Three Years of Work

I have been working for three years now. I started working immediately two weeks after graduating college.

My first job is in a small company in West Avenue, Quezon City. It was owned by two Chinese brothers.

My boss was very strict in deadlines and keen for details. The five months I’ve spent there taught me alot in working ethics and introduced me in this job called web development.

My boss there was very kind and thoughtful of his employees. He kept on telling us, “Don’t try to work when you are not feeling well. You’ll only be wasting your time trying work when you are not that productive. Forget work and take a rest.” He even provided a folding bed and foam in the office where we could take a nap whenever we are already having headaches or when we can’t really focus at our tasks.

And so, he have earned my respect and I admired him for that.

My two and half years was spent in a medium-sized company somewhere in Shaw. I started as a data encoder and later on was assigned as a web developer. Even though the company itself didn’t directly trained us about web development, I learned my skills through my colleagues and most, through my frequent researches and study via Internet surfing. Thanks to Google, he has been my best buddy for all these years.

I chose not to write about my experience about my previous company.

I feel like the two years of my life is just equivalent to six months of actual web development experience. You just need to stick to the task laid upon you and nothing else.

And so, I learned to push myself towards the edges to keep on learning for I know in myself, there are still million of things that I don’t know.

I explore. I research. I Google things up.

Every knowledge that I have now is the product of my persistent study.

I thank the people who patiently guided me and never get tired of sharing their knowledge to me.

Now, I am a freelancer.

A new chapter in my career has started to be written.

In this new adventure, I wish to find success.

It has been hard and it will always be no matter what.

I know from the very start, everything will never be as easy as ABC.

Image from sitemaker.umich.edu

Saturn Visible at the Night

If you look at the sky hours after midnight, you’ll clearly see a very bright object at the eastern part (Manila). Nope, it’s not a star. You are looking at a planet with your naked eyes.

Saturn has been shining brightly for the past couple of days. It would be great if I have a telescope so I could clearly view this beautiful planet.

Photo credit: Sky & Telescope

Signs that you are an Internet Addict

You are an Internet Addict if the following is part of you’re daily routine:

1. Check all your emails from Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail and other email service provider.
2. Check all your social networking sites such as Friendster, Facebook, Myspace, Hi-5, etc.
3. When you spend hours of time reading each and every feeds from your RSS-reader like thunderbird and Google Reader.
4. When you tend to your pets in Pet Society, RockYou Pets and other pet applications
5. Diligently spend time leveling up your characters in all your online games
6. Blog not just daily but more the once a day to share how great your newly bought item is
7. You update your Twitter, Plurk, and Facebook Status almost every hour
8. You surf for the latest gadgets, technology, buzz, news every now and then
9. You know where is the best site to look for gadgets and stuffs
10. You have an account in almost all email service provider, social networking and microbloggin sites, signed up in almost all online games
11. You have installed multiple-account Instant Messenger like Pidgin and Trillian so you could chat every one in your list
12. And the worst, You’re world crashes down when there is no internet connection

These are just a part of lists and as I write this blog, the lists are piling up in my head.

Oh my, I am so guilty.

If you are an Internet Addict or know someone who is, share in your thoughts and the symptoms you or they have.

Don’t be afraid, you are not alone.

Wallpaper: Smoke in Your Eyes

Another photoshop playtime.

I was browsing through the pictures i got during my weekend stay in Tuguegarao until I got inspired with to create a wallpaper out of this one photo.

After some tweaks, here is the wallpaper i made.

Smoke in Your Eyes

View in higher resolution 1024 x 768

Sentiments of a Freelancer

I started to work as a freelancer just this month and I must say it really is challenging.

Being a freelancer is tough. Proving yourself worth the job and every penny of your client is tougher.

One of the essentials in working freelance is your portfolio. Sadly, i cannot provide the sites and projects that I have done in my former office. It’s that non-disclosure aggreement I had agreed with. Darn!

Though you have written numerous skills in your resume, you must still prove that you really possess them. You would undergo various exams both written and hands-on with the most impossible questions but still you won’t get the job.

Bidding jobs in various project sites is way more frustrating. Most bidders are so desperate that they give ridiculously low asking price. Too bad the employer usually ended up hiring another developer costing him four times than the actual price. The reason? Poor quality of work.

I whine up of being a freelancer but here I am in its world.

It always makes me think, why do I want to be a freelancer?

Being a freelancer for me should be fun.

You can work freely, do as you may provided that you finish your tasks. If you were able to complete your job in the fastest amount of time, you get a lot of rest. You can pause in an infinite amount of time after each project and still have the money to spend.

In helps you grow as a person and develops your skills more. In freelancing, you meet various people. You learn to adapt to different people. You gain friends. You experience different programming challenges. It pushes you to study and learn new technologies, methods and frameworks. It makes your brain cells work to find solutions to various problems.

There are a bunch of opportunities but it’s getting them is the one giving me the headache.

I enjoy my life as a freelancer. And I am continuously loving it.