I recently left my group (Syndeomedia, Exist Global, G2iX) to do freelance software development on the Ruby on Rails framework, and have a bit of time to work on personal projects on the side.
So here you go: I am for hire. If you are interested in working together, please do contact me regarding your project and timeline.
I am still Kristina Lim — but now twenty-one (21) years old, and six and a half months formally employed. If you were curious about my whereabouts, I have been writing code and brainstorming with Syndeomedia most of my time, and have not been particularly up to anything at other times.
It is close to eleven months after college graduation, and finally, it seems I am starting to get a hang of the changes. So, like all others who have come and gone, I come again.
Hello again, world. 
And welcome to i-think.com.ph.
I have been on a job hunt in the past months, and in my world, that would mean, and would mean only, that I applied for jobs at InfoWeapons and Google. It used to mean, too, that I would send my curriculum vitae (CV) to Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI), Department of Science and Technology (DOST), but there are reasons why I did not. Sending my curriculum vitae to Google was almost a joke, or at most was a reflection of some inner desires, so I would say there is only InfoWeapons, which is just as great, if not greater. There has been some hearsay the latter is interested in hiring me, but there has been no official word.
In the afternoon of last Thursday, because I was getting a bit anxious about employment opportunities, I sent my CV to Chikka, admittedly on a whim. I got a phone call from them the other day and, yesterday, took a technical test in which, save utter forgetting of PHP syntax, IMHO I did pretty greatly in. I made up an imaginary C library of SQL database-related functions and wrote with it, and that was supposed to be okay considering that they allowed pseudo-code. The company will probably give feedback soon.
In total, I have taken two technical examinations in my life, and have not been on a single “job interview”. For the information of those who do not yet know, I took a technical test for some company a couple of months back, but had my interview rescheduled, and later cancelled.
Today, I am downloading all of the Requests for Comments (RFCs) and am anticipating lots of teh hearts. I am also studying specifically the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol, FreeBSD, and routing protocols for the rest of my rather unwanted extended break.
Eventually, graduation will come, and I have witnessed candidate after candidate express fear and worry about having to face the quoted “real world”, which will soon be just the regular world for us. I myself have been having new thoughts and feelings associated with recent realizations that there might be lives besides the one I intended to work for that I would actually want to live.
Until a couple of hours ago, those thoughts and feelings I had came with a level of urgency that probably contributed a lot to the mood swings and unnecessary anxiety that I have been having in the past months. I see now, though, that understanding my senior syndrome relieves me a bit.
I find that there are three common types of senior syndromes. The first is caused by anxiety about getting a difficult or a low-paying job, the second is caused by the idea of missing friends, and the third is caused by the pressure of having options that are tempting but the choice of which will have long-term, life-changing effects. What is bothering me right now is the third type.
For as long as I can remember until around June of last year, I was always aware of the kind of career that I wanted to pursue. When I was much younger, I loved mathematics. I thought of getting into pure mathematics, but I eventually found that my interests were more on applied math. Actuarial science intrigued me for a while, but that was very short-lived. Then, the moment I started writing code on my second year in high school, I had a sudden shift in devotion. I felt writing code was what I wanted to do. I loved the logic involved, and there were other reasons why I did not want more in-depth computing. Then I got into computer networks, and I enjoyed learning. I afterwards got exposed to actual systems and network administration, and I have to admit that I found (and still find) them enjoyable, but at that point, I was already writing more meaningful computer applications, and I felt that I wanted to become a programmer. That goal lasted for quite a while, but then last year I got into actual computational science, and all my interest in computing suddenly resurfaced.
In the past, I kept shifting from interest to interest, but I always knew what I wanted to do at that moment in time, at least. Today, I am months (at most) from having a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science degree, and I am an unqualified and a newbie mathematician. There are four paths that I imagine I could take. I could do software development, or get into computing research (although I probably would not be qualified enough for that yet). There is also the option of doing network and systems administration. Lastly, there is option of focusing on mathematics. One might say that my decision would have long-term effects on life, and others would argue that there should be no decision so binding because man is– and should be responsibly –free. However, the issue is not about myself being scared, but me being objectively aware of my possibilities and not knowing where to proceed, plus the need to make a decision as soon as possible.
That sums up my senior syndrome: I do not know where I want to go from here. That sums up my vague future.
It is the first day of classes, an hour and a half before my only class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays starts.
I was planning to take two math courses this semester after I moved a little bit up the road of my realizing what I really want to do in life. Supposedly, I am still allowed to enroll in two free electives, but with all the trouble I would have to go through with the registrar and the department, and the trouble I had with the Office of Admission and Aid (OAA), I no longer bothered settling my advisement. So here I am now, waiting to go to my only math elective this semester, Linear Algebra.
I have to say that I am really nervous. First of all, I am worried that the course might be a regular course required of students concentrating in math, and that the teacher might assume that everybody knows everything math students are required to know by their nth year in college. Secondly, I am actually worried that the teacher might talk to me and ask me what I am doing in that class, what exactly my reasons are. I do not really have an answer.
I have no particular interest in linear algebra (in spite of its many applications in computer systems). I wanted to take a course related to advanced number theory, but all that the math department offers this semester is elementary number theory. So yeah, I will be there in class only in high hopes that I will be enlightened about certain topics I will want to study in the future. That is all.
What am I doing.