Are Dreams Pursued or Do They Find Us?

When we were kids, we were told to always follow our dreams. We were taught to be persistent and ever let anything get in your way. It is just like what Aristotle said that the goal of mankind is to be happy. We work for good health, wealth and knowledge because these resources are our avenues to happiness - avenues to our dreams. But do we really pursue these dreams or do they find us? To restate the question more clearly, are we really going after the right kind of happiness?

Some people are fortunate enough to know what they really want and be able to pursue it. Galileo wanted to prove the copernican theory so much that even on his grave, he did not let the church authorities stand between him and his dream. Some individuals find their dreams by accident. Take Isaac Newton for example. He wanted to show that he is better than his other classmates. He studied to hard that he was able to unlock his genius in mathematics and became the father of calculus. Not only did he do well in those fields but he thrived and became one of the most respected scientists in history. There is, however, there are unfortunate (and probably common) instances that people sacrifice their dreams for something else. It could be because of a realization that they are really happier and better in doing something else. Or worse, they are forced to abandon their dreams because of circumstances beyond their control. A person cannot fulfill his dream of becoming a doctor because of financial concerns. A worker gives up pursuing his dream job and tries to go after any job because of an unemployment crisis. I myself cannot anymore fulfill my dream of working in a lab because of serious health issues. To summarize this entry, here are just some questions I leave for you:

1. Does everything really fall into place as if to fulfill a "greater plan"? Do you believe that people can stumble upon their happiness by accident? Do dreams find us?

2. With so many things to do and to try out, how do you find your happiness when your time on this planet is limited?

3. Is your duty (to family, to God, to society, etc) enough reason to give up your dreams? Is it right to give up your happiness to serve a higher purpose? This is just like what the church teaches us about sacrificing our personal wants and taking the "road less traveled"

With so much possibilities that a person can take at this age of his life and the fact that his every action affects others, the pressure to make the right decisions is overwhelming. Just thinking about it makes it very tempting to hide and shut oneself away from the world. Unfortunately, one can only run but cannot hide forever...

What to do next... ?

I have to admit that graduating from college is one of the frightening things I'm going to encounter. What's worrying is not what's going to happen during graduation but what I'm about to face afterwards. I still consider myself very fortunate though because I have friends from high school and college who went ahead of me into the real world and I had the opportunity to ask advice from them. I'm not totally clueless as to what I would do though. I have a short list of possibilities although most of them are far-fetched...

1. Further studies: get another degree - to be honest, my supersenior year didn't end with a bang... more of a sad, silent fizz. I didn't get much of a chance to try out my business idea due to bad decisions (a lot on my part) and acting too slow on opportunities. I also didn't learn anything from my LS class since we were bombarded with lots of extra activities that didn't help in the learning process at all (estrat and company audit). Most of all, our prof decided to cancel our regular class sessions to make way for more field work and consultation periods - BIG MISTAKE! So I'm thinking of getting another degree in another school where they specialize in business... but that means taking off 2-3 years off my future.

2. Starting my own business.. immediately - Fat chance of this happening! But I'm not closed to this idea. Heck no! This is what I really want! Since getting a job is difficult at these times because of the economic recession, I might be forced to start a small (and I do mean small) business. But obviously, the risks are higher.

3. Find a job - this is self-explanatory. nuff said

4. Migrate abroad - Yes I have considered studying abroad and being a permanent resident. Of course it's nice to work instead but again, the recession is so bad that jobs are being lost instead. But being a student first and working my way to become a permanent resident is a more "systematic" and gradual way of earning a citizenship. I don't want to throw away my Filipino citizenship so I might go to a country that offers dual citizenship... But since I have such a strong attachment to home, thinking about migrating alone is already difficult enough. But I feel that I'm not doing much with my life. My friends are right. I don't have much "adventure" carved out in my personal history. Maybe it's time to take chances. Maybe it's time to step out of my comfort zone.

So many choices... so little time. Sometimes I'm tempted not to do a anything at all. But just like what the communications officer said in Valkyrie, "We can't be neutral anymore. We have to make a decision!"

What my name means (Not so surprising, really. Ha ha)

What Richard Alpert Means

You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something. You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense. You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. You are very open. You communicate well, and you connect with other people easily. You are a naturally creative person. Ideas just flow from your mind. A true chameleon, you are many things at different points in your life. You are very adaptable. You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out. Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia. Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are balanced, orderly, and organized. You like your ducks in a row. You are powerful and competent, especially in the workplace. People can see you as stubborn and headstrong. You definitely have a dominant personality. You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is. You are influential and persuasive. You tend to have a lot of power over people. Generally, you use your powers for good. You excel at solving other people's problems. Occasionally, you do get a little selfish and persuade people to do things that are only in your interest. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life. You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home. You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Here's something new in school...

Situated in a corner on the ground floor of the MVP is a curious cabinet called the Honesty Store. The name alone should give away its purpose for existence. The cabinet is filled with all sorts of snacks labeled with corresponding prices and there is also a small tin box where you place your payment. Whoever owns the Honesty Store trusts that its customers will pay the exact amount, will not steal any inventory and especially will not take the cash box (I think the box is not even chained to the cabinet). Its purpose is to cultivate and instill the said value on the customers. But I wonder if it actually works?











I must say the store is quite popular to the students. Some of them get a kick out of the fact that there is no salesperson guarding the store. So far there are no known incidents occurring yet... and for good reasons. The store is located on one of the most populated and high-traffic areas of the University. If you have any evil intentions on the defenseless store, you'll certainly consider theft a suicide because you have this many people who can testify against you.

(The picture may show only a few people but when I was there, there were really a lot more than that)

If you really have an evil bone in your body or a kleptomania disorder, the Honesty store seems more and more of a trap, don't you think? =P

Is Poverty a Blessing in Disguise?

Before anything else I would like to say first that I obviously don't approve of poverty, hunger and the violence that goes along with it. However, it does provide certain conditions that push other people to start their own business. These conditions, no matter how harsh, sometimes still bring out the entrepreneure in an individual.

In countries like the Philippines, there is generally a poor quality of education. This translates to fewer opportunities in the competition for employment. A person cannot easily get a decent job that pay considerably well since it demands great skills and high levels of professionalism. With nowhere to turn to, the person relies on himself to alleviate his life from the hardships of reality. They are almost immediately ready to take the risks since they are faced with very few or no choices at all. This is where the spirit of entrepreneurship comes in. One is able to be his own boss and make money in the process. Ofcourse having an enterpreneural mindset is one thing. Being able to grow and succeed is another. Not everyone who starts their own business succeeds - that's a fact. I cannot deny that there is still the need for education (formal or not) to complement this enterprising spirit. They still need to learn the tricks of the trade and transform situations to their own advantage. They need to know how to direct their business well so it won't crash and burn.

That's what I see with entrepreneureship and poverty. Some people are fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be their own boss even if they didn't intend to. The socioeconomical conditions brought by poverty can awaken the entrepreneure inside them. But to have this drive is not enough. Having both the passion and a proper direction means that half of the battle is already won.

Thoughts of a person with too much free time

What do you plant to produce seedless grapes?

If you delete a file in the recycling bin, where does it go? Does a full computer memory disk weigh heavier than an empty one?

When you're inside a grocery and you take items from another person's cart, is it considered stealing? After all, neither of you has paid for the item yet, right?. Of course society will mark you as an idiot or a total jerk, but can they mark you as a thief?

Taking a break from work

So what's up with my life lately? I just celebrated my birthday last Saturday and got an awesome Nintendo Gameboy SP from my mom. My sis gave me this cool Rin Tosaka action figure from the Anime Fate Stay Night. It's just a shame that I'm not able to fully enjoy those gifts since I've been cramming my 200 hours of OJT time in just a span of a few weeks. I need to finish it in time before the school starts. I'm working at the Quality Assurance Laboratory of Pure Foods, by the way. The plant is located in Marikina City which is convenient since I know that place like the back of my hand. The QA department normally hires licensed chemists and engineers but I think a person with a MAC degree is qualified as well. Although there might be some restrictions to what such a graduate can do since they are not licensed to sign forms and make recommendations.

Something I always wanted to do

We all have a childhood dream and more often than not, these dreams are far too wild and outrageous to achieve. Some people are actually lucky enough to achieve theirs. I'll be honest with you. Working in an office or laboratory and playing around with science is not my actual goal. But due to a lot of practical realizations, it turned out to be the next best thing. When I was a child, I always wanted to be an aircraft pilot. But not just any pilot - a fighter pilot. Civilian aircraft pilots have too much responsibilities that I don't want to handle like taking care of live cargo, which we often refer to as human passengers. Fighter pilots, however, handle jets that are small, highly maneuverable and, best of all, insanely fast. When you fly, there is only the heavens above you and the earth below you. The sky is practically your own playground. Because of the vast space the sky offers, you can go breaking sound barriers and do sharp dives, climbs and rolls.

But despite all the adrenaline rush, flying has its own hazards mainly plunging towards the earth and crashing. This is why I resort to the next best thing - playing flight simulator games. With the arrival of supercomputers and sophisticated software, simulated flight becomes as good as the real thing. The only difference is that there is no risk of crashing and you can redo your flights as often as you like.

We all have a childhood dream. What's yours?

Decisions decisions...

I've been looking around for some new gadgets in Green Hills when this new computer caught my attention. It's Blue's answer to the Asus EEEPC - the DEEP BLUE H1 UMPC, another model of Mobile PC.

The laptop has a greater memory capacity, a faster processor speed and it has the features the EEEPC has. Here are the specs of each computer:

Deep Blue H1
Processor speed: 1.0Ghz
Hard disk: 40GB SSD
Memory: 1GB DDR2
Built in speaker, mic and web cam
Screen size 7" LCD
Weight: 1.2 Kgs
Selling price range: PHP16K-18.5K

Asus EEEPC
Processor speed: 900Mhz
Hard disk: 4GB Flash memory
Memory: 512Mb DDR2
Built in speaker, mic and web cam
Screen size 7" LCD
Weight: 0.92 Kgs
Selling price range: PHP16K-18.5K

At first glance it looks more powerful and a better deal than the EEEPC... or is it?

The H1 definitely wins by it's greater memory size but it's the processor which makes it questionable. The H1 runs on a VIA C7-M while the EEEPC runs on an Intel Celeron 900. The VIA brand is new to me so I've been reading though some forums to get some feedback from the users. Unfortunately some reviews contradict each other. Some say that the VIA is more energy efficient while others say that it consumes so much power that it can cause the system to overheat. Some even say that the VIA must clock in at an insane speed of 2.0Ghz just to match the speed of a 900Mhz Intel Processor (Whut?). Intel is seen in the industry as the "Rolls Royce" of processors so the memory of the EEEPC is sacrificed. This makes the VIA processor look like a weaker contender and less valuable. So which Mobile PC is more practical? I can't really say for now. If any of my readers have any opinion on this please shed some light on this topic. Feed backs are greatly appreciated. Thanks

Never say goodbye

It's 11:20am. In a few hours, the entire MAC block will receive their diplomas and will be saying their final goodbyes to the school but hopefully not to each other. I wish I could be there during their graduation ceremony but I don't think I can handle being there without crying *sob*.

Asus EEPC... WANT!

The progress of technology sure is fast. IT companies have been flooding the Philippine market with lots of low-cost computers. The image of laptops and PDA's as luxury items is slowly becoming a thing of the past. Just recently, I saw this awesome laptop in an Octagon Computer store. It's the Asus EEPC, a low-cost and portable computer. I want to call it a portable computer because it's smaller than your average laptop. Don't believe me? Here are some pictures.

Zero is the only number...

For some reason, the number zero became the favorite name or addition to a title. From airplanes to video game heroes an even food, the number was used repeatedly.

Why do they like using the number zero? Is it because of the sound of its name? Or is it because of it attributes a sense of mystique since the number is associated with nothingness and void? The reasons may be unending but one thing is for sure. Zero is the only number you don't want on your test paper.

Killing time

Just killing some time by surfing the Blogthings website. I took some random personality tests and here's something that had an interesting result :D

Slowing down

Last week was a real hell week. I had a long test in physical chem, I stayed up the entire night to finish a lab report, I made an outline for Theology class and I even had to negotiate with the Chemistry department stock room for our supplies for next week. Fortunately I passed the long test *whew* and our group was able to submit the lab report in time. What really wore me out was the research we had to do for our next lab experiment. In just a single day I had to run back and forth from the library, to the stock room and to the faculty room just to get our prelab approved. Luckily I was able to secure the reagents and equipment with the technician before the week was over. After that day, I was surprised that there were very few assignments left to do. The amount of school work flowing towards me suddenly slowed down. This coming Monday is even a holiday for our school, which means a long weekend. This long break is just what the doctor ordered for us students who are stressed out.

A Caturday Post - somethin' special

Not As They Seem

Meeting you was
Not the best thing that happened to me
Losing trust and hating you was

Give up
I believe there isn’t any reason for me to
Keep myself open to you
I would just
Hold on to my pride and leave
Because it would be unreal to
Forgive you for hurting me
I am always ready to
See you suffer
I couldn’t stand to
Let go of my anger
Because you showed me hatred, I must
Hate you back
But I can’t
Ignore how disappointing you turned out to be
It was easy not to
Look immediately at your true self
It’s a shame that I couldn’t
Make you the person I wanted you to be
It was wrong to
Abhor me for I loved you for your indescribable beauty

Your loyalty and truthfulness are
Not important

Your gorgeous face and angelic looks are

Hold It!

Who told you to read the entry from top to bottom?
As the title says, things are not as they seem.
Read each line again and this time, start from the bottom and read upwards.

One Liners

One of the requirements for our Laboratory reports is citing the sources of errors of our experiment. Instead of doing so, I wrote there, "Why would I admit my mistakes?"

During the first day of classes, my teacher handed out index cards and told us to write the name we wanted to be called so I wrote there, "The emperor of the world" :P

My teacher gave me a Philosophy book, an orange hi-lighter and told me to hi-light the statements I couldn't understand. The next day, he looked at the book and said, "I don't remember giving you a book with orange pages!"

Go Figure...

Me and a couple of my friends were one day thinking about reaching out to the marginalized people in society. Among the groups that top our list are the pessimists and procrastinators. They are the ones that need a lot of help so that they can be productive members of society. We then thought of holding seminars to give talks and inspire them to consider and change their ways. Of course preparing these conferences have their corresponding cost.

The cost will come from renting the venue. Not to mention the complementary refreshments and miscellaneous supplies. Mailing letters, pamphlets and advertisements will also contribute to it.

And what about the idea of having a conference itself? Some might think it's not a good idea. We could be only wasting our time. What if nobody shows up? What will we do if the food and supplies go to waste?

The idea will probably be ridiculed anyway and we might not properly monitor the project. We'll just end up putting all of our work for tomorrow....

Because of these frustrating possibilities, we decided to abandon the idea.

Go Figure...

Thirst for Knowledge and Wisdom

They always say that mankind is in constant search for knowledge. He has this unquenchable thirst for answers to questions that don't seem to stop popping out of his mind. Let's take a look at the mediums, devices and people that human beings approach to seek wisdom throughout history...

Prehistoric Era:

Tribesmen consulted heavenly objects like the sun, moon and stars. They looked for patterns and signs in nature and interpreted them as messages from the gods.

Ancient Scandinavia, Egypt and Greece:

During the times of these ancient civilizations, they have groups of people that specialize in reading these signs in nature, which they call magicians, oracles and prophets. They are believed to be the mediator between heaven and the mortal world. In some civilizations, it is even believed that they have the ability to see the future.

China and India:

This maybe true even today in India, China and other Buddhist countries. These nations highly value and prioritize philosophy in their culture. As a result master monks and teachers, housed in institutes of learning, are the very sources of wisdom.

Dark Ages (Europe):

This was the era dominated by religious fanaticism in Europe. The Christian Church was the institution that held most of the techniques and know-hows that the people needed to survive. From the basic knowledge of crop rotation, to the books of prayers and spiritual exercises. The people were dependent on these information that is why the common attitude back then was submission to authority.

Renaissance:

It was a time of enlightenment. The rapid spread of information encouraged the people to engage in the sciences and arts. Poets wrote books, musicians composed songs and inventors created gadgets that revolutionized the way they lived. You could say that in this time period, mankind was able to answer his own question by himself and through his own efforts.

17th - 20th Century (especially 1939 - 1945)

Since mankind learned how to grab hold of and shape his surroundings according to his will, they sought for a leader to make them fabricate the entire world according to their will. A leader capable and wise enough to answer how they can turn their dreams into reality. However, most of the leaders that they chose went overboard and instead poisoned their minds with the wrong information. Nations waged war with other nations for the sake of conquest. Instead of achieving their dreams, the people ended up as mere pawns for this global fabrication that never came true anyway. They only became victims of war and violence. None of their questions were answered and ironically, it even raised more of it.

Present Day (21st Century)

This is the ultimate source of answers for the people of the 21st century: