Contract extension

A few weeks ago i heard that there was going to be an extension on my traineeship length. Well, today it was confirmed by my manager. He asked for a 2 month extension from the previous date agreed. that means i will be here until the end of September. This is surely good news indeed. My manager said he was satisfied with the progress maid by my team and said that the team was a "winning team", thus the traineeship extension. (in my email i stated "dream team" sorry for that mistake). However i was surprised by the "title" giving to us. I think it was an over statement. I didn't feel i did that much of a great job, but as long as they're happy with our work, thats good enough.

However with this extension, it means that i would have to spend half of my fasting month here in Mannheim. But I'm not worried about that because by the time the fasting month arrives, the prayer time will be somewhat the same as Malaysia, so the period of fasting is about the same as Malaysia, maybe only 1 or 2 hours extra on the first few days. And the best part is going back!! i will be going back a few days before Raya, so its not only balik malaysia, but also balik kampung, I'll be singing "Balik kampung, oh oh oh balik kampung" all the way like a lunatic..hahaaha... im sure it will be a good feeling and im looking forward to it.

Then again..that will happen in 3 1/2 months time....no point wondering over that...

Tchuss

Some recent updates

This month was pretty much the most intense traveling month so far. by the end of the first week of June i have exceeded my budget and now on reserved mode. Good thing i have groceries for the next 2 weeks or so... I went to the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart that was totally awesome, Rasttat, Karlsurhe and we went to Fun Forest in Kandel which was awesome too...but i will talk about them later.

Just now i was finishing up my dinner and went to the kitchen to clean up. I turned out that the Brazilian girls were baking a cake in the kitchen. Yeah, there is not only 1 Brazilian girl, but at least 3. It was a whole group of Brazilians. So, as they were talking in Portuguese, i just listened (i like to listen to languages i don't understand) to what they were saying and i was awakened by the word "manteiga" and it happened that there was a tub of margarine on the counter. So i asked them if they called the margarine "manteiga", they said yes. Its the word for butter actually but they call margarine "manteiga" too. So i told them in Malaysia it is called "Mentega" and they were quite surprised. I said we were once colonized by the Portuguese too. They were like , oh , ok....:P

So i think its safe to assume that the word "mentega" is from Portuguese....

Cross Country : The Trial Race

I know this entry should have been posted long ago as it happened about a week ago. But as they say, better late than never. Here goes.

I finally went through with the trial cross country race with Joachim last Monday. It was a really exciting race where i gave it a 120%. The best thing about this race was the fact that i didn't know where my opponent was since i passed him early in the race and had to pass him again in order to win. So i didn't really have an idea how far he was in front of me. All i have is my stop watch where i can estimate how much time i can be allowed per lap in order to be anywhere near beating him...So it was more of a mental test where i constantly have to fight myself and keep myself pushing to the limit despite being so exhausted. Many times i felt like giving up to the exhaustion and abdominal pain, but i was determined to keep on fighting. With each cycle i kept my pace to an average 24 km/h which allowed me to finish 18.2km of cross country dirt tracks in 44 minutes. However, despite the dramatic explanation of the race given above, i did not manage to beat Joachim as he was patiently waiting at the finishing point for 6 minutes.

There are a few things in the race that i think stole precious time from me in the race, 1st, of course my fitness level, then comes the pedestrians, and lastly there was a big log in the middle of the road blocking the way. So i had to stop and carry my bike over it, so i lost more that 15 seconds there, twice(because the race was 2 laps for me). so by the end of the first lap, i was already down 2 minutes and by the half of the 2nd lap, i was left with 8 minutes!! By the end of the race i could see stars an i felt a bit light headed after giving it 120% of my energy.. looks like i have to work harder to beat this guy. I need to work on my strategy of when to go fast and when to maintain speed..but it was a good first try...