Speech for DLSU Precon 2007

Every year on the third trimester, DLSU holds a preconfirmation for those who passed the entrance exams and were qualified for admission. Yesterday, I was invited to give a speech to the would be Frosh of CCS-CT.

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4th year highschool is always a good point in one's life. it marks, among other things, an academic milestone and is a point of transition as well.

a long time ago, i was in the same situation you are in right now. i too was at a point wherein i had to inevitably make not one, but two very important decisions.

the first one was to decide what course i would like to take in college. it goes without saying that the course someone takes almost usually determines one's trade later in life. a course in architecture almost always produces an architect and a course in biology almost always produces a doctor. my mom and dad are both in the medical field. my dad is a surgeon and my mom is a nurse. i would like to think that, if it weren't for their common interest in the medical field, they wouldn't have met. looking back, i too harbored dreams of becoming a doctor myself. which is perhaps why it was a bit of a surprise when i finally handed it my college applications stating that i wanted to take a computer course. what had triggered my momentary insanity? it wasn't that i was computer savvy or because i had a knack for writing computer programs. the truth, was far from that. in fact, it was the exact opposite of the continuum as i absolutely had no idea what a computer was even though we had one at home, i didn't know what a program was, i didn't even know what the web was in when so many of my highschool batchmates spent their off-school hours chatting in the mirc.

so again, what made me think that i wanted to enroll myself in a computer course? how did i, in all my reasoning manage to come up with a notion that i who had zero background on computers would last in a computer science course?

well, to tell you the truth, it was the very trivial thought that i didn't want to become computer illiterate at a time like this. at a time, when it was the boom of the internet and the world wide web. at a time where computers and the internet was a technology that greatly influenced our lives. that thought was what compelled me to make my first decision, that i wanted to earn a degree in computer science.

that of course, was just the half of a whole.

now that i knew what i wanted to take up, there is still the task of selecting the university i wanted to earn a degree from. i passed three college applications all stating that i wanted a computer science course and i took three college entrance exams. i took one for DLSU, one for UP and another for ADMU. thankfully, i passed all three exams and in all three, i got my first choice for a course. in DLSU, i was qualified for BSCS major in Computer Engineering, in UP i was qualified for BSCE and in ADMU i was qualified for BSCS with Physics.

since i'm standing here in in a preconfirmation session for DLSU, it is needless to say that i choose to go to lasalle. and the heart of my decision? feedback. every person i asked what the best university was to go to if i wanted to study computer science told me lasalle. every one. my classmates, my schoolmates who had gone to manila to study, my aunts and my uncles and my cousin who was 2nd yr college in during that time. all of them told me that lasalle was the best college to go to to earn a computer science degree.

back then, i took their word for it and decided to go to lasalle. now, as an alumni, a faculty member and someone who actually went through the curriculum, i now know that there was truth to their conviction. with competent professors and top of the line laboratories and facilities to complement and enhance theories taught in the classroom, it's hard not to be at your best. it's hard not to learn. it's hard not to be transformed.

so how did i, someone who had no computer background and knowledge fare in la salle? after three years through the course, the girl who knew nothing about computers was employed by Canon as an on-the-job trainee. A year after, the girl who knew nothing about computers built a robot as her thesis and was awarded a Most Outstanding Thesis Award. Still a few months after that and sometime before her graduation, the girl who knew nothing of computers was contacted by Azeus and was later hired as a Junior Software Developer. On October of 2004, the girl who knew nothing of computers graduated Honorable Mention from DLSU. Today, the girl who knew nothing of computers is co-founder of UPStrat, Inc. a startup company that offers clients web-based solutions.

Now, you have two very important decisions to make in your life as did I and so many others before us. First, you have to decide what you want to be in life and second, you have to decide where you want to go to become what you want to be in life. It doesn't matter what your decisions are going to be. The important thing is to make one. As Harvey Mackay said, "People begin to become successful the minute they decide to be."

Good day and thank you for spending your time with us.

goodbye neverland

i've always been a dreamer. i spent most of my highschool classroom time one foot inside a world of my own make. i've got journals upon journals of a mixture of naivete, stupidity and sometimes, uncommon wisdom for a girl of 13. i also have a sketchbook filled with people and things and places i've never seen except with my mind's eye. looking back, i am amazed how i managed to sneak myself into the honor's list considering that i always took a seat that was comfortably near a window or if one wasn't available, a seat next to the door. most of my classmates chose their seats on the basis of who they wanted to sit next to. not me. it didn't matter who i sat next to or who took the seat next to mine (since i'm not much of a talker anyway). what was essential was that i got the seat with the view.

the highschool classrooms were surrounded by trees. pine to be exact. and while they made a classmate of mine change sections because they made her itch, i've always been thankful for their company. the pines, with the sky behind them stood for a world beyond the corners of the room that held me captive from 7.30 - 4.40 for 5 days of the week. that, if anything, i think is what strengthened my affinity for them. they always made me feel that there was something more than what ever it was i was faced with. english and chemistry or physics. and during 4th year highschool, nsat and the anxiety of college.

i do not know what has become of my friends by the windows. i do not know whether they have been cut down to make way for a new building or if they have been left alone with their crystalline backdrop. how would i since i've never set foot on my highschool alma mater since i marched her halls as a graduate. i always saw them standing tall, and that is how i'll remember my pines by the windows to be.

melancholic how a highschool reunion two fridays ago could stir up images of myself i thought lost. the dreamer that was me is in deep slumber, the wordsmith in me silent. the pines long for the girl that always sat beside the window.

the end of the first.

christmas trees have been kept in storage boxes to slumber for its usual 10 months and lights that outline the doors and rooftops have been left unswitched when nightfall comes. though the wind has only wound up its chill, there is no doubt that christmas has passed and in a day's time, so will january.

the year is fresh but how mine started in a tempest! for one, i'm already dumped with articles and books that i have to read and my first machine project in advanced computer architecture is due just a few 20 days away. translation? i have to stop time or ask either god or the whole of christianity to squeeze in an extra day during weekends. gone are the days where i spent my saturdays sleeping just to catch up on the week's lost sleep. it's notoriously reminiscent of my Azeus days only this time, i teach CCNA classes. i have learned that work + 8 units of teaching load + 3 units research load + 6 units of MS + spending saturday am teaching CCNA classes to professionals who absolutely have no networking background might just mean the death of me.

the BIR project is finally deployed and is finally on its testing phase, which left me with three working weekends this month juggling between bug fixes, more QA and documentation. whose idea was it anyway to leave the documentation to the ladies? ever since college, i was always stuck with documentation. which is awful because it meant that i have an item more to do than everyone else in our group. and my usual death sentence? it was because i was the only female in the group. great. cavemen. ftw.

on the other side of the fence, i found time last friday to visit the parlor as a surprise for cy. let's just say that he was in a fixed state of a grin when he saw what i did with my hair (well actually, what i had the stylist do with my hair).

golden for this month is that i have found the joy of Latex (that's 'la-tek for you), which is a document markup language. it is for word documents (in pdf at that!) as html is for web content. it's like programming your document i.e:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\title{\LaTeX}
\date{}
\begin{document}
% content here
\end{document}

equipped with syntax, control sequences, and parameters. and the cherry on top? you even have to compile it! geeky i must admit - and i usually don't, which says a lot - but it saves me from using the joke that is MSOffice whenever i'm stuck doing documentation for the neanderthals.

breathe. focus. i'm almost there.

on being wrong--

in all my years in dlsu and in computer science, both as a student and as a teacher, perhaps there has been no element or idea more popular than a little bit. it is the fundamental unit of discrete information. and it represents the outcome of one choice. 1 or 0. either the presence or the absence of voltage on an electrical component. on or off. and consequently in life, true or false. right or wrong.

everyday all throughout our life, we are faced with choices ranging from the insignificant, the seemingly insignificant and the truly significant. and with every choice, there has to be an outcome. a presence or an absence that directs the flow of our lives much as transistors, resistors and logical gates direct the flow of electricity on a circuit based on either the presence or absence.

the computer ultimately is only able to recognize and represent data only in binary form- the fundamental bit. humans however, are able to create crevices of indecision, an area between the true and the false that becomes an entity not entirely true or false, but mostly true or mostly false subject to necessity and abuse. whether it has become the bane of our existence or not is subject to much philosophical debate with which i reserve my opinion. for after all, my opinion can be interpreted by anybody as subjectively mostly true or mostly false despite the fact that it is called an OPINION in the very first place.

being wrong is mostly wrong but true and false is but a half of the story of life. if you're always afraid of being wrong, then you're passing up the chances of being right as well. and sometimes, being wrong for a few minutes, days, months or years helps you recognize what is right in the future: a lot of wrongs for one great right that truly, TRULY matters. a fair trade.

happy holidays

it's crazy how i have regained consciousness of the days and months that go by based on the academic calendar. today officially marked my return to reality- manila, dlsu, upstrat, cityland, bir, masters. the whole she-goddamn-bang. today was the start of the 3rd term of the schoolyear and although i've already acquainted myself with 3 previous start-of-the-term feel, today was a little different. whether it was the fully packed classes (a stark contrast from last term where i handled but a handfull) or the waning holiday cheer i cannot say but today i felt like a frosh all anxious about the first day of school. and i guess in a way, i was since it was the start of my masters... digressing for a bit, i am amazed at how economic my tuition fee got after the discount took effect. from a whopping Php 21,826 to a mere Php 3456! I knew getting 3 terms worth of residency was worth it. It was the first time that I paid my tuition fee without flinching- metaphorically of course.

the start of the term marked a new venture for me as well as made final, the holiday memories i know cy and i will cherish.

to kick off our holiday season, we started with a formal night. cy and i were naturally invited to Fer's wedding as they are after all siblings. It was a pleasant afternoon of the 21st of Dec when the boys (Dad-cy's dad that is, Blobi and Cy) dropped us girls (Xen, Barbie, Mai, Avi and Vey) off to the parlor. Sporting hairstyles and make-ups 2 hours later, we went to Vey's place at Fort Bonifacio to change to our outfits. I wasn't part of the entourage (thanks to Mai and her superstitious belief that if cy and i were part of the entourage, we might break up before we wed) so i brought my own dress. the dress i really liked (which is rare because i'm very picky about my dresses) that i didn't look for any other alternative the moment i saw it over at warehouse, podium. it was pricey (Php 5,300) but thanks to my dad and cy, it was off the display the day after. It was a lilac tube dress, so pale that at certain angles, you'd mistake it for a white one. I used a diamond circlet my mom had given me and a pair of diamond-laden white gold earrings to avoid looking so bare. i specifically asked the stylist to accentuate the curls of my hair but leave it down. i wore a strappy, white, open-toe heels from wade and used a white LuLu clutch bag to hold all my things. I picked out a textured lilac tie from van heusen for cy to match the color of my dress. he had on a black, long-sleeve polo under his coat which served as a dark background and amplified his tie. and it was fun that people noticed that he wore a tie which had the same color of my dress. the wedding was top notch and so was the reception. it was like prom, only more serious and classy.

the day after fer's wedding, cy and i were cramming our christmas shopping. i had already bought most of the gifts but i somehow forgot a cousin or two. all in all, we spent plenty for everyone:
mai: starbucks 2007 planner
dad: parker silver pen
blobi: travel pillow from living well
vey, bryn, fer, xen, avi and my aunts: burt's bees lip shimmer from beauty bar
barbie: little mermaid paint set
papa: girbaud wallet
mama: LuLu handbag

on the 23rd, cy, our chi cousteau and i found ourselves at the PAL terminal checking in for our flight to bacolod. it had been a while since cy flew and it was the first time he ever flew just to be with my family for the holidays. it was a 50-min flight from manila to bacolod and we were both giddy in our seats talking about how the sea seemed to have had traded places with the clouds. cy stayed at our house until the 31st. and he met my cousins, my aunts and uncles and my other dogs. i showed him the city of smiles and showed him places of my childhood during the day and he, my brothers and cousins would play poker, dota, went out to eat at the restaurants, or had a movie marathon at night. we went to el salvador which was at par with scenic tagaytay and goofed around with the camera. all in all, it felt like a HOLIDAY.

when i arrived on the 5th of the new year, cy was waiting for me at the airport. he gave me a bouquet of my favorite casa blancas. we drove around until we stopped over at eastwood for dinner. then we parked our car at the proximity of the sunken garden and he read me a poem:

"somewhere i have never travelled"

somewhere i have never travelled,
gladly beyond any experience,
your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture
are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch,
because they are too near.

your slightest look
easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal
myself as spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously)
her first rose.

or if your wish be
to close me,
i and my life will shut
very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing we are to perceive in this world
equals the power of your intense fragility:
whose texture compels me
with the color of its countries
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you
that closes and opens;
only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes
is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.


-- will be uploading photos soon--
the years have blessed me too kindly and it is my wish that kindness show its face to you as well this year. happy new year!