Skip to main content

I am a Foreigner

Being away from the Philippines for almost a month now somewhat changed the way I go by everyday. Missing those close to you , your family , the lutong ulams , the busy street of the metro, colorum fx , jeepneys, the fort bus , cool and uncool OPM music on every radio, the endless competition of ABS and GMA and unlimited texting will get into your nerves somehow . What you see here are different , no sari sari stores just walmarts and targets, no cdrkings or greenhills or gilmore what you have are circuitcity or tigerdirect or radisoshacks , the closes to filipino foods are the chinese restaurants and where oriental shops the grand asia market is the alternative to american oriented grocery stores.

Good thing the internet has not changed a bit , YMs and Chikka are still available , Yahoos and Googles are still your best friend and torrents are still your best resource (hahaha).

This is where nosebleeds are a common sight , not because of fist fights but more on communicating with fast-talking "americanos" . A place where the question "Ano Raw?" is a common term. Where a dime or a 25 cent coin is worth something , where tax are not included on item prices and where tips are compulsary and not just an option.

The complexity of life here unfolds before my eyes , I may either appreciate it or simply live by it until the end of February.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Started with Stateless : A Lightweight Workflow Library Alternative for .NET

Image Credit: https://www.pioneerrx.com A year ago, I was looking for a simple workflow manager for a project I was working. Its a medium sized application that involves tracking the state of assets in the system. Back in 2008, Microsoft (MS) introduced new technologies along with the release of Visual Studio 2008: Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and  Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). Having worked in a company utilizing mostly MS products for development, my first option was to go with WF. After doing some time reading and studying the library, I paused and decided it was too complex for my requirement. Using WF would be an overkill and the fact that it has, a rather, steep learning curve, there has to be another option. My mind toyed with the idea of developing a simple workflow library myself. It would be a learning experience but it might end up consuming a lot of time. Why reinvent the wheel? So I started querying the inte

Hiding Unwanted Python Folders and Files in Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a universal editor and pretty good at it. However, the explorer view maybe cluttered with the automatically generated folders and files confusing developers. Python is no different. Below are example files and folders generated by Python. The __pycache__ folder and *.pyc files  are totally unnecessary to the developer. To hide these files from the explorer view, we need to edit the settings.json for VSCode. Add the folder and the files as shown below: Copy and paste the lines below : "**/*.pyc" : { "when" : "$(basename).py" }, "**/__pycache__" : true

Cyber-bullying : The "good", the bad and the ugly

Image courtesy of http://www.digitalesq.com/ Cyber-bullying is defined as  the willful and repeated use of cell phones, computers, and other electronic communication devices to harass and threaten others. With the advent of social media, the incidents has increased in numbers and the victims does not even know what is hitting them. For the past years, we have heard of  depressions and deaths because of this. Yet, there has never been a strong drive to increase public awareness and promote support groups to help victims outside of the schools.  Campaigns and programs has never gained mainstream presence enough to make an impact.