Last Two Minutes

I started writing this on New Year’s eve and planned to post it before the 1st of January. Alas! I fell asleep and got a lot of house chores to do.

Went down to Starbucks this afternoon to get my daily dose of caffeine. Saw the cute barista there. She was not pretty but she has that really cute smile. Never really talked to her before except for one time when she remarked that I’m a regular customer. I did not see her for a few months. After Christmas she was back. Anyway while she was collecting empty glasses I was able to muster the courage to say hi and talk…

Alan: Hi!

Girl: Hello. What are you doing this evening?

Alan:(did not expect the question) err.. dinner with friends. How about you?

Girl: Playing mahjong with my friends.

Alan: You were gone for a long time?

Girl: Yeah. was in HK for vacation. Its my last day now working here.

Alan: Where are you working next?

Girl: Going to study. School will start.

blah blah blah

Girl: Ok see you around!

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I so blew it up. I did not ask for her number when I should have. Either I’m not really too keen on it at that moment or I’m just a bit concerned that if she says no, the whole office will know because I am with my officemate at that time.

I remember an actor saying that what wins an Oscar are those scenes that made a lasting impression, not the whole two hour of movie.  If there is any consolation because of my lack of courage and wit at least I have a good “scene” before the year ended.

Damn that smile.

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I did not know how it started but I was discussing Star Trek with one of my officemate. I’m not a Trekkie. But I do watch some Star Trek episodes and movies once in a while. The Borgs are cool. And I never knew that there were a species stronger than them until I started to read wikipedia.

After a while the conversation drifted into girls. My officemate remarked that I should not be that nerdy and all. Discussing Star Trek with my eyes lighting up like a child gives that nerdy signal. Totally unattractive to girls. I casually remarked “I won’t sell my soul”.

*BTW there is a new Star Trek movie in 2009 with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto(Sylar in Heroes) as a younger Kirk and Spock. That would be interesting.

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When it rains it pours. My latest project was a disaster. From lousy requirements, lousy execution, lousy configuration(my fault) and a lot of bad luck.  Up to the last week of deployment the directory where the application is supposed to be installed is not ready. On the day of the deployment itself the storage team needed to fix something. We deployed on the 11th hour, figuratively and literally.

It did not end there. Apparently I made a mistake in the configuration. A really big mistake. Good thing that the project was really not that critical.

Moral of the story: It does not matter if bad luck hits you one after the other. As long as you are lucky at the same time. It cancels out. Its like a basketball game wherein you just scored a point higher than your opponents. A win is a win. The score does not matter after it.

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For this new year I won’t have anything specific that I wanted to do. Except that I will work on something interesting. Geeky and and a bit work-related interesting kind of thing.

For 2009 I will just have some guidelines on how to live my life:

-As much as possible try new things. Don’t be uptight. Loosen-up a little. Don’t think that much. Just do it (and ask the number damn it).

-Be honest. Say what I really feel. Say what I want. Be who I am regardless of who I am with. If you are a jerk then be a jerk regardless of the people around you.

-Stop being conscious on what other people will tell or think. This is a bit related on the item above. But this merits a place on its own right.

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The last two months have probably the MOST impact for this year. So many things happened, from euphoria to sadness, from losing and gaining friends, from hero to goat. Its a seesaw of emotions, an oscillation of feelings. In the last two minutes of 2008, I came out alive. Scathed, but on top by a point.

I was not able to do my three wise men origami for our Christmas decoration. The diagram is a too hard for me. So I searched the net for an easier model but I could not find one. Tried to look for origami in the central library but its all loaned out. In the bookstores there is a christmas origami book. The three kings in the book is too simple though.

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Finally! I bought an MS Arc Mouse. The black variant has a better finish. But I was struck by school loyalty so I choose the maroon variant. I hope they will release a silver version though.

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I brought my mattress my old house to my room. The mattress that I have in my room is the spring type. Its a bit uncomfortable when you lie on it for a long time. The new owners will renovate the old house that we rented so they are giving away all the furnitures and appliances.

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Last year when I visited him he needed to hold on my shoulders to walk. He was too proud to bring his cane. He even flipped over when I tried to walk fast. That got me scared.  I heard a loud thud when he fell with his back first.

I had him called by their office receptionist. He was taking a long time to come out. Maybe his condition was a little bit worse than before. After twenty minutes of waiting, he finally got out. I was right. It got worse. He is now on a wheelchair. His motor skills are deteriorating.

I rolled him off the building. We were going to Teriyaki Boy at the gasoline station. It was opposite their building.  He was surprised that I know how to push a wheelchair. He told me that when he and his officemates go to KFC they just push him down on the slopes(when the slope is a bit steep its better to pull the wheelchair with the back first). I reminded him that my father is a paralytic.

While crossing the street I asked him what made him change job. The reason was growth. In his old job, all the code are splattered on one place. In his new job the codes are better and he was able to use different Java frameworks like Spring, Struts,  Acegi etc. I was surprised. Its as if he has no dilapidating condition.  He  is still thinking of growth. He is still thinking of his career. He is still upbeat on his future.

As we chat during lunch he is still as tactless and loud like before. He told me how his teammates were annoyed with him because he was telling them that they are contradicting what they say the day before. He even has this girl he was eyeing. He was actually eyeing two. But the other one is not giving him any attention.

Live your life as if this is your last day. Screw that. Today I learned to live your life as if you will live forever.

Weddings and Cynicism

My friend told me about the wedding she attended that made her cry. The couple told their story on how they met and the letters they wrote. As she was telling bits and pieces of the their story I can’t help but sigh. There is something so innocent and so true when you hear those stories. It’s like a time machine that takes you back to a time when you are not that jaded. Its an oasis in a barren and arid desert. Its a blackhole that tears reality and pulls you to a place where everything is well and good. For an instant in time, you want to throw away all your cynicism.

And sometimes you would want to stay in that place. Until life gives you a big kick and you will be hurled back to reality.

Sigh. So much for wedding stories.

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It also reminded me of my previous post on my previous blog:

There is something sweet with weddings. May it be simple or extravagant, civil or church, the simple exchange of “I do’s” can turn any cynical and jaded person believe that there is love.

This will probably rate as one of my shittiest week ever. We are days away on our second QA release and I forgot to run some of the old unit test in the code base that I was working on. Its not part of the module that I am working on and most of it is either incomplete or looking for something non-existent. The thing that I am angry about is the fact that I missed it. That I did not run the other test during the development phase. No point in delving over these things. But it made me a bit sad that I made that mistake.

If there is something that saved the week for me it is that I am now good in merging codes. Our release engineer told me that I can now work as a part-time release engineer(I promptly refused of course. I don’t want the pain of being a release engineer).

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If you want to read but you are eternally distracted(like me) or do not have the discipline to do so, try reading at the train. Yesterday I played badminton with my friends at a court that is an hour away(Almost crossed Singapore). I brought a book and was able to read a lot and concentrate better. In the train there is nothing to distract me and I have no other choice but to read.

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I watched Dan In Real Life this morning. Chris wrote some of the lines in her blog and got me interested on the movie. It was a about Dan, a writer and a widower, meeting a stranger in the bookstore where he instantly connected with her. Turned out that the stranger is his brother’s girlfriend and will be staying at their house for a week to meet the family.  One of the interesting scene is where the girl told Dan that all of his brother’s best lines were Dan’s(she read his book). She thought that it was Dan, through the lines used by Dan’s brother, that she loved. This reminded me of Cyrano de Bergerac. Do you love the person or his/her soul?

I met with some ex-officemates last week. We had the usual catching-up conversation. What struck me most was that they sometimes send Outlook invitation for lunch. The strange thing is(at least for me), they find it fun.

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I had my first QA release today. Its not production release but the stress is a bit high since the database change involved a very large table. One of the database scripts lasted for five hours. If there were problems, it was mostly on the process.

The change involves adding a column and adding some data. While testing the script I filled-up the transaction logs three times(requiring the DBAs to rollback) and dropped an index on the wrong database. I now have a notorious reputation with the DBAs.

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If one does not attach himself to people and desires, never shall his heart be broken. ….But then, does he ever truly live? I’d rather die a mortal, with a care for someone, than to live as an immortal free from his death.

-Lu Yan(Forbidden Kingdom)

The ironic thing about what Lu Yan(Jacky Chan) said is that he is a Buddhist. Buddhism teaches about detachment.

While we are at it, it is interesting that Christianity also teaches detachment(Luke 17:33 – Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it). I am not that familiar with other beliefs, but it would be interesting to learn if other beliefs also espouse detachment.

First time to get a turkey in bowling!(NT)

A quote from my farewell letter on my last day:

I believe that memories, more than achievements, is what life made of.
You can only brag about your achievements, but it will be the memories
you will cherish. Ten or twenty years from now when I look back at my
stint here, I will remember the friendships made, the laughter
and the “oh my god!*” that were said.

*favorite expression of our developers in Shanghai

I only have two adjectives for 2007. Dreary and monotonous. I never noticed that it passed by. Nothing significant happened.  Not that it bothered me. Its just that there is nothing exciting to write about.

For me, this year was about adjustments and acceptance. I am finally used to living alone. Although my laziness in ironing my clothes and lack of delicious food(masarap ang ulam sa bahay) is a strong reason for me to go back home, its still not enough. I still prefer my independence. The money here is also good. I can buy the books and the gadgets that I want.

Most people consider me a cynic. I am a realist actually. Many times I tried to be an optimist. I tried to have a more positive outlook in life and see the goodness in people. After some books on sociology, economics and marketing, I gave up being one. I think I now have a good understanding of human nature that made it hard for me to think that man is inherently good. Its hard to doublethink*. A realist would always be a realist. I will call it as I see it. I value the truth more than hope.

For something less somber here are some things I want to improve on or want to do in 2008:

• Photography – I can now understand basic exposures but I still clearly lack in the composition department. As much as possible, except for white balance adjustments, exposure compensation and some sharpening, I want to take good photos without that much post-processing.
• Cooking – I can now cook tinola. Unfortunately, thats all I know. I want to be half as good as my mom when it comes to cooking.
• Math – I want to read TAOCP(The Art of Computer Programming). My problem is that I am too weak at discrete math. I doubt if I can go past page one of that book.

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*Doublethink is reconciling two opposite thoughts like thinking black is white and white is black. The word came from the novel 1984.

Something to be merry this Christmas

…naka-siento ako sa Magic Sing kanina!

Hahahaha!

Pasensya na mababaw lang kaligayahan ko.