Christmas 2005.
Hello dear reader!
Well there’s a fork in the road. Oh what does my future hold. Is it working with Oracle technologies, working closely with a dba-type for a dialysis company? Or is it working closely with Microsoft technologies, including Visual Studio, Visual C++ and MFC? Duy at work said that the Visual Studio debugger is the best he’s seen, and I’ve come to respect his words.
Maybe it doesn’t so much matter? There are a variety of facts and factors, such as pay, type of employment (employed? on contract? on contract to hire?). And of course the people. But people tend not to reach the extremes of wickedness or holiness. It’s a learning experience with every person. I mean, I appreciate having a veteran programmer to interact with at my current employer. But it doesn’t mean that I won’t learn a lot from my future boss and the coworkers there. It’ll be a new environment, and there are a lot more people at that other company.
One thing’s for certain thought: there’s a lot more work yet to be done up ahead.
So on that thought, good bye my reader. Till we meet again. I can then update you on some interesting thought or feeling or accomplishment. Let’s hope for the best in regards to all decisions that we make. Let’s not judge the go-getters for wanting better pay, a tax-deferred retirement plan, health insurance, and free food other than pizza during office meetings). 
I also hope that as people rise up to the top of the working-world ladder, no matter what is it that they do, they will give back, give back, and get back, get back. What I mean: One of the best things that happened to me–let me not exaggerate here–one of the coolest things that happened to me, is the meeting of a monk at the Downtown Berkeley bart station, who sold me a copy of the Bhagavat Gita, and from whom I later purchased (out of curiosity–and to this day, it’s only curiosity) a set of Shrimad Bhagavatam books. Anyhow, the author of these books was a bhakti yogi. The focus is on God. In his books, it’s God this and God that. (Incidentally, do you think it matters whether Swami Prabhupada–the writer of the 1970s books mentioned above–knows how many times he mentions the word God in his books?) So Swami Prabhupada says, that humans are meant to have a master, and that the ultimate master is God, so if you serve God, you’re fulfilling a sort of primal instinct (because in most cases a master is someone who knows more than you, someone you respect, someone who possesses skills you wish to develop inside yourself). So how does Swami Prabhupada’s writing relate to the working world, to making money, to buying a car, to buying a house, to saving for retirement (things I didn’t think about even a year ago)?
I think a lot could be different if people who possessed the money, and those who desired to posses money, thought for a moment, how can the money that I make benefit God? Whether you believe in God or not is irrelevant. Like I told Duy at work, I was an atheist for many years, since childhood. And even now, thanks to books like A Jewel in the Lotus by M—, and a book Java Yoga. Ha ha, I meant Raja Yoga. The latter book I received at a Hindu temple in Berkeley, when I went there with my sister and her boyfriend and his mother. In this book, the author outright says that any sort of "spiritual" experience a person may have, has a bodily counterpart, namely, relating to the spine. So if you have your little "god exists because I feel his presence all around me" moment, pause and ask yourself, maybe you just feel good. People who "meditate" are just sitting with their spines erect and nicely stretched out, activating the energies of the spine. So that’s fine. Now in the Jewel book (incidentally, I have a friend whose nickname is Jewels), M—- says that those who blindly believe in God are fools and actually a lot worse off than those who question God’s existence. So M— spends a long time seeking the answer, and meets a bunch of cool people along the way, including a (naked?) lady who scarfs a number of bananas down (that M— offers as a present), and some guy who says to him, "smoke this…" (and M— does! In defense of M—, he does warn of the "meditation master" who gets into a trance only after smoking a little ganja. And M— seems to discern between the levels of expertise in the so-called masters that he encountered in his travels).
Back on track, back to money and God. It’s fine to travel and to demand your right to a good life–but something must be done about other people’s needs along the way. I want to help my mom pay off her mortgage, which I know gives her stress. We also have family members in Russia whom we want to come live in America. How could my mom afford that on her own, without the needle on her stress-meter skyrocketing? I also like to think that some day I could apply my technical skills (e.g., if I were an awesome Oracle dba) to help other organizations–e.g., schools or school districts–to set up their own database servers. I mean, this is too concrete–I may not even work with databases or Oracle–but anything you learn can be used for good down the line when you’ve got the power thanks to hard-earned skills. Eh…
Merry x-mas.
Shurik
PS My schedule in Spring 2006 at the trusty College of San Mateo comes down to three choices: XML, JavaScript/HTML, and C++ Data Structures. 2-2-4 units respectively. That and a 40 to 60 hour workweek may prove challenging. I ought to take programming courses and study diligently just so I feel like I’m making formal progress as well as informal on-the-job training (which in itself is wonderful and necessary). Best of luck in all of your endeavors, dear reader, as the year 2005 finishes its cycle and the year 2006 creeps close. It’s been one year since I graduated from UC Berkeley. Let’s make the next year even better and brighter (pardon the sudden flow of emotion)!
