Contact

I was watching one of the best movies of all time a while ago. And I just love this part:

Panel member: Doctor Arroway, you come to us with no evidence, no record, no artifacts. Only a story that to put it mildly strains credibility. Over half a trillion dollars was spent, dozens of lives were lost. Are you really going to sit there and tell us we should just take this all... on faith?
[pause, Ellie looks at Palmer] Michael Kitz: Please answer the question, doctor.
Ellie Arroway: Is it possible that it didn't happen? Yes. As a scientist, I must concede that, I must volunteer that.
Michael Kitz: Wait a minute, let me get this straight. You admit that you have absolutely no physical evidence to back up your story.
Ellie Arroway: Yes.
Michael Kitz: You admit that you very well may have hallucinated this whole thing.
Ellie Arroway: Yes.
Michael Kitz: You admit that if you were in our position, you would respond with exactly the same degree of incredulity and skepticism!
Ellie Arroway: Yes!
Michael Kitz: [standing, angrily] Then why don't you simply withdraw your testimony, and concede that this "journey to the center of the galaxy," in fact, never took place!
Ellie Arroway: Because I can't. I... had an experience... I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real! I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever... A vision... of the universe, that tells us, undeniably, how tiny, and insignificant and how... rare, and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater then ourselves, that we are *not*, that none of us are alone! I wish... I... could share that... I wish, that everyone, if only for one... moment, could feel... that awe, and humility, and hope. But... That continues to be my wish.  

Ellie, for those who haven't watched this yet, is not just someone with Food Service Manager Jobs, she's an astronomer-physicist, I think.
I just love this movie! Care to read an article about the Higgs Boson?

Cycle of Life

Guys, I'm just curious -- What are the three or five things you do first as soon as you arrive in your respective offices? Or for freelancers, as soon as you wake up or are in the mood to start working? Or for everyone, before SOMETHING. :-)

Here's mine (before I start working):

1. Clean my PC and the surrounding vicinity. And by surrounding vicinity, I only mean half-a-meter radius form my PC's monitor.
2. Make a cup of coffee.
3. Check/answer mails, visit my blogs/blogger friends/news.
4. If in the mood, write a post or sub-post (hi, mordsith!). If not, then, #5.
5. Take a sip of my now-not-so-warm coffee, deep breath, and convince myself: X, you live to work, you are a slave, you are not paid to dream. Work, work, work.

Then, I start working. How about you guys? Care to share your routine?

Soon-To-Be Senior Citizen X

I visited my beloved alma mater yesterday to talk to a professor. (Before I proceed with the "actual" post, let me just share some changes I noticed at school.)

• No ID, No Entry. Wasn't able to enter the building where I was supposed to meet my contact without presenting a valid ID and a valid explanation. Ang saya no?! And also, the "kids" are wearing their IDs, with lanyards and all.
• I saw not just a couple of kids with laptop superpokin' as if they usually do that during breaktime. (What we do during breaktime then was to squat in a friend's Tambayan and have yosi.)
• More organized AS 101; fewer cars in Faculty Center parking lot; less kids in Tambayans (in fact, less Tambayans!).
• Oh, and smoking is prohibited anywhere in the campus.
  

Now, to the main topic. Have you ever seen or felt these signs, or something similar?

1. After my meeting with the professor, I went to a friend's Tambayan. She wasn't there, so I asked the students where she is. "May klase ho siya," was their polite answer. Whoa! They just used HO (polite expression used to older people). I might have let it simply pass away if they used PO… but HO?! That was not polite! Hehehe.
2. During the last few months, I have been going to gimikans less and less. During my top-secret-BPO days, everyday is a Friday night. It's either Total Gas Station (yeah, they have booze there - for 24 hours pa!), BF, Makati, etc. But now, Friday night only happens almost once a month, and it has to meet some prerequisites: It has to be closed to a payday or there's no OT work the next day.
3. What I have been receiving more lately are invitations: baptism of their new born kid/s, wedding of former colleagues, and some more weddings and baptisms.
4. My high school and college friends are sending me pictures of their sons or daughters. And I am sending them… pictures of… me (but in different places here and abroad. Haha, yabang!)
5. Starbucks or Seattle's is the new Malate for many of my friends now.
6. When I meet up with college barkadas before, we talk about how we want to dominate the world, perform a Madoff, visit Trillanes and give him a lecture on Mutiny 101, climb to Sagada, etc. But now, whenever we meet, we talk about our college years, about former professors and crushes, about our struggles in life. We are now looking back, instead of forward! What the--
7. Oh, whenever I receive email from Lina (you know her right?), I get irritated whenever there is an age restriction in the job offer. Not that I am applying to those positions but hey, what if I want to and there is an age restriction?!
8. I was watching a show, and saw Jodi Santa Maria. During "my days," she's actually the youngest in the Tabing-Ilog barkadas. She's like the spoiled brat there. In an ABS-CBN show that I saw the other night, Jodi plays the role of a masungit na tita! She's now the Cherie Gil of my time!
   
9. O, and this is so effin' irritating: an online buddy was so happy when Eheads had this final set concert. She said that was the first time she saw them performed live! Because according to her, she never saw them before yet, but she liked the tapes of her tito. Deym! Eheads is like my generation. But some kids look at Eheads in the same way I look at Pepe Smith, or VST and Co., or The Hotdogs.
10. And here's a clean indicator/sign I know I'm getting older: I can even make a Top Ten out of it!!!

Wow, and I still don't have my first 5 million in the bank. (I told myself before that I'll have at least 5 million in the bank before I turn 25.) Hell, I don’t have my first million in the bank.