UltraCrepidate

• Finally finished the first month of training. #
• I post one update and 10 bots follow me on twitter. Blocking them is no longer a good use of my time. #
• So I predicted the exact 3 day movements of the stock BAC http://twitter.com/Causalien/status/2772725348 http://www.google.com/finance?q=bac #
• Exchanged sushi skills with my roomate. #
• The currency exchange rate wiped out 10% of my net worth within a week. #
• Thanks Microsft for killing the rally. #
• Hilarious. Celebrating vasectomy. #
• Sigh… not enough time. #
• @somerled well, memristor is found, so it’s just a matter of reducing their size enough. #
• Note to self: Email Tina and Charbel. #
• Wednesday Up, Thursday Up. Friday down. You are now a witness. #
• This is no laughing matter, but you gotta LOL when the largest pension fund says it lost $50 billion and says it is expected. #
• Listening to my Venezuelan roomate recount her day made me remember how hostile Montreal is to an immigrant. #
• Don’t touch the stock RF unless you are a shorter. #

I take note of the stages I go through, the enlightenments glinted from day to day living. That is how I noticed the current stage that I am in. Perhaps a consequence of the quarter life crisis.

Ever since the depression started in 2007. Or at least, since I started tracking it and forecasting it in 2007, I have been leaning heavily on the spirituals to calm my nerves and ease the stress. If anything, the economic problems turns life into a constant stress, au lieu de the normal up and down swings between stress and relaxation.

Sian, or rather, Zen in its mispronounced state, offered but temporary comfort on the surface. In the end, the erosion that I felt everywhere corrupts the temporary aura of peace from whatever meditation I emerged from. I feel that there is something fundamentally wrong with the teachings of any Buddhism based ideal. In that, they feel so disconnected with my self discovered meaning of life. Life is change, death is sameness.

All my efforts to calm myself down, to logically reason myself to passivity and to ascend the current state of understanding were all eventually destroyed by this one underlying question:

ARE YOU SATISFIED?

That is the root of all my conflicts. Every excuse, effort and action to calm myself are all because I am trying to smother this question without answering it. It transcends morality, loyalty, legality and any form of restriction that I placed upon myself. Till I eventually have to face it and answer it only to be propelled into action.

NO!

• Almost bought a macbook air today because I can’t stop touching the demo unit. #
• Trying to get work done, but AM downtown decided to hold an open dance on the street. God, why are you teasing me to show off? #
• Laptop + Starbucks = productivity #
• When 20 emails a day is a slow day. You know you are a workaholic. #
• Hopefully getting some sleep this weekend. Been running around like a bee for a month in a row. #
• Uh oh. Scarlett as blackwidow. Must see Iron man 2 #
• It’s HOSTEL not HOTEL! I’ve been backpacking so much that the possibility of sleeping on your couch never crossed my mind. #
• @somerled cat chewing your expensive laptop will do. #
• Need a team for October indie game contest. Artists, doc writers, coders & film maker. #
• Estimate time for its effect to ripple into the general economy: 3 months. To Canada: 6 months. #
• 2 weeks till CIT failure. Then 2 more weeks till massive small biz bankruptcy. That is, unless the government saves CIT. #
• @somerled So does that mean you’ve dated at least one person in each constellation? in reply to somerled #
• Pulled some voodoo magic and bought HP pavilion dv2 laptop for $450 #
• Most people will never understand why the market goes into an euphoric rally after Intel reported a record loss. #
• @somerled Can’t believe you are a physicist in reply to somerled #
• Not used to feeling busy and happy at the same time. So near the 100 mark. Cracked several eggs with dual yolk. Luck seems to be smiling. #
• Earnings season. If you can’t reach me, I am dialed in to corporate conference calls for the next 2 weeks. #
• Hailstorm in the middle of summer in Montreal. Yep that’s climate change. #
• Completed 2 projects this weekend almost finished the 3rd. #
• Is there any other response I can say than “Thanks” when a woman says “It’s so big” #

Part 6 of the Morocco backpacking series: Backpacking through Morocco

Day 6: Camel ride

Google map location

Mark exchanged 2000 Dh

andreiagemea@hotmail.com

Rental car 072 641 511

Phone split: 5 Dh
Water split: 12 Dh
Lunch split: 170 Dh
Hotel split: 102 Dh
Caravan split: 1500 Dh
Dinner split: 120 Dh

An emotional goodbye

Holding hands with the little girl, the symbolism of such a picture crossed my mind. Est-ce qu’on va me prend comme paedophile? Her frail silhouette trembled against the harsh unforgiven desert wind, drawing pity and sympathy from onlookers. For that one moment in my life, I had a perfect clarity on life’s single purpose: to ensure that she doesn’t trip on her way to beg.

The desert consmes the weak. Such is the way in Merzouga.

She’s barely strong enough to hang on to my thumb and it’d be easy for me to shake my hands free, but I made an effort to let her hold on to my thumb comfortably so that I can make her life just a bit easier for the short moment that our roads cross. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her because I feel ashamed of the comfortable life I have. Yet I didn’t want to let go for fear that I will discard this meeting as irrelevant. So there our shadows walked, alone, on the sand dunes of Zagora. Life became real and this is not a crook after tourist money, but a girl begging for a few more days to live and possible reprieve from hunger.

That set the tone for the rest of the day and the rest of the trip. I believe it was a turning point worth noting. Where the party stopped and the spiritual journey began.

I was deeply humbled. For the adventure in traveling is deeply glorified. At that moment, I saw it for what it is. A safe way for sheltered people to pretend to risk our lives and hopefully gleam the excitement of a dangerous life that we wished. I can never do what these people do to survive this far so stop pretending.

How can I ever hope to change anything so problem

atic as this? How can anybody manages to do that? This scene the type of picture you’d see on National Geographic or the infomercials that asks you to support a child. You see it, hear it, read about it and talk about it but the moment you are in it, you begin to understand why these people are making an effort to reach out to us in the comfort of our air conditioned chairs.

Waking up in the desert

Like always, I woke up earlier when traveling which allowed me to enjoy the quiet desert sunrise before the other tourists wake up. When there is no wind in the desert, the sand absorbs all sounds. It made me wonder why I enjoyed the Dune series so much. Is it because I longed for a life like this? Solitude and peace with nature with simple joys of making music while eating bread and drinking water.

Rest of the journey

We asked to be dropped off at Ouarzazatte after saying good bye to our great companions and found our way to hotel Royal. For a well needed bath smack in the middle of nowhere at 102 Dh a day for 2 people with shower. We asked around for a guided tour towards El-Rachidia, but it seems like there isn’t many tourists here interested. I thought it’d be the opposite since this is closer to the camel ride destination. Because of the fact, they cannot use economy of scale to reduce prices, private tour comes down to 3500 Dh. We will probably end up renting cars.

In the end, we joined the group after at hotel royal for 750 Dh each towards the east. After hunting is done, we watched a game of soccer with the locals. I am glad that there’s one thing that everyone in the world can relate to and that is soccer.

• Work life integration at 100% means that I work through my weekends. So tired… #
• Frantically doing research, because for the first time, I cannot see what’s going to happen in the next 2 years. #
• I was banned from a MMORPG because I was manipulating their electronic trading sys. Now I understand that it happens in real market as well. #
• @uncoveredriver I remember doing that when I was a kid. Almost got blew away by the typhoon’s wind #
• Chinese groceries in China town are not cheaper. #
• Going to China town to resupply on Tea, seaweed and chinese version of western desserts. #
• Just blew $150 on home renovation. #
• Looks like the US+Canada have decided to increase tax instead of inflating their way out of the depression. The deflation continues. #
• Realized in the shower that my hands and arms are covered with bruises and scratches from the recent manual labour I’ve been doing. #
• OWW Fark flickr. All my pictures are reduced to max size of 1024 because I no longer has a pro account. #
• @HannahHatesBoys are you a bot #
• After telling her what I do everyday, she told me what it is I do: “Technical part of product management.” It’s good to get that settled. #
• Today is a big fucking joke. #
• OH the stress! And the mountains of things undone. Barely have time to think. #
• Government lawyers were supposed to show up at 9AM. It’s 10 and no sign of them. So unprofessional. #
• @uncoveredrivers Time for some undercover pretend buyer for your bike. in reply to uncoveredrivers #
• Gah, had to stop tinkering with the computer case after the drill head broke. Wooden PC case is 85% done #
• Doing due diligence. Reading through 5 years of financial statements. #
• Now one question remains. Will we have riots in western devellopped world next summer? #
• Studying the arguments for inflation and deflation. #
• @hypatiadotca Can msi wind run photoshop? #
• Can benchpress 2 sets of 8 at 160lbs now. Moved on to a full abs routine. Love handle and all fat disappeared. #

“Don’t think, just do”

That is the current motto that I live by. I don’t try to apologize for what I say or do, I don’t take time to think about a person’s possible negative reaction to possible implied meaning that I didn’t think about.

I noticed that I go through cycles of over thinking and over doing where I touch both extremes before pulling back. Usually as a result of too much negative response from people I interact with. With time, I started calibrating the type of extremes to the type of person I am interacting with.

Thinker

When I am in the thinking extreme, I write a lot, I am also quieter than usual as I turn everything in my mind 3 times to tune it to the new personality trait I am aiming for. I read, I look for things that attracts me and analyze why they attract me. I absorb whatever comes my way and try to interact with people to find out their opinions/reactions.

Achiever

After times of thinking, comes the doing phase. I take care to completely cut myself off from influences during the thinking phase, subconsciously due to a genetic trait that makes me easily addicted to anything. I detach myself so I can create my own style, because I realize that only after finding my own equilibrium and my own way can I grow the confidence that my decision will eventually work out. I also need this so I am not forced with the dilemna of having to choose whether or not some idea is right or wrong.

Fluid self

The basis of human nature is such that whenever an opinion is presented, the self generate a very strong sense of agreement and disagreement. It strip away the choice to observe and then decide which way is best suited for your own person. This process is usually done for the other person’s benefit. So that they can have a clear mental image of who you are. The truth of who I am or who you are is fluid.

From time to time, I meet up with people I know from my past and always, I try to uphold the person that I am today, instead of the person ingrained in their memory. So far, the interaction have always fallen back to the old ways. Perhaps because my newer self is always weaker or perhaps because to communicate with that person, I have to fall back to my former self that is already molded to their liking in their memory. This is why, I always dress up during my first encounter with strangers. It is better to be known latter in a football game as dressing comfortably in a t-shirt than to be seen as in my usual attire in my Ts.

On the subjecting of pursuing your passion

The latest personality battleground for me has been the matter of a pursuit in my passion. I have been discussing this with several people who are both in pursuit or have given up their passion. I will leave this to my next post since I have ran out of motivation for writing. The zone has dissappeared, but it will make for an interesting discussion.

Update on life

(more…)

• @uncoveredrivers I guess I got lucky with mine when I bought it second hand. #
• So the current priority of layoff by race is: Blacks, Latinos, White, Asian. Not enough data fro Arabs. #
• Contrary to the previous data I read. Asians get laid off less than whites. #
• @uncoveredrivers I don’t get why your bike break down so much. I’ve had mine for 3 years and never had problems. #
• Personally, I did a straddle on my biggest holding. #
• Or, you can always just buy put options. #
• If California goes bankrupt next week. Sell all your stocks. #
• @uncoveredrivers yeah. Probably california. #
• If March is despair. July is stress. #
• Looks like my plan to go to Vancouver is falling apart. #
• I want to forget about today. #
• Look at your friends closely. This is the moment when you can really understand who they are. #
• @somerled happy bday. #
• Wow, so many bad news packed into one day. #
• @AMD_Unprocessed I really like the HP pavilion dv2z. But it’s not for sale in Canada. Please bring it over soon or spawn the next gen #
• @fredngo http://www.cnbc.com/id/31705591 in reply to fredngo #
• If you are wondering about gas price: Tuesday. One person, caused the oil to spike by $2 per barrel and has since been arrested. #
• The economy is almost as bad as the great depression with governments injecting so much cash. What would it be like without the cash? #
• Did so much today. Tired with sore muscles. Bed sweet bed. #
• Question: Can any plant survive with canola cooking oil mixed with water? #
• @uncoveredrivers the first step is to get an mbna credit card. Any one with no fee will do. Once you get that, let me know. #
• Looking for a professional cast iron skillet for my cooking needs. #
• It’s official, Banks refused to lend me money. They finally realized that I’ve been making money off of them. #
• A wave of theft and break-ins sweeping over Montreal. Looks like the depression is finally here. #
• Got my credit card that gives 5% cash back on Groceries and Gas. Pretty happy. #
• Please, no more of these Atom crap netbook. I need one that can play HD video and photoshop. #
• @twitrrifictoolz are you using Amazon EC2 as your server? #
• Today, my work consisted of two long phone calls. Each lasting 2~3 hours with lots of dead air. I have stopped trying to fill the void. #
• @CosmicVoyager What is the light settings on your camera for these pictures? Any flash? #
• @uncoveredrivers I knew I should’ve gotten in touch with my seedy side earlier. Makes purchasing gadgets easier. #
• @uncoveredrivers Doesn’t matter. Customs will still suck you dry. #
• I want to cry. Everytime I find a good deal on HP pavilion dv2z laptop, it’s not available for Canada. #
• The calm before earnings release. Perfect for a financial vacation. #
• Unloaded all Chinese stocks due to fraud report. I suggest you do the same. #
• The weekend’s almost over and I, Just remembered that I need to make pana cotta. #