On-The-Job Training: Keeping Hold of the Sword

 Everything was set; Like playing chess with my pieces placed in a way that any move can instantly force the enemy into a check.

MAGNIMOPUS - noun(n.) ;/magˈnəmopəs/

any endeavor labelled to be the best that one has done in his career/life.

Identify a company that will require the least amount of work to merit me that illusive certificate stating that I indeed worked for them for the required 486 hours of on the job training. Limit the units to take to a minimum in order to focus on the Senior Project and the OJT. Finish the Senior Project before November so that come December, Christmas would be celebrated worry free. 2012 would be welcomed with the Senior Project done, with the OJT certificate at hand, and with my hierarchy of worries only composed of finishing the remaining units and practicing my smile for the university yearbook, with the latter, in all honesty, having more significance. March, I picture, is a month when my batch mates would teasingly append to my name (or deliberately substitute for it) the term 'cum laude', as I deem it a title that I still could achieve by the end of the school year.

It was because of an invitation made by the department's Dean, that I was able to find myself working for a faculty of the Digital Arts and Animations department as a programmer for a specific project that he's so willing to pursue. I did not personally witness the Dean's invite, as I was away at that time when he saw my batch-mates at school and talked to them. I got the news as soon as I arrived at campus that day, it was where our conversations revolved around for i guess a week or so. Essentially they relayed that the DIA faculty needed people to work with him, and that he asked help from the dean to suggest students that he thinks would be able to deliver output and still cope with academics. I was asking them over and over again, "...and I was included in those list of names that the dean suggested?", they said yes but I still can't logically deduce why I was in it. To be blunt about judging my self, I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer. In academic projects I could exert every effort that I can yet still produce an output that would fair below those of the elite few. It was explained after a few days though that the students who were the Dean's first pick, were already occupied with doing their Senior Projects at that time, so he decided to suggest someone from us, the juniors; the ones next in line. It's not everyday that you get a casual invite from someone who is as respected as the Dean, so though I was a bit hesitant about saying yes to the invitation, mainly due to my doubt regarding the skills i presently have, i said yes anyway for the sole reason that someone believed that I was fit for the calling. After a few months, it was formalized that helping in the project credits as our on the job training.

LIFESTYLE - noun(n.) ; /ˈlīfˌstīl/

The way in which a person or group lives: "the benefits of a healthy lifestyle".

The only route I know to get to the work place is to ride a jeepney and stop in front of a luxurious hotel. From there I can remember and walk towards where the office is (this means five more minutes of walking). At around five in the afternoon we all would walk to the place where the jeepney dropped me off, and would rent a tricycle to the town plaza. On normal days when we go home, we don't always get a ride immediately, giving us time to chat with each other as we are waiting on the other side of the street facing the hotel. During moments when conversations would go dead while waiting for a ride, it wasn't awkward, for it's almost an automatic response to just stare at Hotel and be consumed in its majesty. With the amount of work we've put in everyday, I don't find it silly that whenever I come home, I am cloaked with this amazing aura of gratitude for my parents. Yes, our house is not hotel quality; none of those fancy lighting, or those scented oils that spread across the hallway, but in this house of ours is a room where the necessities are provided. I can sleep well at night, I can use the room to exercise, etc. It's impact to my reflection came in when I realized they could've chosen to neglect me of my needs. It could've been easier for them to just let me be or It could have been a better choice to not have children and just spend the money for themselves. It may have been more practical to send me to another school that will demand a lower cost of education. They could've sent me to work immediately after high-school, for that would mean immediate gain. But despite of these things they've decided to work prioritizing the aim for my siblings and I to graduate in a very expensive school. As I am writing down this sentence I actually am looking around my room, in awe at the chain of causes and effects that happened somehow provided me with a humble place to work, a place to live in, a place to do justice to the amazing opportunity given. It's not of hotel quality, but it's still the best room.

Hence, began the days when I would randomly talk to myself in thought, still in awe at the feat that my parents have accomplished. They did it. It laid some kind of affirmation to the philosophy that I was applying to myself at that time. That things can be done with personal effort. Especially now that this generation is blessed to have google and wikipedia. My bias is that their generation is in a way better than ours in aspects such as exerting effort to finish a study. They didn't even have the piracy phenomenon 'copy-paste' at that time, and even if they had one, I imagine the task to be quite exhaustive still with all the borrowing of books and articles and all the pen work needed to be done just to plagiarize ideas in print.

GAP - noun(n.) ; /gap/

A break or hole in an object or between two objects: "he came through the gap in the hedge".

This difference with how my parent's generation and the generation I'm in experience things such as the one I've mentioned drove me to realize that affirmations are critical. 

During the time when we were developing the application, whenever a milestone is accomplished, I would always show it to my mother. Even if it's a slight improvement in the design, or a subtle change in how it works I would spend the whole time in the dinner table talking to her about how the changes came to be, the deliberation that happened before implementing the changes, the torture I had to go through during when the codes did not work. She was my number one fan. But sad to say that, because of the gap, there is this feeling that despite how I tried to explain it, she does not fully understand how it feels like.

How it depresses me when I can't understand a stanza of code after eight hours of sitting and looking at how it works. How it frustrates me that I can't find any error in my code yet it fails to compile. How it's so annoying to learn things the hard way and then some genius posts something in the internet that's easier to use than what you've been using.

Affirmations are critical. And my thought is that affirmations become effective, if the one being given it knows that the giver understands him fully, and by that i mean, the giver should have some experience of the issue that's pressing the depressed down. Hence, teachers/mentors are important.

"I can't find the right class from which an XML parser can be retrieved" <- My thoughts are that, saying this to my mom, would feel very different than saying this to a department professor/batch-mate, even if I have the same motive of just finding someone to hear out my day's rants.

CONDITIONING present participle of condition ; /kənˈdiSHəning/

Maintaining the state of something, esp. with regard to its appearance, quality, or working order.


F8 is a key that I've been accustomed to hitting during the OJT phase as it's the one to be pressed when you would want the program to compile. Being a programmer embeds in my philosophy this constant need to immediately correct any mistake in the code whenever it would return errors upon compilation. This has been rampantly happening that I took it as a law regarding how things work. You kick a ball, it flies. You water the plants, they grow. You do something, something happens. You fix the code, it works. - - - Everything is immediate, an action will result will result into something... in an instant.

For some reason I fell sick during the time when the development of the version one of the application was finished. It was something I never experienced before. I felt so weak that I couldn't even get out of bed, My head hurt everyday, parts of my body felt numb and i feel discomfort in my left ear and eye.

I got a checkup and corresponding regimen was given to me. The cycle of checkups administered by this first doctor continued until such time that I decided to get a second opinion for I noticed that no improvement was materializing. I was in panic, for unlike my experience with coding, where I identify where the error is-fix it-then recompile it to see that it's working now, the doctor identified where the problem was, gave me medicine to fix the problem but nothing was happening. F8 got pressed but errors were still being returned. 

In this time of instants, it's both sad and frightening, that to a generation of people exposed to multimedia, the basis of one's credibility is his ability to provide immediate output in whatever form possible. Personal trainers who promise six pack abs in 30 days often get the calls. Freelancer sites have this system where a random persons asks for a favor, and the reply to his favor is a text in the format, "amount of time needed to complete the project - amount of money demanded".

("nadja: hi, I'm new to this site, can someone please make me a roman numeral converter program? need it for class")

("marco27: That's easy... 3 days $20")

("foxTamer2: I can do it in 2 days $25")

("gizMo_99: in 5 hours for $40")

The reality is that, in such a fast moving world like what we have now, people in the generation I belong to have been conditioned to believe in what's instant. People, gadgets, and anything really, seem to lose their worth if there exists something that's faster, stronger, shinier, bigger than what one already has. It has become frightening to respect your own pace, for the world tells you that the trend is that if you stop, you get left behind.


People in the field inclined to computers (especially students) should really be reminded that there are some things that can't be rushed. That it's ok to fall and get left behind. That everyone has their own special pace that is just beautiful to follow. Not that I want to stop them from excelling. But I guess to remind them, that when they feel that they are moving too slow, It's not really the world that's moving fast, it's them, because it's only when you try to move as fast as you can that you are able to honestly compare yourself with how everything else is moving, and it is in that moment that you can label yourself slow, with respect to whatever it is that you decide to be your point of reference.

BREAKING POINT - noun(n.) ; /brāking point/

The moment of greatest strain at which someone or something gives way.

It was only during the OJT experience that I got the opportunity to look at things, and life in general, from a realistic perspective.

Things always stack up. The more gradual process is the more unnoticeable it gets. It was true for me and my health. I don't mean to say that the OJT got me sick, I mean to say that on-the-job training is a very effective avenue for students to begin paying attention to the once neglected questions such as. Who will I be 10 years from now? How do I see myself in the greater scheme of things? Is my existence worthwhile Am I really living to be best of my abilities?

Then it gets more specific, can I handle living alone? I know i want to be independent, but I don't wanna be alone...do I? Will I be able to live without the aid of my parents? Will my brothers, who for even once did not give me a hug, sustain me when the time comes that i have nothing? Will the family ever be fixed? Will my health allow me to live up to my dreams? Will I be able to buy myself a room to live in? Can I handle saying goodbye to things when the time is up? Where do I go from here? Who will be with me as I journey through? Will the universe conspire to let me accomplish things that I will for myself? Am I looking for love in the wrong places?

The cherry on top is that, I need to repress all of these questions because answering them right now would be very very detrimental to finishing my senior project. And maybe, this mix of repressed questions plus the fast paced world was what caused me to break down without me noticing it. The uncertainty that the future holds terrifies me. I was accustomed to program stuff. I know what happens if I add this piece of code. I know what happens if I delete this part. And I take comfort in that; But reality finally caught up with me, grabbed me by the collar, and told me that no matter how much I plan things,  I am incapable of knowing what will happen next, even if I become the sharpest knife in the drawer I chose to be in.

2ND WIND - noun(n.) ; /ˈsekənd wind/

1. A person's ability to breathe freely during exercise, after having been out of breath.
2. A new strength or energy to continue something that is an effort.

We do not have a cable connection at home. This is why when we went to manila to visit my brother, all I did was watch TV. It has more than two channels. For me that's already something to celebrate. I find it timely that I was able to watch Larry King Live during the time when he held the "Dinner With The Kings" episode which featured him with the most outstanding names in Hollywood industry such as Tyra Banks, Seth MacFarlane, Russell Brand, Jack Dorsey (the inventor of twitter) and Conan O'Brien.

What got stuck in my head was what Conan shared when He was asked 'what is the thing you most hate?'. To which he answered, I hate how people have this feeling that they are entitled to something, that the world owes them something. They further extrapolated that this could explain why there are protests against the government, people have been having this false sense of entitlement that they deserve more that what they are getting and this convinces them to rise up against the government.


This isn't right at all, It's like the agent system in Hollywood where agents tell their clients, "Don't accept the role, you're worth more than that" - - - "rise up against the government, because you're not getting enough". There is no such thing as entitlement. No absolute assurance that if you do this, this stuff happens. No firm law that rewards those who remain good and punishes those who are bad. No contract that falls out of the sky saying that if you help in the development of an application that provides typhoon updates to Filipinos and the world, you're gonna be given good health. Nothing else could really be done than to do your thing and hold on for dear life.

The chess pieces didn't quite did what I expected they would. My SP is not yet done, Christmas wasn't celebrated worry-free, and 2012 wasn't welcomed with me practicing my smile for the yearbook., But the important thing I guess, is to dust my shoulders of and keep on moving...

I was playing the game "god of war 2", I was at that part of the storyline where Zeus killed every spartan who was under the leadership of Kratos, the main character. Kratos walked along the dead bodies of the spartan army when he saw someone moving, trying to get up... It was a soldier who somehow survived the devastating lightning strike... The soldier was in deranged, "What do we do now Kratos?, everything's gone"... Kratos did not say a word, he just unsheathed one of the swords from a scabbard of a nearby dead spartan the threw it towards the demoralized survivor... the soldier got hold of the sword and eyed Kratos as if waiting for some kind of order. "You can still hold a sword spartan... you can still hold a sword", Kratos said.

Not that I rely on a game's storyline to keep my hopes up. It's just that, like that disillusioned spartan, I believe I can still hold a sword as well. So that's what I plan to do. It saddens me that the last sentences do not sound like, "But I'm completely better now, cheers!"... I would love that to be the ending, but It's just not what's happening. This reflection ends with the choice to fight in order to have a seat reserved for me come March during the graduation rites.

My chess pieces do not have to force a check immediately, I'll just keep on moving them until they do.

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