Day 34-39: Culminating to Climax?!

Another week of work as usual… it was already week 6 at KWAT!

So, if this whole trip were a novel, it is slowly culminating to an epic climax; in fact, the amount and complexity of the GROW team’s work were rising to a climax, too. As you might all know, climax in a fiction also represents the apex of the main conflict of the story; in our case, the conflict with the webpage and report became a titan haunting our dreams and efforts. In short, we were stressed out as a squeezed lemon and tired as an overworked tuk-tuk.

Okay, enough for the high school Language A material. My life this week was comprised of struggling with _____ css and php codes, getting them to work after several hours, and running into a new ______ problem or bug. Although I enjoy the excitement and thrill when codes finally work, I would never devote my entire life into this field. (so much respect for CS people) I mean, I cannot think of myself dealing with a cycle of adrenaline and stress so huge on a regular basis. I actually passed out on Thursday and Friday evenings because of exhaustion and stress. Now I can see why people working at companies are so tired after work. Yet, in the end, I manged to edit the template and main menu, update program descriptions and links, add new programs, re-design the slideshow and gallery page, embed relevant youtube videos, link PayPal donation to the menu, and troubleshoot PayPal credentials. I guess hard work pays off… haha…

Other members of the GROW team went through equal, if not worse, levels of struggle and stress. Ritika finished proofreading the seven-year activity report and devising a viable layout. She also finished up the final touch on the memorial brochure that Aunt Shirley requested. Anthony, on the other hand, continued to edit the photos of hand-made Kachin products from KWAT’s income generation program (IGP).

I would say Lisa had it the worst this week. Basically, Lisa was in the same boat as I: she started working on the webpage–specifically, virtuemart _____. She added products from KWAT’s IGP to the webpage and updated the inventory and prices. Unfortunately, most of her efforts were in vain: prices and shopping cart did not show up on the webpage for some _______ unknown reason. On Friday, I, full of over-confidence that I could code anything, decided to help her out. As a result? My grave failure to improve anything; in fact, I almost destroyed the webpage and six weeks of effort. I realized that a simple template designed for customization by users and a sophisticated online shopping mall coded by programmers are literally on different levels of difficulty. Think of just learning about carbon and oxygen versus trying to come up with a new organic synthesis reaction. Lisa and I even worked during weekend nights to figure this _______ thing out–again, in vain.

Are we going to find solutions to this problem and be cured of stress? Only the following week will know.

Side Stories:

1. On Thursday, we met a computer programmer from Martus Software, an Atlanta-based company that provides secure solutions to NGOs working with human rights. Basically, with this program, a file transfer between computers and servers can be encrypted and protected from third parties, such as hackers and authorities.

2. On Saturday, after hours of indecisiveness and procrastination, we went to the 3-D museum, where visitors could take photos of illusions and eye candies. (It was pretty fun, but personally I wonder whether it was worth $10. I mean, you can do the same with photoshop.)

3. On Sunday, we finally got a chance to talk to one of Buddhist monks in a temple nearby. With my background in Mahayana (East Asian) Buddhism, I especially enjoyed his explanations of Theravada (Southeast Asian) Buddhism and his personal views on the world and Buddhist philosophy. In short, the main difference is that Theravada is more autonomous and loose in terms of rules and organization. It was definitely a culturally rewarding experience!

-Hoon