Wednesday, July 25, 2007

He Who Has Not Read It Yet

(Spoiler, WARNING: Please do not spoil me...)

Last night, I started reading Harry Potter (Book I). hahahahaha! I actually had read the first book before, but that was way back when I was still a freshman (5 years ago). I really like reading books. I think it's the default thing for me to do when I get bored (and have no internet access).

One of the reasons I did not read the Potter books before was because of it being too hyped. I don't like to read just because of a book's popularity and the want of being in. Just like in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, I read it only after it's peak. I actually have known Brown's book before it became controversial. Just when almost everybody tried to read it, I decided to skip and wait for all the fuss to pare down.

Now that the final installment of Harry Potter have been published, I think it's time (or too late?) for me to catch up. My primary reason for not being able to read Harry Potter books was mainly because I had no time. In college, I was only able to read books during semestral breaks. I tried reading a fiction book right in the middle of the semester once. I had a hard time finishing it because of incessant breaks. Sometimes, when the break reaches for days, I have to go back a few pages just to remember how the story flows.

Now, I have a complete set of Harry Potters in my virtual shelf -- my hard disk that is. Thanks to Norman, I got the latest ebook installment from him through the UP Circuit egroups. haha!

=====

I have always been a Simpsons fan. This is a yellow version of me c/o Simpsonize. ScIoN Simpson

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posted by ScIoN 3:33 PM |


Monday, July 23, 2007

[Food] Trip to Chinatown

Marien, a UP EEE batchmate, will be leaving for Singapore this 25th of July. She'll be a graduate student at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She was a Digital Signals Processing (DSP) lab student affiliate in UP. I forgot to ask if she would continue on that field; but surely, it has to be EEE-related.

Marien's 'pakain' was held at President's Restaurant, an authentic Chinese restaurant located at Ongpin St., Binondo, Manila. Most of us who were coming had no idea of the Chinatown area, we all agreed to meet at Taft, since we would go there via LRT1.

With my usual Saturdays at the Tennis Courts, I came all the way from UP towards the meeting place. I wasn't able to play tennis because of the TennisUP applicants' training in the morning, and the ocular inspection (for the acquaintance party site) after lunch. By 3pm, it already rained. It rained hard and was even accompanied with ice bits. When the weather became a bit fine at 430pm, I decided to at least have some jog around campus. By the near end of my first lap, it rained again.

It was already 5pm, and the meeting time was supposedly at 530. Thus, I just wiped myself and changed my wet shirt. I arrived at Taft at about 6pm, in shorts bringing along my racquet. It turned out that I wasn't the last one anyway. We waited for the 'Pisay' people who just came from the premiere of the movie about their high school.

Coming from the Carriedo drop-off station, we walked the whole stretch of Ongpin St. until we finally found our destination. The long walk was worth it since we were able to get a glimpse of the Chinatown district along the way. Indeed, Binondo is a haven for Chinese traders and businessmen, with all those different kinds of establishments you can encounter.

At the President's Restaurant, we were ushered in by waitresses in Chinese dresses. At the reserved section, it turned out that we were actually attending the debut of Marien's sister. As far as we knew, we came for her padespedida. Our group was composed of Danes, Liz, Elma, Roma, James(of DSP), Ghe, Nino, Jim and me. We had a whole table exclusively for ourselves as the other tables were occupied by the other groups (debutante's friends and family).
(L-R:Liz, Elma, Me, Marien, Roma, Nino, James, Ghe. Di pa dumarating si Danes and Jim)

The whole evening we just sat talking while eating and analyzing the food being served since it was said to be authentic Chinese food. Liz says that Lauriat means a serving of 7 dishes, but we had more than 7. Most of the dishes given to us were topped with seafood (specifically shrimp). After the first few dishes, I was already craving for some heavy meat. At last, the chicken came, but I guess I already had my fill from the earlier dishes. Not to mention the butter and the vetsin (seasonings) poured in all the meals, it made me stop wanting for more.

At about 1030pm, eating time was over and we gave our thanks and goodbyes to Marien and her family. We still had no idea how to go home. Thankfully, Jim was around and he accompanied us to Lawton where public transport is accessible. There were jeeps and FX's going straight to Cubao but since, I didn't feel secure with those, I joined the group going home via Fairview FX.
(May and Marien @ Eng'g2006 GradParty)

Aside from Marien, May will also be leaving the country this July (24) for further studies at the US. To May and Marien, congratulations for that wonderful opportunity and good luck!

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posted by ScIoN 1:07 PM |


Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Tennis Weekends

I really don't have much to do on weekends. I'm the lone yuppie (young urban professional) in the startup company I am with right now. The closest I've got is my partner but he already has a wife and a daughter. He's got responsibilities of his own; thus, no time for yuppy-ing around. (He's not of the dotA age)

Yuppies are like freshman university students grouping together forming a bloc. Usually, officemates hang out together forming a yuppie bloc of their own. Gimmicks, outings, bonding sessions, et al.

Everybody needs a social life; thus, in my case I always turn back to UP to seek company and keep myself sane. Weekends are also the only time I can get to play tennis. Good thing my TennisUP friends are always there (tennis junkies!) so at least I always have someone to play tennis with.

I am also happy to know how successful TennisUP have become. For this semester, a total of 300 applicants reportedly signed up! (Awoo! Awoo!) During the start of the training sessions, about a 100++ showed up. But hey, that's still a big number considering that we have limited courts. Soon enough, TennisUP would be some sort of elite club like the Mountaineers or Laya FC. It has to be quality over quantity. Being known to be one of the founding members for this fast-rising organization definitely boosts my pride, heh heh heh.

Last weekend, I was not able to play tennis due to the rain. Rain, rain go away; at least spare me a Saturday! Good thing, yesterday it just rained a bit. By 2pm, the courts are already dry. It has been weeks since my last tennis. I need to play often to improve my game.

Of my recent developments, I am now able to use the Semi-Western grip which would help me give more topspin to the ball. I do can deliver good strokes and slices. All I really need is consistency. I can also serve, but still I want to practice more kick-ass services.

I hope I can play more in Nihon.

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posted by ScIoN 2:17 PM |


Thursday, July 12, 2007

Download Kupaloid

I am currently enjoying wifi privileges at work. Even though I'm not officially allowed to go out of office after my formal nihonggo lessons (my sked: 10am-12nn), at least I am able to surf the net all throughout the remainder of the day. We're renting space from TOWERS, wherein they define their outfit as a virtual office and business center. At present, we are currently only 3 under i-Bridge, so we have just rented office spaces by the booth. Weird, huh? Never thought of of having different companies in the same building floor? It is possible if the so-called companies are currently composed of only a few people (startup companies or independent entrepreneurs). Actually, our only other companion in TOWERS is a woman representing the Animation Council of the Philippines(ACPI).

So it seemed only a few of us uses the wifi network of TOWERS, I thought it would be ok to download as fast as I wanted. Usually I get a download speed that reaches more than 100kb/sec, with 5 simultaneous connections via flashget. This is great since I could be able to download large file such as movie avi's just in time for me to watch it at home at the end of the day. However, starting 2 days ago, I think I got banned or something. Just in the middle of my downloading, I suddenly experienced a loss of internet connection. My wifi indicator says that I'm still connected; however, I could no longer access the net. TOWERS is so small to have a system admin, but I guessed there was one person who saw my bandwidth consumption and blocked my ip. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid of ip blockers (dorm days). Maybe have downloaded too much (with all the connections) and could have just clogged the router.

Oh well, I'm trying to be a good boy now. I am still trying to download the usual stuffs, however I now make sure that I use less connections (previously, I used 5 per dl) and download one at a time. This is not my private connection anyway.


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posted by ScIoN 1:10 PM |


Tuesday, July 10, 2007

That Alumni Feeling

To cap the last day of 'my first week in office', I attended the BE stag party held at the Makati Stock Exchange's Penthouse last Friday. This time, I am now part of the alumni and damn, it really felt good.

These stag parties are somewhat like reunions for all of us. Brods from different batches (up to the 40's) just eat, drink and be merry together. It was great to see again older brods who were my contemporaries while I was still a resident brod in UP. You look at them now and see how far they have reached throughout their respective careers. Then, you realize, it's now your turn, starting to climb the career ladder.

I feel so yuppie.

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posted by ScIoN 1:13 PM |


Monday, July 02, 2007

Office Space

This day was my first day to 'report at work', in spite of being employed for already a month now. The company have just rented some office space, while the real office venue is still being finalized. It's like my first day at work, actually.

From now on, I will be going to Eastwood from 9am - 6pm, Mondays to Fridays. Since we (me and my partner) will be sent to Japan, all we have to do is to study Nihonggo for the next 2-3 months. Since our schedule for the formal lessons would take only about 2 hours, the remaining should be free. I just don't know if at some time, we would be allowed to go home early.

Today, we just went to our workspaces and 'studied' on our own. Tomorrow would be the real start of the Nihonggo training. We would have separate sessions since I have already acquired my level 4 (in JLPT) while my partner is just barely starting.

Much to my surprise, the sensei assigned to me was Weng-Sensei! hahaha. This is good, since she was my sensei for Hapon 12-13; thus, my training would continue on smoothly. Since we don't have anything to do except to study Nihonggo, I chose to self-study on a lot more things. I just hope I could get ample internet access from now on.

I can't believe I'm getting paid for this. This is great!

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posted by ScIoN 7:11 PM |


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ScIoN is a former Systems Engineer in Japan who specialized in industrial imaging and digital hardware design. He is now back in the Philippines pursuing graduate studies in Finance at the University of the Philippines - Diliman.



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