zulina to prepare slides for Sematech workshop. Changed my flight to Boston a day earlier.





The following days I will meet Jason, CK, George, and possibly Sharon before heading to Boston. Am anticipating... hope those in Boston will save me some nice weather... I have low tolerence for nasty weather now.

My jet lag is not completely gone yet... I woke up at 4:30 this morning CA time :(

BTW, did I tell you I met Sirirat the Thursday before? We had such a sumptuous steamboat dinner... but didn't make it to the Ang Moh Dessert on Beach Road (Belgian waffle in hawker center). She remained lovely!



September 27, Thursday, 11:12AM, Cupertino CA

One year on...

Before I know it, it has already been one full year since I joined NTU. One year on, it is natural for me to write something here. I think it has been a great experience for the most part - great benefits and the work load is more than manageable. But things remain slow, I mean research work. As a friend used to put it, "running hard on a treadmill yet not going any where." I am excited for a fruitful year ahead... I think this past year I got all the ground work ready, so I that I can fly high in the following years. I am eyeing on one of the big grants... I know it is difficult but I keep my fingers crossed.

Bro has his by-pass surgery today, hope he is well and recover soon.

Tuesday, Sept 18, 2:05PM

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas

I was at Tanglin Club last Friday evening. DC, on her vacation in Singapore and club member, invited me over to rekindle good old time. I have not met her since she went to London to further her study in Imperial College. I was introduced to Han, as she preferred to be called, that evening. I arrived slightly ahead of time but was waiting at the wrong area only to find out later (I assure you this was not the first time). I joined them for a movie featuring Nicholas Cage, Next. "Quite intense," as DC put it. Apparently Cage can "see" future, but as he put it at the end, every time he looked at it, it changed and everything else changed. It reminded me of quantum teleportation - you destroy the information once you read it.

It was a lovely evening. I will meet DC again in Boston in Oct! She will spend a semester in Boston, on leave from IC. Maybe this time I will buy her a drink? As Cage quoted in the movie, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." I will put it as "What happens in Tanglin Club stays in Tanglin Club". :P

I should start preparing for my US trip today.

Sunday, Sept 16, 9:09AM

Feel l'm going back to Massachusetts

"Feel l'm going back to Massachusetts, something's telling me I must go home ..." This is a favorite song from Bee Gees. Indeed, I am going back sooner than December! Following VMIC in Fremont CA, I will head to Boston for a week till Columbus Day weekend before going to AMC in Albany NY. Susan has summoned folks to have dinner with me during my stay. Stephen, Nisha and Susan took me to Brown Sugar (a Thai restaurant) when I was there last year after Thanksgiving. I can't wait to meet them again soon! I will also get to meet many others. Some like JHO, CH, Zeke, Yangs, have offered to host me. I think a road trip and apples picking is being planned. And I am going to write to Liz that I might be walking for this year "5K Walk for Vision", she will be very thrilled. I am thrilled too. I feel good, but the pre-departure anxiety gets me a little bit.

Last evening I joined the Kulim gang at a Hakka restaurant in Tanjong Pagar celebrating Lily's birthday (one day earlier). These are newly found old friends! It is a pleasant surprise that Meiling is at NIE! She will be my new lunch partner :)

A full day of rest at home makes CS strong again. Let's go jog tomorrow morning, no morning rain please!

Saturday, September 8, 10:14PM - Happy Birthday, Lily!

Would gyming help when you are sick?

I have been sick for the past week, the recent trip added to that. I felt lousy and bloated because I have not been gyming for close to two weeks. It sucks! Gyming takes lots of effort, as anyone would agree, I would buy it if I could:) But I went to gym anyway, just to keep myself in shape before the hard earned muscles (which is not a lot to begin with) melt away into fat!!! I feel slightly better after coming back, and am contemplating on an evening jog - Wish me luck please!

Peh Qi and Ai Lin sat for UPSR this week and I think they did OK. No pressure anyway... I know how this thing feels like. Been there, done that!

And you may ask why am I so early today? It is only 4:30PM? Well, I was sick and came home early to rest, ring a bell now?

Thursday, Sept 6, 4:35PM

Happy Birthday, Pei En

I was at home from Aug 31-Sept 2. Pei En celebrated her 7th birthday on Aug 31 (Friday). Yes, she is the Merdeka girl in the family and 3rd Bro missed it by one day. She demanded Barbie Girl many months ago and I kept my promise. We bought her a cake and there the party began. I think she was happy and had fun. She has grown up from a shy and timid girl to a rather talkative and active girl. I am sure she is the joy of the family for the most part. I am eager to watch her growing up. Happy Birthday again, PE!

So we finally decided to buy a house in Taman Mahsuri - a semi-D at 135K. Everyone seems to like the location and house. Hopefully we can get loan from bank, I do not mind a higher down payment. Will see. This will be a family house, so it is important to make sure things are in order.

On my way back Sun evening to Sg, bus 52 did not come in time so 2nd Bro drove me to BW to make sure that I catch the bus. We did it, but bus broke down in Yong Peng and I got back to NTU at 10:30AM on Monday.

Working from home today, got the CRP proposal draft ready and sent to Wei Jun. I think it needs more massage and the next few days will be just for this on top of NRF Fellowship proposal. I have been writing way too many proposals now and am a bit jagged :( Sent 1st Bro some cash to help him over this difficult time.

IMEC folks sent in their chapter, so I sighed a relief. Hopefully the remaining chapters will arrive without much unexpected hurdles. Praying hard. I think this is my first and last book editing, the amount of effort just does not worth it.

Tuesday, Sept 4, 10PM

AMAT rocks!

I spent a full day at Marina Mandarin attending the Applied Material Technology Forum. This was my first time at AMTF and I must say that I had nothing bad to complain about:P

The range of topics were very timely and hot - high-K/metal gate, double patterning, etc. I think it would have been even better if they talked about solar cells, which I proposed in the feedback form. I hope they can consider in future ones.

They must be making good profit. It was quite a big crowd mostly from local industry. The lunch was sumptuous!!! Arguably the best I had so far for a company sponsored event. It was a proper complete 7-course lunch. I ate a lot, so much for the jogging and gyming and keeping waist line under control.

It was a productive day. But the travel on 502 was such a disaster... It was way too long. They gave everyone a free FM radio, but I did not win the lucky draw :(

(Tuesday, August 28, 10:32PM) - The 11-th Anniversary of beloved sister passing in Lunar calander.

A full day

It was full moon, I puja-ed in the morning before heading to office. I was waken up by a rather rowdy bargain (I think a stronger word, dispute, might be more appropriate here) between a couple and a cab driver in the backside car park as early as 6:45AM (ok, maybe this is quite late for some). They disputed over the taxi fare... nasty worlds came out and no one was happy - what a way to begin your day.

Two meetings. Finally we set in the new lab charging scheme, looked like most potential users were fine with that. Met vendor X, I was checking out their ALD tool. I don't think they have what we need - as I told the vendor, I needed something like a 737, not A380. But he said he could explore at this end. I am not optimistic, I already know we are going for vendor Y.

Submitted NAP application. I hand carried to the Provost' Office. Well, it does not look as grand as MIT's, but hey you could feel the majestic energy!

I gymed for a bit after a week long break. Instead of gyming, I swam yesterday and Vino commented that I looked roasted today. There was this guy trying to get me off the weight station. I didnot care too much, I told him I had two more sets to go. He made this rather disturning grunting sounds - hey man, was it really that heavy?? I was disgusted.

I did not go to Sheng Siong as intended - Four 199 buses passed by and they were loaded and the drivers did not stop. Canteen 2 came to rescue.

Anantha is trying to connect me back to TSMC on opportunity to collaborate on Cu bondign project. It is real or just my wishful thinking? In any case, I will grap any opportunity I can find at this stage.

(Monday, August 27, 10:31PM) And why am I not sleeping yet??

Arafaat is going to Harvard this Fall

Arafaat is attending graduate school in Harvard this Fall - He organised a farewell BBQ and was kind enough to ask me over. I was late but went nevertheless. It was quite a big crowd and I did not know most of them... blending in was rather difficult so I found my comfort zone and stick to it.

Talking about Harvard, I began to think about MIT. I can still remember vividly the Saturday afternoon when I read Rafael's email about hiring me as an RA in his group. That night I could hardly sleep. MIT is one of the best things ever happened in my life so far and the 4.5 years were very well spent. I am going to Boston the first week of Oct and will stay for one week. It will be nice to meet Arafaat there.

Good Luck, and Way to Go, Arafaat!!!

(Friday, August 25, 0:42AM) TGIF!!!

Lucky or Unlucky?

So the school had an annual lunch gathering and almost everyone turned out. There were food and drinks. I had my share and decided to leave earlier because it was a big crowd and didn't wait for the final lucky draw. I never had any luck with this thing, so I was just doing it for the sake of doing it earlier by dropping my name in the tank.

Well, you never know. My name got picked but I wasn't there to pick up the prize. Lucky or unlucky? You tell me.

Do you dislike Monday?

It's Monday and I arrived in office at 9AM. Was sleeping in the morning and got a rather discouraging e-mail from TW that they are not building fabs in Singapore for now afterall. And no news on my JDP I sent months back - at least give me some feedbacks if they like it or not.

I was totally unproductive the first half of the day. Surfing my morning away in the cyberspace. But I checked out Patrick Teoh's blogs - TokKok and Niamah. I must give him credit because he was one of the Radio 4 DJs that I learnt English (good one of course) from. I enjoyed his programs though I had never dialed to his program. He is an actor now and remarried with two kids??? I think Poo Choo knows him?

Looks like I am going to get a new project from Holden. As usual, pending approval by the top people. Will meet this Wed. I am disgusted by the system totally. I dislike anything that slows me down. No progress in conference leaves - still pending HR processing. Can I go around and tell people I am going to US? I hate it because it does not give you the confidence to do so. What if they discovered an invisible bone in the egg and bar you though you know for a fact that you have followed the procedures? At NTU, they can't deal with non-conventional thingy. They work well if you follow standard template. Don't think about deviating or special case consideration. No such thing in the dictionary. So much talking about innovation!!! No wild ideas please.

(Monday, August 20, 11:02PM) - off to bed soon!

TGIF

It is Friday and as usual I called home. It is routine already and I will feel terribly if I did not call. Mom is doing well, BP normal and Blood Sugar marginally high.

Conference application is with OHR now and status is "pending processing". I take it as a yes?

Postponed duck soup with pickle because the duck was frozen and I needed a quick dinner. Tomorrow maybe. Easy Friday, nothing earth-shaking.

Conference leaves are still pending

Folks at NTU can handle one thing at a time, but screw up big time if you asked them to combine three in one :(

Simple thing indeed, I am going (1) VMIC in Fremont, CA, (2) MIT in Boston, MA, and finally (3) AMC in Albany, NY. Fine if they want me to prepare three separate applications, I did. But the paper works are still bouncing between Graduate Office, Head Office and Chair Office. Why? Because they are two systems really - one hard copy and one online - it is either the online is missing or incomplete, or the hardcopy. This university is run like a company - you need recommendation and approval for every single thing. Can you guys cut it short and just approve the damn thing??? Let me go conferences with ease of mind. Someone told me conference leave is a privilege, not entitlement. Now you know why they are not MIT of the east yet?
(Thursday, August 16, 2007, 9:46PM)

MFL buffet lunch

So the boss bought everyone buffet lunch at Sakura (Omni Theater, Science Center). Why? Because the engineers managed to cut down N2 consumption by 30%. We have been wasting N2 unnecessarily for many years. Everyone was happy it seemed. Me included, afterall it was for everyone to sit down, eat and chat, no? Lots of food, but I exerted self control. Even with that, I started to think about skipping dinner. May need an evening jog/walk/biking.

Got the Wiley Chapter amended. I hate doing this, hopefully this is the last time and the chapter will be accepted as is. I still have two Springer chapters to worry about, it is scaring to think about it. Conference trip to USA is pending approval, but I am getting close. Hope to kill three in one trip: VMIC in Fremont, CA, Stay at MIT, and AMC in Albany, NY. Don't give me hard time, please.

August 06 - August 07

- Won LKY PDF from both NTU and NUS. Accepted NTU's offer before NUS's arrived. Many good reasons (facilities, salary, collaborator, etc);
- Joined NTU on September 18, 2006;
- Visit to Boston to deliver invited talk at MRS Winter Meeting (on 3-D technology). Met Rafael, Anantha, Susan, Liz, Linda, Tenzin, Mich, Michael, Zeke, CH, JHO, the Yangs, George, ML, Bai Yu, Shirley, Duane, Andy Fan, Nisha, did I miss out anyone? (George hosted me and that saved me some $$$);
- February: Accepted Springer invitation to edit a book on 3-D technology options and technology with Ron Gutmann, and Rafael;
- May: SUSS bonder arrived in NTU;
- July: Mindef JPP approved (S$50K) + LKY PDF Grant (S$100K);

Between September 05 - July 06

Some highlights:
- I defended my Ph.D. thesis on Nov 14 and I passed!;
- Interviewed at IMEC (Belgium) and TSMC (Taiwan). Got offers from both;
- Jan 06 (during CNY) I went home and Dad was hospitalised. Dianogsed with advanced stage of Larynx cancer. My plans all changed;
- Feb 8 - Mar 6, 06: I went back to Boston to settle things (thesis submission, clearing, good byes). I have decided to delay all career plan and to spend the last few months with Dad;
- Mar 8 - Jun 16, 06: In Penang GH and home - giving paliative care to Dad. Worst time in my life;
- Jun 17, 06: Dad passed away around 7:30AM in the morning;

A long overdue update

It has REALLY been a while since my last post. A lot had happened during this period and for now, I am now in Singapore. Hope to write them all down slowly... stay tuned!