A tribute to my dear friend and ex colleague

I came to know Christopher Michael Forrest during in the infancy of my career with Texas Instrument (S) Pte Ltd in Singapore in 1989. We were told to address him as Kit Forrest or in short, Kit. He was a fine English gentleman living in Bedford, England.

We were in the department known as Singapore Process Automation Center (SPAC) where all research, design, manufacturing and production of high technology automation machines were developed for manufacturing of integrated circuits for all eighty Texas Instrument’s plants worldwide.

I was starting as a manufacturing engineer which happened to take over the operation of the engineering section in Bedford, England due to business closure. Kit Forrest was assigned and contracted to continue thereafter for two years to be the information technology manager to assist and train us in our Singapore research branch during our initial setup cum taking over.

In my manufacturing operation, he had supported me and trained me on the software which had a systematic withdrawal of manufacturing parts from the warehouse.
He had developed this material flow software in Bedford, England and transferred it to SPAC.

In the course of developing the software, he termed a basket of items collected by any of our colleagues as “Kit” which was his short name. His name would always be in the legacy of this software and he was very proud of it.

In my work, I made a lot of mistakes during the usage of his software and he was always supportive and forgiving. When I explained to him that I need a higher level of authorization, he gave me willingly despite the strong objection from his superior. At one point, I was having the highest authorization in his software that I could remedy my own mistakes on the system. That prevented him from clearing my mess which meaned that I was doing part of his job. So wonderful guy!

We had our happy times together. I remembered the moment when I had to entertain his wife and him when she came to Singapore to visit him. I recommended dinner at Bugis Street hawker centre which provided a very good local cuisine. His wife and him were bold enough to try and he graciously picked me up at my residence that day. We had a sumptuous dinner and he was very grateful for showing him this great place to dine although the environment was just mediocre.

When he left SPAC after the 2 year contact, his superior wanted to extend his stay but he chose to go back to England. He settled down back home and continued to work in Bedford. We communicated using email when he was back home. Whenever he came to Singapore, he would take some time out to call me and I will always enjoy his company.

The last time I met him was around October 2005. I came to know recently that he had passed on about 3 month after I last met him.

He is enjoying himself in heaven now. So long, my friend.

My younger son

When I describe my younger son and if he is reading now, he knows that I am referring to him.

Since birth, he is the challenging type. I was taken by surprise when he started banging his baby cot strongly immediately after his birth in the hospital. That's my first impression of him.

As he led his life, he continues to show his grit, bravery and determination.

About a year and half old, he accidentally tripped over his brother feet and landed on his left hand. He cried in pain but when he was seen by the Chinese physician in the clinic, he displayed indifferent although the injured part was swollen. Being overcome by his confidence, I treated the incident as minor.

Three week later, when the swell subsided, I noticed his left arm is not straight! I immediately rushed him to hospital to get an X-ray and it was confirmed that he had a 70% greenstick fracture on his left arm. The doctor noted that his fracture had started to heal and displaced my fear of a crooked hand as the hand will straighten back. What a relief!

I also remembered he hurt his teeth on the toy car at the age of 2 + and hold his pain throughout his night in his sleep. The next morning, his pillow was full of blood but his injured gum and teeth had recovered. He had managed to get through on his own!

For his studies and education, he had done well. He had been constantly topping in the 5% of every cohort. He does his homework well and in detail. His also enjoy his present CCA in National Police Cadet Corp (NPCC).

One concern is his procrastination of work in term of content. He like to stretch his decision on the content of his work to the last minute to obtain perfection which obviously will built up his anxiety and had to work late into the night. I hope he will do better in his time management with his heavy workload and CCA activities.

He should also take care of himself physically with good nutritional choice. I hope he will take up the challenge to build himself up in this direction as well so that he can enjoy and withstand all the activities that NPCC offered.


From a proud Dad’s - humble observation and opinion.

My aunt

I have known my aunt ever since I was told to address her. My family was poor when I was young and could only afford to visit her during Chinese New Year. In those occasions, my sisters and I paid our respect to her and were always very glad when the time comes as we can go for another outing.

Aunt is my father’s cousin. She is 88 years old today – a living legend. From my mother account, she has been into her husband’s family in her tender age to be the child bride and had since given birth to six daughters and two sons. For a record, from her confession recently, she has seventeen grandchildren and fourteen great grandchildren. Although she is not well educated, she always takes her opportunity to learn anything new.

She is gusty lady who is quick at learning skills. She had good culinary skills. I remember on a meal served by her in 1977 that gave me a lasting impression of her culinary skills. I happened to pass by her house to borrow textbook for my pre university classes and she retained me for lunch and her food make me recognized her as a family food expert.

She has a very positive attitude and outlook. She advocated that human are made to work and she live by example taking care of her children and most of her grandchildren. At the age of 88, she is still looking after her grandchildren bearing her suffering of glaucoma which is insignificant to her. She has always enjoyed her responsibilities and takes her charges in stride.

She has also been very gracious and understanding. Over my busy schedule, I have not visited her for the past few years but she is satisfied with just a simple phone call to her. She understood that I have my busy schedules and always ready to excuse me graciously.

I like to recognize that she is one of the amazing ladies that I have encountered before. Only regret is that I am unable to learn from her given all my constraints. Anyway, all benefits have been passed down to her children and descendents. That’s a blessing.

******** The above accounts are my personal views and opinions ********

(The mandarin version will be up shortly. Let me have some time as I am still learning and struggling with mandarin – Thanks)

Learning and change 学习与改变

Recently, I begin to discover the beauty of continuous learning and change and have been enjoying it.

One of them that I discovered is the blog. This blog will spur me in writing both in English and Mandarin and I foresee to learn more during the process. If I made any mistake, please excuse me as I am still learning.

The other learning opportunities are MSN chat, Face book, Maple Story etc

In MSN chat, I learned the lingo of afk – away from keyboard, brb – be right back, bb – bye bye, gtg – got to go etc. I had the benefit of chatting with relatives living in China and a niece located in Hong Kong advancing her career. I also had done video conferencing with them.

I have speed up my learning process with the encouragement and support of my two teenage sons. They are always supporting me with just a shout away and they responded instantaneously. They are my best buddies now!




学习与改变

最进，我发觉在学习和改变中的好处，而且还在享受中。

第一件是博喀，从它，我可以用英语和华语，发挥我的写作能力。如有错误的表达，敬请原谅。

其他的学习，如MSN chat, Face book, Maple Story 等等。

在MSN 交谈时，我学会了简说，如afk – away from keyboard, brb – be right back, bb – bye bye, gtg – got to go等等。

我也向在中国的远方亲戚打了教导， 也向在香港的甥女沟通。

我可以很快的学到这些电脑的知识，都是我两个儿子的支持和鼓励。现在他们是我学习的好帮手。