he is a poet

"code is poetry." -by unknown who obviously can code. duh

today he didn't do well in the programming mid term.  so he got a little agitated with all this rainbow quotes that obviously came from the people on the other side of the fence. cliche. 

since his been coding the whole day. and assuming that the above quote is true. he is at least entitled for a little poem by himself;

java are red, eclipse are blue, 

i think i flunk my mid term, platypus.

roses are blue, violets are red,
i suck at poems and java, so let's go to bed.

***

he wonders, how do we reconnect with that small creative child inside of us that doesn't constantly judge our worthiness or compare our work to others?

friend in need is a friend indeed

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one." -Dale Carnegie

he was always slow in making friends. he put the blames to his shyness, people skills and the fact that he didn't really try . amazingly thou, the one that became friends, stay friends forever. so it was never a problem. it took him almost a year to actually make friends in miri. don't judge just yet. he has a lot of friends. but most of them "yo, how cha doin" friends. till death do us a part friends? yes, a year.

however, over here he can't afford to do the same. friends and families are 12 hours in time difference away (and 20 hours flight away if you're curious). in other words, he sleep when they're awake and vice versa. he needs to lay down the support system. and fast. besides its kind of dull to take on this wonderful journey alone isn't it? ;-)

so he put down some strategies. as such;
1. stay in a fratenity house
2. be active in everything possible, yes everything!
3. be friendly. ofcourse duh
4. join a fratenity - the best decision thus far
5. improve his speaking (if people cant understand you, you aint gonna be friends)

its almost two months now in pittsburgh, thus far the plan seems to work. he feels there are some friends in the making, yay!  it comes with the price of  the most uncomfortable feelings, countless awkward moments and gazillion embarrassing situation. but he is getting better that's for sure :-)

a small fish

he just realised its a different playing field here. and for the 1st time since he dreamed about all of this... he is scared.  scared of not living up to expectation. scared of the feeling that he doesn't belong. scared of fading away. scared of waking up every morning feeling mediocre because he couldn't understand data structure, or how the electron interact, have on top of his head some advance mathematical formula, or do programming like its a second language that everybody here should know. afraid of eventually realising that he is in a wrong dream...

***

prior to coming here one of his previous prof. reminded him

"the way to succeed is to work hard, harder than everyone else. and try to find that niche area of yours, know your strength, the area where you can really go all the way"

this two liner advice carry such a big weight

over here he noticed that everyone is working hard. and its almost impossible to work harder than everyone else. literally. and finding your niche and knowing your strength is not like something you can know by looking yourself in the mirror. its much deeper than that. anyway it wouldn't stop him to keep trying.