California, 2007

Might be a little old, but I stumbled across Jonathan Coulton’s Code Monkey this morning. Kinda catchy:

…
Code Monkey get up get coffee
Code Monkey go to job
Code monkey have boring meeting, boring manager Rob
Rob say Code Monkey very diligent
But his output stink
His code not functional or elegant
What do Code Monkey think
Code Monkey think maybe manager wanna write goddamn login page himself
Code Monkey not say it out loud
Code Monkey not crazy just proud
…

Makes you smile a little, knowing that you’re in exactly the same situation as hundreds of other simians out there. Doesn’t make it any better, but hey, life is life, and its time you learned to live it.

…

Code Monkey just waiting for now
Code Monkey say someday, somehow
…

Someday. Somehow.

Missed blogging about it, but May 20 marks one year since I left the Philippines. One year in this country, trying my best to make a living, trying to keep body and soul together for as long as possible.

Finding myself crushed under an overwhelmingly unreasonable workload. Deadlines and project goals and ship dates fly by in a blur, and I find myself up at 3 AM on a Sunday morning, staring for hours on end at a SIP packet trace from a box somewhere in Karachi trying to figure out a way to route data around the government data interchange.

Still no overtime, no benefits, and not much money left in the bank account. Still, keeping at it, just a few more months, I keep telling myself. Just a few more months.

Then hopefully, it’s back to picking up the pieces of my life and attempting to put it back together. Somehow.

As the months go by, my plans for the future grow even more vague. One might think that my reason for moving to the US is to chase the American Dream: house in the suburbs, car, wife and two-point-five children… socking away retirement money, paying off the mortgage…

That vision of my future seems more and more far-fetched every passing day.

Of course, there are the other, more likely scenarios. Years of working as a wage-slave, ekeing out a living from a tiny apartment. Single, alone, and dying of some disease, barely able to make the medical bills.

Or, you know, I could just hang it all and go back home. Get a PhD and go back to teaching and a reasonably secure job at the University. Try to get tenure this time.

I know, I’ve been here barely one year, and already I’m thinking of giving up. Giving in. Quitting the rat race and trying to make a go of my old life again.

Because there’s this nagging realization that I am too old to be trying to start on the bottom rung in the IT industry. In Silicon Valley, no less. Cutthroat competition for jobs, where the best and brightest computer people from all over the world come to ply their trade.

And I do not belong here. I am not the code monkey I used to be. I am discovering that my skills are not at the level they were when I was an undergraduate, when I was in graduate school. I am too old, and too slow, and I cannot stay awake for several days in a row anymore. Not even with the use of dangerous amounts of caffeine.

I am not the hot-shit computer geek I used to be. And I am realizing, that at the age of thirty-three, I am close to burning out. I am losing interest in the work I have been doing for over half my life.

Maybe it’s just stress. Maybe it’s just this particular job.

Disillusioned. Sorely in need of some new illusions.

I guess I just need something to keep me working, a little bit of hope that the future is going to be better than what I have now. Somehow, I don’t see that.

Somehow what I see most likely is that I push myself too hard, that I screw up so badly that I get my ass fired from this job. And I screw up so badly that the rest of my career is spent at one McJob or another.

So. Maybe I need to head it off at the pass. Maybe I need to consider other options.

Maybe its time I gave up IT and did something else for a living.

Maybe that’s too scary to contemplate. Maybe that’s my problem.

Maybe I just need some new dreams.

I’ve noticed that I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had the time to sort through my digital pics in months. Various pics on my phone, on my crappy Kodak, and all over my hard drive.

This one was a sunset on the I-80, just past the refinery before the Benecia-Martinez bridge, on our way home from Fairfield.

We usually visit our uncle and aunt there, although not often these days, now that I’ve started working through the weekends.

Daly City BART, on my way home from work. The January fog is rolling in. Really, really cold.

Especially when you miss the six o’clock bus and have to wait thirty minutes at the stop for the next one.

This is the view from Alcatraz’s mess hall window. We went to The Rock for Christmas. Now that I think of it, that was kinda depressing.

But at least it was time spent with family, so it’s worth it in its own way.

This is a typical Friday night. One AM, when I finally give up on coding, and I try to kick back and relax with a beer and Civ IV.

Try to. Sometimes it even works.

Junk food. Nostalgic junk food for homesick people I guess.

2 for 99 cents.

Oh well, I need to lose weight anyway.

Notes to self. Do not attempt to cook adobo after three beers.
Do not attempt to cook adobo and vacuum the apartment after four beers. Do not attempt to cook adobo, vacuum the apartment, and play an MMORPG after five beers.

And last, do not attempt to to consume greasy, half-burnt adobo in the middle of a hangover the morning after six beers.

Two years ago.

The last time we’d been to the beach. Real, Quezon, just before the landslides and the typhoons.

Things will never be the same again.

There’s always a last time for everything.

Moving on and moving forward.

Like you have to divide your life into two halves. One part before you left home, before you lost your old job, before you left all your friends and family behind and bought that one-way plane ticket to LAX on the slim hope that somehow things will be different on the other side. Not better. Different.

And this half, on this side of the ocean, in this cold and lonely city. Working days and nights and weekends and holidays, saving what you can, skimping on things you don’t need (well, need, but not NEED) like clothes or eating out or medical insurance. And looking at nothing else but doing the same thing over and over, for weeks and months and years in the foreseeable future.

And there’s nothing but this thin thread linking the two halves of your life together, a thread composed of bits and pieces of news and pictures and long distance phone conversations at mutually inconvenient times. Blurry postage-stamp-sized webcam images, showing your newborn nephew, showing a tiny, tiny slice of the other part of your life.

The old part of your life. The part of your life that you’re supposed to have left behind, that you’re supposed to not think about, because thinking about it is not moving forward, it’s not moving up.

People tell you of the opportunity cost, of investments and careers and making money and ask you why were you still wasting your time in a dinky little university in a dinky little third world country getting paid less than three hundred dollars a month (before taxes).

And they tell you that you should grow up. That you should get a car, buy some clothes, join a gym. That you should be an adult for once. That you should get a life.

I remember, over a decade ago, someone telling me those exact words. "Get a life". And for ten years I ignored her advice, blissfully continuing on the same path I’d been on, living in the same routine, in the same little town I’d grew up in.

So. Maybe this is what growing up is all about. Leaving your idealism and nationalism and deeply held beliefs behind. Facing the real world. Tossing everything you’ve built, everything you’ve worked for, every single cent in your savings accounts on a single roll of the dice.

Maybe. But there’s still this deep nagging suspicion that maybe it’s not.

Sitting here alone at home, on a cold, gray, stormy afternoon. Wind howling through the trees outside my eighth-floor balcony.

Yes, it’s Valentine’s Day. Yes, I’m sitting home alone, working on the computer. Yes, single, lonely people have a hard time of it already, but they gotta go and make up a special holiday just to rub it in.

Oh, well. First Valentine’s Day in a long time that I haven’t been out with someone. Years, I think.

Change is always good. Besides, I’ve always believed that one should live their life as if every day was Valentine’s Day.

Which is why I’m bitter and depressed 365 days a year.

On the third week of a long project rush at work, and I am dead tired.

Building this huge Frankenstein monster consisting of ill-fitting pieces of PHP, Perl, Javascript and ActiveX. Working weekends. Working nights.

‘course, I’m not getting paid anything extra for the extra hours. Which is a good excuse to use everytime I collapse asleep in front of the computer and fail to answer my cellphone.

Aside from work, nothing much is happening. Hauled myself out to Borders to get some more books for my weekly commute. Pratchett’s Going Postal. A hardbound Dune, on sale.

Playing a little World of Warcraft whenever I can get a breather from work. Somehow I got a preview key for Dungeons & Dragons Online, which lets me play in the beta for three days this weekend. After a couple of nights, it hasn’t grown on me yet. Maybe it’s too arcadey for me… all that jumping around platforms and pulling levers isn’t my cup of tea.

I like my thinky games. Which is why I’m thinking of taking a break from WOW next month (subscription is up on the tenth) and getting Civ IV. Maybe. Knowing the last three Civ games, I may not come up for air for a few weeks. Months. Whatever.

Still. Too much work, and too much play, and nothing left for the stuff in between. Like sleep.

Or dreams.

Christmas doesn’t mean as much here as back home. In the Philippines, the last two weeks of December (and in many cases, even the first week of January) is a long vacation, with people going off to enjoy the season with their families or planning outings with their friends.

Here you get a couple days off around christmas, if you’re lucky. I had to literally beg for Friday off on Christmas weekend, and got rewarded with an extra helping of work during the week. Oh, and no time off for New Year’s, seeing as I’m still hip deep in code on a Sunday.

I know, different culture and all that. Plus the fact that I’m not a regular employee, and thus don’t have little things like sick leave or vacation days. I’m beginning to miss working for the government.

Oh, well. Lack of time off means people try to cram in as much enjoyment as they can in the little time they’re alloted. Weekends are pre-booked months in advance. I miss being able to nip off after work and go somewhere for dinner or a movie with friends on an hour’s notice.

Anyway. Holidays are over, it’s back to months and months of grinding. Tax time in two weeks, which means the government’s gonna take its pound of flesh. And more grinding after that.

And it’s depressing to look before you and see that the road ahead consists of more of the same.

Reading e-mails from my friends who have been working in the IT industry since graduation, it’s only hitting me that it’s always been like that. And they’ve been telling me about "working in the real world" for years, but it’s always been an abstract concept. Until now.

Well, it’s only been four months at this job, anyway. Things may change. I might change. I might learn to like this daily grind, or at least get used to it. Get used to the pace, get used to not having enough time to polish your code or debug it fully before it’s shipped off to the customer and you’re pulled into yet another, new project. Coping with requirements that change every other day, despite the care and due diligence you put into fixing the project requirements so you can actually get some work done instead of chasing a moving target.

Coping with frustration and disappointment and deadlines that keep getting moved up. Coping with lack of nutrition and exercise and sunlight.

I guess everybody else has had to cope with that in the past, and I’ve come a little late to the game. And I’ve no right to complain, I’ve had it pretty good the past fifteen years, and now its payback time.

Oh, well. I’m not fully committed yet, I haven’t put down ANY roots here or anywhere else. I can go chasing some other life in some other place if I so choose. I still haven’t left the crossroads, I’ve just started shuffling reluctantly down one of the paths, but there’s still time to pick one of the others.

I’m still undecided about my life. And there’s no real big, impending reason to make a decision anytime soon - I’m single, unattached, no kids - no real responsibilities except to myself.

So. Now it’s the new year, and maybe it’s time I put down some resolutions, some decisions based on how I want my life to turn out for the next 365 days.

Or maybe not. Maybe I don’t want to make any decisions yet. Maybe I’m waiting for a sign.

Or maybe I’m just that scared rabbit in the headlights, frozen in terror at the prospect of impending squishy doom.

Ocean Beach on a cold, rainy December afternoon. Our sister Eds is visiting for Christmas, so we took her around to see the sights. Having spent less than four months in SF, though, we haven’t hit most of the tourist spots ourselves yet. I still get lost getting to Union Square.

That being said, it’s great having family around for the holidays. I’ve never been really good at Christmas shopping - for most of the past decade or so I’d relied on my sister for that.

Not so much of a gift giver - I’m a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to Christmas. I am not a very good ninong, as my godchildren have discovered to their disappointment.

But then again, I never expected much in the way of gifts myself. I guess to me Christmas vacation meant a few days off from work and a chance to catch up on sleep.

I guess you take things for granted if your family has always been together, has always celebrated every holiday at home, and Christmas just meant we stayed home all day instead of leaving for the office.

This year is the first time in a long, long time (sixteen years or so) that we won’t be spending the holidays together. Three of us here in the US, and the rest of the family back home. I expect a couple of lengthy long-distance phone calls in the offing.

The Scrooge part of my brain is urging me to get some sort of VOIP setup running soon so we can cut down on the phone bill.

Working myself sick (my usual September pulmonary bronchitis has popped
up a couple of months late) and not getting out enough. Bad combination. Ah, well. Honestly, it could be worse.

Yes, I’m a pessimist. Always have been, always will be. I’m not too optimistic about my future in this country (or anywhere else for that matter) but so far I’ve been lucky to have been proven wrong.

So. Maybe this year will be different, maybe a little deprivation will inject some Christmas spirit into my life. Or maybe I’ll become more and more withdrawn into my little selfish world, gradually cutting out people from my life, one by one.

I guess it’s part of growing older. You don’t get excited about things as much anymore. The future isn’t as bright. You don’t even agonize as much about your problems as you did in the throes of teenage angst.

Ah, to be sixteen and in love again. I’d even settle for twenty-one and heartbroken.

Instead I’m thirty-two, and coping with the yearly reminder of my own impending mortality, as I cough up pieces of bloody lung into the sink.

Maybe in ten years or so I’ll look back at these moments fondly. But I guess I can be a little optimistic.

Maybe I won’t live that long.

Something I ran across on the web a couple of Christmases ago. From A Softer World.