About A Friend: Juan

Juan and I became friends because he offered to help me do some skins when I received my free CSS upgrade from Mark. I knew him from around the forums, but we weren’t that friendly until CSS became something we had in common. Of course I accepted his offer to do a skin for me, because I sure as hell don’t know how to and he seemed nice and genuine enough (ie. no hidden agenda).

While we exchanged e-mails back and forth discussing CSS and how I want my blog to look, I would pepper my e-mails with nosy questions about his life: what does he do, how old is he, where he lives, your typical nosy grandma questions. And from there, we got to know each other better.

What I admire about Juan is his passion for learning. His job as a developer requires him to learn all sorts of things because he has to constantly update his knowledge about the latest in his field, which means that no matter how much he knows, he still has to read up to be competitive and resourceful in what he does.

It made me realise that even though I’m going to graduate soon, I should always try to educate myself. While I have decided that I don’t want to do a Master’s degree (definitely not now, at least), I shouldn’t stop learning. I should study more of my favourite foreign languages. Or I could learn something totally new and alien to me, like cooking.

Juan made me realise the importance of learning because the moment we stop learning, we become complacent. We take for granted that everything comes easily because we have learnt to be accustomed and navigate ourselves through our daily lives. When that happens, we become afraid of change, because change is hard, just like learning.

That’s why I would like to emulate Juan’s attitude towards learning. I don’t want to be afraid of change, to be afraid of learning or making mistakes. I don’t want to be a know-it-all, I want to be a want-to-know-it-all.

Of course, that isn’t just Juan’s good quality. He is a good friend, being a Particularist-inclined individual, and he’s very family-oriented. He is also kind, sweet, generous and silly!

It has been a privilege to be his friend. Thanks, Juan, for everything! *hugs* Love you.

(I will not respond to comments made in this post, but if you want to say something about Juan, please do leave a comment. Thanks!) I couldn’t resist.

Impossible To Like Possibly Related Links

I didn’t want to write about this, since everybody has said pretty much all there is to say, but I have yet to find a post that says what I have just discovered about it. Anyway, I will repeat some of what has been said before I show what I found out.

1. I do not like that Possibly Related Links are linking to sites I don’t want to link to. Yes, it is nice to get hits from blogs I don’t know about, but more often than not the links from my posts are totally unrelated to my post, and vice versa for the hits I get from other blogs enabling this feature.

2. Luckily, I found engtech’s post on how to disable links to other places but at the same time keep links to my own posts, using CSS. Since I have the CSS upgrade, it looks like I could get the best of both worlds for this feature.

3. I suspect (but have no means of proof - I’m not that techno-savvy) that this feature is the source of an influx of spam I experienced recently. This post is linked to from this WordPress.com blog post through this feature. I received an influx of spam (in the region of hundreds in over a day), all in the same post, before I turn the comments off. Then, I updated this post to link to this blog where my post was featured. I received an influx of spam as well shortly after updating. These two blogs where I link / am linked to receive high traffic, and is quite possible that the reason for the influx of spam is due to the fact that both blogs have this feature enabled. This is just my hypothesis.

4. I found out that engtech’s solution
- works when you are logged in or out of your blog using Mozilla Firefox, but does not only hide links from other blogs but also links within your blog (previously, engtech provided another CSS code which works to include links within your blog but exclude links outside of your blog, but WordPress.com has override it and engtech used child selectors to overcome this, but it doesn’t seem to work now)
- does not work when you view your blog with Internet Explorer, whether logged in or out

I also found a link in my blog (with that feature) that does not seem to be under WordPress.com - is Wired.com under WordPress.com’s VIP hosting? In icanhascheezburger.com, you can clearly see that it is hosted by wp.com at the end of the front page; I don’t see this at wired.com.

Anyway, the implication of no. 4 is that it is almost like the Google ads controversy (that we are not allowed to put up ads for ourselves but wp.com puts up ads in selected blogs without the blogger knowing it, simply because it is not seen by users who are using Mozilla Firefox). We may be able to control the Possibly Related Links feature when using Mozilla Firefox, but not if we or our readers are using another browser.

I’ve been doing my own Related Links through good ol’-fashioned linking, and I find that that works best in the end, thank you very much! Turning off Possibly Related Links now…

Related Link
Another Related Link

ps. My research of this is not exhaustive, just what I have experienced thus far with my blog and reading from links I have provided here.

Letter to Me

Angel introduced me to some Brad Paisley songs, and this one called Letter to Me has lyrics that struck me. It’s about how the persona could write a letter to himself in the past, back when he was a teenager to tell him that he should worry less and let it be, even though it’s hard to see it that way when you’re seventeen and you have to stay home on a Friday night to study so you don’t flunk your algebra test.

I wish I could write a letter to myself too. If I could get my 27-year-old self to tell me right now how life will turn out…

I hope she’d tell me that even though I’m terrified of college life being over, I would go on to get jobs I’m actually good at - after several lousy jobs, of course.

I hope she’d tell me that even though I don’t think highly of my own capabilities, I would go on to show myself that I can be independent.

I hope she’d tell me that even though I’ve lost some friends right now, I would go on to make new ones and even one or two special ones.

I hope she’d tell me that even though I don’t have luck in love now, I would go on to find someone who will love me just as much as I him.

I hope she’d tell me that even though there are things I wish I haven’t done in haste, I would go on to realise my decisions were the best for myself at that moment in time.

I hope she’d tell me that even though things look uncertain in my life now, I would go on to make my dreams come true; all I have to do is work hard and just believe in myself.

And you? What would you tell your younger self? Or what would you like your future self to tell you right now?