First task was done. Everybody was uneasy, you can feel the insurmountable amount of pressure that has suddenly arose. The next task was announced, the Man vs. Web. The mechanics were pretty simple, each team member must cross the web without touching any part of it. Once you touch a single part of it, you'll be stuck and you will be eaten by the giant spider. Yikes! But since the giant spider went up the water spout. Down came Prince and then we heard a shout, "You are allowed to hit any part of the web but we will be adding extra minutes/seconds to your total time."
We all went to our designated positions, studying the options, weighing our chances. Then everyone decided to give it a try. Everyone was simulating their moves before the game proper. Until this daring group tried a death-defying stunt that made everyone in awe. They attempted to cross the web by going on top of it. So the Matt and Jeff combination of the Yellow Submarine gave it a try. Dyek "Matt-Chete" carried his yosi buddy Lui "Jeff-Plane" on his broad shoulders. Going up, Matt is trying to maintain his balance so that his buddy could easily jump above the Acuatico's Wide Web. Unfortunately Matt cannot get his bearings, then his buddy Jeff suddenly went into panic mode. He quickly jumped out of Matt's shoulders, trying to cross the secured Firewall of Acuatico's Wide Web, The "Jeff-Plane" fell short, hitting the topmost part, going off-balance then crashing on Acuatico's Sandbox. You can hear the deafening silence around, everyone stunned to the scene they have witnessed. Lui was quickly attended by experts, there were beer experts, cigarette experts, salesforce experts and flex experts. After a very intensive examination, he was then given medical attention. Fortunately he suffered minor cuts.
The show must go on, after the nasty and painful crash, the yellow submarine squad was determined than anyone. They dedicated their efforts and promised Lui they will win it for him. True to their words, they finished first on this task even before the giant spider could go out of the water spout.
No time for celebration, the BRC immediately gave the next task. It's called a Tower Building, yes build a tower using straws. Simple mechanics, build the tallest and strongest tower. But they made some twist and turns, to make it a bit more challenging and interesting, every member will have their disabilities allowing them to board the special boarding area alloted in the LRT and MRT. So for every group, there must be someone who is blind, mute and normal. We were given 15 gruelling minutes to build the tower. Everyone coming up with their unique techniques and engineer instincts. Luckily for everyone, we were able to build our own tower. This time the Red team emerged as the winner. Their members simply have the uncanny ability to make that tall and strong tower. (Magagaling lang talaga magpatigas at magpatayo).
With the Red and Yellow winning, the Green and Blue promised that the next task would be theirs. They won't leave Acautico empty handed. They finally had time to catch their breath and wait for the next task.
Finally, we have reached the point of no return, no more tomorrow, a win or go home situation, Acuatico.Being the typical "first-timers" we were, we took pictures as proof that we went there. Picture here, picture there, put them together picture everywhere.
We arrived there around lunch time, we settled in the lobby and then finally we were told to go up where we have to do our first task as survivors, the "do not starve to death" task. So what else can we do, we have to eat whatever is served. The boys, knowing their unexplainable and out of this world appetite positioned themselves strategically. Right behind their table is where the foods were placed.
Everybody was so hungry that they can't wait for their turn to attack the food. So while waiting, a very witty survivor picked a very nutritious and juicy banana and ate it while waiting for his turn. Everyone was up to the task, no one was giving an edge.
After the very challenging task, the BRC gave the survivors their respective room assignments. I was so lucky the very sought-after guy JM "The Heartbreak Kid" is one of my room mate, thus giving me extra motivation and inspiration. After sleeping down with JM, I mean settling down our room the BRC called us out to formally start the competition.
We were assembled on the very sizzling hot shore where we were like attending a monday flag ceremony. Our very handsome and very courageous Lito gave the opening remarks.(naks! increase!). "Let the games begin!"
First task was the "Name that Dude". It is a crossword puzzle you have to fill in using the clues given. The clues given were unique facts about everyone in PSOD. They were given 15 minutes to complete the puzzle. It was very challenging and mind boggling, it was a good thing that majority of the yellow accident prone submarines were gossip boys and girls. They almost knew everyone in PSOD, even their darkest secrets. They had an edge over everyone and eventually they got the first place, followed by the red boys bakla tomboy butiki baboy, then the bluer than blue squad and lastly the green mango shake.
After getting the results, uncalled for comments, demoralizing punch lines and lots of trash talks started to spice up the very tight competition. Now each team having extra motivation, passion and promising they will do better and try to catch up with the winners.
It was late in the morning, yes it was late. The guys were scheduled to meet at 6 am in the morning and yet, it was already 730 am. This was not a regular day for the brave and courageous survivors. This time, they reported to office not to work, not to log in to their facebook accounts, not to play restaurant and pet society but to do something else they have all been waiting for the past couple of days, the company outing.
They all arrived with a single purpose in mind, be the ultimate survivor. The group were divided into four groups. The Green Archers Anti Eagles, the Red Boy Bakla Tomboy Butiki Baboy, the Bluer than Blue Sadder than Sad, and the We All Live In The Yellow Submarine. Everyone expected the yellow submarine to bring home the bacon because of their fearless and daring members. But of course, the other group won't give up that easily.
They boarded the bus on their way to their battle ground, the oh-so-famous Acuatico. Everyone was fired up, including of course the air conditioner inside the bus. Everyone was raring and daring to battle it out for the prestigious half a million peso pocket money. Lots of trash talking, demoralizing the opponent in every possible way they can.
After hours of waiting for the earliest bird to arrive, which we may call Davey we were now headed to the battle ground. While cruising along the rocky roads to Batangas, the Blue Ribbon Committee(BRC) prepared something to entertain us along the way, While the I Love the Bartender Boys are busy giving away free shots of vodka. The BRC prepared a show! Yes, two members of the BRC, the siamese twins Ryan and Davey prepared a "show me" game. So simple, they will ask for something and the participants will just have to show it as quick as they can. The game took turns between the blue and green team, but in the later part of the game, Robert singlehandedly took over. It's as if, he knew what was listed on the show me list. Everything that the boom twins asked, he has it. He raised the Red team in his own two hands, while the yellow team remained spectators and was simply overplayed.
After the very grueling and tiresome show, they prepared another game, it was the Kitiki-Text game, a very simple mechanic, fastest and most kitikittexter wins. A mouth watering and eye-popping 100 pesos worth of load for the winner both for Smart and Globe Subscribers. Everyone was on their feet and was trying to out-text one another, hoping that their message would reach the receiver a lot faster than the others. It was cool though, because we were not using keyboards on our laptop which we are used to. We used the keypads on our cellular phones.
After finishing the Vodka and the very tiring games, the BRC gave us time to rest in preparation for the upcoming activities once we reach Acuatico. We were asleep for almost one hour until we finally reached our destination. TBC...
Isang maulap na tanghali, isa na namang pakikipagsapalaran. Nag desisyon ang mga batang batibot na magtungo sa kanilang tambayan at magkwentuhan.
Sila ay umorder na ng kani kanilang mga pagkain na lalamunin habang sinasabayan ng isang makabagbagdamdamin at isang napakatalinhagang usapan. Sina Irma Daldal, Kapitan Basa, Koko Kwikwak at sina Sitsiritsit at Alibangbang ay pare parehas na kumuha ng napakasarap at kaaya ayang fish fillet na sinabayan pa ng talong at sayote.
Unti unti at pinilit nila itong ubusin. Hanggang sa napagusapan nila ang mga kapwa nila kasama sa Batibot. Una nilang napagusapan si Khie Khie Pai, isa sa mga astigin at isa sa mga kinatatakutan ng lahat. Si Khie Khie Pai ay madalas nakakaaway ni Kapitan Basa sa mga gawaing panlipunan. Sa Sobrang sipag nitong si Khie Khie Pai ay naiinis na si Kapitan Basa. Wala yata sa tropang batibot ang may kayang tumapat nun.
Napag-usapan ng mga batang batibot ang mga kahinaan at kalakasan ni Khie Khie Pai. Si Khie "Khie Pai ay masipag, dedikado. Tiyak na wala ka ng hihingin at sasabihin pa." wika ni Irma Daldal. "Ngunit sa pag-intindi ng mga gawain ng mga kasama niya, ay mukha yatang may kahinaan itong si kumare nating si Khie Khie Pai." wika naman ni Kapitan Basa. "Ang akala niya lagi na lang madali at mabilis lang ang mga gawain ko." Pasunod na sabi ni Kapitan Basa. " Hirap kasi di niya napagdaanan ang mga napagdaanan ko." Wika ng naghihinaing na si Kapitan Basa. "Ok lang yan, at least siya kaya niyang pakalmahin at sagutin si Sultan Parachibum." Bawi naman ni Alibangbang.
Sunod na napagusapan nila si Direk, na kinatatakutan ng iba ngunit magaling makisama. "Si Direk naman cool!, basta matapos mo lang ang gawaing panlipunan at para sa ikauunlad ng bayan ok lang." Wika ni Koko Kwikwak. "OO tsaka di lang puros mga gawaing panlipunan ang pinaguusapan niyo, kasi alam niya ang buhay ng isang katulad natin." Dagdag ni Kapitan Basa. "Pero huwag ka, kinukulit din ako nun, nakulitan nga ako dun minsan eh" Biglang epal ni Alibangbang na agad namang sinundan ng kanyang katuwang na si Sitsiritsit. "OO nga, minsan abala ako sa ginagawa ko eh bigla ba namang nagtatanong, eh kailangan na matapos na agad nung ginagawa ko." Dinepensahan naman agad ito ni Irma Daldal "Baka naman kinukulet lang din siya ni Sultan Parachibum kaya kinukulit din kayo". "Kunsabagay" wika ni Sitsiritsit. "Kahit nga makita akong palaro laro lang ni Direk eh ayos lang" Sabi ng may singaw na si Koko Kwikwak.
Sumunod at ang huli nilang pinagusapan ay si Sultan Parachibum. Ang lider ng tropang batibot na talaga namang kinatatakutan ng lahat. "Malaki na pinagbago niya, dati mabilis siyang magalit at manigaw. Pero ngayon sobrang bihira na lang" wika ni Sitsiritsit. "Ay naku tama ka diyan" banat naman nitong si Irma Daldal. "Problema lang sa kanya ay ginagawa niyang robot ang mga tao sa loob ng kaharian ng batibot, gusto niya tapusin mo ang mga gagawin mo, Kahit na sobrang pagod na yung tao kakasaka sa kanyang bukirin" Pagalit na bigkas ni Kapitan Basa. "Ang hirap na nun, detached siya sa mga nasasakupan niya, di niya naiintindihan ang mga pangangailangan nating mga normal na tao sa kanyang kaharian." Dagdag ni Kapitan Basa. " Baka kelangan ay ipaalam na natin sa kanya iyan ng diretso, lumalaki na ang nasasakupan ni Sultan at maraming tao na ang maapektuhan." Pakalmang hirit ni Irma Daldal. "Minsan kasi ay nagkaroon na ako ng pagkakataon na tinanong ako ng Sultan kung ano yung mga pangit sa akin. Pero halos kaunti lang yung nasabi ko." Dagdag niya.
Sa haba ng usapan ng mga tropang batibot ay di na nila namalayan ang halos dalawang oras na nakalipas. Sila ay muli ng bumalik sa loob ng kaharian at pinagpatuloy na ang mga gawaing panlipunan. Ipinasa na lamang sa tadhana kung may mangyayari ba o may uusbong na kilusan para lamang mapatatag ang samahan sa loob ng kaharian ni Sultan Parachibum.
Change the things you can change and pray for the things you cannot change. There are always things that is not within your control. So instead of being frustrated, just pray for it.
Anyway it's a good thing, I have this blog. I can release my frustrations.
Warning! Don't Read If You Are Not In A Good Mood!
Basketball frustrations... Losing, we were unbeaten all through out the entire league. Then came the final match, what a time to lose. It was my first time to lose a championship game after winning the last 7. Anyway, maybe it's not my year.
Cleveland losing to Orlando in the Eastern Conference Finals, they were playing great all throughout the season and when playoffs came, they all seem to struggle.
My right wrist being injured in a basketball game, it sucks, wanna know why? Because the next day, I have to play a semifinals game. Anyway I played through it wearing a bandage and a wrist support and fortunately we won.
Love life frustrations...(yun eh! tagay!) Waiting... Is it worth waiting? Or move on? It's been a while since I last have a special someone.(patay emo mode). Feels like I am hanged in a tree waiting for someone to cut the ropes so that I would eventually move and be freed.
I have been dating some, but I don't know why in the hell I suddenly became afraid to make commitments. Is it me being contented being single, or my previous experiences are haunting me and now I am getting afraid. I don't know either...
General frustrations... Traffic of course, that's the reason why I hate going to the office around 7-10am, it is so traffic. So instead of getting pissed and stucked with the heavy traffic jam. I prefer to report at the office around lunch time or early in the afternoon. I don't know how and why it is traffic during rush hours, but thats the way it is. Pooooof!!! Ayun trapik!
Cellphone, My cellphone has been repaired for 4 times the past two years. It seems odd because even though I know it will be broken again after sometime. I still asks for it to be repaired. Am I too poor to afford a brand new cheap cellphone? Haha
Addiction... Poor Mac Mac, Due to the stress free times he is enjoying at his work, after almost 3 months of heart pounding, mind wrecking, hand warming intensive coding and hardwork. Mac managed to survive. So now what, He is now addicted to Facebook! haha I think it's not just me, so no worries.
Thanks to my blog space, for giving me the space to write down my frustrations and allowing me to release the negative vibes in me.
It was another challenging day at the office for me. So I decided to challenge myself more by looking at some articles on the net. Fortunately, since I was so lazy searching and thinking of a topic. ZD Net sent me a mail. I opened it and somehow I found it very interesting and helpful so . It was an article by Justin James.
#1: Learn another language It doesn't matter which language you learn, but learning another language (regardless of how many you already know) will make you a better developer.
Even better is to learn one that is significantly different from what you already use on a regular basis. In other words, if you are a C# developer, learning VB.NET or Java will not help you as much as learning Ruby or Groovy.
And when I say "learn another language", I mean really learn it. Learning a language consists of three realms of knowledge: the syntax, the built-in operators and libraries, and "how to use it". The first two are easy; I think that an experienced developer can pick up enough of a language's syntax to maintain code in 30 minutes to a few hours depending upon the language. The operators and libraries are just a matter of slowly accumulating knowledge and being willing to check reference materials until you memorize what you need to know.
But it's the third item--"how to use it"--that can only be learned over months of working with a language and that's where the real magic happens. I suggest doing a project that is well suited for that language and doing it in that language's style.
Truly learn another language, and I promise that your abilities as a developer will start to blossom.
#2: Learn advanced search techniques, tactics and strategies More and more, being a good developer is not just about your skill, but your skill at finding information. Simply put, modern languages and development frameworks are too large for most people to remember much of them. As a result, your ability to get work done is often dependent upon your ability to perform research.
Unfortunately, knowing how to find accurate, high-quality information is more than just heading to TechRepublic for the answer or typing a few words into your search engine of choice.
"Techniques", "tactics" and "strategies" may sound like synonyms, but they are not. The techniques you need to learn are the advanced search systems of your favorite search engine; you need to learn things such as the Boolean operators, how to filter results (negative keywords, domain restrictions, etc.), what role word order plays, and more.
You should learn tactics such as knowing how to approach any particular search and knowing what you should you actually look for. Errors are easy--just look for the error code--but keyword selection on many searches is much more difficult.
With regard to strategies, you need to learn things such as what search engines to use (hint: general purpose search engines are not always the right answer), which sites to visit before going to a general purpose search engine, and even which message boards to post to for help.
#3: Help others
Teaching others is invariably one of the best ways to learn anything. It is understandable to think that you don't have much to offer because you are relatively new to the development field. That's nonsense. Remember, everything you know you learned from someone or somewhere; so try being the someone that another person learns from.
Spend a few minutes a day trying to answer the questions on TechRepublic or another site as best you can. You can also learn a lot by reading other members' answers.
#4: Be patient and keep practicing Research shows that it takes "about ten years, or ten to twenty thousand hours of deliberate practice" to become an "expert". That's a lot of time.
Furthermore, becoming an expert does not always mean doing the same task for 10 years; it often means doing a wide variety of tasks within a particular domain for 10 years. It will take a lot of time and energy to become an "expert"; working as a developer for a few years is not enough. Want to become a senior developer in your early 30s? Either start your education/training sooner or be willing to do a lot of work, reading, and practicing in your spare time.
I started programming in high school, and I devoted a lot of off-hours to keeping up with the industry, learning new skills, and so on. As a result, I hit the intermediate and senior level developer positions significantly earlier in my career than most of my peers, which translates to an awful lot of money over time.
#5: Leave your dogmas at the door Time for some brutal honesty: Beginner developers probably don't know enough to state that there is One Best Way of doing something. It's fine to respect the opinion of a friend or an authority figure, but until you are more experienced, don't claim their opinions as your own.
The simple fact is, if you don't know enough to figure these things out on your own, what makes you think that you know which "expert" is right? I know this sounds really harsh, but please believe me; I have met far too many budding developers who had their careers or their growth set back years because they got hung up on some foolish piece of advice or followed some "expert" who really didn't know what they were talking about.
A great example of this is the abuse of object-oriented architecture. For example, many beginners read some information about OOP, and suddenly the class diagrams to their simple applications look like the Eiffel Tower.
#6: Learn a few advanced ideas in-depth Much of what goes into being an intermediate developer is having a few concepts that you are really good at working with in code. For me, it is multithreading/parallelism, regular expressions, and how to leverage dynamic languages (and the last two are fading as I get farther away from my Perl history).
How did this happen? Multithreading and parallel processing came about because I read articles on it, thought it sounded interesting, and figured it out on my own; I keep writing apps that use those techniques. I had a job that used a ton of regular expressions in Perl. Also, I ended up writing my own e-commerce engine with a template processing engine and built-in database system; then I spent nearly two years working on it.
Find something that has you really hooked. It might be image manipulation or maybe database design or whatever. Even if you're an entry-level developer over all, try to become an expert in at least one area of focus. This will get you into that intermediate level quite quickly, and once there, you will be halfway to expert.
#7: Learn the basic theories underlying your field It's one thing to write "Hello World", but it's another to understand how the words appear on the screen. By learning the "groundwork" that supports the work you do, you will become much better at it. Why? Because you will understand why things work the way they do, what might be wrong when things are broken, and so on. You will become better by learning what happens at a lower level than your work.
#8: Look at senior developers' code At your job, take a look at the code the senior developers are writing and ask how and why things were done a particular way. If you can, check out open source projects as well. Even if other developers don't have the best coding habits, you'll learn a lot about how code is written.
Be careful, though, not to pick up bad habits along the way. The idea here isn't to just blindly imitate what other developers are doing; it's to get an idea of what works and what makes sense and try to imitate it.
#9: Learn good habits Nothing marks an inexperienced coder like stupid variable names, poor indentation habits, and other signs of being sloppy. All too often, a developer learned how to program without being taught the less interesting details such as code formatting--and it shows.
Even though learning these things will not always make your code better or you a better developer, it will ensure that you are not viewed as an entry-level developer by your peers. Even if someone is a senior developer, when variables are named after their 97 cats or their functions are called "doSomething()", they look like they do not know what they are doing, and it makes their code harder to maintain in the process.
#10: Have fun Want to be stuck on the career treadmill? Hate your job. What it takes to move up in this business is not merely dogged determination to bring home an ever growing paycheck but an actual enjoyment of your work.
If you do not like your work and you are a junior developer, what makes you think that being an intermediate or senior developer will be any better? Change jobs or change careers. On the other hand, if you love the work you are doing, great! I guarantee that you can become a better developer if you keep at it.
"There are so many reasons to celebrate" a business analyst in PSOD once said. And why not, a very charming January birthday celebrant named Mac, two lovely and pretty February celebrants named Joanna and Grace and a spooky March celebrant which is encrypted by the name of Burn. Combine it with the new members of the family named Paul, Simon, Wilson, Lui, Armie and Tin, what kind of celebration would you expect.
10 brave and courageous On Demand Professionals planned a very special afternoon to celebrate. They gave their colleagues a treat they would simply forget and !
On the afternoon of February 6, 2009, one spaghetti and one palabok, two boxes of pichi pichi, 75pcs of BBQ and two very elegant bithday cakes envaded PSOD. It was a much awaited celebration that all employees immediately left their working stations,it's as if they were having a fire drill. The celebrants had their traditional job of blowing the candles on the cake. It signifies that they grew one year older and marks the start of the feast!
Pictures here and there, present also in the party was the very famous receptionist of LinkSolutions named Cherry. She will be the first pretty face you will see once the elevator opens on the 3rd floor.
It was a successful celebration to sum it up. There were lots of foods, others were able to bring home some. Hoping that the next batch of celebrants and newcomers in PSOD will take this seriously.
one decided to give it a try. Everyone was simulating their moves before the game proper. Until this daring group tried a death-defying stunt that made everyone in awe. They attempted to cross the web by going on top of it. So the Matt and Jeff combination of the Yellow Submarine gave it a try. Dyek "Matt-Chete" carried his yosi buddy Lui "Jeff-Plane" on his broad shoulders. Going up, Matt is trying to maintain his balance so that his buddy could easily jump above the Acuatico's Wide Web. Unfortunately Matt cannot get his bearings, then his buddy Jeff suddenly went into panic mode. He quickly jumped out of Matt's shoulders, trying to cross the secured Firewall of Acuatico's Wide Web, The "Jeff-Plane" fell short, hitting the topmost part, going off-balance then crashing on Acuatico's Sandbox. You can hear the deafening silence around, everyone stunned to the scene they have witnessed. Lui was quickly attended by experts, there were beer experts, cigarette experts, salesforce experts and flex experts. After a very intensive examination, he was then given medical attention. Fortunately he suffered minor cuts.
ng straws. Simple mechanics, build the tallest and strongest tower. But they made some twist and turns, to make it a bit more challenging and interesting, every member will have their disabilities allowing them to board the special boarding area alloted in the LRT and MRT. So for every group, there must be someone who is blind, mute and normal. We were given 15 gruelling minutes to build the tower. Everyone coming up with their unique techniques and engineer instincts. Luckily for everyone, we were able to build our own tower. This time the Red team emerged as the winner. Their members simply have the uncanny ability to make that tall and strong tower. (Magagaling lang talaga magpatigas at magpatayo).
