I'm now officially a BlackBerry certified systems administrator. I passed the certification exam last month, and I finally received my certificate in the mail. Yey! So what does this mean? I quote from the BlackBerry website, "The BlackBerry® Certified System Administrator certification is designed for technical professionals who install, configure and manage BlackBerry® Enterprise Server software in an enterprise environment."
Outliers emphasized the key to success as a mixture of several factors: hard work and luck. IQ and/or education have little to do with whether a person becomes successful or not. It’s all about the number of hours you put into practicing your craft. Gladwell determines that the special number is 10,000 hours. Anyone who has put in 10,000 hours of practice time has become successful – Bill Gates, professional athletes, lawyers, etc. Luck also plays a major part on whether success comes to you with less effort or not. This luck factor includes birth date (month/year), race, location, economic status, etc. When all these factors fall into place in perfect harmony, success is almost guaranteed if you’re willing to work hard at it. Whether you agree with Gladwell or not, this book will definitely make you think and evaluate your own life experiences and circumstances.
This picture would have looked a lot better, but I got too excited, and grabbed a few spoonful of goodness before I thought of taking a picture.
The Philippines Presidential election is coming up in May. I actually registered for the absentee voting thing when I was at the embassy to renew my passport. I received the ballot a few weeks ago, and I still haven’t decided who to vote for. I have asked several people on who they would vote for and why. It has been very helpful and informative, but I still don’t feel like I have enough information to make a decision.
I’m almost tempted to just not vote at all. With all the corruption in the government, most people are close to losing hope in the government and the politicians who claimed to have the people’s best interests in mind. It is quite evident that their campaign proclamations are untrue, because the politicians are continuing to make their pockets fatter while the people continue to suffer from poverty.
It’s easy to see how people can feel hopeless in a country where you can easily buy votes and convicted criminals and terrorists can actually win elections by a landslide. If you’re a popular actor/actress that’s well-liked by the people and/or you’re super rich and you can afford to give lots of money away to people in exchange for their votes, then you have a really really good chance of winning an election.
Of course, I’m generalizing all politicians, and my claims might very well be inaccurate. I hope I’m wrong. I hope that there are still people in Philippines politics who truly are working for the people’s best interests and not their own. The challenge is in attempting to determine which ones are genuine and which ones are phony. It’s hard to tell.
It's only been 12 days since we got the Yaris, and I already drove over 1000 miles on it. I haven't even been on a road trip yet. I drive too much. It's my daily commute to work and back home that mainly contributed to the high miles. I drive at least 100 miles a day. At this rate, I would be getting an oil change every month.
The Thai New Year celebration was this past Sunday at Wat Thai in Silver Spring. Songkran festival, April 13-15, is traditionally celebrated in Thailand by "hitting" people with large amounts of water (via water gun, water buckets, water hose, etc), but in Silver Spring, people stayed dry and hot. There were plenty of food and performances all day long. Wat Thai was packed with people of all races. It was an interesting day of eating lots of great food and dessert, and getting a glimpse of a culture different from my own.
