My Views

The optimist in me believes I'll get an answer one day. The pessimist I'm me believes I'm wasting my time waiting for an answer. The realist in me has forgotten the question and moved on.

So I'm in the supermarket and hear Yoda telling me that my phone is ringing...only it's not my phone. It belongs to someone else. What are the odds of running into a total stranger with the very same Star Wars ring tone as mine. So you know what I did.....I quickly changed my ringtone from Yoda to Darth Vader.

I think I may be getting jealous. I've never been jealous. Quite frankly I don't even think I know how to be jealous so I really don't know where this feeling is coming from. The bottom line though is that it's seriously pissing me off...... Sent from my Nokia E63

When you find that one person who connects you to the world, you become someone different, someone better. When that person is taken from you, what do you become then? (Person of Interest s1e1) Sent from my Nokia E63

It's been said that it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved (paraphrasing). Well I've finally loved and lost (big time) so now I have something new to add to my list of experiences and memories to haunt my thoughts. One less thing to concern myself with so I can now focus and prepare for other experiential events :-| Sent from my Nokia E63

After another sleepless night with nothing to do but think, I've been enlightened somewhat. Over time I've constantly asked myself what my greatest fear would possibly be. Death was quickly ruled out seeing that I look forward to it though I am a bit concerned about the way I die. But to cut to the chase, I've discovered that I fear having something to live for at the time that I'm about to die. Obviously, that's not the case at the moment. I have nothing keeping me here. No reason to get up in the morning. I'm just working that routine to the best of my abilities with some variation thrown in for good measure. I don't know if this fear will last or become overwritten by another but it is what it is at the moment.

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; I don't think that when Shakespeare wrote these words in Hamlet he had an idea of how far-reaching they would be.

We meet people, and fall in love, and when we part they leave marks for us to remember them by. Our lovers sculpt us, they define us, for better or worse. Like a pinball, we slam into them and rebound in our different directions, propelled by the contact, and after the parting we might be scared, stronger or more fragile, or needy, or angry, or guilty, but never unchanged. Our lovers linger inside us, like ghosts, haunting the corridors and deserted rooms, sometimes whispering, sometimes screaming, but always there, waiting... "Being Human, s1e5"

I generally find it hard to trust people on a day to day basis. I always think there's an ulterior motive. Why don't I trust easily? I don't know, I just don't. With that being the case, there are just some persons who beg not to be trusted. For example, one signs up to a social network (like Facebook) and proceed to knowingly, complete the form with misleading data. Why would someone do that? Especially seeing that outside of username and password, most of this data is optional!!!! So instead of just leaving the fields blank (to protect their privacy), they put in faulty data and mislead the "public" in a bid to protect their privacy.

It's been quite a while since I've made an update to my blog. At one point I was inspired to start a sunny, cheery blog. That inspiration lasted all of two (2) posts and here I am again. The reality for me is simply that the dark side is where I'm comfortable. The dark side is where I call home. It's actually loads of fun even though you wouldn't notice due to the lack of expression. So....back to the ranting and raving......

So I've been putting this off for some time now but I guess I need to put it out there. Before I go any further let me just create the frame of reference that I'll be using during the course of this post. Fantasy : 19 - 25, Ideal/Perfect : 26 - 33, Tricky : > 34 Ok, so I'm a relatively young man in my early 30s and of late I've been having these weird ideas of finding a companion (female of course), who was made just for me, and settling down. What's the problem you may ask, especially with so many women around? I've interacted with a lot of females in the "fantasy" category and most are willing, sometimes too willing. They are young and impossibly good looking, as the category name suggests. Again you ask, what's the problem? Outside of physical attraction, there exists the possibility that there wouldn't be a solid connection. Females in the "fantasy" category are oft-times focused on the material things (cars, money, clothes, pa...

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.” ~Neil Gaiman

Ok, so it appears that I'm experiencing the effects of an extremely traumatic event in my childhood. The only problem is, I didn't have a traumatic experience.

The long awaited day has finally arrived. The day when Team EDUC8 gets to present their solution, eSCAPE, to a panel of judges in a bid to progress to the second round of the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2010. The guys have been working nonestop since arriving to ensure that a viable solution is available. With little or no sleep the previous night, the team kicks off the day with a competition briefing at 8:30AM. We are expecting to present at around 12:00 but find out that we're going in at 6:00PM instead. Not a problem. That means some extra time to get some shuteye before the big moment. The time to present is fast approaching. We're working out bugs that decide to pop up, and make final revisions to our presentation script. We move to the presentation room, quickly set and await the the judges entry. They arrive a few minutes before our scheduled time and as the clock hits 6:00PM we begin. It was a shaky start but the guys quickly recovered and settled into their flow. There is 2...

Warsaw is quite the city. I've quickly gotten use to the fact that the sun sets at around 9:30PM in the summer, seeing that I rarely go to sleep before 1:00AM. What's really interesting is that the sun begins rising at about 3:30AM, that's about 6 hours of night yet despite this, the city never sleeps. I actually went out with the guys for some food, lamb kebab to be exact, minutes after 2:00AM. I really think I could et used to living in a country like this. Ah well, no more random thoughts running through my mind so I'm gonna go.

So this year's Imagine Cup is officially here. Poland is a really lovely country. A country that has risen from the ashes and boasts having economic growth during a recession. Warsaw is sunny and cool and simply a wonderful summer location to visit. In my previous post I promised photos of my journey to Poland: The day of the Opening Ceremony:

So I've arrived in Poland for this year's Imagine Cup. After traveling for over 19 hours I think I'm about to crash. As the competition progresses I'll give updates and photos. But for now pożegnanie. ruguh...