Today, my brother commented that I could start writing(professionally), judging from my entries, and from my recent works with the new site. I think I could pull that off. I figured I’ve already tried out most things in my life, might as well add writing to that, right?

Seriously, I just found writing to be a good outlet of my thoughts, which is the same perspective I have for my sketching. Starting out as a hobby and then getting myself to this point, I feel that it’s as if circumstance has given me the gift of responsibility.

You see, the thing about the written word is that ideas(whether it be good or bad) are believed by people when they are placed on paper. The power of the immortalized word is so great that it seeps into the public consciousness over time. Sadly, most of the ideas that get through are instrumental to pushing the envelope of morality.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But it is not just an instrument of evil but of life as well. A great burden is given to each one who wields its power.

Money is liquid asset. It doesn’t matter how much one has, it can be exhausted faster than it can be earned, ten-fold.

I should know, I once went from a high paying job to getting a net salary of less than 2k (bad case of giving too much to your family, shortly after my Father died). I can be very frugal, to a point of being shrewd. But I think that I’ve achieved that state where my frugality doesn’t affect my spending behavior. It that was last year when I hit that point. Thinking back, the main driving principles I had were these, in the order of importance:

Be organized with your finances. I always keep a notebook where I do my accounting and calculation of my bills versus my net salary. I use a steno notebook because it’s lightweight and thin. It’s part of my daily inventory, so that whenever I have free time, say I’m waiting for a friend in a coffeeshop, I can just take it out and do the numbers. PDAs and other electronics don’t cut it, I think, the handwritten word is still the best.
Pay yourself first. I got myself to doodle this all over my budget notebooks. This is the rule I live by with my finances, and has made me close most of my plastic money last year, and all the remaining ones are zero-balanced to date. This means that before anything else, prioritize first and foremost the payment of your liabilities. That also means that you give a big chunk to pay creditors, before dividing the rest. For me, that meant giving up my bonuses to pay off my credit cards at that time.
Put the “Pay yourself first” principle in mind when buying. Do you know that the Philippine Government, by virtue of law, uses 50% of the yearly Budget to pay our international debt? If you don’t want to pay big, don’t buy big, enough said.
Avoid impulse buying. This is the rule I break most of the time, but the previous rule is my failsafe. Practice this: when you see something you want, let a day pass before you come back to buy the item.
If you have to shop, schedule it every quarter. I do a one-time shopping-spree every quarter of the year (approximately everytime the new line comes out, can you say BIG SALE!). If it has to be status shopping, meaning you want people to oohh and aahh at your affluent ways, better it be once every 90 days. They won’t notice that it was three months ago since you were sosi. You will be permanently tagged as such.

The idea is to be a sensible consumer. What does everyone know about dieting? Starving yourself is not the way. Now if I can only apply this to my eating, hmmm…

Am I crazy or what? Yesterday I was as low-key as ever. Today was good, I never knew coding would make me happy. I am nothing if not a computer nerd

Seriously, my day started out quite lonely with the feelings I had from yesterday. But Jeff was right. First thing this morning I decided to take charge of my day. No one was going to take the sunshine away from me. Self-motivation is key.

But the day wasn’t without flaws though. People you trust, people you are comfortable spending time with, forgetting you is always a bummer. But I thought, “whatever, you people are not important enough for me…”, I guess it’s my self-motivation’s snowball effect.

There are two types of downers, the controllable ones and the circumstances beyond your control. Ignore the latter and focus on the ones you can do something about.
-JPCS National Leadership Training, Baguio City

Its wierd but, right now I feel like I’m stuck, suffocating in something intangible. I feel like I’m trapped here, and I can’t do anything about it… and worse, it feels as if I placed myself in this situation, in this void of a life.

I need to reflect on this. Whatever is causing me to feel this way needs to be resolved quick. I feel like I’m going to breakdown soon.

It’s like I’m drowning and nobody’s here to help me. No one to reach out to…

It’s one of those low days again (guys help!), the worst one I’ve had in a long time.

My Pictures can be viewed at JAZZ21′S Photos.

Legoland, where Stuart, Arlyn and I did our GEEK SHOPPING SPREE!!! I finally have a Robotics Invention System, woohoo!

“Why do people die?”, one asks… “To make life important.”, the other answers.

Life is important. It needs to be appreciated, not only for the good times but also for the bad times that make us strong.

I used to live by the belief that people are placed here on earth to experience sensations: of love, hate, both the good and the bad. Somewhere along the way I forgot that. But I’m ready to believe in it again.

The Light is not just at the end of the tunnel, its also in each one who walk towards it.

There’s a flower in the smallest garden, reaching for the light…
There’s a candle in the darkest corner, conquering the night…
There’s a power in the faintest heartbeat, that cannot be denied…
There’s a fire inside of everybody, burning clear & bright.
- Billy Gilman

Being far from the people you trust, from your place of solitude, from your sanctuary, its funny how each step and each small choice you have to make somehow becomes a big chore for you.

I remember back home, after all the aches and pains in the office, the stressful days, the hard decisions made and sometimes humiliating moments, it was always a relief that at the end of the day, I could retreat to my home. My house is in the middle of the city. But somehow it feels like the countryside, with it being tucked inside a compound, hidden from the main roads of the village. You hear no cars and no sound from passers-by.

My space, the common room that was once bustling with people chattering (there were a lot of people living there before), is now a silent place. It is where I sit to contemplate about the events of the day.

My space always put the complications of life in a better perspective, making the crazy part of it more bearable.

When people stumble on to a sudden rise in cash inflow (inheritance, significant pay-rise, etc.), how do they normally react to that situation?

I think you can divide these groups of people into two. The ones who can handle it, and the ones who can’t.

The first ones are usually not new to this thing. Most of them have already counted their first million, and so this is just another trip around the block. They don’t see their lives changed by material things. As a result, they don’t have a drastic change of outlook. They view it like an extra icing on the cake… No big deal.

The second group is more interesting. They are the ones who think that they are well-off now, that because they earn more they are above the rest. They might not admit it consciously but it is developed in their persona, to a point that people notice. In most cases, you see the financial behavior of this people spin out of control such that when the flux of cash inflow is gone they find it difficult to go back to their frugal spending habits. As far as damages go, money is the least to worry about. The arrogance and lack of consideration these people develop will start to cut them off from their friends.

Remember, material things help the living survive. But food, shelter… they only sustain the body, the shell of the person. Its the non-material things that make us human.

Force is finally online! But a lot is still in the works. Only the frontpage and the guestbook is functional as of yet. Thanks Aki for the effort!

View the page here. Watch out for updates.

I mentioned them in my last entry. I think I should just talk about them and try to give justice to what this group means to me.

A Bytekeeper is a status symbol. Being a Bytekeeper meant that you are one of the best in your field, and you have to be at par (with relative magnitude) with the other members in terms of success, confidence or knowledge. Being a Bytekeeper during college meant that you had an enormous potential to live up to.

Here are the surviving members of the group:
Edward M. - Internet Security/Hacking
Jeff S. - Systems Analysis and Design
Rom F. - Programming/Project Management/Software Development
Yuki F. - Macromedia Technology/Multimedia
Alex P. - Dubbed Leader of the Group/SQL/Database Mgt./Software Development
Sam S. - Web Development/Web Entrepreneurship
Angelo S. (moi!) - Multimedia/Web Development

Unlike your average group, we did not have humble beginnings. The Dean of Computer Studies in my College wanted to get together a group of students who showed skill in the different fields of Computer Science. So from the recommendations of the teachers, and in my case my winning of the Web Page Competition a year before, the PROGRAMMER’S POOL was formed. Months after, when the infamous Love Bug Virus struck (from our College I might add) the group was commissioned to help find a solution for it. After that, everybody realized that there really was great potential in this group, an almost tangible potential. We knew that the group would go beyond the College, so we needed a name. Originating from the fact that we started out as 8 (a full byte has 8 bits) and that the turning point was to put a stop to a virus (a keeper of cyber integrity), it was not hard to see where Bytekeepers came from.

I remember once, I had this student. He was a nice guy, polite, respectful, one that you would expect from an educated person with good breeding. I was their Thesis A instructor then, and had a lot of one-on-one interaction with my students. So I got to know a lot of them, and I was a very involved instructor such that they had my contact numbers and everything. Anyway, by the end of the term I was friends with this student of mine. We would check up on each other from time to time, and at times he’d drive me home from school, or from the office when I quit my job as instructor.

During the time my Dad died, he had been there to console me. He was one of those few people who would be there to be my sounding board. Oftentimes I would be venting out my frustrations and sadness over the course of my grief. It was shortly after that time when I felt that I had to take a course of action for my career. So I decided to take his thesis and offered to help him with it. I needed the test-run, to see if I could pull it off. More importantly I wanted to help a friend.

I remember asking Jeff what he thought about it. He said it would be good for me(my career in the long run), but wasn’t sure about this guy’s intentions of befriending his once teacher. Trusting as I am I told him my case of why I think this student was not using me or anything. After all, I was the one who offered, I said. My friends, knowing how stubborn I am with trying to stick to my (more often than not flawed) instincts, discussed it but weren’t vigilant about making me drop my would-be friend. They knew me well.

As the software and the documentation of the thesis was almost complete, my doubts grew more and more. To top it off, I was guilty for having these doubts about him. As usual I would discuss this to my long time friends (The Bytekeepers!) about what they think about this. Jeff said point blank that even if this friend’s intentions were valid, he didn’t think he could maintain the ties that we had after this endeavor(the Thesis) was over. A case of the having all the intentions but not the will.

Suffice it to say, shortly after this friend graduated, we slowly but surely lost ties with one another. Yes, we’d still talk at times until now but that rapport never did come back. I called him recently and he said to call again after a time. I was taken aback by that one, I thought: “I’m here abroad and I made the effort to call, don’t you get it?” After that call I decided to delete his number for the time being. If the chance was there then we’d be able to keep contact again. But not now. Overall, it was not healthy for anyone to keep a one-way friendship especially being far away from home. I needed friendships that were self-affirming.

In retrospect I wonder… Do they start out with good intentions and I just somehow corrupt them by trying to help them?

I love, love, love Paris. Dream come true!!!

No! Not the show! I’m talking about the disorder(uhhumm, the mental disorder?!). I seem to have fallen under the growing population of slighty Obsessive Compulsive young people walking around the earth.

O.C. - is a medical brain disorder that causes problems in information processing. It is as though the brain gets stuck on a particular thought or urge and just can’t let go. - Obsessive Compulsive Foundation

Ok so now that I know its an actual mental disorder, I’m starting to worry about getting it. Is worrying about getting O.C. disorder a symptom of O.C.? Argh, this is a paradox. Seriously, I’m really forgetful by nature, that’s why I’ve learned to check and most of the time, recheck whether I’ve left something and the like. I think its better to describe it as being detail-oriented, any objections?

Here is a picture of the group from Poker Night last April 2 at Scott and Monika’s apartment. We really are perfecting those group picture poses, aren’t we?