Cyber Identity

Well, it's been a long time since I last blogged. It's not that I haven't had time, well, I have time, just not for blogging. Let's try to summarize what took place since the last time I posted an entry.

I've re-pledged to the same fraternity that I quit in my first semester at Georgia Tech. It doesn't happen often, most people end up joining a different fraternity. But I had a great time at this one, I quit because of commitment issues, not because I didn't like it there. Now that I've decided my major, got my work issues settled and more adjusted to Georgia Tech, I am now more or less settled down, which is the reason why I decided to go back. At one moment though, I felt like I wasn't going to. It seems that the bitter taste is still lingering around since the last time I was there, but hopefully, I'll be able to make amends this time round.

Notice some changes in this blog? Yes, some of the profiles are gone. It's recently come to my attention that companies are starting to go online to seek extra information to screen potential new employees to companies. Social network sites like Friendster, Facebook and Xanga seems to benefit by getting paid, or in some cases, are free to , getting them access to view the profiles of potential applicants. It's pretty insane, I know. So what happens is, some dumbass people will have stuff like a picture of them piss-drunk, doing drugs or even information about their political or religious allegience and assume that the person going through your resume or application does not approve of your actions, your application is in serious jeopardy of being discarded. Though I do none of those mentioned above, maybe except for the political part, I still do not want to risk having to go through such a thing. The last few days, I've been going through different websites to erase my profiles or information completely. Though search engines like Google and Yahoo! still generates links that point to my blog or other places, these results should be buried pretty deep in the world of internet due to inactivity by the time I seek full time employment, which may be in about 2 years or so.

So you've noticed my blogger profile is gone, soon, I'll have to change my URL just to avoid the hits, I'll let you know about it sooner or later. Maybe I might just keep it. Don't worry, I won't delete this blog for now, I've got too much stuff here for me to delete. Or maybe I'll export it to be hosted through my university domain, I'm not sure for now.

I mean, I've already had an incident of being cyber-approached - like, I mean a serious one - recently. That's evident enough that you leave trails everywhere in the internet that can be tracked back. It's kind of scary, especially when you think about not knowing who it may be that's looking up your information. Admit it, we all do it time to time, minor or major. Some people do it out of curiosity, some out of desperation, some may be a serious addict. By putting up obvious and very public (I don't care what you say, your blog is public if you don't have password protection) information up, it's really easy to track things. So the only way you can erase is by erasing what you have about yourself. People putting up pictures of them smoking weed or joining 'I-hate-my-work' clubs (Don't misunderstand - I love my job) is just plain stupid, and it's inviting trouble to yourself. And when it hits you, you'll be blaming the company for being nosey, but in reality, there is no one but to blame yourself.

So I'm taking actions for preventive measure. I'm being a little paranoid, but it's gonna help, even if it means just a little.

I'm not gone!

Sorry for the lack of updates since I returned from Singapore. It's been pretty busy, as I had the Housing Staff Training right after I returned, as well as getting back to work, catching up and all. I definitely was looking forward to getting the first week done and over with, and I've had a pretty relaxing weekend. My friends and I planned a mega movie marathon, but since some of the guys were kind of late in getting over to the theatre, our planned schedule got messed up, and we only ended up catching two movies, which were 'Syriana' (Brilliant!) and 'Munich' (Excellent, but fell slightly below what I expected it to be). Had the plan gone right, we would have caught 'Hostel,' 'Geisha' and 'Narnia' but that wasn't to be. Not to worry, I'm planning another marathon next week where at least 'Hostel' and the much anticipated 'Brokeback Mountain' is in the offing. We might or might not add something to those two.

The Housing Staff training was basically Thursday evening, whole of Friday and just the early part of Saturday. I had braced myself to be busy over the whole weekend, so it was a pleasant surprise to discover that I could sleep in to get my body back in sync with Eastern Standard Time and do a little shopping before my work term started. Work this week was hectic, since a lot of thing has changed since I left in August. It's the nature of the company, it's always implementing new stuff and our focus changes pretty rapidly. I'll be working for the same company every 4 or 5 months until the summer of 2007, but I can tell that by then, we'll be doing completely different stuff, which is interesting. One colleague from Tokyo was here for a knowledge exchange, so I was helping translate, and I realize how horrible my Japanese had become. I was actually finding it hard to converse! This is what lack of usage of a language does to you. It was pretty scary, as I can still read pretty well and comprehend what is being said to me, but when it came down to writing or speaking it, I had a huge problem. This really needs working on, it'll be a huge waste if I am to forget Japanese. On the other hand, since we deal with a lot of Europeans, the office might start to conduct French classes, as early as next week, which I'm pretty excited about. I intend to learn Spanish some time into the future, but heck, if the office is going to conduct a French lesson after work, I'm taking that up without a doubt.

The problem though, is that I might be overloading myself yet again. I'm taking two classes online, one a technical communications writing class and the other, general psychology. It's pretty fun stuff, psychology class is pretty much structured, whereas technical communications is a self-paced course and I've gotten a little ahead of schedule for the first couple of weeks since it's pretty much introductory stuff. However, there's no pressure to excel here, so I can take my own time for these classes. I do my readings in the train to and from work, so some of the class prep is done every day.

Yep.. that's pretty much the update for now. It sucks that I'm gonna miss a whole lot of events for January. There's the Lenny Kravitz/Aerosmith gig tonight, but the ticket's beyond my budget, Russel Peter's probably not worth the 50 bucks, but I might just give Sevendust a shot. Jamie Cullum's coming to Atlanta again in March, but I've yet to make up my mind about him, whereas Michael Buble's a little too pricey. Since I wasn't working last semester, my credit card bills are stacking up, so most of my earnings over the month will be paying back bills, but I should be completely fine by the end of the month.

Alright, that's pretty much it for my update for now. I'll update whenever I can.

GT 78 NC State 87

Final Score from RBC Center in Raleigh, NC
NCAA Men's Basketball
No. 18 N.C. State Wolfpacks 87 (14-2, ACC 3-1)
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 78 (9-5, ACC 2-1)

Fulham 1 Newcastle 0

Final Score from Craven Cottage:
English Premier League
Fulham 1
Steed Malbranque (75)

Newcastle United 0

GT 85 Centenary 69

Final Score from CenturyTel Center in Bossier City, LA:
NCAA Men's Basketball
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 85 (9-4)
Centenary Gentlemen 69 (2-12)

BC 58 GT 60

Final Score from Alexandar Memorial Coliseum in Atlanta, GA:
NCAA Men's Basketball
No. 11 Boston College Eagles 58 (11-3)
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 60 (8-4)

Newcastle 1 Mansfield 0

Final Score from St. James' Park:
English FA Cup 3rd Round
Newcastle United 1
Alan Shearer (80)

Mansfield Town 0

Vanderbilt 67 GT 76

Final Score from Alexandar Memorial Coliseum in Atlanta, GA:
NCAA Men's Basketball
Vanderbilt Commodores 67 (9-2)
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 76 (7-4)

Newcastle 2 Middlesbrough 2

Final Score from St. James' Park:
English Premier League
Newcastle United 2
Nolberto Solano (27)
Lee Clarke (90)

Middlesbrough 2
Yakubu Aiyegbeni (54)
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (87)

Getting ready to go back

It's been pretty uneventful few days, just packing, meeting friends here and there. I don't really place much importance on new years and stuff as well. [Dammit, Middlesbrough just scored an equaliser.] It was nice seeing some of my close friends after a while, whereas some days were just wasted on being told that I was to help with the clearing of the furniture, which didn't happen.

I've been pretty unemotional about leaving this sunny island, probably for good this time round. Well, I'm here as a visitor this time, so that may be it. But the thought of not having any idea when I'll be here again or seeing my friends is something that's been bothering me. I've had mixed memories, but mostly good ones recently.

There's 2 more days. I'll be dropping by to check out the new SA Village and then some more gatherings that my parents were invited to. I didn't manage to meet my closest friends, but I guess that's something I have to deal with, due to situations. I'll make added effort to make sure I keep in regular touch with close friends

2006 is going to be interesting, because I'll be working 34 out of the 52 weeks as an intern. I'll only be studying full time over the summer semester, whereas I'll be taking online or distance learning classes while I'm working (I'm still working on what I'll take during the fall semester) I dropped by to the local branch of the company that I work for and talked to the boss here and that was pretty interesting.
Since I'll be working for the same company throughout my co-op involvement, this year will more or less be associated with work and what I learn from it, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Alright, back to watching the Newcastle game!