A Better Tomorrow

Ho ho ho, these weeks are in December and you could immediately tell that Christmas was coming soon. Ah December, a magical time, a time full of Christmas carols, parties, gift giving, and.. NetXMS?

For these weeks and days, we were busy making our machine learning project (MLP, if you know what I mean, lmao) and our stress levels were off the roof. When I first researched about the network tool we were assigned to, I immediately thought that this tool would be another nail in the coffin—and by that, I mean another nail in another coffin.

There was no way I could set up, configure, write the timeline, make the videos, and full demonstrate this tool in 3 weeks, unless I didn't have classes for 3 weeks straight. But with my hectic schedule? I was toast, almost quite literally.

Thankfully, my teammates finally backed me up on this one (well, James at least).

I was going to and from his house just to finish setting up this NetXMS tool because, for some reason, installing both the server and agent packages on one system totally nicks the other, therefore making only one installation (either the agent or the server) part of NetXMS work.

After using the 2 laptops James has in his house, we were able to fully set up and make the NetXMS tool work. Our first test, if you recall from a previous learning log, is obviously the fun part. I told James to watch some YouTube while I saw some options to shut his laptop down and at first I didn't think it would work. I then pressed this shutdown button and it sent a shutdown command from his PC and instantly turned his PC off. We both laughed hysterically because we knew that the tool was working.

We eventually learned how to take screenshots, check the status of a PC, and successfully perform boot procedures (shutdown and restart) on the agent PC. We also learned that, if the server version of NetXMS is installed 2 different computers, one could be used to shut down the other. We also learned that an agent can't send a shutdown command to a server (for obvious reasons). After some elbow grease, some work, and more days of visiting his house for testing, we finally had a working demonstration of the NetXMS tool.

These last few weeks in our DNETCOM subject were, by far, the most grueling, but definitely one of the best weeks. We managed to have fun, enjoy, and learn a lot from a subject we'd otherwise think wasn't that great.

Overall, this week (and the weeks before) was one hell of a roller coaster ride, filled with ups and downs—but a wild ride nevertheless.

SHARKS! What do you call that creature that hides below the depths of water and waits for its prey and then mercilessly attacks them? That's right, sharks!

This week, we learned how to use a similar tool. A tool that goes into the "water" and waits for its prey to arrive until it attacks. Scary, right? The tool itself was also very scary, to be honest. We learned how to use Wireshark, a network network analyzer.

Wireshark doesn't seem like a scary tool if you look at it's description from its official info page, but what we learned about what it can do was scary.

After making Wireshark listen to the computer's Ethernet port, and visiting Steam's store page, I found something a little disturbing. I saw a bunch of IPs flood the screen and after waiting for the entire web page to load, I saw some of the content loaded through the page. I checked it on Wireshark and I saw some of the things on the Steam store page in the "captured packets" thing in Wireshark.

This was somewhat scary because Wireshark really "sniffs" the packets sent through a particular network and gathers information sent to and from this network.

That's why it's a little scary, and a little creepy.

The fact that this can be used to monitor and, basically, spy on someone is a little frightening. Thankfully, it only works best if content is server through HTTP or just sent as nonencrypted plaintext on the network. Sure, Wireshark works on HTTPS content and captures them, but thankfully they're encrypted, meaning that the server and a client computer can only view the information sent and received, and only them. Like I said, Wireshark still captures content served through HTTPS, but it's encrypted. They show up a garbled messages and a seemingly undecipherable mix of letters, numbers, and characters.

Wireshark sure is one scary program, but thankfully I learned how to use it. I just hope I don't get bit by it.

Like the week/s before, we didn't do much and we didn't have a lot of discussions nor lessons in the classroom because all of us (and, by that, I mean all of the groups) we busy doing stuff for our case study in this subject.

This was a hard time for me, especially, because I had to write, prepare, and research the whole case study myself. I was acting like a madman for this subject for these weeks because I was painstakingly researching on what to talk about in regards to IoT devices.

Eventually, after much thinking, I thought of a good topic to present and to discuss, and I was off to the second stage of researching: researching about the topic itself.

If anything, these weeks were like hell because I recall I spent one whole night researching and writing the entirety of the paper and then checking it, and then re-checking it again after our professor made some corrections on our paper.

It was painful, sure, and it was brutal to do all the work, but there's nothing I can do about it. If I didn't make our paper, I'm sure no one in group would even bother to talk about it or let alone make it.

Oh well, in the end, I finished the case study (finally), got my teammates to print it and make a PowerPoint off of it, and got to present. I was glad to see that my professor liked our topic and thought it was interesting. Thankfully, all the hard work that went into that case study didn't go to waste.

Our professor, Sir Justin Pineda, was out for the weeks 3-4 because he was going to attend some training or exercise, so we just had a small seatwork on how to design and set up a network with a DHCP server and a mail server.

I have to say, setting up servers is, well, a little harder than setting up a "serverless network." I especially had trouble configuring the DHCP server and making the computers get their network configurations from the server itself. I had to redo the activity thrice just to get it and I sat around asking other groups on what to do and how to do it.

I especially had trouble because no one else from our group was listening (aside from me) and, despite listening to our prof, I still didn't get it. I was a little stumped, to be honest, as I recall I gave my 100% attention to what our professor was doing and I had trouble implementing it.

Nevertheless, after a few minutes of asking other groups, our professor, and consulting, like, 5 articles or web pages on the topic, I kinda got the gist of it, and was able to finally set up a working DHCP server.

The fun part was setting up the email server. I managed to set up an email server using the domain name of an infamous site. I then made some users and began sending message to and from each account.

I genuinely had fun on this part because our first email test was actually one of those Nigerian 419 scams. The first paragraph of our test email went along the lines of "DeAR SIR!!!! y0U Have recieved 4.000.000$ dollars from something something" and I gotta say, using spam mail to test if a newly-configured email server is working is definitely more fun than it sounds.

Have you ever had a constant week of rain falling on top of your head and a constant feeling of gloominess even when it's not a rainy season? Because, if you do, then great! We're on the same boat. But, once in a while, someone, someone special, comes along to cast away all of the gloom and doom from your world and lift your spirits—and that's what recently happened to me.

I'm sure by know you all know my current situation and the things I've been going through. It's been a tough uphill battle, trying to stay strong and maintaining every last bit of your sanity, while, at the same time, being tossed with a myriad of problems constantly. But I am trying to stay strong through all that.

Although, that's not to say I haven't been feeling miserable. I might not be fully expressing it, but, deep inside, I'm quite miserable with my life. These past few but long, sleepless nights have been a hardfought battle because I've been trying to fend off all these negative and suicidal thoughts, and it's a battle I can't run away from. I wish these days (and these nights) could be easier for me, and I wish this pelting rain would soon stop, but I can't. It won't stop, even if I cry. It won't stop, even if I pray. Like it's mocking me, the rain that never ends.

What's concerning is that this feeling and these problems are affecting me in all aspects of my life. I've started to become less interested in my studies, I don't see the fun in hanging out with friends anymore, and I've stopped caring about computers and computer science in general. I'm starting to lose hope, and just succumbing to the feeling of letting myself get soaked in this rain.

But, just when you think that it's all over, or when you think that it'll rain harder, suddenly, the rain stops.

The pain ends, and the worries go away.

The sun shines once again, and soon, all you're feeling is nothing but gratitude and shyness.

Even it's for a while, you look up and you see someone holding an umbrella above your head. It's not much, but the general feeling that someone's there to stop the rain for you, even for a while, is genuinely comforting.

And that's been the case with my blockmates and I for these past few days/week.

You see, I've been getting small gifts, some spare food, or some money to buy lunch at school, these past few days. Honestly, I don't know what to say because I really feel embarrassed getting something from them with giving little to nothing in return. But these small things that these people give me actually means a lot to me—and means more than just "items."

It's the fact that someone's looking at your current situation and they take something that is theirs and gives it to someone is what genuinely warms me up inside. Sure, it's a given that they won't have anything for me on some days, but that's all fine with me. In reality, a small comforting talk or just sharing a table with someone to talk with them is enough for a guy like me. Seriously, I'm okay with people looking at my current situation and talking to me about it.

The extent that these people have gone through just to give me some spare snack for lunch or food is actually breathtaking. The people that have given to me the most were the people I usually don't talk to or are people I've been mean to before in the past, and that's what makes it so embarrassing.

If there's one thing I could say to them, it's this: Thanks for all the help you've given me recently. Even if I don't express it much, I have a feeling of gratitude deep inside, and I'm just shy to express it, so I'm sorry if I might not seem to express some form of gratitude. You really shouldn't have, I'm fine with anyone talking to me about whatever thing over lunch, or a small acknowledgement of what I'm going through is more than enough.

What's been happening recently in my life just goes to show that not everything looks bleak. It just goes to show that there are people out there who are willing to help, and that kindness if just around the corner.

In the past and just recently, I've tried asking help from this adult figure, and they have seemed to have offered me help. Instead, what I got was pure deception and full-on revenge for no apparent reason. Asking for help and assistance, and all I got was a bunch of lies and pathetic ideologies that got me nowhere and dug a deeper grave for me. It was extremely saddening to have asked for help from someone who should regularly help you to just deceive you, trick you, and make your life more miserable—adding another nail in the coffin.

And yet, I'm thankful to have a cruel person like that in my life. Because it makes me appreciate the small gifts that my blockmates and some of my friends have given me. Sure, that person may offer me a lot, but at a cost, and at a price, and they're not willing to help for free; thus, these small gifts, spare snacks, and small amounts of help without asking for anything in return mean a lot more to me.


In the end, whatever people may give me along the way, I'll be thankful for it because it makes the demons inside my head go away—even for a while. They might not realize that the small things they send, or the things they do to understand me, actually does a lot more. It helps me fight off these demons inside, gives me the courage stay away from people whose only desire is to see me suffer, and it keeps the starlight guiding me shine a little bit brighter.

I don't have a lot of stuff to be thankful for in life, and I come from a life full of distraught and misery, but what I am thankful for is the people I have around me. I genuinely wish that my situation in life is different, and that I would not have to deal with these problems anymore, but all I can do right now is to just keep my head down and weather the storm. At the end of the day, faith is still what keeps me going, and my faith's in people, I guess. Individuals. And I'm happy to say that, for the most part, they haven't let me down. I'm more than glad to have these people in my life.

I'm calling it, at 7:17 p.m., my chances of even passing that subject has, unfortunately, flatlined. It's dead, Jim, there's no coming back from that.

This week (and the week before) has been one remarkably different week for me. To kick the week off was the excruciating and agonizing pain of a freshly-minted sprain on my left ankle. Ah, you should've seen it, it was all red and swollen and had the telltale signs of "You shouldn't go to school because you are injured." Nevertheless, I pushed (well, limped) on and was en route to Asia Pacific College (APC) because I had to take my midterm exams. Fortunately, and I don't mean to brag, but this batch of midterm exams has been "fairly easy" for the likes of me. With an astonishing victory on the first day with WEBPROG and followed by a perfect combo for COMPORG, eventually ending the day with an "okay" win against the likes of DATAMA2. It felt like I was on cloud 9 after Friday, but little did I know that the tables would soon turn, and my luck would run out on Monday.

After a painful commute and 13 minutes of limping towards APC, I finally arrived and got my first exam handed to me. It was riddled with landmines as far as the eye can see, with enemy troops like the mean, median, mode, and range taking quick jabs at my battalion. Not wanting to be outdone, I quickly grabbed the calculator and started firing away at those summation signs and factorials. Regardless of my attempts, I came to this battlefield unprepared and unaware of the dangers that loomed ahead, despite knowing full well of the obstacles that would come before me.

And, well, the other exams were quite easy after that. On the next day, Tuesday, I was already late after dealing with several issues and I only attended COMPORG and DATAMA2. We didn't have P.E. yesterday because, for some reason, they decided to call it off.

Which leaves us to now, Thursday, November 10, 2016. This day started fairly normal, but around 5-6 a.m., things sort of got out of control. I woke up to the fact that ankle is still sprained and I can't walk properly, but now the pain was worse than before. Coupled with another issue and another one, and, well, things just kind of piled on after that. At 6:30 a.m., my fate was sealed.

7:20 a.m., I have officially incurred 6.5 absences for my first subject, QUAMET, thus making my grade into a 0.0. You might ask, "What happened?" and I'd also look at myself and ask the same thing, but I could name a few petty reasons.

First the traffic, as it seems to have gotten worse ever since my first term. The second being my wake-up time. To tell you the truth, I haven't had a 7:20 class in the 4 months before this term, and I am extremely struggling to shift my "night owl" circadian rhythm into an "early to bed, early to wake" cycle. Then comes this annoying sprain (which, really, is the reason why I shouldn't go to school in the first place). And, finally, money problems.

I saved the most gruesome one for the last because, in reality, I'm afraid to admit it. You see, when I started studying at APC, I had a pretty decent daily budget of 150 Pesos. Not much, I know, but 43 Pesos for the commute to and from, and with 103 Pesos to spare, it was an "okay" budget for a student from a low-to-middle-class family. But recently, we had problems with the billing, payments, tuition fees, and so on. We are currently struggling to make ends meet and to budget around 2,500 Pesos every two weeks for billing, my daily budget, food, and other materials. If you're here to ask why we only have that much money every two weeks, then I'm afraid you'll find no answers here. The only thing I know is that I only have a single parent, with the other one sending 0 Pesos every month; I've only paid 4000(?) for my tuition fee, and the term is half over.

There's an underlying question in my mind (and I'm sure, in yours as well) that wonders where I get the money from in my daily budget. To be honest, I don't really know, but when my grandmother says that we currently don't have 50 Pesos, we often just ask the neighbors or our uncles who are awake. It's not much, but it often gets me through the day. If you've been with me for a long time and have kept an eye on me, you'll notice that I no longer eat during lunch period (heck, I barely eat in school at all). The embarrassing part is when I would have to ask my blockmates for money just to fight off hunger, to which I'm very thankful for those who do.

And, yeah, that's the main reason why I have trouble attending 7:20 classes—that and a few others. It's really hard to admit it, but it seems that, with each passing day, I am struggling to afford the college I'm studying in. I don't even know how to pay off the rest of the tuition, and neither does my mom, and we've exhausted all our options. Talking to dad won't help because everyone in my family knows he's stingy and asking from him is just a dead end.

So, with all that, where does that leave me now? I'm sorry to say this again, but even I don't know.

I don't know what's going to happen, and that leaves me petrified. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to pay the tuition in full by December and then pay again for the next term. The thought that I might be leaving APC soon just to continue my college education is what keeps me up at night, especially since almost everyone in this household is telling me to quit studying and get a low-income job. That's always been my greatest fear on this world—not dying, nor rejection—but the fact that I have to wake up everyday and for the days to come always expecting the worst to happen.

I've hit rock bottom, but I'm sure there's a way back up. I'm defeated, but I'm not destroyed, and that's what will keep me going. I guess I should use the remainder of this day as a means to "regroup" again. I'm lucky that I still have the courage to lie low for now in order to regain my health because, in reality, that's what really matters. The way we all stop fighting for a day so we can fight again another day is what awes me the most. And so, with the night ending, I guess I should make some finishing touches before I fight again tomorrow.

To be frank, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I don't know if I'm going to pass or fail tomorrow. I don't know what's going to happen if I continue attending classes with this sprain. But I'm here to try, aren't I? I'm not ready to give up after fighting deadlines, take-home quizzes, and projects for so long. And I'm sure as hell I'm not letting it all go to waste.

I know that the full extent that my situation looks grim, but I'm not really asking for anything here. I'm fine with responses such as "You can do it" or "Good luck" because it's all I ever wanted; for people to know what I'm currently going through and to understand my tendencies. I'm thankful to have friends who are willing to help me out during lunch, and to my friends whose home I'd stay in when days get rough, as they are one of the reasons why I keep fighting.

I guess my main takeaway (if there is any) from this whole week is to just try to slow down when things get too fast. It's better to fight and lie low once things get out of hand and to fight again another day; rather than just fighting nonstop. It might be the final nail in the coffin for that subject of mine, but not the others. Just so you know, the reasons I stated above aren't excuses. I know that I'm at fault and I should've done better. And I'd be lying through my teeth if I was going to tell you that I'm fully ready to tackle on tomorrow's endeavors, but I am ready.

I don't have much stuff in this world. I have a starlight that guides me, I have a passion for computer science, I have a 4-year-old laptop that's on the verge of death, I've got a dream I want to fulfill, and I've got awesome people around me. It might not seem like much to you, but it's more than what I'm asking for, and I'm thankful for all of that.

I'm here to try again, and that's what counts. Tomorrow's a new day.

For those who have known me since high school, it's no surprise to you that I love blogging. Blogging has been a cornerstone of my life since 2013 or so. Ah, back then I used to blog on a different site (but still on the Blogger platform) and under a pseudonym. For the past 3 years or so, I've learned how to integrate blogging and the art itself in my daily lifestyle. Now that I'm blogging using my own name, and that I have a very high-maintenance blog, well, blogging has been kind of hard for me.

You see, the design of this blog is very image-centric. It relies on mostly images along with content and integrates them both beautifully, I believe. Now, to tell you the truth, I'm not used to adding a "post image" to every blog post, and making one in Photoshop has proved to be too cumbersome for the likes of me. I said before that I would make "off-the-bat" posts in order to increase the number of blog posts here, but I don't want my blog to be filled with those "no post image" indicators.

I don't want to stop blogging, and I don't want to entirely give up on this design. I don't want to use my old blog, and I sure as hell ain't redirecting to My Second Drawer, Naengmyeon, Geeks' Generation, nor my Medium. Why? Those other blogging platforms don't suit me at all. Weebly has an awkward post editor and, for some reason, it disables autocorrect on textboxes. WordPress' interface looks too "odd" to me and the main site takes YEARS to load. Tumblr just doesn't seem too customizable for me, and the site functions slowly on my laptop. Medium is barely customizable and it doesn't come with the features I want in a blogging platform. Besides, Blogger is my home. It loads fast, the UI is perfect, the necessary tools are there, there are no ads or "CREATE A SITE WITH BLOGGER" stuff. Plus, I've been with it ever since I started, and had some good memories here with my Big Sister Elaine.

After giving it much thought, I then decided to just revive my old blog—Memoir of an Undergrad. What I plan to do with it is just use it as a place for "off-the-bat" blog posts or posts that were easily made. You know, a place where I can pen down my thoughts after a busy day just to check up on how I've been doing.

With that said, what will happen to A Better Tomorrow? To simplify it: Nothing will happen to this blog. I then decided that I will use this blog for "high quality" blog posts. Blog posts that have images, proper formatting, media, less grammatical and spelling errors, and much effort put into them. The other blog, Memoir of an Undergrad, will contain "lower quality" blog posts that aren't proofread and will contain little to no effort. Basically, Memoir of an Undergrad will just be a place where I can blog in my leisure time.

So, I hope that clears everything all out. Remember:

A Better Tomorrow = A blog containing the "best of the best" posts.
Memoir of an Undergrad = A place where I'll blog when I'm feeling lazy :^)

Got it? Good. See you on the other side as I start to revamp the UI of my old blog.

I've (somehow) managed to lead myself astray.. yet again! It seems that I have a habit of leading myself away from my intended goal/dream in life, don't I? Kidding aside, it seems that I have further dug a grave for myself by slowly becoming, well, who I am now.

To be honest with you, I have no idea when I've let myself (and everything in my life) go. I only started noticing when my grades started slipping, I wasn't getting enough sleep, I seem to study less and hate computer science more, and so on. It was a real shocker to me when I slowly found this out, and I don't even know what's the cause of it.

Now, look, I don't want to be pointing fingers to anyone here (and I clearly acknowledge that this happened to me due to my poor choices in life) but it seems that I started having this problem when I decided to hang out with my current set of friends. It seems that my closest friends (in my block) currently have little to no interest in computer science, and would often laze around when it comes to "doing real work." And, because I hang out with them so often, it seems that I managed to contract their personality as well.

My friends mean nice and all, but their aversion to doing major computer science stuff and their disinterest for the course itself is something I would never want to have, but, then again, it is something I'm starting to have.

I can't tell you what the feeling is exactly like, but it's the equivalent of slowly being accustomed to living with poison ivy around you, and, over time, you get used to it until one day you start to itch like hell and wonder why you let yourself get used to poison ivy in the first place. Or, if I'm going to really play with words, it's as if I absorbed too much of my surroundings in an attempt to "level" with the people around me when, in reality, I've let the good parts of me slowly get replaced with the "different" parts of others. Making me lose a part of myself with each passing day.

Personally, I don't know who I am anymore. I have the same tastes, same likes, and so on, but if I travel back and meet myself in my freshman year, I would immediately wonder why I let the starry-eyed, intrepid and inquisitive kid before me turn into a pile of regurgitated mess.

This all boils down to the fact that I need to hang out with my current set of friends less and to just not get influenced by them. With their dislike of people who are fluent in the English language (and the usage of it), and their thoughts of dropping out of CS in order to pursue another course/job, well, maybe not having any friends is better.

Tall, dark, and devilishly good-looking—those are servers! When you mean by "server," a non-technologically adept person might think of a waiter, or something of the sort, but no, those aren't the servers I'm talking about. The servers I'm talking about are those giant racks of computers that send and "serve" content to devices. This week, we learned all about servers; how they work, how the function, how to configure them, and how to use them to serve emails or webpages. Unfortunately, we didn't set up a real server, we had to set up a virtual one—specifically, in Cisco's Packet Tracer tool.

For weeks 3-4, our main focus was on focusing about configuration, and stuff of the sort. We learned how to configure the network, how to add a password to the router, what types of connection to choose when connecting peripherals, and so on. And, oh boy, was it all a mouthful to memorize, but it sure was fun to learn.

To be rather brash and honest, I love these two weeks—and this was my favorite class for these two weeks—because I finally got to get into the nitty-gritty of my studies. I was finally able to get a feel of how the environment is like, and it's just amazing to have.

Funny enough, despite not being able to get the basic terminologies of the first two weeks, I made a speedy sprint towards the front of the pack in these two weeks. The class lessons were a breeze and the implementation was waaaaaayyyyyyy easier than I expected.

It was such a surreal feeling to be able to intuitively grasp a tool on your first try, and it happened to me with Cisco's Packet Tracer. It's like picking up a guitar and immediately being good at playing it despite not being taught that much about it in the past, that's what my experience with Packet Tracer felt.

The lessons and exercises this term were so easy, I was able to do my teams work with little help from the members and I was able to help out another even number group. I guess my prediction in the previous learning log didn't come into fruition.

And now, here are some of "my highlights" of this week in DNETCOM, enjoy.

A successful ping is a good ping.

Ha, wait till I get my hands on this web page, it's gonna look so fly once I'm done with it.

There's just one perfect phrase to wrap this week up:

Well, it's been A YEAR since Girls' Generation (SNSD) has released a full album and I thought that, rather than wait for a new one to come out, I'd just "review" the latest one. And by "review," I mean take a look back at the music of yesterday (or yesteryear, in this case) and see how much of a ripple or wave it made throughout time and in my life. Ah, there's nothing like listening and harking back yesterday's music—today. Tomfoolery aside, yes, it's been more than a year or so ever since SNSD has released an album and I'm dying to review at least one.

But first, let me just give you a little tidbit about my site. For a year or so, this blog has come equipped with a special kind of embed feature that automatically resizes YouTube (and Vimeo?) videos according to your screen size. I've shined and polished this feature for the past few months and I think it's absolutely perfect and I should try it out soon. Try it out by resizing your browser window or changing the orientation of your phone, pretty neat, right? Anyways, let's get into the video!



Now, for those who don't know the obvious truth, Lion Heart was released on the year 2015 and, boy, this huge release was entirely unprecedented. "Lion Heart," the album and the song, made large waves with Sones (the fans of Girls' Generation) and with other K-poppers. This release was also notable for being SNSD's first Korean album after Jessica's departure.

I don't really know the general consensus behind Lion Heart (both the album and the song), but obviously some people didn't like it because, as I've read, "it was missing something—or someone," or things like, "without Jessica, SNSD just doesn't feel like SNSD anymore." Negative comments were out and about, as with most things in this world, but in the mix were some good things—especially praises—about the new album. From what I've read, some people claimed that it's SNSD best album to date, and others suggested that it was a sign (shinhoreul bonae jweo), a sign that signaled SNSD's return to the world stage and their newfound mission to compete with newer K-pop bands like BLACKPINK, AOA, and Red Velvet. A lot of people, mostly Sones, believed in the fact that the phrase "comeback is real" is true for SNSD.

And, whew, were we wrong.

After Lion Heart was released, SNSD went on hiatus (again) and they haven't released a new album since. Sure, it was expected that they would do Korean and Japan tours in order to promote their new lineup of songs and whatnot. Not to mention Gaon Music Chart's announcement at the end of 2015, stating that Girls' Generation had over 398,000 albums—and being the most successful girl group in South Korea. But what now?

Around August or so, the group released the song "Sailing (0805)" for their 9th anniversary as a band, and that was pretty much it for the group this year, I suppose. I've been religiously checking SNSD's subreddits, forums, Tumblr posts, and so on, but I couldn't find any new news for the group. It seems to me that SNSD might be on hiatus for this year, but I can't be entirely sure. However, it is obvious that SNSD has focused more on the success of its members and solo performances rather than making/recording new songs for an upcoming album.

Not that SNSD focusing on solo performances by its members is a bad thing, it's just that it's weird how the girls aren't going to be doing much as a group this year. (Oh, I LOVE Seohyun and Yuri's new song "Secret," you should totally check it out!) It's that fact that makes me sad because there's no new things to spazz about or no new things to discover about the group, unlike in the years before when the group was making news right and left, and my Facebook News Feed was teeming with news about them. Now everything's just, dare I say, sort of dull.

There's not much to say about the song or the music video other than the fact that it was released at an iconic time in my life (the start of my college life). While it may not seem like much, the song and the album itself is actually dear to me. Like, seriously, if there was one album or song to represent my first term in college, and the memories in it, I would definitely choose Lion Heart.

Because of all this, Lion Heart has carved its way into my heart where it found a soft spot, right next with other memorable SNSD album releases such as "Girls & Peace," "I Got A Boy," "The Boys," and "Love & Peace." (Gee, gee, gee, gee all of the sudden the albums really do sound girly when read in that order.)

All in all, Lion Heart is proof that Girls' Generation is still that iconic 9-member (or 8-member) girl group powerhouse that launched in the summer of 2007.

My professor asked for a so-called "learning log" for my DNETCOM class and, as the old saying goes, "ask and ye shall receive." So I fired up Photoshop, got a few fonts, and made the post image. This "learning log" will be listed as a series in my blog, by the way, so you'll see it in the lower part of the sidebar. So, without any further ado, here's my log for the first week of DNETCOM.

The first week of DNETCOM started out fairly.. simple, I suppose. Starting off in a not-so-familiar room on the fifth floor with little to no internet connection, I started playing a game of Microsoft Solitaire before my professor arrived. My other blockmates saw this and this whole frenzy of playing Microsoft Solitaire started, and this would continue throughout the week—in different subjects with different professors.

After my professor entered, we all quickly closed our game of Solitaire and started listening to him once he got his PowerPoint presentation up and running. Our professor was new to us, Sir Justin Pineda. In the first day, he told us about mostly house rules, the course syllabus, and the usual things you'd hear on the first day. Not much happened on this day, as far as I can recall, mostly introductory things and some stuff about taking a certification exam.

For the next meeting, we've moved to a different room—permanently. Somehow, we've ended up at room 302 (if I remember correctly), just right next to my Thursday QUAMET class. I don't really have any complaints about moving to different rooms, BUT THAT ROOM DIDN'T HAVE INTERNET AS WELL. I actually find it funny and quite ironic that the room beside us has a working Internet connection and yet we are a networking fundamentals class with no working network connection.

Internet woes aside, I kind of felt a little uncomfortable about the new room. I can't really put my finger to it, but it's just that the room triggers my claustrophobia. But anyway, the class soon started and our professor soon got to work explaining some basic networking terms and things of the sort.

He first started off with networking topologies and some basic stuff about networks. The first part of the lesson was fairly easy to understand, but I soon started having difficulty in the Network Architecture Components slide. I'm not sure if it's just me or it's the same for everyone else, but I didn't quite get the slides in that part of the lesson.

First and foremost, what are the network architecture components for? It's for the network, sure, but what purpose do they serve and why are they fault tolerance, scalability, quality of service, security? Usually, when using the word "components," it usually means a part of something. For computers, the usual components are the RAM, storage drive, graphics card, motherboard, and so on. As for programming languages, it's syntax, variables, statements, conditions, etc. When I think of "network architecture components," I usually think of servers, clients, the cloud, RAID, server-centric operating systems (Windows Server, MacOS Server, Ubuntu Server), and so on—not fault tolerance. I just want to know how and why the network architecture components came to be.

Second, the last part of the lesson: network topology types. If there's one thing I want to say right off the bat, it's the obvious fact that I have (almost) never heard of the word "topology" before in my life. I don't know what a topology is and what it's used for. Although I have to admit I have heard of the word "network topology" in a Microsoft Virtual Academy class introduction I watched the day before, but what's frustrating is that they didn't properly explain what a topology is either. So I'd like to know what a topology is in layman's terms. Is a topology a web? A type of connection? A position of linking computers? I don't know, that's why I failed to understand the last part of the lesson.

Finally, the exercise itself. I don't even know how to design a network architecture, let alone design one in a span of 30 minutes or so, and then defend it. I failed to understand how a network architecture is designed because I failed to grasp even the fundamental building blocks of it. Maybe I'll try to read some resources online to clear up some things. Hopefully I can keep up with the pace my professor is going because I don't want this situation to happen again:

Replace "math teacher" with "DNETCOM teacher" :P

But regardless of my queries and concerns above, I personally have high hopes for this subject because it's a major subject and I want to persevere to become a server administrator in the far future. Passing this class and getting high grades is at the top of my priority so I'll take every measure necessary to keep up and (hopefully) stay at the front of the pack.

That's all for now, stay tuned for the next learning log!

Hey, all! Since I haven't posted for a while, I figured I might as well write a post here.

Now that I've basically brought back my old phone—my Nokia 5233—from the dead, I should really take great strides in caring for it. I did so much stuff on that phone and, to be honest, that phone has been with me throughout half of my time in high school and it's served it purpose well. Because of that phone, I was able to learn how to flash custom firmware, learn the Korean alphabet (hangul), get to know different Korean bands, watch music videos/movies on the go, and so much more. I really want to bring that phone back to its former glory, but the girl hasn't aged well. Its main body case has been broken, scratched, and ripped to pieces. Some of the covering for its slots are entirely gone. Finally, its battery and lack of charger are taking its toll on its usability. I should really try and nurse this phone to life again.

Well, I shouldn't expect much/any help from my dad's side, or even from him. I've spent a great portion of my life understanding my parents from their perspective and I've always had trouble seeing it from his. Like me, he has a vivid imagination, but he eventually lets it, and his emotions, control him. I can say that for a fact because I can tell that from the way he speaks as it's often either emotional, irrational, or dramatic. Personally, I expected him to act—at the very least—mature about it all, and own up for his mistakes. But I guess I've expected too much.

What's funny about him is that he thinks all we feel towards him is hate when, in reality, I feel indifferent or apathetic towards him. I personally don't care about how he's doing now and the same can be said of what happened with him and my mother. All I ever want from him is for him to be a father. But the thing is, the reason why he's so notorious in my family is because he always tries to run when the situation goes awry. It would be a great day if he decides to man up and right the wrongs he's made. My situation with my family isn't enough to fit a few paragraphs, but here's one takeaway I learned from him: if I'm ever going to be a father someday, I would never want to be like him.

In life, any man can easily make a child, but it takes courage for a man to be a father to a child. At the end of the day, it was my fault for expecting too much from a person who thinks that the Facebook block button is the one-stop solution for all their problems.

Anyway, the start of my next collegiate term is around the corner, and I'm going to be with my blockmates again. Last term was the perfect term for me to adjust my gears and get an extended rest from my summer vacation, but this term is a different one. I've got the toughest set of subjects yet, and I'm afraid of how I'll fare against them. But I'm happy that I'll be with my blockmates again (except for one subject, damn calculus). I don't know what I'm going to do this coming term, but I'm sure I need to burn all my resources just to keep my head afloat. I personally think that it's time for me to place myself at the front of the pack.

I should start working on writing works of literature again. I want to write poems, stories, and epic tales once again, but my main obstacle is that I'm too scared to write them or no one will like them. I'm going to think of new ways on how to get myself writing again. Honestly speaking, I love writing, and it's one of my few passions in life. I should write again.

For as far as I can remember, I've always been a shut-in. I've spent a great portion of my life inside a room, or within the safety of my own house, and it's slowly starting to kill me. My life as a shut-in didn't start since childhood; rather, it started as I slowly progressed into my teenage years and, well, here I am now.

Being a shut-in can have it's positives. For one, I don't have to worry about what to wear, how much money I'm going to need for the day, and I won't have to deal with the elements of the outdoors (heat, rain, noise, and so on). While this lifestyle has benefited me for quite a while, it certainly isn't a lifestyle to adopt for the rest of my life. This brings us to the downside of being a shut-in—isolation. Isolation, as you probably know by now, is a side-effect of being a shut-in. You might wonder why isolation is a problem when you can easily message anyone anywhere in the world with the Internet, and you have a point.

Still, there's something inherently different with talking to people in real life compared to talking to them inside the confines of a chatbox/chat window. Ever since I've gotten a laptop, my time outside the room has drastically plummeted while, adversely, my time online has dramatically increased. You see, before this laptop was given to me, I had to rely on the computer shops/Internet cafés nearby to access the Internet. This was around 2010-2012 when the "mobile Internet revolution" hadn't started and the best option to access the Internet here in the Philippines was through a computer.

Despite that, my first few months with this laptop was actually quite the same as before. I often messaged my other friends on where to hang out and I visited my friends' house often (notably Loy's house). Even after 2 or so years of having the laptop, I was still outgoing—probably more than ever before. During the climax of my life as a K-popper, I often attended occasions and events that either centered on K-pop in general or Girls' Generation, and I had a good time attending them, too.

Sadly, things change and, as time passed, I experienced a lot of stuff that just made me want to stay within the confines of my room. I've built up so many walls over the past year and tried to hide under the radar. I closed my old Facebook account (which was a part of all these K-pop groups, has a lot of posts, has a lot of comments, and contains most of the messages I've ever sent online) and instead opened a new Facebook account—one that is void of posts and community ties. As of now, my current Facebook account has shared 0 posts, has 0 timeline posts (aside from birthday posts), has 0 comments, and only has 1 post (which was a shared photo from my Instagram).

Although I'm mainly focusing on my Facebook life, I believe that this is a sign of me wanting to detach myself from communities and groups of people in general. I've eventually grown into the shut-in I am today, living life within safe borders.

Which ultimately brings me to this question: Is living in safety and distancing yourself from most people considered living?


The answer? I don't really know, if I were to be honest with you. Despite that, I am sure of one thing: I've been living a life like that and I don't want to live it anymore. As I've heard before, staying inside a comfort zone isn't a bad thing, but—like most things in life—it should be taken in moderation. What I'm basically planning to do is to get out of my shell and experience the world as it is, whether good or bad. I've lived a great deal of my life staying inside a "comfort bubble" and the isolation is taking its toll on me.

My solution? Get outside more, show my true colors, and express myself in ways I've never did before. I'm going to hang out more with my friends (while still trying to achieve academic excellence), focus on attending events, listening to new music, watching new movies, and just generally experiencing life as it is.

Hopefully I'll be able to take that first step outside.


P.S.
Listen to Taylor Swift's "The Outside," it totally matches the topic of this post. Also, I'm not a true shut-in because I still go outside to attend classes, but, if I did become one, I'd immediately lose my mind.

For those who have (very) keen eyes, you'll realize that my Twitter bio and my Facebook tagline now contains the phrase "Veritas et Excellentia." For those who are really keeping track, my Twitter profile now has a new maroon/dark crimson color scheme. Let me just clear everything up by saying that, yes, the phrase above will be my main motto for the next few months/years or so—and for a good reason.

Anyway, let me just give you a concise primer about what's been going on recently. For the past few weeks or so, I suddenly got a mild to extreme case of, what I call, "Harvard Fever"—a deep adoration bordering on addiction about anything Harvard University. I don't really know what gave me Harvard Fever, but I probably think it's Harvard University's CS50, although it could also be a variety of other factors.

My Harvard Fever got to a point where I actually almost applied to Harvard online. Needless to say, it was by a long shot for me to even try to apply for Harvard, let alone get into the school itself considering my current situation. I tried, sure, but it was hard to even try to apply. For starters, I'm a student in the Philippines and I graduated before the K-12 program was put into effect, which means that I also had 4 years of secondary education, and it was only through grades 6–10. Also, since I'm already a college student, I first thought that I was supposed to apply as a transferee student because I already gained credit in my Computer Science course. (Still, I'm just 17 years old.). There are a myriad of other problems that affected me even trying to apply, so I took another route instead—emulate the feeling of studying there.

Now, emulating the feeling and overall experience of studying there is a little harder than I expected. First, we don't have the large community Harvard does and a bunch of other things, but I tossed those aside and decided to try it anyway. I first adopted a new motto, one that includes Harvard's motto and I added my own bit following their motto. After a few Latin tutorials and translations, I finally settled with "Veritas et Excellentia" and used it from there on out.

So, why "Veritas et Excellentia"? Well, I put Veritas first because it's translation "truth" was easier to implement and because I consider truth to be more important than excellence. Though I consider both of them equally important, I believe that truth is more important because nowadays most people do all kinds of nasty and untruthful things to gain excellence. That's why I chose that motto and structured it that way because I plan on pursuing excellence while maintaining truthful to myself and to others. That's basically the literal translation of it, "truth and excellence." Truth while aiming for excellence.


Note: My Instagram bio (or whatever you call it) uses a similar but different phrase—"Veritas super omnia." I chose that because it follows in the footsteps of my main motto and because it directly means "truth above all else"/"truth above all."

As of writing this, it is now the 10th of July, 2016, and we're well on our way onto the start of the rainy season (or "monsoon season," as I like to call it). There's not much to this season in particular, other than the occasionally very rainy days and class suspensions (yay!). Being a person who's fond of the cold weather, the rainy season is my personal favorite of all the seasons; however, you do have to take into account that I live in a country near the equator, so we are only limited to two seasons: rainy or sunny. The rainy season occurs every single year and, ever since I've taken it into account, it's not quite the same as last years.

The rains have started pouring around a week or so ago and, my God, they have been some of the most unpredictable downpours I've ever seen. Often times, I leave the house and see a bright, considerably clear sky until I get to my college and then a massive downpour of rain starts. It's sad that I often find myself at the mercy of whatever weather is out there because I commute from home to school, so a nasty weather can sometimes influence me into not going outside at all.

Still, the harsh rains alone can't make up for the reasons as to why this year's monsoon is distinct to me. I don't really know why, but I've noticed that life around me has gotten a bit colder and uneventful. Ever since I've built up walls after that event, I found life to be quite dull and uneventful. I tried ways of finding new hobbies and other sorts, but nothing really stuck to me. Aside from that, I've recently checked and found out that I'm not in love with anyone, nor am infatuated towards anyone—not even attracted towards anyone, for that matter. While it's a great deterrent against those people who still throw jokes about my old crush, not having a crush has its own downsides along with some positives.

I can't really pinpoint out what makes this season boring, but I guess it's because I'm lacking of any inspiration. I've tried looking into many reasons to serve as a viable form of inspiration, but none of them seemed to last long. So, for the past few weeks or so, I've been blazing through life with a "meh" attitude towards everything, and I hate it.

Other than that, one thing I can really notice is the fact that I'm starting to long for human interaction—one that is not on Facebook. I've fancied the life of having everyone you know a single tap/click away, but I've slowly resented the idea after years of using it. I found myself longing to talk, one-on-one, in person with a friend of mine and it's really hard to do that these days. What's a little frustrating is that, sometimes, when you're out with a friend or a person you want to get to know, you can't avoid that person looking at their phones, or something, and it really kills the experience.

But I digress, this season is particularly different from the others solely because, well, things have gotten colder—literally and figuratively. The winds seem to be blowing into a different direction, one that seems to be pointing back to the past and I can't stop looking at the things that once used to be. I have a feeling that this season is trying to bring me back to the days of yesteryear, to a time when I looked at the raindrops out my window and got a feeling of relief. Maybe, just maybe, I might find something special amidst all of these downpours. Whatever the case may be, this monsoon season is starting out badly.

For the past few weeks or so—ever since classes have resumed—I have been pretty busy because of my schedule. It's not that I have more classes now compared to before, but it's because all of my classes are scrunched up in long, tiring afternoon sessions rather than being evenly spread out in the morning. Now, that sucks for 2 reasons: I'll always have to stay up late in the night to finish my assignments/schoolworks, and it basically leaves me super drowsy in the morning. Needless to say, this schedule has prevented me from posting on this blog frequently (among other reasons).

Nevertheless, I've always wanted to continue to post here, but I don't really get the reason why I post here infrequently. I've chalked up a bunch of reasons why I don't post here anymore, and one of the leading reasons (if not, the leading reason) as to why I don't post here anymore is because of how my blog is designed. You've probably noticed it by now because you'll see that basically ALL of the blog posts I have written (so far) have an image in them. Now, I'm not against making images for my posts, to be honest; if anything, I highly want it because I get to showcase my creativity now. But, as I said, it's kind of a double-edged sword: it's good because I get to finally show off my skills in image and graphics design, but, at the same time, it's also prohibiting me from making a lot of posts because I have to make sure that each of their design must be unique. Moreover, making post images take time and (some form) of creativity, so it also extends the amount of time needed to make a new post.

So, with that out of the way, what else is prohibiting me from posting here frequently? Lack of stories to share. Now, off the bat, I know what you're thinking, "Dart, why don't just share your everyday life or something? There's a story in everything!" and, although that might be true, there are some stories that I'm not compelled to share with the general public, and there are some stories that I only feel like sharing with trusted individuals. Sure, I could share my everyday life with bits and pieces of it removed, but that's basically (what I consider) a form of lazy writing—writing something for the sake of writing something.

Are there more reasons as to why I can't write? I could chalk up a few more, but I honestly don't like making more excuses. Writing is (or, in this case, was) my passion, and I'm quickly losing the motivation to chase it. But have no fear, I have made a few solutions to remedy these basic and easy-to-solve problems.

1. A new system for off-the-bat posts
I'm sure that there will be posts that I'll write just for the sake of writing in the future (and I have written a great amount of them in the past, too), and I need a new system in place for off-the-bat posts—and yes, that's what I'm calling them now. So, how will you know that a post is made right off the bat? Well, you'll notice that the posts have no image attached to them, and they'll also have the tag [Off-the-bat] so you can easily see off-the-bat posts.

2. Only adding a post image for the "featured" or "special" posts
So, for now, I'll only be making a post images for posts I can consider a "really valuable work of art," or something of the sort. I'll also be heavily proofreading them so you'll know that the post you're reading is of high quality. That's basically it for posts like these. Oh, and they won't have an [Off-the-bat] tag on them.

3. Publishing my speeches/slam poems/other works of literature
You all know that I'm a member of the public speaking cluster at APC Speaks, right? Every week or so, we make tons (and tons) of speeches—some subpar; others competition-level speeches. I'll make sure to post a speech of mine every week or so, but, of course, I'll be revising it, so some parts or certain sentences might be removed. Since I mentioned slam poetry, yes, I'll be bringing back my Slam Poetry Night series next Saturday, July 10, 2016.(Final change of schedule, I promise.) As for my other works of literature, the things I'll write when I'm bored, I'll just post some of them here. I still haven't decided whether or not to categorize them, but the slam poems sure are going to be. I'll figure something out soon.


In a nutshell, those are all of the solutions I could think of to get me posting more. I really, really hope this gets me to post more often in this blog as blogging/writing is, was, and always will be a thing that I genuinely have a passion for.

Unlike the days before, the fourth day wasn't filled with any fun activities and was very... void, so to speak, of any activities. As far as I can remember, all I remember that happened this day was the human rollercoaster activity and the awarding of groups.

The morning of this day started fairly ordinary, and, since it was the last day, all the teams basically had one big chowdown to finish all of their supplies of food. The other teams had bacon, chicken, and basically the tastiest food you could ever find. While, on the other hand, we just ate corned beef with some bread, or something. I don't fully remember. This was also the day, I believe, that we cleaned up all our items. In doing so, some of my teammates found the pot I brought to camp (a piece of kitchenware) and, oh my, it had some leftover adobo from our first day at camp. Man, they really neglected the pot I brought seeing that it wasn't touched ever since the first day. Some of my teammates jokingly told Kuya Pong to eat the adobo in it because it contains memories of the first day, or something like that, but I just laughed it off and washed the pot myself.

After/before all of that, we were at Rialtok and we were told to play one final activity before we left: a long human rollercoaster (or a WHOAllercoaster, as they call it). We went to the place near the campfire and we were separated into two groups, the boys and the girls. Basically, we would form two lines and we would link ourselves with the line opposite to us using our arms and form some sort of rollercoaster track using our arms. Someone would then move a person into the front of the rollercoaster and our tracks (arms) would then try to move that person to the end.

A group photo of us before we went into our respective groups.

This whole cycle continued until the last person would be carried to the back and then the game ends there. The funniest part of all this was when a really big guy was put on our tracks and most of us had difficulty in carrying him until he reached the middle part of our track. There were guys there who literally exerted 100% MAXIMUM effort in carrying the guy and they basically yelled out, "ONE, TWO, THREE!" before tossing up their arms in the air to move the guy. This whole situation was extremely funny because I was watching from afar and—get this—they tossed their arms and pushed so hard, the guy (who was around 200+ pounds or so) ACTUALLY DID A FULL 180° BACKFLIP IN THE AIR. I literally did not believe what I had just witnessed and the entire thing seemed so surreal. To simplify it, it was like watching the birth of a star. The guy's back was toward their arms and his face at the sky and he was thrown 2-3 feet into the air with his face landing on their arms and his back facing the sky. After watching that, I literally believed that anything is possible.

As far as I know, not much happened after that. The next guy followed and then the other, and it was basically like that the whole time. I do have to note that I rode the human rollercoaster and it was akin to being tossed around hard roller pins while a hot, bright light gleams down on you from above. It was every bit as uncomfortable as it was painful, but it was worth it and I can finally say that I've rode a human rollercoaster.

Not a lot happened after that, to be honest. We went back to Rialtok to clean up Super Kaland and we were told to wear our blue "love like WHOA" shirt (which was around 200 Pesos or so) and then awarding began. Our team had won the award for "Best in Kampo De Kusina" and "Best in Splash Dash," and one of our teammates—Sky—was given an award for the most sisterly camper. The best part was that we were the second best team overall and we were surprised because we didn't really expect to get an award like that. Naturally, we were all very honored and humble about it, and we took a few pictures afterwards.


And, after all of that, well, that was it. Once again, my memory has escaped me and I don't remember much after what happened. I remember packing my stuff and getting onto the van and almost everything else that happened afterward, but it's nothing noteworthy.

We boarded the bus at around 3 p.m. or so and we arrived at Valle Verde at around 9-9:30 p.m., and it was one hell of a trip. The whole ride, my phone was desperately clinging on to the last ounce of battery life it had and I'm happy to say that my phone was able to make it through. Actually, my phone lasted for 4 days on a 100% charge, but I only used it to listen to music while on the bus and take a few pictures. The other noteworthy thing that happened during our trip was that I requested to be dropped off at a certain area around C5. You see, Valle Verde is actually a far away place from where I live and I had to commute from Valle Verde to my home (which would take around 1 jeep, 1 train, 1 bus/van, AND 2 tricycles). If I was dropped off at that specific location along the C5 road, I would only need to ride 2 tricycles to get home, saving me a lot of time and money. Unfortunately, they didn't drop me off there which—needless to say—made my commute home a lot harder.

Once we got to Valle Verde, we said our goodbyes to each other and parted ways. The commute home was the hardest part, to be honest, since I was lugging around a camping bag that was nearly around my weight at night. I took a jeep headed to Shaw Overpass and, funny enough, the driver actually forgot to stop there and I got off at the Jollibee restaurant past PureGold Shaw. I was scared because I got off at a place I'm not familiar with, I'm carrying my phone and other valuable items with me, and I have around 300 Pesos in cash—not to mention that I was commuting home alone and I had no load in my cellphone so I couldn't call anyone. I really panicked at this point and I was just there wishing that I had been dropped off along that part of the C5 because it led to my high school and many of my friends' house, so I knew that stretch of road like the back of my hand, unlike this. I saw a jeep that was headed to Shaw Overpass and I got off at the overpass and rode the MRT 3 train going to Ayala. Once I finally arrived at Ayala, I knew I was safe because I know the road from Ayala to my house like the back of my hand, and I recall riding the bus because the I knew all of the FX vans going to FTI were all gone/not at Park Square. Luckily enough, I found a pretty spacey bus headed to FTI and it was pretty much smooth sailing from there.

I arrived home in the dead of night, went upstairs, opened my door, turned on my laptop, and sat back in wonder over how these were the best 4 days of my entire life—and that's how my story of Camp Calye 2016 ended.


P.S. YZA IS MY CAMP CRUSH! :^D

It was already my third day at Camp Calye and, for some reason, I was already starting to wear out from the trip. Rather sad to say, but I really didn't get enough sleep the past few nights and my there was this unbelievable pain on my left and right thighs, and on my biceps, too. Because I didn't bring a single pillow with me, for the past 2 nights, I've been trying to sleep with my makeshift pillow made out of—wait for it—a pile of clothes that I've randomly dropped on the floor; needless to say, it wasn't the best replacement for a pillow.

After I awoke, I experienced an unworldly amount of pain all over my body. Still, not fazed by the pain, I kept on going and went to Super Kaland with my buddy Marvin to meet up with the other members of our team. As we got there, we saw this devilishly handsome (as he calls himself) man with spiked hair and a red shirt—and he introduced himself as "Kuya Pong," our other team facilitator. I stayed with them and sat down to listen to some of Kuya Pong's latest hugots and very corny funny jokes. We played some word and mind games with him and we were fooling around and having fun while we waited for the camp's gathering song to sound off.

After playing a few games, the camp song sounded off and we all came rushing towards Rialtok where we were given our early morning talk, if you will. Then after that we were told by our hosts, Ate Charie and some other guy (sorry), to go and eat our breakfast and they specifically told us to eat a lot because we were going to go trekking around Kampo Trexo. That's all of the significant news for our morning in Rialtok, and I remember we all headed back to Super Kaland to eat some Pancit Canton or corned beef—and we took a few pictures while we were there, of course.


I don't really remember much after that. I remember that this was the morning Marvin and I went to Storeeland (it's what we call the nearby store in Kampo Trexo) to buy some hot water. The funny thing about our trip to Storeeland was that the water was too hot and I was using a plastic bottle (my Gatorade bottle, specifically) to hold the water and, immediately after Marvin poured hot water into the bottle, it capsized, warped, and shrunk. At this point, any sane human being would consider to just get a mug, but, being the person that I am, I insisted that we wait for a few minutes before we continue putting the lava water into the flimsy bottle.

After we had a hearty breakfast consisting of several loaves of bread and Pancit Canton, we were ready to wait for the camp gathering song to sound off again. Another funny thing about this morning that I can remember was that we noticed that our bread supply was dwindling even though we hadn't ate a single loaf of bread the days before, which struck us off. According to my teammates, they said they heard someone say "Sa kanila pala yun" ("It was theirs") and they said they were referring to their/our bread. This fueled allegations that certain teams—probably the Whoarange team—was taking some of our bread without our permission. This bread dilemma was escalated when we realized that, on the first day of camp, we had 6 packs of bread (I brought 3 packs of bread and Rhea brought another 3 packs) and we were taken aback when we noticed that we only had 2 packs of bread remaining. Our team facilitators were instantly disgruntled when they found out about this, but nothing really happened, they just stated out that it's wrong for different teams to take food from other teams without their permission.

The bread-fueled drama was quickly stopped once the camp gathering song sounded off. Once we got there, our lovely hosts for the morning told us the order the groups will be taking when trekking. We were second to the last (I believe) and, before we left Rialtok, we took a picture to commemorate our looks before the trip.


Now, trekking around the "unseen"/yet to be seen part of Kampo Trexo was fairly exciting for two reasons: it was hidden and we've never seen it before. On our way there, we were told by our hosts to go to "reflective mode" or, in layman's terms, to use the time to reflect on our past decisions and whatnot—and that's what I did. I tried, as much as possible, to keep quiet along the way and to not talk to anyone (not that anyone's going to talk to me anyway, but oh well) while trekking. The most fun part of this was we all went through the most beautiful, natural, and scenic part of Kampo Trexo we've ever seen.

If I remember correctly, we went down a few flights of steps going down to a small walkway that's close to the wall. On the opposite side, there was this huge and somewhat shallow river that leads to the end of the path, I guess. It was a little scary going through until we reached the bridge. The bridge itself was fairly sturdy-looking and it was made out of concrete, but what was unnerving was that there were no handrails on either side of it, so if I fall to the right or if I accidentally slipped, literally nothing would stop me plummeting down to the river. After we crossed the bridge, the second scariest thing in our trek showed up: the walkway. Now, similar to the walkway earlier, this wasn't made out of concrete and it had a weak-looking handrail to the left made out of wood/bamboo. What made me scared about this walkway was that it had a fairly good amount of mud on top of it and it rained the day before, which, needless to say, made the walkway pretty slippery. Adding insult to injury, this particular walkway had several ups and downs—just like life—and going through them was no easy task. Fortunately, we reached the end of our trip and we had to go up a very (extremely) small crevice that had a very slippery staircase leading to the top.

It was difficult going through, but it was worth it—until I realized that we had just gone through a longer, more difficult route and it actually led to the mountainous part of Kampo Trexo. We took a small break after that and I think I heard someone crying because they weren't able to breathe or that sort of thing; fortunately, none of my teammates suffered any injuries or any difficulties, so we pushed on. It's worth noting that, at this point, my skin color had significantly become darker—and redder—because I didn't have any sunblock on, but what can you do. After our short stop, we continued on heading upwards and we basically went through the same path we used yesterday, going through the same hanging bridge.

Our faces after trekking. It was grueling, but we all had fun as a team.

We had fun jumping on the hanging bridge (despite being told not to).

After a short walk or so, we all came back to Rialtok. I don't remember what happened after that, to be honest, but I'm assuming that we had a short break (which was around 3 hours) to do some squaddle sessions or to bond with our teammates. From what I remember, we didn't do any squaddle sessions and we just went to different locations in Kampo Trexo. I'm not sure if this way the day this happened, but I remember that someone had lost their iPhone while they were charging. Marvin and I desperately wanted to use our phones so we went back to the tent to get his charger and we would charge at the place where the iPhone got lost. The funny thing was that, while we were charging and casually talking, we watched two other guys clean up that area and they accidentally found the missing iPhone underneath all of the bags and towels. They gave the iPhone back and we just talked and rejoined our fellow teammates a few minutes later. We then changed into our recommended "Church clothes" and we had a Mass after that at Rialtok.


By this time, it was already nighttime and this was where the fun really began. I can't remember the reason why, but I had an emotional breakdown. I wasn't feeling very good that night and my teammates (as well as my team facilitator, Kuya Joed) noticed. The details were very vague and my memory had escaped me, but I remember I told him some really heavy stuff—stuff that was so confidential, I never told it to anyone else and nobody knew about my problem but me. What he did afterwards actually made me take back a few steps: He offered me some great advice, told me to reflect and he did the one thing that would cheer me up the most—he gathered my teammates and we had a squaddle session.

This was a pretty heavy squaddle session, to be honest, the heaviest out of all. The first to talk was me, I shared my problems with my depression, suicide, you know, the deep stuff. I think I actually broke down and started getting very emotional while telling my part, and the girl next to me—Sky—was patting my back while I was talking and I've never experienced that before so it made me even more emotional. At this point, my eyes were basically the embodiment of Niagara falls and all parts of me were scattered around onto the floor, showing my true, vulnerable, insecure, and deeply flawed side. What made me love the Carolet team was that, as far as I know, they all listened. They all listened no matter how sappy, emotional, or pathetic my story was, and—at the end of my story—they told me something that would make me consider them as my one, true family: they're there for me and they won't leave me behind. I don't have a lot of good things happen to me, but I'm sure that the Carolet team is definitely one of the best things to happen to my life.

After that, we took turns in sharing our equally heavy stories (which I won't disclose, by the way), until, of course, the damn camp gathering song sounded off. That was the worst time the camp gathering song could've sounded off and, to this day, I still wish that the camp gathering song sounded off half an hour or an hour later. Our camp facilitator told us that we would continue the session later, but, unfortunately, it was never continued and we were basically left on a cliffhanger because our other teammates didn't share their hardships yet (sorry Giselle, Yza, Gary, Marvin, Kaye, and Rhea). Once we got to Rialtok, we were told by our hosts to go to a special part of Kampo Trexo and to follow our team facilitators in going there.

We did a bunch of stuff while we were there. We wrote our problems and current worries down on a piece of paper and it was segregated by different groups; we book a piece of wood, got a pen, and wrote down our hopes/dreams for the future there and nailed it onto a cross; and were told to get our blankets and sit down around this big pile of wood which eventually became a gigantic campfire.

The plastic bags that we threw our papers in.

The cross where we nailed pieces of wood to.

After the lighting of the gigantic campfire, we were given a candle and I believe we were told to exchange and hug various camp members. I think I hugged all of my teammates, but if there is one I didn't hug, I owe them a hug (haha). I went around hugging other camp members that I personally knew and exchanged candles with them. The last person I exchanged candles with was a person from my original team (because I was supposed to be a part of the orange team, not violet), we hugged afterwards and went back to our respective groups. Our camp facilitators basically had a small sharing session afterwards and, funny enough, my teammate Rhea talked in front despite having a hoarse voice.

Our exchange-a-candle moment.

Although Rhea had an extremely hoarse voice, that didn't stop her.

We had our "E Night" presentation afterwards at Rialtok and basically it was this "show and tell" portion where each team would present/sing a Disney song in front. Our teammates thought that it was great for us to sing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by The Tokens. Since I was the only one in our team who knew the full song (I don't even know why I know the full song, I just listen to it on YouTube), they all thought that it would be great if I sang the song alone. This eventually proved to be a disaster (and a funny one, too) and our small prep time became the cause of our downfall; adding insult to injury, we were the first team to present. Our presentation was.. mediocre, but we had all fun and you could see it our faces.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the Carolets dance tonight.

We watched the other teams perform after that and we saw a mashup where all of the team facilitators would dance/do something silly in front and we cheered on our respective team facilitators. A few jokes were told after that, some sang and some danced, and we all had a blast enjoying our last night together.

This night ended in a very special way because, unlike the other nights, we were told by our hosts that there wouldn't be a "lights off" time for this night and we were basically told to do anything we wanted. Our team and I left Rialtok and went to Super Kaland to listen to a (very exhausting but) very inspiring story—which left us all in stitches. Sadly, Marvin was feeling pretty sleepy (and so was I) so we had to leave our group early and we went to sleep in our tent. Before we went to sleep, I realized that it was the most surreal night of my entire life: there were lights everywhere in the tent area, I could hear people and groups chatting, and some campers were running around and having fun with their fellow campers. Gary joined us in our tent not long after and he told us that the girls in our team went to their tents shortly after we left, so I'm sure we didn't miss out on anything.

We all went to sleep and, just like that, our third day at Camp Calye ended.


Unlike the other nights, this one was special. The days before, we were told that we would find out what a true family is, the answers to our current problems, and so on and so forth. Being the pessimist that I am, I didn't believe this at first as it seemed too big of a promise, but, despite the doubts I had, I was finally shown all of these magnificent things—all in one day. This day (and the other days leading up to it) genuinely are special, and I'll always treasure it in a special part of my worn-out and decrepit heart. Oh, and here are a few photos of us this night:

Our (embarrassing) team dance.

The most candid photo of us :^)