Skip to main content

New Career Options

I just finished watching legally blonde 1 (where Elle Woods becomes a lawyer), and I suddenly got some insipration to try my hand at going to law school after my BS Computer Science degree. I'm not sure though how I would be faring in the US, once I get there. Or I might consider studying law here in the Philippines, and then try my hand at politics.

These are options I could take, but I'm not losing sight of the goals I have set for myself. I'm still eyeing that 1 million pesos by 25, 1 million dollars by 35, and a Ph.D. by 45 -- then teaching at UPLB after all has been said and done. I might even consider politics by then, but right now I'm still working towards my goal of graduating and making money for myself then my family.

It seems to me that most people my age aren't too hard on themselves when it comes to goals and visions of the future. Maybe it's because of my early exposure to leadership training and stuff regarding personal development and idealism which causes me to conform to my image of myself in the future. I tend to try becoming myself in the future now, which makes it quite hard and frankly quite daunting.

I know a lot of people who just take the wave as it crashes -- take their lives day by day and not have a semblance of a plan. I also know of other people who have a clear idea of where they want to be at some point int the future, but seem to not take steps going towards that goal. I also know people who don't give a damn about what they're doing or going to do. But that's them, and I'm me. However sometimes, I wonder why I can't be like them -- or why can't they be like me.

I am not perfect by any means -- I also make mistakes even if I try very hard not to make them. I follow my insticts too, take risks, and live life day by day. I just wish that all the people around me got exposed to what I was exposed to in my childhood -- education, leadership training, and personality development. Not that it would make me or other people better, but as a collective whole the Philippines and the whole world could use people who had a sense of idealism and vision.

I read the news almost everyday and read about corruption, apalling behaviour, and even plain stupidity. I always say to myself -- "Thank God, I'm not yet part of the news...". However, there's something in me which itches to be part of the news, and the good news to be more precise.

I've been telling my friends -- or those that would be around me long enough to know me -- that I could be a better Filipino smoehwere else other than the Philippines. I believe this because I have seen how Filipinos behave and conduct themselves abroad. I've seen hard working Filipinos in Hong Kong and well-off yet still hardworking Filipinos in the USA. However, I am still dumbfounded as to why Filipinos in the Philippines couldn't care less about the country -- or at least fail to show that they do care for the country through their actions.

I've also been watching how people move around and conduct themselves in public -- the marketplace, the MRT, the busses, the jeepneys, the public male urinal, etc. -- and I could never seem to know why nobody could care less about other people. It's good to have everybody mind their own business, but it's something else to get in the way of other people and still mind your own business. Just look around here in the Philippines: you see jeepney/taxi/private drivers who couldn't care less if they're causing the traffic tie ups. Or the street vendor who couldn't care less if he/she's blocking the way. Or the man passing bye who couldn't care less about everybody else and spits right in front of you -- much worse, take a leak where eveybody could see him doing so.

I mean come on, would proud civilized people do this? It boggles the mind. And unless someone (or everyone) comes up with a solution, then the Philippines as we know it would be doomed forever. Don't take my word for it, look around and open your eyes -- you could see a lot of bad things that it doesn't matter if there ever was a good thing happening. Either that or I'm just a hopeless pessimist regarding the future of this country.

That, or the next president's not going to do any better than the past presidents -- but that's a whole other thing.

Chill.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Appreciating Rizal...

Nope, this is not an academic post. More of a reflective and wrote-because-i-was-enlightened type post. Anyway, I just passed a paper on Rizal's notion of a nation according to Quibuyen (a local writer who devoted a book -- A Nation Aborted -- on his treatise on Rizal). Chapter 6 was an interesting read, and a definite eye opener. Rizal all of a sudden became interesting, especially to someone like me who could care less. It seems that most of what Rizal aims for and wrote about is still evident in today's Philippines as I see it. I wonder why I didn't get to appreciate Rizal and his work when I was still in high school -- might be the fault of the high school and the curriculum, or might be because I was still considerably immature then. I wasn't able to understand most of Rizal's writings though even if I got to reading them basically because they translated from Spanish to Filipino/Tagalog. I don't have problems with Tagalog, until you put it in writing. I

From FOMO to JOMO

Until very recently I believed that I needed to be on top of the latest news and happenings not only in my field (computer science and software engineering) but also in as many things as I can be on top of. This meant subscribing to all sorts of magazines, newsletters, YouTube channels, Twitch streamers, watching TV and live sport events, etc. — I was on top of a lot of the latest happenings, trends, news, interesting developments. I was having fun and I felt busy. What I did not feel was particularly effective nor productive. I felt like I was consuming so much information with the thought that it might be useful someday. When I was younger this wouldn’t have been an issue but I realised that ever since I’ve started taking stock of what I’ve been spending my time on, that a lot of it I’ve been spending just staying on top of things that I really didn’t need to be on top of. This article is about some of the realisations I’ve made in the course of exploring this issue of “FOMO” or

Keeping a work log

I have been keeping a journal for my personal life with some regularity for the good part of 4 years. The difference between my earlier attempts at journaling before four years ago is the regularity and the structure. I started with a very structured and regimented journal (doing it everyday with prompts and blanks to fill), to a ruled journal notebook, then a plain notebook (no rules nor grids in the pages), and then settling on a dot-grid notebook. This allows me to doodle and write free-form to help me commit thoughts and observations of my day but it was mostly for archival and looking back to "feel good" or reminisce (also to sum up a month, a year, etc.) The approach helps a lot with self-improvement in terms of my mental health and my reflection to see where I was a specific amount of time ago and whenever I was reading it again. In a previous post I wrote about keeping a work log, and I realised I only mentioned that in passing. In this post I detail the structure of