Mental Blabberings

Due to my best friend's irreristable demand, I am updating my blog. I have had a lot of things happening to me the past few weeks that aren't really for public consumption, but I remembered that hey, I've never card if it's for public consumption then, why should I care now? And thus the story of the geek lost in the city is told. Oh wait, I haven't started yet! :D Let's start with the most monetarily satisfying week of my early career. I know there are things I can talk about and others that I can talk about, so let me talk about those that I can talk about. First payoff: teaching engagement. Taught for three days at a training center, and made q considerable amount of money -- had high ratings, and thus had a high pay rate. Second payoff: software development project. I met with the project lead, and wasn't expecting much -- until I got paid a considerable amount of time for the work that I have done and will be doing for the next few days. Both these payo...

How do you learn to juggle 2 jobs you really like? Factor in a social life you just recently worked on? How about financial woes and reliefs? Obligations? Responsibilities? Enjoyment? Love? These are the things I have to deal with whenever I step out of the house, and into the real world. I've been so "at-home" in an ivory tower of academic engagement in UPLB, that now stepping into the real world is something I have to learn. Maybe I've had a taste of the real world while I was in UPLB -- relationships, all kinds of people, and mostly matters that dealt with emotions and thoght. But after a few months here in Manila, I feel like a freshman still in this thing called the real world. Or maybe this is just Manila, and the real world is somewhere else? I'll let you know when I find out. All the different people to meet, to deal with, and to learn from. All the different sights to see and to be part of. All the lives to know and be a part of. It's all new to me, a...

Right now, I'm writing this post while I'm at the comfort of the room where there's airconditioning this time of the year. Although it's been raining here in the Philippines, this room turns into an oven just a couple of minutes of no moving fresh air. And circulating hot air gives the feeling of a convection oven, which doesn't help. I've been living in Manila since November, and I'm beginning to miss the province -- although not too much to make me want to go home. I miss the trees, and the very fresh air, and the carefree attitude of the people around me -- somehow I understand partly why they are enjoying themselves while the town I'm from is still stuck in the '70s. All this time in Manila, and no internet access from home is not an easy thing to take. Especially for someone like me who has been living on the net for close to three years already. Having to deal with no internet access at home is something I learned to do especially since I can g...

I am now "officially" an insomniac. Well, not really -- but I can say this now because I rarely sleep, and when I do usually I sleep for long hours -- too long for my own sake. So what's been keeping me up? Here are a few links I'd like to share with the world: MTC -- the premiere online community for manilenios and manilenias. That's one reason why I've been up most of the time trying to catch up with friends also on the boards. Blogger -- my blogging service of choice, especially due to the convenient nature of the interface to blogging, and to the rich feature set for the blogs they offer for free! :D Trun -- my "pet" project born out of necessity for my current company. It's something I've been working on and figuring out how else I can imrove it and my C++ skills. WWE -- a guilty pleasure. I watch this instead of the Pinoy telenovelas, and I get a better kick out of it than watching wusses cry their eyes out on TV. TopCoder -- not t...

I've had a great past week, but I've currently been having financial challenges which I have not anticipated since I started working here in Manila. Apparently, I don't have savings since I started working, and I'm still down in debt. Right now I need a sideline, one which will allow me to live the life I live. And apparently, not too many "rackets" out there allow me to use my C++ knowledge. It's all in PHP, Java, .NET, even PERL. And it usually requires too much time or my presence somewhere else. Do you know any projects that need programmers in C++ or Java? Cash seems to be very hard to come by these days. And we all know how hard it is when you don't have cash. I have got to get a racket someday. Or a job with higher pay. :D CHill...

SourceForge.net: Project Info - Timed Runner Wee! It's up now, and I need a little help with a few things like: 1. The website -- I don't have condfidence in my web design skills, so I would much rather have someone with more artistic and creative taste to handle that stuff. 2. The documentation -- I don't have a lot of time on my hands to write documentation regarding the tool, and in some distributions it's required for users to be able to read even minimalistic documentation. 3. Reviews -- I don't have the time and confidence to review my own work and people who actuall use these tools might be more able to put feature requests and additional information regarding the development of the tool. Maybe other developers might want to join in and add features on their own, just email me or go to the link on the page to get information regarding how to register at sourceforge (if you're not already registered) and/or contribute to the development tea...

I've recently been getting busy getting hooked to one of the hippest online community for Filipinos living in and around (even outside of) Manila. And boy have the people at MTC got a night life! I thought the days of just hanging out getting drunk in UPLB in a regular fashion just for the hang of it is over, but I was surprised that people actually get to do that on a regular basis happily! Now if that doesn't sound like a place I'd want to be in, or a group I'd want to be affiliated with, then I don't know. I am after all a member of the UPLB Computer Science Society, who among all people (geeks) have a reputation for very very prolonged drinking sessions. Maybe not all people in COSS are geeks, but boy are we a bashful group. The gimmicks aren't the finest things in life -- no fancy wines/dinners, no need to dress up, and no pretensions just sit around drink to your hearts' and pockets' delight fun. I suggest every warm blooded manilenyo and provinci...