I remembered and visited an old journal of mine and found somewhat missing July and August 2004 chapters of my life, encoded in plain text in an app called Notepad.
Again after so many years, revisiting this now in 2021 (and again now, in 2023), it seemed I may have forgotten the things I’ve written down and read back in 2008 when I initially compiled this. I do hope I remember them next time, or else there’s just something terribly wrong with my memory.
My actuarial journey
On the 13th of July 2004, I found out that I failed the Actuarial exam I took up and I didn’t feel too good about the outcome. I told myself then that I would do better next time.
July 2004… this was only a few months after graduating from college. One would think that everything was still fresh, all the knowledge learned should have been supposedly still there. But what happened? What really happened?
I remember back when I was still in senior high when I was still choosing the course my life will eventually take, I still wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to go to college at the time. I still didn’t know where I wanted to be and what to expect. High school didn’t prepare me for this.
I guess I had always been unprepared, or maybe I was just afraid to take the leap of faith. I have always been the cautious one and a pessimist even. That’s probably why I never dared to try the Actuarial exams again. I had always wondered about it though: what if I did, where would I have been today?
Overconfidence and over-planning
On the 27th of July 2004, I let myself believe that if I were to rate myself in Visual Basic, I would be a 9 out of 10.
Was I really that good? It’s hard to believe as I’m currently struggling with work nowadays and there has always been more room I could see myself improving on. Being confident is okay but being overconfident on things, it becomes an unhealthy habit.
I was also pretty much excited about driving and finally using the car.
After getting my license though, it took me about 8 years to actually drive. I’ve always felt there was no need to drive, I can always hitch a ride with my siblings anyway.
Overconfidence and over-planning oftentimes lead to procrastination. Sometimes it’s just better to do things than to plan ahead and list things you want to do. I’ve always had a growing list of things and this kind of became an obsession: I have an ever-growing list of to-do’s and a library of games, comics and graphic novels, movies and shows I could never actually finish.
What I have learned and have been practicing recently is to just do things, don’t spend too long on overplanning, or don’t spend too much time perfecting THE LIST, but rather just do it and eventually take it off the list. In Netflix for example, I’ve started cleaning out My List and just decided to keep the movies I haven’t finished watching or shows I’m watching and know in myself that I will still continue to do so, and just remove everything else.
My Master Sword
On the 28th, I have learned how to use the pen tool in Adobe Photoshop and it changed everything for me.
I’ve only ever used Adobe Photoshop back then because I felt it was easier to use than Adobe Illustrator, and the way I could put all the shapes in just a single layer in Photoshop compared to multiple layers in Illustrator, for me, it was neater that way, and it was perfect. It was only later in 2011 that I started appreciating Adobe Illustrator and how much easier it was to use than Photoshop with regard to the pen tool.
To me, the pen tool was like the Master Sword to Link. It was my weapon of choice, and thus, birthed my collection of Inks & Colors, drawings originally sketch by comic artists and illustrators, which I eventually “digitally ink and color” as I call it, and all other forms of vector art in my portfolio.
I also learned that using images and works of others without consent may lead to the deletion of your works in DeviantART.
I’m not exactly sure which work this was, but I’m guessing that it was a digital art in which I traced an artwork off of a local comic called Culture Crash. Around that time, social media still wasn’t that big as it is nowadays, and artists from around the world– famous or not– make up that global art community. As a new artist, I thought it was okay and understandable.
Hit and run
On the 29th, had been practicing driving around with my father. My father told me to try parking reverse. We came upon a parking spot in a nearby university. As I was backing up, I heard and felt that our car hit another. It dented the parked car. We just left shortly after, without leaving a note.
It was the second-most traumatizing driving experience I’ve had at the time, the first one is a story for next time. This is probably one of the reasons I became complacent about not driving and just hitching a ride with my siblings who in time eventually drove independently.
Cosparade on Ice
On the 31st, Buknoy (Martin Rivera) and I were able to meet Astral, Astaroth, Soujiro, Blackheart (Redd Santos), QPS, and Neil Gamboa’s look-alike at SM Megamall on the day of the Cosparade on Ice. On the ice, we were able to meet Arikado (Adrian Gabrentina), Aaron Cruz and Batang Makulet.
Most of whom I’m not connected to nowadays, but I still feel lucky to have some of them as friends.
Bleedman
On the 1st of August, Vinson Ngo (AKA Bleedman on DeviantArt) inspired me to draw.
Come to think of it, it was probably his style that stuck with me and that this was what I was inspired to achieve in my own style.
Third-wheeling
On the 3rd, Ben and Jeane treated me to watch the movie Catwoman with them. I realized how thankful I was for having friends like them.
Not just because they treated me, but because they have been really good friends ever since.
The greatest mistake
On the 4th, I thought about the Cocolife question I wasn’t able to answer during the interview from the previous day. I have always told myself how I had always wanted to study Fine Arts and how I had always regretted not being able to pursue it. To me, not choosing the dream had always felt like my greatest mistake.
Back then, I had always thought that maybe God placed me specifically on that path to show me something or to let me experience something and that ‘something’ is probably another thing that I would later realize and be thankful for.
Come to think of it now, there’s really no greatest mistake. It’s probably only going to be a great mistake if it happened to have a life-threatening consequence. But looking back, was it really a mistake that I didn’t choose Fine Arts? Had I done that I probably wouldn’t even be here now, I probably haven’t even met my wife yet, and there’s a ton of possibilities and probabilities that might have happened instead. I’ve had mistakes, but these mistakes then made me who I am today.
On the 5th, Kuya Mike told me that, “There’s no use crying over spilled milk.”
Amen to that.
And that as far as I remember, this was probably one of the inspirations for one of the songs I’ve written that is now in My Book Project.
Toxic Positivity
On the 10th, I was ranting about not being productive about the Informatics programming project. But somehow, I had still been thankful that even when I wasn’t productive in the programming project, that I had always been productive in Photoshop.
I was kind of being too optimistic right here though, but in reality, it hid the fact that I wasn’t able to finish the programming project and missed the chance to get the certification for the course.
Big Fish
On the 11th, I watched the movie Big Fish. It was a really good movie and I felt that I was able to relate to it.
Back then, I had always seen myself as a big fish in a small pond. I’ve always felt I needed a pond, bigger than my small pond, somewhere I can truly express myself.
But I’ve learned that it’s my personality that I will never truly be happy with where I am now. I will always be looking for a bigger pond. In the end, we just need to be satisfied with where we are, no matter how small our pond is, maybe just look at it from another perspective.
Overthinking and complicating things
On the 12th, I went to Informatics for a consultation about my project. I realize only now that I always complicate things. I always tend to make things difficult for me.
I don’t specifically remember what happened, but I’m guessing that because I try to overcomplicate my project, that this had gotten the better of me and backfired at me in the end.
We Are Banned
On the 15th, we were banned. This was the day WeAreBanned, now known as WAB or WABarkada, was formed. All because of an incident– that we led ourselves to believe that we will eventually get banned— in a forum that faded long ago.
Every true-blooded WAB knows why “Yabangness is equal to loserness”.
Wanderlust
On the morning of the 17th, I woke up early feeling very tried.
I often believed that when we dream, our spirits also travel to different places in the dream world.
On the afternoon of that day, our Informatics class bonded at Tokyo Tokyo at the SM Carpark. Roland was there, Xander, even Mr. Pogi contestant Ben, Sir Al and the rest. It was fun.
At least nowadays, there’s Facebook. I only wish I could find the others so we can still stay connected. The only friend from Informatics I am still connected with now is Roland.
Midgard Adventures
On the 18th, I wrote about my Midgard Adventures:
I had just leveled-up my knight to 69. Nothing much happened that day except for a certain hacker dropping loot items, such as 2 Poring Cards and 50 Red Potions. That day, I also bought an Arc Wand and a Guard for my brother; gave him my Fancy Flower, Flu Mask and Hide Belt; and gave my sister my Soldier Skeleton Card.
Those were the days. Midgard life then was hard, but I had always enjoyed it. It didn’t matter how difficult I earned items, armors or zeny; what mattered most were the people I played with.
On the 19th, I was able to play with RO friends and guildies: Carlo & PJ. Carlo gave me a Full Plate; we were getting ready for siege and Juno.
If we probably kept playing as a guild before, I would’ve liked sieges and WOEs now. But those were the days. I had always realized I wasn’t the type to go out in wars, duels, or in sieges. I was always the adventurer, or the collector type of gamer. But nevertheless, I have always admired our guild: Positive Noise. And I promised Carlo and myself that in honor of Positive Noise, I would still continue its adventures.
Sometimes up, sometimes down
On the 21st, my high school buddies and I met up; Niño treated us from food to bowling to movie. We seldomly see each other that this felt like a world-class event.
I realize how I miss my friends; I wish we could see them more again sometime.
On the 23rd, I ranted about having wasted half of my life: that I could’ve done things I wasn’t able to do but wanted to have done. I told myself I’d start over and get a new life.
I feel like I have always been trapped in this situation: that I had always felt that there I’ve wasted enough time. When all in all, it had always been a mindset.
On the 28th, I reflected upon the Gospel Homily: “Let Other People Grow”. The Gospel that day was hoping to teach us about humility.
There was a homeless person during the communion and it made me understand how that person is more faithful than me. Blessed are the poor! I was touched by the fact that even though this person is robbed off all his necessities in life, he still pursued to follow God, unlike people who are rich, they tend to forget Him.
On the 29th, I ranted about how my day was tiring: formatting-reformatting the PC and reinstalling-uninstalling an application over and over again, only to discover that one of the partitioned drives wasn’t reformatted.
But then I realized I was thankful it wasn’t reformatted, for I wouldn’t have been able to update my website if it had were.
Benefits of journaling
Re-reading this journal and finding out the meanings to these experiences made me realize a lot of things.