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| I think it's time to reevaluate the purpose of this blog. As the number of interesting things happening in my life gradually decrease and each post gets progressively harder to write, I need to redefine the identity of this xanga so that my posts don't wind up being weekly updates about my basketball games or my latest pimple.
Is this supposed to be a diary where I can spill my guts unabashedly? HAH. Unlikely. I confess I need work in pretending I have emotions, but I don't think this publicly accessible site is the place for that. Is this my equivalent of twitter, where the audience is my friends, and the goal is to write something witty and entertaining? No. It would be, if I could find something funny to write about. Since I can't, I won't set myself up for failure by setting this as a goal. Is this something I can look back on in years to come and remind myself of the goings on of my present life? Yes! Whenever I look back at old posts, I can't help but think, "That's so corny." But then, the memories flood back, and I'm glad I wrote about it.
So, what would future me want to know about present me? I've begun to be concerned that I probably spend more time with my parents and sibling than anyone else not living with parents and whose name isn't Ray Romano. I go home every weekend and generally try to spend time with my brother. One of my gripes about work is that many of my coworkers are older than me, and they almost all have families, so we're not able to hang out in the evenings and get more closely acquainted with each other. I realized that I'm effectively in the same boat, since I tend to brush off friends in favor of having dinner with family or just being at home. Yesterday was a prime example. I attended a small potluck with my parents. The uncles and aunties were generally surprised to see me there, and I heard them lamenting how their kids (many years younger than I) are so independent now and refuse to attend these functions with the parents. Yeah. Meanwhile, I find that the only other kids are my brother and the 5 year olds whom I end up babysitting. Yup, it's time to leave the nest!
Saturday was a step in that direction, as I spent the entire day out and about. It was the first time in a long while. I went to have dim sum with some Impact people at noon and later drove all the way to Berkeley for karaoke with MSF people. I realized how rare it is for me to actually spend time with these people outside of church, and it's good that I can get to know them better outside the church setting.
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| Each year, Oracle holds a massive conference in downtown SF known as Oracle Open World. Not only are there numerous booths where Oracle showcases its latest technology, the customers also set up stands and advertise their products to other conference participants like it's a swap meet. This is the fun part. Like a career fair, all the booths are handing out some sort of freebie or offering a chance to win something. My loot today consisted of one bag, 3 t-shirts, golf tees, a poster autographed by the BMW/Oracle sailing team, and a few raffle entries. With an average winning percentage of 1/3000 and mean prize value of $9000, my expected + actual gain for the day is about $10!...barely enough to cover the caltrain fare and parking fees. I'm particularly excited about the t-shirts. It's about time I retire the threadbare t-shirts I currently wear to sleep.
The other highlight of the day was the keynote speech. Last year I came too with the intent of hearing the keynote, but due to my tardy arrival I was directed into an overflow room where I just watched a video screen. Today, I made sure I got there early enough to see it in person. I slept through the first half, but was alert as our billionaire CEO bashed IBM and some other competitors. Surprisingly, all those maligned companies were present at the exhibition hall as partners. Why they continue to come back year after year is beyond me. The most exciting part though was when Mr. Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger made a surprise appearance and preached the virtues of technology. I was surprised by how eloquent he was. The speech was fluid and funny, though the "I'll be back" conclusion was a bit hackneyed.
Unless Oracle brings back the HQ to SF shuttle or I'm assigned to demo a product, this will probably be my last time going in a while. It's fun but simultaneously draining to muster the courage to take free stuff from companies that I have absolutely no interest in, and who have no interest in Oracle employees. Most importantly, these 3 t-shirts should suffice as my sleepwear for the next few years.
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| Everytime I close me eyes, I see red rubies, blue sapph-arrrs, and white diamonds a-falling. Me thinks I've been playing too much Bejeweled. I shall henceforth belay such carousing. If anyone should spy me obtaining new scores, I give thee permission to report it to the authorities, for it must mean some scallywag hath hacked into my facebook account. Also, my facebook account's language setting has been set to "pirate" for some time now. I'm not quite fluent yet, but I'm getting there. Yo-ho!
Work is still kind of crazy. Previously, no matter how much I slacked, there was one guy who I could always point to and say, "At least I'm not the biggest slacker around." Today, I realized he is no longer an employee at Oracle. Eeps. Don't know if he left of his own accord, or if he was forced to walk the plank. Well, I've been working hard recently, enough to make up at least a week's worth of truancy.
I had another basketball game today. I only scored 2 points, and I probably only crossed the half court line to go on offense like 10 times. Again, my teammates just ran and ran while I just defended, rebounded, and passed the ball down the court. We won again :).
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STORY OF MY LIFE FOR THE PAST FEW WEEKS. Well, the first two frames at least. I've been assigned the task of creating prototypes for our web application's web pages, but I feel really inadequate for this assignment. Thus, even though I wish to help, I'm encountered with the same dilemma as Wally: produce useless designs or do nothing (meaning news.yahoo.com, sports.yahoo.com, dilbert comics, etc.) On the bright side, the Oracle basketball league started. Our team dominated the other by constantly running and getting fast break layups. I just stood around and watched my teammates run. I did, however, score the first point of the season with a free throw one minute into this first scheduled game of the year. I also fouled out 5 minutes into the 2nd half. It's quite an impressive feat, considering how sparingly the refs use the whistles. By the way, I choose (hopefully not completely) useless designs. | | |
| Wow, it's been a long time. Let's skip the introduction and revisit the most momentous events of the past few months.
Attending the San Mateo County Fair: I went with Jason on 8/22 to the fun-filled farm festival in San Mateo. The highlight was probably the pig race and the fried artichokes. The low was blowing $4 on rigged, basketball-related carnival games and another $5 on a bucket of rings. However, considering we snagged some free parking and a stranger gave me his admission ticket randomly at the fair entrance, I was up $9 for the weekend. Not bad.
Playing soccer with high school friends: I recently discovered that some Saratoga alumni have been playing soccer at Jollyman Park every Thursday. Though it's a bit far from my apartment, I decided that seeing old friends was worth it. After work, Jed and I sped through the carpool lane to Cupertino. I had forgotten how fun soccer is. It was probably the first sport I ever played, but it's been years since I last touched a soccer ball. Unfortunately, Twenties has started back up on Thursday evenings, so I won't be able to attend soccer anymore.
Completing the next installment of my "Trash to Treasure" series: 10-sided stir stick star, bay-bee! If you are wondering how I was able to find the time at work to construct this masterpiece, it was after my weekly hot cocoa and before gchatting. Duh.
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