A Better Tomorrow

Right off the bat, I have to say that this is probably the hardest blog post that I have tried writing. Not only because of the somewhat-controversial topic it handles, but also because of the very nature of this post—as well as its implications. For the past week or so, I've put up with thoughts such as "don't write this series, it'll be a disaster on your part," and "I don't want to write this today, I'm feeling down," and so on. Thankfully, today is different, and I (finally) decided to start writing this series. So, here goes nothing. Here's the first letter addressed to someone I genuinely love.

There was never a dull day with you. My days seemed brighter and my nights felt warmer every single time I talked to you. And that has always been the case ever since I first started talking to you.

Do you still remember those first few days? I was filled with awkwardness because it was the first time I ever tried connecting with someone through that interest of mine, but thankfully you always knew what to say to get me talking. Even though we barely knew each other, you didn't seem to care. You're friendly—and most of all—bright, and you were like this bright sunlight that came into my life.

I was rather young when I met you, and I had been experiencing problems of depression, family, and other stuff at that age. I was fun-loving, but always fearful when I got hurt, as I didn't know how to protect myself back then. Depression hit me one fateful evening and I had gone into a long episode wherein I thought nothing of myself and of the people around me.

Oddly enough, you were there to lift me up. Despite my unending sadness and negative thoughts, you always tried to lift me up, even though we were only friends because we have this 1 thing in common. I was a pessimist and you were an optimist, and, at that point in my life, I really needed one to lift my spirits.

What you did for me must've been a hard task. You tried lifting the spirit of this depressed young teen who was hard-headed and acted quite immature, and yet you never failed to make me smile. For every sad/depressing thing I wrote, you scribbled 10 good things above them. You always brought seemingly endless sunshine in my life—and that eventually helped shape who I am now.

And then we slowly grew closer to one another. I remember that there was a week wherein I'd talk to you every day. I'd be the one to greet you a good morning or say hi and you were the one who said goodnight (or you usually told me to sleep). Our once-awkward conversations started to flow easily now and, well, my days were a bit better once I had talked to you.

We were that unstoppable dynamo in our golden days together. I remember I kept on sharing
how I was trying to be good in Photoshop and I remember I made a cover photo for you that matched with the one I made. I remember the days when we'd watch this video together and we'd "sing" to each other some of the lines from that video, despite not knowing what it meant. I think it even got to a point where I posted a (in retrospect, lewd) line from a song that was "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" and we just laughed it off like it was nothing. We didn't care what it meant, we just had fun saying that to each other. Oh, was that a time filled with childlike innocence.

But then... we slowly grew apart in 2014. You drifted onto other things while I stayed in the same place. We reconnected for a short time back in 2015, but it didn't last long and we drifted apart from each other once again. That was 2 years ago, and we haven't reconnected since.

I guess the point of this letter isn't to reminisce about our wonderful times together, but to state how much I miss you and how I've been doing since you've left.

Personally speaking, I miss a lot of the stuff we used to do. Spazzing to each other whenever a new album from them gets released, sending funny memes we saw on the fan groups, or sharing stuff from our lives to each other. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be blogging right now and I wouldn't be into writing. You were my inspiration to write back then. I was a fan of your blog and I read each one of your blog posts here on Blogger with joy and amazement. I miss those days wherein I'd write a new blog post and share it with you, and I'd hesitantly wait for you to write a post on your blog.

I not only miss the stuff we did together, but I also miss you. You were this bright and optimistic person who looked at the world with wonder and faced every challenge with all your might. You were the one I looked up to the most, and I still look up to you to this day. And me? Well, I was this depressed and edgy teen who was filled with insecurities and yet, despite having no reason to do so, you tried to patch all the insecurities I had. You took on some of my problems—and even faced criticism from the people I knew while doing so—and yet you still faced them on. Why? Because you're brave, and you taught me how to brave.

Lastly, the thing I miss the most about our time together isn't about the things we did or about how you are, it's about how you treated me—that's what mattered the most. Like I said, I was young, immature, careless, depressed, and basically just an imperfect and highly flawed individual, and yet you loved me for who I was. You told me countless times that you'd protect me from all the bad things in this world and, to an extent, you actually did. You were there to speak to me and deal with my problems at a time no one else wanted to. You cared for me and loved me in my lowest, at a time when no one else did.

I miss that the most. I miss looking up to you and saying to the world "I'm imperfect, but at least I have someone who loves me." I miss those days where you'd tell me about how you'd worry about how I was doing and you'll check up on me and see how I was doing. I just miss messages like these:


I just miss having someone actually love and care for me, that's all. Life's been quite cold recently, and I've been battling off this depression every single night. I miss having a friend I can confide in, someone who can tell me it's all going to be alright.

Quite frankly, I don't know what that makes me. People will think I'm weak, that I'm flawed or still highly insecure, but I just think of myself as human. I'm a human, too, I get hurt, I miss people, and I get sad at appropriate times. I just want to be understood, and, at times when no one else did, you were the only one.

If I had a choice to spend 1 more month with you back in late 2013 or early 2014 at the cost of throwing away everything I have, I would do it. You're worth that risk, even if it means giving up everything I currently have. But still, even if I did so, I would be in one weird predicament.

Even if I went back, I know you, and I know that you'll tell me to go back and just move on with my life. That's the main lesson you imbued with me back then, that I shouldn't let my problems get to me and just have the courage to move on with my life.

And I wrote this letter and made this series because I want to just rid all of these painful memories with you and just get on with my life. I know you'd tell me to do the same, that I should stop being sad about these memories and just appreciate them for what they are. I want to be happy every time I remember you, not sad.

I'm all grown up now and I've (slowly) learned over the years how to let go. I'll miss you so much in the next chapters of my life and I still pray every night that, one day, you would still be in them. But hey, even if you aren't my big sister now, you will always be my lovable big sister in my memories. I'd like to thank you for silently taking care for me when I was hesitant and young. And I hope that those bright and exciting days with you will continue to power me on in my life, and I surely will keep the adventures in our own land of the midnight sun close to my heart.

I do wonder if you still think of me every now and then, but I hope you do. And I genuinely hope that you find this letter and immediately know it's addressed to you. After all, if we are meant to stay together as siblings forever, well, life and fate will find a way, and our paths shall cross soon in the future. If not, well, I had the time of my life sharing stories with you.

After what seemed like an eternity of a summer vacation, I'm (finally) back to school and hitting the books. My new roster of subjects includes a greatly-welcomed subject that tackles on information, the security of it, and security in general.

Although I was not able to take the COMSEC2 (Computer Security 2) class that my professor was offering, since he is the same professor for that class, I at least expect some topics to be covered from that class. I just hope that my time watching videos on YouTube about WannaCrypt/Wanna Cry, cryptography, and others will hopefully prove useful for this class.

And to an extent, it did. I was able to recite and give the correct answer several times when our professor asked us, so that's good for me, I guess.

For the first week, we learned about access controls, basic security threats, reasonings for security, the full basics of information security. We also got to do a small case study, for which we passed and the 3rd week of INFOSEC is almost upon us.

I have to pass an outline for our research paper, which is to be passed around midterms, and it covers one of my favorite topics: Bitcoin. Originally, we weren't able to get Bitcoin, but since no one was interested in the topic (aside from me), I picked it.

I wanted to choose Bitcoin as a topic because it's a very exciting thing in technology. It applies some cryptography for its regular transaction, which is why it's called a "cryptocurrency," and it has so many functions, vulnerabilities, and topics available. Just the videos of Computerphile alone is a more-than-good-enough basis for me to write my research paper on.

So, for the next few weeks or so, my team and I (well, mostly I) will do some research work behind Bitcoin. It's flaws, improvements, threats, and so on. I'm really excited and giddy about it because I can talk about some problems about it off the top of my head, such as how and if asset recovery services exist for Bitcoin, how the bitcoin blockchain is already the size of gigabytes, etc.

I'll do my best to write my our research paper for INFOSEC. Hopefully I'll be able to apply the things I've learned—in and out of class—to our research paper.