I am quite sleepy today...during the past three days I had to wake up early at around 7:30 AM..This has been very unusal for me for almost three years. I remember that when I was in Year 1 at xiamen U, I usually got up at 6 and went to the classroom to study...so crazy from a view of now, how could I make it at that time...

 

The work is becoming quite tedious...Copy, paste, copy, paste, configure, configure...ah..this is about computer and automatic electronic systems..

 

But the good news is that
1) this evening we will meet the head and professors of Georgia Tech ISyE;

2) next Monday afternoon I will meet the CEO of a logistics consulting company and see whether I can do some projects for them. More importantly, eager to find out whether they would like to sponsor me and sign a bond with me...Then this would be a scholarship of a large amountand three years' working bond..this is huge, right? The company is nice. But even they would like to offer a scholarship, I still have to see. Three years is not a short period and whether they could provide a good career path matters. Just meet the CEO and see;

3) We(our program students) will go to the Port of Singapore Authority for a visit! this is part of the special of our program, some previliges compared to other common master students. We will go to more logistics facilities and companies in the future.

4) we are(with Yifan and other friends) going to KTV this Sunday!!!this is very exciting because we are expecting for such an event for so long!!!

This afternoon my former NUS project supervisor Dr. Oh will do a workshop for 17 senior IT managers(mainly CIOs) on SOA(service oriented architecture) and I wil assist him for some administrative affairs.

 

Ah...go back to work now...still a lot to do...

I am now working as part-time programmer in the IT department of the The NUS-GIS Centre for Molecular Epidemiology (http://www.med.nus.edu.sg/cof/cme.html). It is a research center on genetics. As the study of genetics needs data collection on people's demographics, dental statistics, life style, etc., part of the IT department's work is on data-entry after others have collected the data via interviews. The instances of interviews is usually counted in thousands.

 

My current job is pretty easy. The questionnaire they are using is developed long time ago and they are using and maintaining an online system to hold the questionnaire. We develop the e-questionnaire based on the interview transcript and the people in charge of data entry will enter all the interview data into the system. Then we are able to process and analyse the data electronically. So what I am doing is just to key in the questionnaire into the computer in the required formats...this is quite tedious because the job has already been done by many people in the old version systems. As the online system evolves, they need to re-type in the online questionnaire...

 

I am paid on a hourly basis for a rate of 12 SGD/hour. According the NUS rules, as an International student, I can only work for 16 hours per week. So the maximum amount of payment I can get for a month is about 750SGD and I will work here for 3 months until the end of December. I only work full day on Monday and Friday. This is good because the other time i can focus on my study.

 

People here are very friendly, especially my collegue Fui Yin. She is a Malaysian Chinese and speaks Madrin, English and other Chinese dialects. I also got my temporary pass with the help of an old lady.