Fifth day of the year.

Been enjoying working through the initial problems over at Project Euler. It feels familiar in a nice way to be solving math problems and programming again, but at the same time my rustiness is somewhat disheartening. But, you know, geeky, semi-productive fun can't be bad, right?

Jumped rope for about thirty minutes today, or until I could feel certain muscles starting to get tired. Don't want to tire myself out before I resume my workout tomorrow.

Recently got sucked into this thread at INTP Central: Pictures of Meals You've Made. It's an addicting combination of INTP commentary and really great cooking. I wish I knew how to/ had more motivation to cook and putter around in the kitchen!

(And, yeah, it's only been a day, but I can't wait for the result of the exam!)

First working day of the year!

Went back to the office today to take the exam for the developer position. Arrived rather early, before 10 am, and was told that if I do get accepted, it'd be on a contractual basis (i.e., no benefits) for six months. ("Shrug, okay!") Was also told that the next exam schedule was 2:30 pm.

Got to talk with a couple of previous batchmates. Unfortunately I had left my phone at home, so was unable to join them for lunch. (Fail!)

Killed some time walking around Megamall, for lack of a better idea, and also to look for somewhere to print out a copy of my resume. First ended up in Powerbooks - read about data structures, haha. (It would turn out that those are a little outside the scope of an employment exam, and good thing, too!)

Eventually: the walk back to Tektite, coffee, the exam. Lasted two and a half hours. At first it seemed too much for me (not really a coder), but all in all, it was doable. It was fun taking the exam alone in a small conference room with an awesome view.

P.S. I think I like taking exams, and if nothing else, I'm somewhat good at it. Not exactly something to be proud of, but...

Done with the brokerage billing forms!

Finally got around to making two simple spreadsheet billing forms for the family brokerage (as requested by my brother).

They actually only involved subtotals, percentage deductions and additions, and so on. The tricky part was figuring out how to mimic the alignment of the original forms - their client wants the forms on specially-printed form paper which already has some labels and divisions and so on.

I didn't have a ruler, so I ended up holding the sample form to the screen (with Excel zoomed to as close to life size as possible) and estimating distances with the onscreen ruler.

Positioning the different fields was made easier by a trick I learned from seeing it used at work: turning all the cells in the sheet into tiny squares, and simply merging cells into the right size where they are needed. (Adjusting field positions was a pain, though!)

So, in summary, I suppose there could've been better/more efficient ways of doing what I just did, but I think I did well enough for an intermediate spreadsheet user.

Day 2 of the 100/200/200 programs

Having finished Day 1 the day before last (first day of the year), I rested for one day as advised and resumed the programs today. The squats went okay, I think I should be able to follow that program without much hassle. It was tiring, but felt just right.

The situp and pushup programs, on the other hand, are much harder for me. I think it has to do with a lack of proper stretching - my muscles are still tired from the last workout! To try and remedy this, I'm going to take two rest days before continuing with Day 3 of the programs, and also warm up and stretch more thoroughly next time. (Hm, I should find my old jump rope or get a new one already.)

I'm excited to start on the program I've devised using the machine we have here at home already, but haven't yet figured out how to schedule that and these three programs together. Hum.

Shake Rattle and Roll; Workout plans

Went out to watch a movie and have lunch with the parents, Kuya Julius and Ate Anne, and the kids today. A pretty rare occurrence, I can't remember the last time we were out with our parents (was it for Cesar Montano's Jose Rizal?).

Watched Shake, Rattle, and Roll, uh, 11, with the kids. Meh. Usually I think one of the three segments is somewhat amusing/scary/decent, but for this one, no luck. The lack of originality in the film, if one were to take it as typical of the Filipino film industry, was really depressing.

After waiting nearly an hour to get a table, we had a late lunch at Mann Hann (we typically have Chinese food when we eat out, I don't know why). Burp. Last time I'm pigging out, I swear!

*

I've devised a workout plan, splitting the full-body workout into three days: a "pull" day, a "push" day, and a legs/abs day. Not quite optimal yet (i.e., I mostly based it off of a couple of websites), but it's workable.

Before going through that, though, I'm planning to finish the 100 pushup, 200 situp, and 200 squat programs first (which will take about six weeks, ideally). Need to buy a jump rope or find some other cardio exercise to do, though...

*

Okay, it's January, time to get into jobhunting/full-time personal development mode. Kicking things off with a crash course in computer science/programming basics this Sunday before (possibly) walking in to take the developer exam on Monday. Lez do thees!

Goodbye, mustachioed creatures. Hello, strange men.

Layout image changes, just for kicks. Getting the urge to clean up digital house (meatspace-clean-up is too tedious), perhaps in time for rehabitation / rehabilitation.

Gotta start the year right, but how? Hum.

No. 1, series of 2010.

Happy new year, everyone.

2009 wasn't really my year. Graduated with a disappointing thesis and a disappointing honorific. Worked for five months at a disappointing job. Was dumped because of being rather aimless and, yeah... disappointing. (Well, at least it's going to be easier to go up than down, from where I stand now, right?)

Of course, 2009 wasn't all bad. (I suppose it's just that the last quarter or so of 2009 has been bad enough to affect my perception of the whole year.) Mixed with the sadness and frustration were times of happiness, expectation, and, yeah, fun with friends. While resigning from my job (i.e., taking an undeserved break) hasn't yet resulted in the sweeping life changes and sharp increase in productivity that I was hoping for, it has been somewhat refreshing, somewhat eye-opening. (It took a while for any progress to manifest, though, but I must say that there were certain mitigating circumstances.)

Well, artificial as the transition from one year to the next may be, I believe it's still psychologically useful! 2010, ready or not, here I come!