Christmas Post

This may very well be my Christmas post, so...

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!

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[Last Night]
My friend decided to go to Hooters last night and I decided to get drunk. He does not drink, which is good for me, as I won't need to drive (lol). Anyway, we were there, and we had some good conversation. About how lucky we were being software engineers at a time when those are in high demand. Thank god for the Internet revolution.

So, I was starting to get drunk, and this waitress was socializing with us. I guess it was the alcohol talking, but I started flirting with her (lol). Anyway, she was an attentive waitress, so we just gave her a good tip (about half of the bill!).

After that, we got back home, and I slept like a log. Now, I have this frggin' hangover...

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[Job Search]
Finally got a job. The supposedly "december lull" of job recruitment was far from it. Thanks to the hot job market, recruiters have been calling me left and right. I was hoping to get another job here in California. The weather here is simply amazing. Unfortunately, circumstances landed me to this software company farther north. My only complain regarding it is that I'll have to move interstate again.

I think I'll learn a lot from this opportunity. I'm excited at the prospect of knowing a lot more than I know now. I hear this company have Internet applications and desktop products. Heck, they even have a gaming console product. With all these different products, I hope they're not overextending themselves. Anyway, this place where they're based at, Redmond, WA, I hear it is pretty cool during summers and relatively warm in winter times.

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[Hospitalized]
I had a health scare about 10 days ago. I was rushed to the hospital emergency room. It all started when I began feeling intense pain in my lower abdomen. I later learned it was cramps. After that, the cramps went up to my chest. I felt my lungs being squeezed and I couldn't breathe. My air passage was becoming tight, and I was having a hard time talking. The pain was excrutiating and I felt I was gonna faint. Thankfully, my roommate was present at that time, and he called 911.

Paramedics rushed me to the hospital where I stayed for 4 hours at the hospital. Thankfully, the doctor said it wasn't something really serious. They referred me to a clinic and I was on my way back home.

Then a few days later, I suddenly started having the same symptoms again! WTF?! This time, we just drove to the hospital. The symptoms die down after about 15 minutes of pain by the way. So, by the time the nurses checked me, my vital signs were ok and was placed in a "low priority" queue. Other people were being called before me, and after 3 hours of waiting, I finally decided to go home instead.

More updates on this later, as I have to clear some more information on what's really going on. But so far, I haven't had any bouts of it. I thought it was related to another incident of food poisoning, but I doubt it. Suffice it to say, that it's not something serious.

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[Be Yourself]
A lot of people would advise "be yourself". And it's a great advice. Be yourself. It's just two words. But I think a lot of people fail to actually realize what this means. It's easy to understand the words, and understand the advice conceptually. They have an image of what it looks like and they feel they're doing that.

But to actually *live* this advice, it's an entirely different matter...

At least that was the case for me. I thought I knew exactly what this advice meant. It was a simple concept anyway. But when I realized a few days ago that "I wasn't being myself", and it was followed by the other realization that "It was ok to be myself", my entire body relaxed.

For me, it has something to do with being in a different culture. I have been here in America for about 4.5 years now. That's a pretty long time. In that time, I have tried to "be one of 'em" (i.e., Americans). It meant I had to re-learn a few stuff. However, I realized that I can never be completely like 'em. I will always be a Filipino.

That phrase's message, "I will always be a Filipino", reverberated through my entire body. Because it is followed by "You can stop trying to be something else." What a relief! I didn't need to be someone else. I can just be me...