Mental Blabberings

2021 started with a a good sense of connection for me, having spent time with friends and family in a simple celebration of the oncoming year. The transition from 2020 to 2021 and being able to look back at a good part of my recent history got me thinking about how life has been for me and the family for the past decade. There’ve been a lot of people that I’ve met and become friends with while there are those that I’ve left behind and lost touch with. There’s a saying about treating old friends different from new ones, which I do appreciate now that I’m a bit older. It also means that my relationships with people that I get to spend a good amount of time with take a different shape. This reflection has given me some time and space to think about what it means to reconnect with people. Friends are the family we choose ourselves. — Edna Buchman I have the privilege of having life-long friends that I don’t always stay in regular contact with. From my perspective, if I consider you a frien...

2020 was a somber year for me and I'm sure it's the same for a lot of people. As if the global pandemic wasn't enough bringing in the isolation, restriction of travel, and a general sense of change to everyone's way of life -- it was made harder by wanting to keep a semblance of a regular life. I still worked, albeit from home, trying to maintain the same level of productivity as I did before all the change was imposed upon everyone. I still tried to keep up my hobbies like playing video games and supporting some streamers I follow -- what I lack in time to play it seems other people appreciate the financial support I can offer to do the gaming instead, so I and others can live vicariously through them. It wasn't easy and it didn't help that I seem to be really hard on myself. Personally, there were some daemons that I've had to tackle on my own and some that I've had to ask for others' help. It's been a struggle to keep an even keel while everyt...

 It's 2021 and it's been a while since I wrote here. 2020 has been a challenging year for me and the family and if you're still subscribed and still reading, then thank you for sticking by me. We're doing well and we're doing the best we could given the situation in the world even today. I still believe that things will get better and while we're in the down part of the cycle of life, I'd like to think that the rise is coming soon. Of course nothing will ever really be the same though I'm holding out hope that it will only get better. The past year has given me an opportunity to think about the projects I've been holding off on and after much reflection and disconnecting with my most recent vacation, I've found that there's one project that I'm very excited to start working on and share with you: I'm going to be writing more. Not only writing on this blog, but I'm also dabbling on writing other things too. As soon as I have some o...

Until very recently I believed that I needed to be on top of the latest news and happenings not only in my field (computer science and software engineering) but also in as many things as I can be on top of. This meant subscribing to all sorts of magazines, newsletters, YouTube channels, Twitch streamers, watching TV and live sport events, etc. — I was on top of a lot of the latest happenings, trends, news, interesting developments. I was having fun and I felt busy. What I did not feel was particularly effective nor productive. I felt like I was consuming so much information with the thought that it might be useful someday. When I was younger this wouldn’t have been an issue but I realised that ever since I’ve started taking stock of what I’ve been spending my time on, that a lot of it I’ve been spending just staying on top of things that I really didn’t need to be on top of. This article is about some of the realisations I’ve made in the course of exploring this issue of “FOMO” or ...

Have you ever played a sport whether individual or team sports where your top performance was required for any measure of success? If you have, you may have had the benefit of at least one coach guiding you to point out better form, better strategies, alternative approaches, keeping you accountable, identifying our strengths and weaknesses, and overall telling you to listen to your body and focus on your goals. If you haven't then would you like to have someone on your side, not judging you then generally cheering you on while you attempt to achieve whatever your goals are? For the past year I've been working with a life coach and I can say it's worked so well for me that I cannot help but recommend everyone consider investing in life coaching. I used to swim back when I was a student in university as part of the varsity team. I had a number of coaches then who taught me not just the technical aspects of swimming, but also the mental fortitude required to train effectivel...

Flash back to 1998, I was a junior in high school in the Philippines. I would have been at the equivalent of 9th grade in the US educational system at age 15. At this point in my life I had been given one of the best opportunities to experience a whole new culture and lifestyle. I had a chance to be an exchange student in middle America for one full year. This post is about how passing up this opportunity changed my life more than I would have ever known at the time. Note: This is Part 2 of a series about my early choices in life which have gotten me to where I am today. If you're interested, please stay tuned to the next parts as I go through them. Thanks for reading! The Rotary Club Back during those days my parents had been invited to be part of the Rotary Club in the small town we lived in. There were various kinds of people who were in the club -- writers, businessmen, professionals (lawyers, doctors, teachers, etc.). My parents are businessmen who had very little in the...

I've recently been thinking about how my decisions early in life have done me good to put me where I'm at right now. I've certainly lived a very fortunate life -- been blessed with so many good things and been down-right lucky being at the right place at the right time. My 30 year journey to where I am now has been very interesting. I can pretty much say that the experiences I've had up to this point have very much contributed to making me who I am -- and that I regret nothing. Still though I keep thinking about what my life would be like if I hadn't made certain choices I did make throughout the years. There are a few choices I've made that I've stuck to and I keep thinking about wondering "what if I made a different choice instead" -- and the more I think about it, the more I'm happy about the decisions I've made. Note: This is Part 1 of a series about my early choices in life which have gotten me to where I am today. If you're in...

Programmers are a tricky lot. We have a certain mental model of how things should work and we "hack" systems in order to make sure they fit our mental model instead of changing ourselves and our mental model to fit with existing systems. Programmers are the bureaucrat's worst nightmare -- our brains are wired to look at the rules and go "why?" and our immediate reaction to anything that's not at least optimal  is "well, that's stupid". If you have a programmer in your life -- a parent, sibling, cousin, partner, or friend -- it would help if you understood how most of programmers brains work. I would even say as far as certain kinds of people -- not necessarily programmers -- gravitate towards becoming programmers (or engineers, or any profession/occupation where it involves building systems or just rigorous analysis and design) so you may recognise these people. I know these things work really well for me so if you know someone like me it mig...

It's now the fall here down under and the weather has started to turn to the cooler side. Every day since the start of April the temperature has been dropping steadily during the day, the nights are getting longer, the clocks have adjusted, and now we're heading into a new season. Coming from the Philippines where there's no real season to speak of, I think having actual seasons is a welcome change. Having distinct transitions help with reflecting, remembering what has happened in the past few months, and looking forward to the future. Much has happened since I last wrote my thoughts down. Here's a list of things I can remember distinctly that I'd like to share: We've moved house. This is the third unit we've moved into and we're now back to getting ample space to move around and grow into. I liked the cozy feel of the last unit we've lived in but I definitely welcome space. Our church has celebrated its 8th year anniversary. The celebration s...

I took my time in writing a new entry into this blog and I wanted to give an update on what's been going on. 2012 has been a good year for me and I hadn't been writing a lot since the start of that year. I'm not suddenly going to change this as I've found different outlets for expressing myself -- there's the exercise, my open source work, being effective at the work I do, and service in church. In this post I look back at 2012 not in a comprehensive manner but in a high level. I also set up the coming decade with a theme and direction that more suits my passions and strengths. There are a few things in 2012 that stuck out in my head. There were a lot of firsts for me that have to do with health and fitness. I ran City2Surf and did it under my target time which was my first ever running event. I lifted weights that I never thought I could do. There's a lot of things I did at work that I cannot share but were very significant for me. I bought my first electric ...

There's a cliché that goes something like "Every journey starts with a single step"  and I think it's not been said enough. Thanks to the messages of encouragement and support I've received from friends and family from all parts of the world my journey towards better coping and moving on is well under way. Before I go any further I would like to say thank you to everyone who prayed and sent their well wishes for us . I am humbled and grateful for the support I have received from all those who took the time to help me feel better. The first step for me was trying to figure out how I really felt. I couldn't do this while there were a lot of things going on around me. I needed to step away -- literally, took myself out alone for a long run -- and clear my mind. I had a lot of questions but not many answers. This journey I took alone for a couple of hours allowed me to breathe, get tired, feel pain, and identify how I really felt. I couldn't write about how ...

I've not been writing for a long time already but this time I can't keep this to myself. There's been too much happening to me and my family the past few days that I need an outlet. I've tried talking it out, being silent, and crying it out. Right now though I'm numb. I don't know whether I can keep this to myself and if I do I don't think it will be a good thing. Maybe other people have had the same experience or at least gone through the same thing. Maybe just the act of writing this out is going to be enough to make me feel something. There was a time in my life that I had thought I've been through everything. I thought everything that can happen to me would be something I can deal with. There was no doubt in my mind that I can handle anything. Unfortunately this latest one that happened to me and my wife wasn't something I was prepared for. Nor was I ready to deal with it in a manner that was controlled or well-thought out. I thought maybe if I...